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Parrot and Olivier in America

3.41 of 5 stars 3.41 · rating details · 3,778 ratings · 768 reviews

Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant.

When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy...more

Hardcover, 464 pages

Published October 2009 by Hamish Hamilton (first published 2009)

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Aug 30, 2011 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, united-states, 2011-read

Chairman: This meeting is now called to order. We are here to vote on the resolution: That Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey be given 5 stars. Will the representative who proposed the motion please explain why.

Tocqueville: Well, it is because this book is actually about me, and my travels in America. Peter, my good friend, thought it would be a good idea to write a fictional account of how I came to write Democracy in America. The aristocrat in the book, Olivier, is based on me. Parr...more

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Oct 02, 2011 Bonnie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize-nominees, historical-fiction, 2009-books

Great idea, poorly executed.

This is a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville's journey to America. Alexis is now "Olivier." His (not really) loyal manservant is Parrot. These two very different Old Worlders (Olivier a rich French aristocrat, Parrot a poor but scrappy Brit) encounter the New World and see how very different life is across the pond.

My big problems with this book were: (1) it was very longwinded and (2) I hated everyone. These are big problems.

Was Alexis de Tocqueville real...more Great idea, poorly executed.

This is a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville's journey to America. Alexis is now "Olivier." His (not really) loyal manservant is Parrot. These two very different Old Worlders (Olivier a rich French aristocrat, Parrot a poor but scrappy Brit) encounter the New World and see how very different life is across the pond.

My big problems with this book were: (1) it was very longwinded and (2) I hated everyone. These are big problems.

Was Alexis de Tocqueville really such a complete twat? Because Olivier certainly was! I kept hoping Parrot would go all The Talented Mr. Ripley on Olivier by killing him and taking his identity. I really thought that's where the book was going and was very disappointed when it never went there (I think it's a bad sign when the reader is rooting for one protagonist to kill off the other).

I really though this book would be bromantic. When the description states that this is a "funny tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship,” that is a promise of bromance, my friends! Sadly, this is not even close to X-Men: First Class or the new Star Trek on the bromance scale. I mean, I did talk about how I wanted Olivier to be killed off, right? The fact is, this could've been bromantic. You start off with the clashing personalities and you end up with blood brothers. But, really, Olivier was pretty douchey to Parrot the entire time. They start off hating each other (Parrot for good reason, Olivier because he’s a prig) and then suddenly there are some (drunken?) confessions and they are besties. Except Parrot still kind of hates Olivier (still for good reason). I think this is a sign of poor writing.

I could've liked Olivier and Parrot. Olivier started out as a douchey aristocrat, but he had the potential to evolve into a more enlightened, likable human being. My favorite scene (frankly, the only part of the book I liked) was the one where Olivier has to explain to the American girl he loves and her father why it's impossible for him to marry the girl in France. Which is: in the eyes of the French aristocracy, she is not good enough. It doesn't matter how great she is or how much money her father has. She's not nobility and never will be. His family are snobs and Olivier finally realizes this. Obviously, the girl and her father do not take this news well. (Personally, I think the girl was mostly pursuing Olivier because he was a French aristocrat and she very much wanted to be a French noblewoman, in large part to tweak her nose at her mother, but this is never fully explored). This was the most human Olivier ever is, but by that time I was so aggravated by him and the way he treated Parrot (and never really redeemed himself in this regard) that I never could get over my ill feelings toward Olivier.

Parrot I also could've liked. He is a survivor and I have a special place in my heart for this type of literary character. There's a certain dark humor and ruthlessness about them that I appreciate. The thing is, Parrot could frankly be aggravating, too, and his "romance" was so frustrating because the girl was SO unworthy and SO annoying I wanted to throttle Parrot for his obtuseness. And also for spending so much time on this lame storyline.

Carey had a good idea here and the outline of good characters but fumbled.(less)

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Jul 20, 2011 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers of historical fiction

Shelves: historical-fiction, read-in-2011

This was an enjoyable read from a perspective I've never encountered before. Modeled, apparently, on Alexis de Toqueville's writings of his travels in the young nation of the United States, Carey's novel also follows the journey of a young French nobleman who is "banished" abroad for his own well=being during the unrest in France. He is Olivier. Parrot is his sometime servant othertime scribe, traveling companion, fool, etc.

