Parrot and Olivier in America

by Peter Carey

No cover — Peter Carey: Parrot and Olivier in America (2009, Hamish Hamilton)

451 pages

English language

Published Nov. 8, 2009 by Hamish Hamilton.

ISBN:: 978-1-926428-14-7
OCLC Number:: 426034998

(6 reviews)

"Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America? A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible …

7 editions

Applemcg reviewed Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Review of 'Parrot and Olivier in America' on 'LibraryThing'

4 stars

i liked parrot. irene intervened just about the time i was ready to digest this book in behalf of our bookclub. some books are the victim of history. i had to give it up when our heros had reached manhattan's shores, and were beginning their experience of life in the new world. maybe if I'd picked it up there at the outset, the urge to complete it would have been stronger. returnreturni won't challenge the assertion of carey's articulate pen, and i do recall quite a few chuckles, especially at parrot's expense. but, i can only stand in front of the mona lisa for so long. many years ago, while an undergraduate, a mentor, bob johnson, in mpls (where else) observed, "you don't have to spend five minutes in new york to know you don't want to live there. so it is with a book". parrot and olivier in american …

mothlight reviewed Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Review of 'Parrot and Olivier in America' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Read it for a book group. I got pretty lost in the first half of the book, before they reached America. The language is so dense and florid that I completely lost any understanding of the characters or even of the plot (what, I think somebody just got killed, is that right?). The second half gets better, I imagine because it is more dialogue and the characters can't speak in their own voices in the same way Peter Carey writes in the first half. I found reading it a few chapters at a time was the most I could do on it. Sure the language is amazing and beautiful but maybe some of it should be poetry instead of narrative fiction (lots of really beautiful images).