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5th out of 92 books
—
18 voters
The Convalescent
The Convalescent is the story of a small, bearded man selling meat out of a bus parked next to a stream in suburban Virginia...and also, somehow, the story of ten thousand years of Hungarian history. Jessica Anthony, the inaugural winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, makes an unforgettable debut with an unforgettable hero: Rovar Ákos Pfliegmand--unlikely band...more
Hardcover, 240 pages
Published
June 1st 2009
by McSweeney's
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Jul 11, 2012
Tara
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who've been exposed to the classics
This is the most inventive novel by a female writer that I have ever read. Huge kudos to Anthony for breaking the mold on what a woman should write about. Here, we have the story of the Hungarian small person Rovar Pfliegman, an outcast that lives in a bus along a highway in Virgina, selling meat. Woven into his sad story is the sardonic history of the Pfliegman's, from just after the death of Christ. Add an unlikely attraction, the impending cresting of the river Rovar lives next to, the certai...more
I had this book under my arm during a job interview this week, catching the eye of the HR manager, who casually asked what I was reading. I hesitated. It's pretty hard to explain in a way that doesn't make you sound insane. The story bounces between two narratives, one being the adventures of a sad sack, hairy, mute dwarf who sells meat out of a bus. The other covers the origins of a disgusting ancient Hungarian tribe who sacrifices people for no reason, of which our meat-selling hero is the las...more
2 likes · like · see review
So, it appears that Jessica Anthony was having so much fun writing her first novel, a zany tale about a sickly Hungarian midget who sells meat out of a bus in field, that she forgot that she would eventually have to end it. And when she realized the 200-plus-page error of her rambling ways, she said to herself "Yeah... I guess I'm just going to have to make it real weird." And apparently, she'd been reading Kafka.
The initial description of the character seems kitschy with a pretentious bent, me...more
The initial description of the character seems kitschy with a pretentious bent, me...more
3 likes · like · see review
the plot is summarized elsewhere, and i will leave it there. what i want to say is that i think jessica anthony has done something even more amazing than i realize with this book. i couldn't see the ending coming together until about thirty pages from it, and even after it arrived it was still somehow in the future, mine to hope for and daydream about, like a perfect gift that includes a card promising a forthcoming gift that will somehow be even better. i don't mean anthony's next book--i have...more
Anthony has successfully created a surrealist landscape that, within only a few pages, a reader feels utterly comfortable inside, empathetic with its protagonist, without fully understanding him, awed by his story and his history, trusting that the author will bring it all together, and she does. Rovar is perhaps one of the most memorable characters I've encountered in fiction recently; I know him so well, maybe because there's a little bit of him inside of me that I recognize, and still he hold...more
On the one hand, fantastic. In the literal and lateral definitions of the word. Mythmaking on a Vonnegut scale, meaning squirrelly and capricious and where the bizarre alt-history of the world actually seems a heap more likely than the histories we’re given. On the other hand, the ending lost me completely. Had it stuck the landing and not just written Kafka on post-it notes, I’d be singing more praises right now. 3.675 stars.
1 like · like · see review
This book is published by McSweeney's, a publisher known for their ability to find quirky talent and fearlessly publish even the truly bizarre. This book falls squarely in their fold: a sprawling, surreal Hungarian history mixed with the minutiae of the life of a hairy little man selling meat out of a bus. It's not the sort of premise that makes the average reader think "Heavens, how fascinating!" However, I am a sucker for quirky stories and this one quickly drew me in.
Anthony's writing is pepp...more
Anthony's writing is pepp...more
Half set in present day Virginia, half set in a farcical 9th Century Hungary, The Convalescent follows the life and history of a peculiar Gollum-reminiscent Hungarian man named Rovar Pfliegman. Rovar is a non-verbal, short, troll-like man who has a rare skin disorder who lives in Virginia and sells meat out of a bus. He is also the only living Pfliegman in the world. It focuses on his self-pity, his misery, the negativity of human nature, yet it is not meant to evoke sympathy or pity from the r...more
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A wonderful book about a non-verbal Hungarian midget named Rovar who sells meat out of a school bus in Virginia. The novel is structured in a fashion that reminds me of Everything is Illuminated: chapters in the present alternating with chapters in the past. The chapters dealing with the past in The Convalescent focus on the lost, forgotten, and neglected 11th tribe of Hungary. This 11th tribe is a clan of deformed butchers and a giant monk who revolutionizes mounted combat archery.
Like Everythi...more
Like Everythi...more
I read this in one sitting, it was so captivating and amazingly-written. The past and present are so beautifully intertwined and I didn't want it to end. I can't wait to read what the author writes next. I'm not always a fan of Dave Eggers' writing, but he has an eye and the golden touch when it comes to the authors he discovers and publishes.
