Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this is a tough, bleak, and rather melancholy fable. A child's parents are murdered in their home by being stabbed in the throat, and a child attempts suicide. A cold-blooded murderer is also a sympathetic character. There is some implied sex and drinking.
Families who read this book could discuss the theme of redemption through love. Is it possible for a murderer to become a good person? Could a child love the man who killed his parents? How does the author accomplish making the police seem like the bad guys and the murderer like a good guy?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
This award-winning translation from the French has the kind of world-view that you don't see much in American children's literature: Life is hard, bleak, and mostly pointless, and the best we can do is soldier on and muddle through. It's a melancholy world in which a child can love the man who killed his parents for no particular reason, and that love can redeem the murderer, who is executed anyway by a blind, indifferent bureaucracy, leaving the boy alone in the world.
There is no doubt that the book is beautifully written, and seamlessly translated, and that it has a horrifying fascination. It lyrically offers a cynical view that sees a world filled with misery, betrayal, and stupidity; an allegory for the cruelty and callousness of life. But adolescents in their more dramatic moments can see things in the same way, and will find in this lethal prose-poem a truth that they think most literature hypocritically hides from them. Parents may want to suggest a less somber read to help wash this book down.
From The Book
Paolo was the one who saw the man arrive on the path, one warm January day. And he was the one who ran to warn his parents that a stranger was coming. Except that this time, it was not a geologist, or an adventurer, and even less a poet. It was Angel Allegria. A vagrant, a crook, a murderer. And he was not arriving by chance at this house at the end of the world. The Poloverdo woman took her pitcher. Her eyes met those of Angel Allegria -- small eyes, deeply set, as if pushed into their sockets by blows; eyes that betrayed a brutal wickedness. She shook more than usual. Her man sat on the bench facing the vagrant.
Plot Summary:
Paolo lives with his unloving parents at the end of the world -- the last house, a hut really, in southern Chile, an isolated, storm-wracked place where the land gives way to the southern seas. A stranger, Angel Allegria, arrives one day and murders Paolo's parents, but is unable to kill the boy. On the run from the law for previous crimes, he takes up residence in the hut and, very gradually, he and Paolo come to care for each other.
Then into their harsh lives comes another stranger, Luis Secunda, an educated man looking to escape civilization. Paolo convinces Angel not to kill Luis, and so the three settle down for a while, and Luis begins to teach Paolo to read. But eventually they must head back to civilization to buy a few new farm animals, beginning a chain of events that leads to tragedy.
Related Books:
Other Books by Anne-Laure Bondoux:
The Destiny of Linus Hoppe
The Second Life of Linus Hoppe
More Bleak Novels:
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez
The Crow-Girl: The Children of Crow Cove by Bodil Bredsdorff
The Pull of the Ocean by Jean-Claude Mourlevat
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Sexual ContentA man and woman spend the night together, and it is implied that a teen and young adult have sex, some kissing. |
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ViolenceMurders by knife and gun, a fox attacks and is killed, an execution by guillotine, a child attempts suicide. |
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Social BehaviorOne of the main characters is a callous murderer. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoAdults smoke and drink, a child has some wine. |
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