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40th out of 139 books
—
23 voters
Penguin Island
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally importan...more
Paperback, 284 pages
Published
October 11th 2007
by BiblioLife
(first published 1908)
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Nobody is this smart anymore, so don't even try to read this unless you're a complete egghead. It went sailing right over my head -- woooo! Almost as boring as The Late George Apley, which I also read a modern library edition of. I'm beginning not to think too much of their choice of books to publish.
Anyway this is a satire of human society, mostly political and religious aspects thereof. It starts off great: an aged monk, St. Mael, nearly blind, baptizes a flock of king penguins when he gets st...more
Anyway this is a satire of human society, mostly political and religious aspects thereof. It starts off great: an aged monk, St. Mael, nearly blind, baptizes a flock of king penguins when he gets st...more
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http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1930
Opening:
BOOK I. THE BEGINNINGS I. LIFE OF SAINT MAEL
Mael, a scion of a royal family of Cambria, was sent in his ninth year to the Abbey of Yvern so that he might there study both sacred and profane learning. At the age of fourteen he renounced his patrimony and took a vow to serve the Lord. His time was divided, according to the rule, between the singing of hymns, the study of grammar, and the meditation of eternal truths.
A celestial perfume soon disclosed...more
Opening:
BOOK I. THE BEGINNINGS I. LIFE OF SAINT MAEL
Mael, a scion of a royal family of Cambria, was sent in his ninth year to the Abbey of Yvern so that he might there study both sacred and profane learning. At the age of fourteen he renounced his patrimony and took a vow to serve the Lord. His time was divided, according to the rule, between the singing of hymns, the study of grammar, and the meditation of eternal truths.
A celestial perfume soon disclosed...more
Penguin Island by Anatole France is a strange book so to say or that’s what I thought when I first started reading it. It is probably nothing like I have ever read before and maybe that is why I did not have a reference point to compare it with, which in a way was the best way to read this book.
So let me straight get to the plot: A monk discovers a previously unknown island. He is half-deaf and half-blind because of age. He cannot see the people clearly (or so he assumes them to be people). He w...more
So let me straight get to the plot: A monk discovers a previously unknown island. He is half-deaf and half-blind because of age. He cannot see the people clearly (or so he assumes them to be people). He w...more
Would help in the understanding of this book and to get a full appreciation of the writing if the reader was acquainted with the history of France. This book is a satire on religion, history of France and in particular the Dreyfus Affair and government scandals that came afterwards and just prior to World War l.It mentions bombings and the anarchists which happened around that time, but also can apply to happenings in the world, nowadays.
Can't believe I missed this...what could be more fun than hearing God and St. Augustine debate the merits of giving human souls to a group of penguins who were mistakenly baptized by an old monk whose eyesight was failing?
Many places you will find the summary saying that a saint baptizes penguins and then God gives them human characteristics. Well, you may imagine an allegorical story like Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm. But it is not so. These penguins somehow rear cows, plow farms, develop claws, have breasts! This book is no allegory but a parody. A parody of history of France and some incidents. If I replace the word penguin with Pagan, then nobody will feel something has been changed. Instead of penguins,...more
Impaired monk baptizes colony of penguins. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
I just want to say that the best part of this book was where God is debating with his saints about what to do about this nonsense and one of them is just like, "Make 'em like centaurs. Only with penguins." Just picturing that in my head made my day.
This is not a terribly subtle book, either. You know how in Oliver Twist everybody is horrible to the poor, but nobody really notices it? Well, in this book, the thing nobody notices is ev...more
I just want to say that the best part of this book was where God is debating with his saints about what to do about this nonsense and one of them is just like, "Make 'em like centaurs. Only with penguins." Just picturing that in my head made my day.
This is not a terribly subtle book, either. You know how in Oliver Twist everybody is horrible to the poor, but nobody really notices it? Well, in this book, the thing nobody notices is ev...more
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I'm sure it was very well written - translations don't always translate, if you know what I mean - and I'm sure it was very risky and forward thinking for it's time. Wry, sarcastic and a bit like Stephen Colbert - pretending to agree wholeheartedly while show-casing stupidity. France (Thibaut, actually) lampoons governments, education, religion - especially religion - and mankind in general, beginning with St. Mael mistaking penguins for people and baptising them; creating a dilema in heaven. I...more
Not acually about penguins. The French are crafty like that.
When a bumbling priest accidently baptizes a population of penguins, God is left with a cosmic problem. The solution results in the creation of the Penguin race, and is the beginning of the long history of Penguinia.[return:][return:]Anatole France has essentially written an entire farcical history book, satirizing various stages of human civilization. First he mocks early religion and mythology, prominently featuring the exploits of a saucy and quick-witted young woman, who in later Penguin his...more
Got stuck baby sitting over christmas. Watched about ten hours of penguin movies. All the while thinking of Anatole France. You could read this as a meditation on poilitics, religion, human nature, etc. But it would also make a good/dark animated film.