I heartily recommend this novel with one caution....do NOT despair if yo...more

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May 10, 2011 ·Karen· rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: australia-nz, favourites

It's hard to imagine that you could have more fun with a novel than with this one. Exhilarating, astonishing, informative, imaginative, intriguing and funny, what else could you ask for? Over at Mr. Carey's website

http://petercareybooks.com/

there is a comment from a critic at the Guardian: "Too emotionally dangerous to be fully embraced by doe-eyed lovers of The Time Traveler's Wife, too much fun to be taken entirely seriously by the dour acolytes of JM Coetzee (the contemporary whose career h...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Marialyce rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: november-books-2010

There were times that I absolutely loved this book and there were times when I wondered why I was reading it. The book was sort of a see saw for me as it follows the travels and lives of the two characters, M Parroquet (a jack of all trades) and Olivier de Garmont ( a royal) as they befriend one another and learn what it is that makes American democracy a force to be reckoned with. Since Olivier's grandparents have lost their heads to the guillotine, and although his parents have been spared, Ol...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, fiction

Peter Carey's writing in this book is brilliant, especially his alternating pair of highly unreliable narrators. Much of the story is fascinating and the observations thought provoking. But in the end the fact that I didn't find myself really caring about any of the characters was a real minus.

The book tells a highly fictionalized account of Tocqueville's travels to America, with an even more fictionalized English servant who accompanies him to spy on him but then takes more to the American styl...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Mary Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: de Toqueville fans with a quirky sense of humor

This is a very eccentric book! Carey can write gorgeous description, and the two protagonists are memorable (if unappealing). I'm not a big fan of the picaresque, so my patience began to wear thin mid-book. But by the end, I had developed a grudging fondness for the two principal characters, just as they did for each other. Some of the significant minor characters were a bit out-of-focus for me (chiefly Parrot's beloved Mathilde and the shady down-on-his-luck aristo, Tibot). I'd give the beginni...more

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May 27, 2010 letterbyletter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, booker_short, certain-something

Olivier, a spoiled aristocrat, is sent away sent away from a tense post-Revolution France by his smothering mum under the pretense of penning a treatise on the U.S. penal system. Parrot, his keen-witted and grizzled English manservant is drifting, thwarted in his childhood hope of being an engraving artist.

In Peter Carey’s comic reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville’s landmark trip, these two displaced men arrive in America with little affection for each other or the self-admiring citizens. What...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, new-york-city, france, french-revolution

I was delighted to experience this novel in audiobook form, which made the diction and language of the two main characters come alive, one a French artistocrat, Olivier, and another his English secretary, Larrit from the working class (called �Parrot� because of his red hair). This old fashioned novel that brings together these two very different Europeans for a sojourn in America in the 1830�s, ostensibly for Olivier to report on the U.S. penal system, but really as a means for his parents to k...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical

A Light Romp Through Early America (2013)

Carey, Peter. (2010) Parrot and Olivier In America. New York: Knopf.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, philosopher and historian shortly after the French revolution, in the 1830’s. When the Bourbon king was restored to the throne (the counterrevolution), Tocqueville was politically prominent but he hated the regime. Though he was a noble, his ideas were liberal and he was always in hot water. He escaped that hothouse to America, where he trave...more A Light Romp Through Early America (2013)

Carey, Peter. (2010) Parrot and Olivier In America. New York: Knopf.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, philosopher and historian shortly after the French revolution, in the 1830’s. When the Bourbon king was restored to the throne (the counterrevolution), Tocqueville was politically prominent but he hated the regime. Though he was a noble, his ideas were liberal and he was always in hot water. He escaped that hothouse to America, where he traveled and made notes for two years. On his return he published Democracy in America (1835), a sociological and political-science essay still admired to this day.

Carey writes a fictional riff on that life, creating Olivier de Garmont, a young Norman nobleman after the French revolution who fears for his life, his Father having fallen to the guillotine. He escapes to America, accompanied by his 50-year-old secretary, Parrot, a French-speaking, working class Englishman with lovely handwriting. Parrot is the son of an engraver who was caught printing counterfeit French currency, and he is happy to escape the country as well. Thus the highest of aristocracy and the lowest of scoundrels are tied together in a buddy road story.

