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Loading... Death and the Penguin (Panther) (original 1996; edition 2002)by Andrey Kurkov, George Bird (Translator)
Work InformationDeath and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (1996)
  
No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) ben_r47 | Feb 22, 2024 |   ) MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 | (  ) beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 | ) kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 | Viktor adopted a King penguin called Misha from the Kyiv Zoo when the zoo was no longer able to feed and maintain many of its animals. Viktor is picked by the head of a newspaper to write obituaries about important people to have on hand for when they die. He is paid in dollars rather than the local currency which is extremely devalued so he and Misha can live and eat if not extravagently at least sufficiently. Viktor is pretty good at writing obituaries but he is a little depressed because they won't be published until a person dies and then only using a pseudonym. His editor also sends a private individual to Viktor. This person is also called Misha so for the rest of the book he is referred to as Misha-non-penguin. Misha wants some obituaries written and he will pay handsomely. On one of his visits he brings his daughter, Sonya, who wants to see the penguin. One visit Misha-non-penguin leaves Sonya with Viktor asking him to look after her for a few days. He never returns but some New Year's presents and a large amount of currency (dollars) appear to support Sonya. Meanwhile some of the subjects of Viktor's obituaries have died under suspicious circumstances.It appears that some group, probably the mafia, want to purge the Ukraine elite and the obituaries are a signal for targets. Soon Viktor and Misha (the penguin) are invited guests at the burials for which they are handsomely compensated. This additional money allows Viktor to hire a nanny for Sonya so he has peace and quiet to write. Inevitably the nanny, Nina, and Viktor commence a relationship and Nina moves in. At one point the editor who gives him work tells Viktor to lie low so he, Nina, Sonya and Misha go to a friend's dacha where they spend New Year's Eve and Day. Even there violence erupts when a would-be thief steps on a land mine and is killed. Back in Kyiv as the weather gets warmer for spring Viktor's life seems more threatened. When Misha the penguin falls ill Viktor is distraught as Misha is the one being he feels attached to. Viktor has some big decisions to make and the end of the book is quite dramatic. Although it might not seem like it from this description there is quite a bit of humour (albeit of the dark sort) in this book. Even the premise of a man adopting a penguin is pretty comical. It is interesting that the author wrote this in Russian and it wasn't until 2000 that a Ukrainian translation was produced. Perhaps it was a little too realistic prior to that for the Ukrainian populace. ( ) gypsysmom | Nov 9, 2022 |
What they might approximate for the curious reader, however, is what it’s like to sit for a long late evening with a genial and gifted storyteller as he leads you through the most ancient and, in many ways, still most pleasurable functions of literature — making us wonder what on earth is going to happen next. The novel's hero, Viktor Zolotaryov, is a frustrated writer whose short stories are too short and too sensation-free to be published. When a newspaper editor offers him a new job as star obituarist, paying $300 a month to write 'snappy, pithy, way-out' pieces, he agrees. His brief is to select powerful figures from Ukrainian high society and prepare mournful articles in readiness for the possibility that they might suddenly die. But then the unexpected death of a senior politician after falling from a sixth-floor window triggers a clan war of killings and Viktor's obituaries are suddenly in demand. It is only later, when he discovers that his pieces are neatly filed in the editor's office - marked with dates for imminent publication although their subjects remain alive - that he becomes uncomfortable about his role in the eruption of violence unsettling the city. The obituarist assumes a pragmatic approach to the uneasy morality of his work - accepting the money and getting on with it. This approach is one which Kurkov believes many Ukrainians have been forced to adopt, and his book is free of any censure for the way characters behave. 'People have got used to the corruption. People here are flexible and they accept the new rules and don't dwell on moral questions. They just watch what everyone else is doing and try to find their own ways of deceiving others to make money for themselves to survive,' he says. Viktor's blossoming career is watched with melancholic disapproval by the gloomy figure of his pet penguin, Misha, adopted a few months earlier from the impoverished city zoo. In the cynical atmosphere of post-communist Kiev, the penguin is the only being which inspires in Viktor real affection. The silent, sad penguin is the key to understanding the novel as a portrayal of post-Soviet chaos, says Kurkov. 'The penguin is a collective animal who is at a loss when he is alone. In the Antarctic, they live in huge groups and all their movements are programmed in their brains so that they follow one another. When you take one away from the others he is lost. 'This is what happened to the Soviet people who were collective animals - used to being helped by one another. With the collapse of the Soviet Union suddenly they found themselves alone, no longer felt protected by their neighbours, in a completely unfamiliar situation where they couldn't understand the new rules of life.' Viktor, an impoverished writer and penguin-owner in modern-day Kiev, gets lucky when a local newspaper editor hires him to compose a series of obituaries of still living Ukrainian notables. But when his subjects start dying and acquaintances disappearing, it becomes clear that Viktor is involved in something sinister and he's better off not asking questions. Is contained in
In the prequel to Penguin Lost, aspiring writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life in poverty-and-violence-wracked Kiev--he's out of work and his only friend is a penguin, Misha, that he rescued when the local zoo started getting rid of animals. Even more nerve-wracking: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to keep borrowing him for events. But Viktor thinks he's finally caught a break when he lands a well-paying job at the Kiev newspaper writing "living obituaries" of local dignitaries--articles to be filed for use when the time comes. The only thing is, it seems the time always comes as soon as Viktor writes the article. Slowly understanding that his own life may be in jeopardy, Viktor also realizes that the only thing that might be keeping him alive is his penguin. No library descriptions found. 
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