A snow blind missionary lands in the ant-arctic. He preaches to and then baptises a bunch of penguins. In heaven, the debate begins. If they've been baptised they should have souls, and if they have souls they must have intelligence. And then the...more
A snow blind missionary lands in the ant-arctic. He preaches to and then baptises a bunch of penguins. In heaven, the debate begins. If they've been baptised they should have souls, and if they have souls they must have intelligence. And then the...more
La historia de la civilización pingüina como muestra de las implicaciones del mundo civilizado. Unos seres "perfectos" en tanto que instintivos y naturales, se ven interferidos por la intervención de un bienintencionado monje, que en su avanzada edad y limitada vista, los confunde con humanos salvajes. Tras otorgarles con ayuda divina la condición humana, comienza la historia de sus desventuras, fiel imagen de las nuestras con todo y su repetición hasta ahora infinita.
This is a wonderfully witty and thought-provoking novel that presents the history of the state of Pingouinie as an allegorical story of (mostly French) history. Reading the original French is definitely recommended as France's command of language is second to none, and his nuanced text proves a delight to read. While I know enough French history to pick up on many of the allusions, I am sure there are many more that would meet a more discerning eye, but there is much that is also a commentary on...more
This is an odd one. Every time I read a French novel in translation, I swear it will be my last, this was a bit like straining to see through fog. It's not a novel, though, it's a series of episodes with a very loose connection which is totally forgotten by the end. The opening, God and St Augustine, fine.....the loosely disguised version of the Dreyfus Affair, fine, even funny in parts, and the end, astoundingly, chillingly predictive and horribly readable....but the middle drags, and drags, an...more
While it had moments of brilliant satire - the pages on the Dreyfuss Affair can be laugh-out-loud funny - overall this dystopian novel, with its trenchant bitterness about traditional mores and discontents with capitalism, failed to satisfy. If the author had seen what his love for state socialism led to after his death, he might have sung a different tune.
Jan 10, 2013
Jerry
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of Satire
Shelves:
favorites
Anatole France is proving to be one of my favorite authors. In Penguin Island, he pokes fun at human civilization through satirically inventing a new race of people out of penguins baptized by a blind priest. As he traces their history, I was quite taken with how prophetic France was; many of his clever teases still hold true today. And France knows how to end a book. This is the second time my overall opinion of the entirety was increased upon reading the last few sentences (just like The Revol...more
One of the best Nobel Prize winning books, and sadly, one of the most forgotten. Beautiful plot. While it can be tedious sometimes, the fact A. France explores so many different aspects of human nature--even some of the less interesting aspects--is amazing.
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Bello, ma merita un lettore più colto di quanto sia io. Faccio fatica ad andare avanti perché non riesco a cogliere tutti i rimandi ed essendo un'allegoria, capirli è fondamentale per godere appieno del romanzo.
Dimostra, tra l'altro, quanto la storia si ripeta proponendo sempre gli stessi schemi politici e sociali. Peccato non esserne all'altezza.
Dimostra, tra l'altro, quanto la storia si ripeta proponendo sempre gli stessi schemi politici e sociali. Peccato non esserne all'altezza.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this, which described the transformation of the penguins into people with the associated theological debates and penguin civilization through the middle ages. After that, however, it had a hard time keeping my attention. I just don't know history well enough to really enjoy/get satire (I had the same problem with Gulliver's Travels), and that's really all there is to this short book. It skims the entirety of penguin civilization in less than 200 pages with terse...more
Apr 08, 2013
Mary Whisner
added it
I read this in the mid-1970s and I'm afraid I don't remember much. I know that my teacher and friend Darlene recommended it, that it was challenging for me, and that it was a political satire.
My dad recommended this to me when I was in high school and it is one that I return to every few years. The older I get, the more I enjoy the humor and the irony.
I rad this book when I was 9, and I never forgot its premise, the the Devil invented clothes for female newly evolved humans from penquins. What imagery.
Jan 22, 2010
Tamara
is currently reading it
This book keeps me in stitches! I picked it up because of the title, but I can't put it down because of the ridiculous amount of trouble the penguins get into.
Challenging but worth sticking with - full review here
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
A satirical story of man's struggles in religious beliefs and politics. Was humorous with lots of truth in it's tongue-in-cheek remarks.
An in-depth satire of French history... This edition illustrated by Frank C. Papé.... among Papé/s best works of the 1930a.
Don't really remember it, but summary says i would love it. Must read again for relavace to today's world.
The author uses a nation of penguins and maps its development through the stages of nations as a commentary on politics, economic and social development. Seemed to get off track, and did not have a cohesive story line.
Aug 07, 2010
Heman
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Vincent Noto
Shelves:
fiction
"Since wealth and civilization admit of as many causes of war as poverty and barbarism, since the folly and wickedness of men are incurable,there remains but one good action to be done. The wise man will collect enough dynamite to blow up this planet. When its fragments will fly through space an imperceptible amelioration will be accomplished in the universe and a satisfaction will be given to the universal conscience. Moreover, this universal conscience does not exist."
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Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921 "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament."
Anatole France began his career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published one of his poems, La Part de Madeleine. In 1875, he sat on the committee which...more
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Anatole France began his career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published one of his poems, La Part de Madeleine. In 1875, he sat on the committee which...more
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