Though Olivier and Parrot hold each other in great contempt, they develop a sort of friendship over time, travels and adventures in America. Olivier is puzzled by democracy in America, where people do not have servants (slavery stays at the edges and doesn’t figure in the story). He is forever shocked and disdainful of the raw American culture where people are obsessed by making money. Parrot is exhilarated by the opportunities but lacks the resource to break free of Olivier and strike out on his own. They each describe experiences in the New World in alternating chapters.

The reader gets a realistic sense of New York and Boston in the 1830’s. Carey’s historical research feels very real, from the food, the clothing, travel, housing, the financial dealings, barroom fights, romantic relationships, and the granularity of everyday life. As a historical novel covering early 19th century New England, it is illuminating and fascinating.

There is no real storyline. The two protagonists have trials and tribulations and grow older. The fun of the novel is in the historical imagination and in the witty writing. Individual episodes are affecting and often complex, but in the structure of a romp or a road trip, it is not a developing drama. The characters themselves don’t change over time, nor does the social environment, so the reader must be content with the scenery, which is charming and often funny. The writing is also edifying to a reader’s vocabulary. You will need your dictionary.

Charming though the portrait of America is, there is a political dark side. Olivier’s aristocratic views and sensibilities are entirely undermined by the illegitimate status of the aristocracy. He reviles the lower classes for their lack of education, for being dirty, crude, and ambitious. He is utterly unaware of the fact that aristocracy always rode on the backs of the working classes, exploiting them mercilessly and actively preventing them from finding education, leisure, and self-sufficiency. This is still true today in America, as elsewhere. As noted, the institution of slavery is barely mentioned in the novel. So Olivier’s views of America are interesting not for any insight, only in demonstrating the lack of self-awareness that still characterizes the American financial and political aristocracy today. (less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Claire H rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-brit-lit

Is there a shelf for "tried to read"? I'm not a huge Peter Carey fan, but I did read and enjoy Oscar and Lucinda, and the premise of this sounded intriguing. I got exactly 5 pages in before feeling an almost irresistible urge to hurl this book across the room. Now, it may very well be that Carey, in presenting us with Olivier as narrator, surely one of the most pretentious, self-obsessed, pseudo-literary characters to ever appear within the pages of a novel, was trying to poke fun at said charac...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Cook Memorial Public Library rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

We first meet Olivier and Parrot in turbulent 19th-Century France. Olivier, whose aristocratic grandfather was beheaded during the French Revolution, is a pampered, pompous mama’s boy. Parrot, whose father is taken from him at a young age, is a poor Englishman who ends up in France thanks to a one-armed French marquis. Olivier’s parents worry that their son may be in danger from another revolution, so they ship him off to the fledgling American colonies. The marquis, who happens to be friends wi...more

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Aug 27, 2012 port22 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

French aristocracy was mightily inconvenienced by the Revolution, some couldn't avoid the guillotine, others had to flee abroad, the rest hunkered down. What for us takes half an hour to recount in a history class, takes the lifetime of an entire generation for the contemporaries to witness. The transition was not straightforward, it oscillated between the times of revolution and the times of counter-revolution. These forces of despair and hope battered the life of a young aristocrat -- Olivier...more French aristocracy was mightily inconvenienced by the Revolution, some couldn't avoid the guillotine, others had to flee abroad, the rest hunkered down. What for us takes half an hour to recount in a history class, takes the lifetime of an entire generation for the contemporaries to witness. The transition was not straightforward, it oscillated between the times of revolution and the times of counter-revolution. These forces of despair and hope battered the life of a young aristocrat -- Olivier de Garmont.

Olivier's forced trip to America, a hastily put together escape from another of France's rioting bouts, the Revolution of of 1830, is the perfect vessel to carry him across agonizing deliberations on the crumbling ancient regime and this new thing, the democracy. His natural society is of noblemen brought up to lead the nation, not having to work they had all the time and comfort to entertain the destiny of the state, unlike the people of America, who, in condition of constant agitation, are pushing incessantly into advancing their own individual status. It is obvious to him that misfortunes should befall this young nation, this new democracy which made itself without the benefit of a noble class.

John “Parrot” Larrit also takes on a multitude of buffeting in life, but starting from a much lower base. He is born in the moneyless bottom, roaming Southern England, he and his father scramble to survive. But Parrot is happy with his da.

