Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation

Pig Tales is a wonderful piece of translation literature that reads like a fable. It reveals the animal nature of man and the moral proof that beauty is only skin deep. Political corruption is examined within this context: how we corrupt or are corrupted.

Darrieussecq's imaginative narrative, broadly, examines self-identity via transformation. She looks at how we are continuously changing and evolving, refining our individual selves, but not always for the good. Her method is both humorous and brutal. The pig, as an edible woman, is a warning of what we can become, especially through ignorance and folly. Likewise, the male conversion as wolf, symbolizes the violent nature of man.

This is an amazing novella seamlessly written from show more beginning to end. Needless to say, it makes an impression. It is abstractly narrated as if a Cubist painting - there is much to observe, and from all different angles. Darrieussecq has created a unique and unforgettable work of literature.

Additional notes and quotes at: https://bibliophilebethlc.blogspot.com show less

A woman transforms in and out of pighood? Seriously? Believe it or not this works! This is a fast-paced visionary and satiric look at politics, gender, and the role of sex in both. I laughed, I cringed, and I couldn't put it down. The author points her sharply attuned literary finger at both genders, all forms of government and spares no one. Perhaps the point is that we as humans are all capable of both good and bad. The form of our lives becomes a question of which side prevails, and how much it is within the control of the individual versus within the domain of ethnicity and/or social class. Ms. Darrieussecq packed quite a bit into a short novel. Well done!

This novel is a short, dystopian romp in which a shop girl finds herself turning into a pig. The narrator takes a somewhat coy tone when describing this grotesque process, and makes vague references to her exploitation by a series of men. I appreciated the book as a reductio ad absurdum for the commoditisation of sexuality to further increase material consumption. It has a neat conceit and the narrative style is very readable, as well as darkly funny in places. Although the superficiality of the narrator's voice sends a message in itself, I did find it a little frustrating too. The novel also felt to me like it ended perhaps too quickly. It's well worth reading, but not very substantial.

Edited to add: I've remembered the novel that this show more one reminds me of: 'Martin Martin's on the Other Side' by Mark Wernham. Similar grotesquerie, confused narrator, and capital city setting. However in that case the protagonist is male and the city London. show less

Incredibly weird and strange but also somehow wonderful. It reads like a combination of The Metamorphosis and Animal Farm but female centered. My only issue was that the pacing in the first half was quite slow and deliberate while the pacing in the second half was way too fast.

'Pig Tales' has been likened variously to Kafka's Metamorphosis and Voltaire's Candide, but the book it most reminded me of was Omon Ra by the Russian writer Victor Pelevin. Both novellas concern characters whose destinies are chosen for them, who are taken advantage of, and who live in the worst dystopian societies. In Pelevin's book the protagonist is a would-be astronaught; in Pig Tales she is a woman who metamorphoses into a sow - the porcine equivalent, I would say, of a werewolf.

I was worried at first that there would be no story to tell here, but in fact this is a rather splendid book in places, with glimpses of a terrible future French totalitarian regime viewed by a sometimes attractive, though uneducated, woman.

Lu il y a des années. Je me souviens d'un roman court, mais intéressant et bien écrit, moins choquant que tout ce que j'en avais entendu dire à l'époque

4.25/5