| Penguin Island - Anatole France | 
 enlarge | Author: Anatole France
Publisher: Standard Publications, Inc
Category: Book
Buy New: £6.45
New (12) Collectible (1) from £5.68
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 775458
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 308
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 1604241497
Dewey Decimal Number: 817
EAN: 9781604241495
ASIN: 1604241497
Publication Date: September 6, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Penguin Island July 17, 2008
If you like your satire served with brilliant wit with a touch of irony and a side of righteous anger, then Anatole France (the pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault) is your writer. You can credit Anatole France, winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature, with the famous maxim: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Penguin Island starts with a fantastic premise. A missionary, half blind, comes across the island of penguins and baptizes them. Up in heaven, confounded with this act, the Lord gives the birds souls and intellect. France then uses his new civilization to satirize almost anything within range of his scathing intellect. The book generally parallels the development of human civilization. The longest chapter, the story of Pyrot and the 80,000 Trusses of Hay is a blistering critique of the French government's frame-up of Alfred Dreyfus. This chapter alone justifies the price of the book.
For those who have come to this review through my Tour de France history or my cycling commentary, it should be noted that the Dreyfus Affair was the proximate cause of the creation of Tour de France.
Anatole France is a genius. I heartily recommend this book.
-Bill McGann, author of The Story of the Tour de France
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