Death and the Penguin

Nobody recommended this book to me. I remember seeing it on the table in a bookshop as I was browsing. 'That's a great title,' I thought and I liked the way the penguin started out at me from the cover. 'We could be friends,' I thought. It had been a bad day and I was lonely.

Reading the quotes on the cover they described it as 'deadpan'. I love deadpan. That's pretty much my world view. For deadpan is absurd and absurd is how I see the world. There's basically no point to life, but it's fun, and we carry out these actions which ultimately have no meaning.

Other deadpan writers I like are, Dan Rhodes, Magnus Mills, Raymond Carver, Kazuo Isuguro. Oh, and Beckett, who could forget him? He's laugh a second. (I always wanted to be Beckett. I love his wrinkled face. His take on life. The way people talk about him. How he trundled around Paris.)

So I bought the book. I wasn't disappointed. For a start there is a character list at the front. Misha is the penguin. But there is also a character called Misha-non-penguin. I was hooked.

Victor, the hero, (if that is the right word) is an obituary wrtier for a paper. He wants to be a proper writer of short stories. He has adopted a penguin as the local zoo has closed down. This is the start. Writing about death takes a strange turn, as does having a penguin. But I don't want to give it away, let the penguin out of the bag, so to speak.

What I like most about this book is its warmth. I like the oddball characters who meet and become friends. My favourite part of the book is the Christmas they go and spend in a dacha. They don't have much between them but they muddle through. It's touching. I like those places where people who seemingly don't fit in, can find a place to fit in.

I can associate with that.

Buy the book. You can get them in a set with the second penguin book.

A brilliant, brilliant book - read it, laugh and weep.