Order SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE here
I have no money or ID and I'm dressed like a duck.
Paul Tremblay is a hilarious name for an American writer,but you have to be french Canadian to understand why it's funny. In Quebec, it's the prototypical name for older gentlemen, presumably logger, checkered-shirt wearing types with tree-trunk arms and a boisterous nature, who don't speak a word of English *. So you know, the contrast is a little absurd. I didn't know anything about Paul Tremblay, the author until reading Richard Thomas' review of SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE at The Nervous Breakdown. I like to think my reviews are good, but this one literally sold me the novel. So I think Tremblay owes Thomas a beer or something. Because I'm about to say a few kind things myself. SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE is a subversive little piece of literature. It aims for the throat. You know how much I like that.
The narrator works in a place called Farm, in a distant, dystopian future. The job sucks, the life sucks and the corporate culture of the place sucks balls. During a mating party (yep, you've read right), a particularly twisted potential partner announces the narrator that his mother is in trouble. She's about to be homeless and deported to Pier, right outside City. That piece of information gnaws at our narrator so bad, he will NEED to know if his mother is OK. But that's not what Farm had planned for him. In fact, it's not what the universe had in store for him. That is not enough to stop our narrator, who will face the entire world with unyielding resolve to make sure his mother isn't in need.
Yes, this is basically a retelling of ANIMAL FARM. No, it's not just rehashing Orwell's ideas. Orwell's classic is 112 pages and Tremblay's novel clocks at 337. So despite the obvious parallels, SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE is fueled by Tremblay's own ideas on contemporary social and political issues, as well as his views on Orwell's philosophy. Retelling is always a dangerous sport, because you always run the risk of ending up being the evangelist of someone else's ideas. Tremblay doesn't fall in that trap, though. He re-imagined a book from the past, set it in the future and yet uncannily kept his discourse in the present.
-
I
have no idea what she's talking about. Doesn't matter. I tell her this
is great. This is the most magnificent this in the history of this, and
whatever this is, I'll kiss it, touch it, and fuck fuck fuck it. Yes, it
has been that long. In my hornier-than-Hugh-Hefner condition, I blurt
out, "What do I think of what?"
The narrator works in a place called Farm, in a distant, dystopian future. The job sucks, the life sucks and the corporate culture of the place sucks balls. During a mating party (yep, you've read right), a particularly twisted potential partner announces the narrator that his mother is in trouble. She's about to be homeless and deported to Pier, right outside City. That piece of information gnaws at our narrator so bad, he will NEED to know if his mother is OK. But that's not what Farm had planned for him. In fact, it's not what the universe had in store for him. That is not enough to stop our narrator, who will face the entire world with unyielding resolve to make sure his mother isn't in need.
Yes, this is basically a retelling of ANIMAL FARM. No, it's not just rehashing Orwell's ideas. Orwell's classic is 112 pages and Tremblay's novel clocks at 337. So despite the obvious parallels, SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE is fueled by Tremblay's own ideas on contemporary social and political issues, as well as his views on Orwell's philosophy. Retelling is always a dangerous sport, because you always run the risk of ending up being the evangelist of someone else's ideas. Tremblay doesn't fall in that trap, though. He re-imagined a book from the past, set it in the future and yet uncannily kept his discourse in the present.
-
She asks, "What do you think of this?"
Reading SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE, especially during the Farm chapters, I was reminded of my own professional situation a few months ago. During my last evaluation before the place closed down, I was given a poor grade in attendance, because I had used six of my eight paid sick days throughout the year. When I asked for the reasoning behind that aberration, I was told: "You're not seen as a human being here, but as a production unit. Those six days you were home were six days our production hurt because of you." Swear to God. Tremblay's rendition of Farm attacks this kind of reasoning where the corporation is seen as a person and a person more important than any of its workers and stresses the monstrous oxymoron that Farm needs its workers to be Farm. SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE is supposed to be dystopian, but it talks about our presence and the loss of self and personal meaning in the age of corporations. We live in that. Right now.
There is more to SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE than just Farm. It was my favorite part of the novel, the one I related to most, but it would be unfair not to talk about the City chapters, which make for the most of the novel. The narrator, now a Farm fugitive, is trapped in a strange reality show setting where he runs for mayor almost against his will. He is seen as a savior figure (which is ironically stressed by the narrator's parents names, Joseph and Mary), made into a complex figure, manipulated, mediated to please the crowd, while his personality and his goal are simple. Find his mother, make sure she's not really in trouble. Tremblay addresses this invasion of every spheres of contemporary life by entertainment and our artificially grown need for it.
Did I mention the narrator's mom? I better now. It's too good for me to spoil. I'll just mention that the narrator's mother's fate speaks about religion and what we've done to the idols we once worshiped. SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE follows the lines of ANIMAL FARM, yes, but it's a much more complex, subtle and layered novel that, unlike its inspiration material, addresses a wide array of issues about the zeitgeist, while remaining pleasant and accessible. Paul Tremblay doesn't deal in formulas and ideologies, but in painful satire that plays in the league of South Park, in terms of corrosive value. SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE will both attack and entertain you. It's impossible to drift through this book with a distant smile. It's meant to destroy and recreate.
FOUR STARS
* If you type "Paul Tremblay" in Google, the first hit is a french Canadian snowmobile garage. My point exactly.