Short Review: Good writing that, at times, suffered from annoying quirks. Excellent characterization. Moments of real and vivid magic (incredible birth scene). Though the ending was lovely, I felt let down, sort of abandoned by the character as the writer took her ongoing metaphor to the point of completion (personally, I think the metaphor is a cliche- I won't give it away here though) I think if she'd stayed with the character a little longer, it would have been more satisfying. We leave him t...more
Wow. I love when two separate but related stories are intertwined to show how they inexplicably have affected each other. So good. Rovar's story is gooey and oozing with tiny details that allow you to enter into his strange way of looking at life and the way he deals with the world around him in spite of the way the world rejects him day-by-day. I love his "friends" and the myriad ways he gets by and survives when everything is stacked against him. Being inside of Rovar's head is like pulling a...more
A beautifully written novel so much so that the reader becomes the protagonist, Rovar Pfliegman, and his alienation from society, obsession with an unattainable love & family baggage echo personal revelations far deeper than one will ever admit or possibly explain. While his ailments and ultimate transformation seemed over exaggerated and beyond the scope of any modern medicine, I could not help but smile as he metamorphosed from his sheltered cocoon into a beautiful butterfly with the guida...more
This is one of the most surprising reads in years. It's the story about a "near-midget" Rovar Ákos Pfliegman who "sells" meat out of a bus in Virginia. He is sick with all sorts of strange illnesses, so he goes to see a pediatrician Dr. Monica, who asks him to "write how he feels." This is the essence of the novel. Since his parents died in a car accident, he has not only buried his voice but his emotions. We are not allowed to relate to Rovar in the same way that Rovar cannot relate with us--ye...more
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What we have here is a strange twisted dwarf-like man who does not speak and sells meat outside of his bus. Being a full blooded Hungarian myself, I admit that regardless of my biased opinion, this is really an interesting story. We get an eccentric history of his family origins, a tribe of foul, savage, Hungarian outcasts. A little cannibalism and a lot of failure, this novel makes you a tad twitchy with disgust for Rovar and all his medical maladies. The strange thing is, you warm to the littl...more
A man is slowly losing his mind and his personhood on the outskirts of a small Virginia town. Although it didn’t seem like he had a long way to go. Towards the end of the book, we follow him into his madness and his supposed rebirth. With a closing scene that echoed ‘The Metamorphosis’, I was left with regret and a sour taste in my mouth. The book was so depressing and, well, GROSS, that it was hard to see anything past that. The perspective switches between the main character's current situati...more
I thought this book was lovely. I would categorize it as Magial Realism, which I have not read much of in English. I love the idea that the world is more than we think it is.
I felt the ending was rather... abrupt. I hope things turned out alright for the main character (whose last name I am having trouble spelling). His manner of looking at the world was very different than most people and that's one of the things that made this book so interesting. The writing style felt almost "refreshing" It...more
I felt the ending was rather... abrupt. I hope things turned out alright for the main character (whose last name I am having trouble spelling). His manner of looking at the world was very different than most people and that's one of the things that made this book so interesting. The writing style felt almost "refreshing" It...more
It seems like this book would be right up my alley, full of surreal jaunts into the personal and family history of the unreliable narrator at its core. And I did enjoy it as I was reading it for the most part. The narration becomes a bit repetitive at times though, and occasionally I wished that this filthy little man selling meat out of a bus would do something the least bit unexpected. Alas, he did not. The ending was "odd", but quite what I thought it might be, just as I assumed that his pers...more
What a strange book this was. I really can't decide if I like it or not. It was well written, yes, but just so weird. It tells the story of a small, hairy, sickly man who sells meat out of a bus. His story is woven together with a somewhat mythical history of his ancestors. I guess it could be described as magical realism, but it was just so odd....and gross at times. The main character was just so unappealing that he was not enjoyable to read about. Especially when his skin kept coming off in s...more
The premise of this book is so far-fetched and wacky that you'd think it was made up by grad students picking kooky ideas out of a hat. A Hungarian quasi-midget lives in an abandoned school bus, selling meat to the Virginia locals. Nuts, huh?
