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A review by balletbookworm
The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe: A novel by Romain Puértolas
3.0
I borrowed this from the store solely due to the very long title - intriguing.
I'm not quite sure what to think. Part of the book involves the journey of a man who decides to stop being a con-artist and become a good person. Part of it seems to be a meditation on the troubles of illegal immigrants and the reasons why they try so hard to get to a 'good country' (and how that "good country" just sends them away to anywhere so long as they leave their borders. Part of this book does seem as if it means to be funny (the bits with the gypsy taxi driver and his family, the tongue-in-check suggested ways to pronounce Ajatashatru and other Indian names, etc.) but it also felt mean-spirited in its humour in a way; but perhaps he was pointing out the ways that white people complain about having to pronounce brown peoples' names?
The comparison to [b:The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared|15832916|The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared|Jonas Jonasson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413683731s/15832916.jpg|10365993] is apt in the ways that Ajatashatru and Jonasson's main character seem to be acted upon by fate in their travels.
An absurd short novel (read in under two hours), worth a read, I think, if you're looking at literature from outside the US.
I'm not quite sure what to think. Part of the book involves the journey of a man who decides to stop being a con-artist and become a good person. Part of it seems to be a meditation on the troubles of illegal immigrants and the reasons why they try so hard to get to a 'good country' (and how that "good country" just sends them away to anywhere so long as they leave their borders. Part of this book does seem as if it means to be funny (the bits with the gypsy taxi driver and his family, the tongue-in-check suggested ways to pronounce Ajatashatru and other Indian names, etc.) but it also felt mean-spirited in its humour in a way; but perhaps he was pointing out the ways that white people complain about having to pronounce brown peoples' names?
The comparison to [b:The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared|15832916|The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared|Jonas Jonasson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413683731s/15832916.jpg|10365993] is apt in the ways that Ajatashatru and Jonasson's main character seem to be acted upon by fate in their travels.
An absurd short novel (read in under two hours), worth a read, I think, if you're looking at literature from outside the US.