Luckily Anthony pulls it off, with verve, a total commitment to her wacky story and a lot of really entertaining "history." It puts me in the mind of other tragi-comic quasi-historical novels like 'Oscar Wao' and 'Middlesex.' The only thing that bugged me w...more
Luckily Anthony pulls it off, with verve, a total commitment to her wacky story and a lot of really entertaining "history." It puts me in the mind of other tragi-comic quasi-historical novels like 'Oscar Wao' and 'Middlesex.' The only thing that bugged me w...more
Ha ha, I can't believe I read and finished this book. It was the most graphically grotesque thing I've ever read, but I absolutely could not put it down. It was about a retarded sect of Hungarians, the Pfliegmans, one in particular as well as the history of the race, and it was hilarious and disgusting. Can't say I could EVER recommend it, but man, I can't say it wasn't fun to read about it. You have to be in the right mood, though, for sure. And be able to tolerate repeated accounts of skin fla...more
Sep 13, 2010
Dinamarie
added it
This is THE worst book I have ever read in my entire life. If I could, I would sue the author Jessica Anthony to cover the two weeks of my life that I will never get back after reading this book. It made absolutely no sense, the story was ridiculous and had no merit what-so-ever. The only explanation could be that the author did an extremely large amount of some sort of psychotropic drugs that caused her to have delusional dreams that she put down on paper and then it was published by someone sh...more
The Convalescent
Author: Jessica Anthony
5 out of 5 stars.
This book completes the male main character and my own choice on the bingo board.
This was a fantastic book about a little old mute dwarf who sells meat in a broken down flat tired bus (his home). He doesn't seem to have a great life, but he has more problems than that. He has a dozen skin diseases, hearing problems, a concerning leg and is the last of his race of people, as well as social problems because of all the above.I really enjoyed t...more
Author: Jessica Anthony
5 out of 5 stars.
This book completes the male main character and my own choice on the bingo board.
This was a fantastic book about a little old mute dwarf who sells meat in a broken down flat tired bus (his home). He doesn't seem to have a great life, but he has more problems than that. He has a dozen skin diseases, hearing problems, a concerning leg and is the last of his race of people, as well as social problems because of all the above.I really enjoyed t...more
Nov 11, 2009
Sessily
added it
I can’t decide how I feel about The Convalescent. It’s 90% perfect: a darkly comic, quasi-surreal joy-to-read that left me sitting on the couch sad that I had finished it and had no more to read. But there’s that other 10%, wiggling around in my mind and hiding behind the 90% when I try and get a good look at it.
I think my minor concerns are clear: at times, Jessica Anthony falls back on cleverness and some of the heart is lost, especially in the “historic” sections. I am a tad allergic to nove...more
I think my minor concerns are clear: at times, Jessica Anthony falls back on cleverness and some of the heart is lost, especially in the “historic” sections. I am a tad allergic to nove...more
Violated my own rule, which is if the book is not at least average, why finish it? I wanted this one to rise above, but it failed me finally. The author took a pretty good premise, that we fail to take proper notice of the "small things," the marginal among us, etc ... and just beat it to death! As much as I like the idea of a mute lame Hungarian-American midget as the protagonist, I couldn't hang with him. I did finish the book out of stubbornness, but it was a hard slog between the clever sect...more
The only reason why this doesn't get an immediate five stars is because the ending is a little weak. But this was one of the most funny and odd books I have read in awhile. I enjoyed how much I related to the main character's view on the world, despite the fact that I do not sell meat out of a bus. Several times I found myself laughing out loud and wishing I knew the author personally so I could give her a high five and a hug for writing such an entertaining, personal and awesome book.
Wasn't sure I'd like the book at first, and it sat on my bookshelf for awhile. When I finally picked it up, I was glad I did. An unexpected combination of present and past kept me thumbing back thru the book to clarify details and nudge my memeory, but that may be because I read it in 1 hour intervals Monday thru Fridays. It is a McSweeny publication, and you can always count on them to have something interesting and off the wall - see also 'God Says No'.
This is probably one of the strangest books I've read, although I can't say it was uninteresting. Were it not for the sub-plot of ancient Hungarian family history (of which I had no idea when I selected the book based on its cover illustrations), I probably would not have gotten far into this book. Still, I eventually became wrapped up in this story of the misfit midget butcher who sells meat out of his truck in a Virginia field.
The book started strong then failed to keep me reading. It went on and on touching on the little details that I lost interest in continuing to read. I then jumped from chapter to the other trying to find an interesting thread but couldnot. It was like beating on a dead horse. I saw couple of other reviews who shared the same opinion even though I see a lot of other good reviews. not my style of a book.
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“Which is fine.”
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3 people liked it
“My grandfather said white people can't exist without speaking. He said they're all just imitations of each other, so it's like they have to speak to distinguish themselves.”
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2 people liked it
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Jul 12, 2012 07:04am
Lisa--thanks for that list. I've added Tim Gautreaux' book of short stories. That sounds g...more
Jul 14, 2012 11:02am