Parrot is made a servant, to Olivier it was an arrangement that justly reflected the disparity of social class. While the ship was still going in the Atlantic the discomforts of democracy are increasingly made evident, Olivier had to adapt to this new égalité.

The book is told from a first person perspective, alternating chapters told by Parrot and then by Olivier. Carey wrote in a way that faithfully transported me back in time. Passages of humorous observation take turns with some serious study of the ebullient American nation. Very inspiring writing. (less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Caleb rated it 3 of 5 stars

A true 3.5 star book that I'm pushing down but still recommending. Carey reimagines Alexis de Toqueville's trip to America, accompanied by an English man servant Parrot. What the book does well is show how the American experience, without class and nobility constraints but also without culture and art, had both liberating and revolting effects on those who came from Europe at different stations in life. My critique of the book was that there were narratives and plot sections started but never fi...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Arieltsmith rated it 5 of 5 stars

I picked up "Parrot & Olivier in America" after seeing it in Publishers Weekly's list of best fiction for 2011. I have never read any of Peter Carey's work before (author of Oscar & Lucinda), but I think he will become one of my favorite authors. The prose in P&O is absolutely luscious, and I was loathe to finish the book because I loved the characters so mucg. Loosely based on Alexis d Tocqueville's travels through America, P&O toggles between two narrators: the young, conceited...more

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Oct 08, 2011 Care rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: hf-american

Using dual narrators, Peter Carey deftly portrays America, and to a lesser extent France and England, in the time frame following the French Revolution.

Our first narrator, is Olivier de Garmont, who by necessity engendered from his standing as a French aristocrat, must vacate France. To avoid political censure and create a face-saving reason for running away, it is decided that he will travel to America and write a book, supposedly for the French government, on the prison system in the New World...more Using dual narrators, Peter Carey deftly portrays America, and to a lesser extent France and England, in the time frame following the French Revolution.

Our first narrator, is Olivier de Garmont, who by necessity engendered from his standing as a French aristocrat, must vacate France. To avoid political censure and create a face-saving reason for running away, it is decided that he will travel to America and write a book, supposedly for the French government, on the prison system in the New World. Olivier’s character is loosely based on Alexis de Tocqueville and his writing of Democracy in America.

Through various machinations of plot our other narrator, John “Parrot” Larrit, a poor Englishman of humble beginnings, finds himself thrown into the position of servant to Olivier and on his way to America as well.

By turns humorous, enlightening, touching, and gripping, Mr. Carey’s novel is an intricately complex page-turner of the very best sort. A portrait of the social culture of the America of the age is gently unfolded as the pampered, old world aristocrat and the down-trodden servant begin to equalize in matters of intellect, patriotism, cunning, respect, love and friendship.

The audio, put out by Blackstone and narrated by Humphrey Bower, will without a doubt be my number one audio for 2011. Given that this year I have listened to far more books than I have read in print, that is quite high praise. Mr. Bower so perfectly captures the accent and persona of both characters that I was surprised to realize that the book, which uses the format of alternating chapters being narrated from the viewpoint of each character in turn, did not use two different actors, one for each voice.

I absolutely loved this novel. It has everything a reader could wish for in a good work of historical fiction in terms of research smoothly intertwined within the plot, compelling characters (both from history and Mr. Carey’s imagination), and vivid prose that drew me in whether the topic was of a personal or societal nature. Whether you choose to listen to Humphrey Bower’s masterful performance or let Peter Carey’s words speak for themselves, this is an absolute must read.(less)

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Sep 24, 2011 Sonia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Sonia by: book club

Parrot and Olivier is my top must-read selection for 2010. I didn't read the book, I listened to it, and am highly recommending the audible version because the narrator's characterizations made the book comical and highly entertaining. Perhaps because the characters have strong French and British accents, I had to listen to the first two or three chapters several times before I got used to the rhythms of their voice and came to understand who these people really were and what they stood for.

Parr...more

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Jul 30, 2011 James (JD) Dittes added it · review of another edition

I liked the idea of the book rather than the reading of it. Alexis de Tocqueville captured America at its most promising moment, and his "Democracy in America" enshrined this country as a great hope of nations.

Carey's Count Olivier Something Something de Garmont is cast upon American shores, haunted by the French Revolution and uncertain of the future of aristocracy anywhere, Parrott is a servant, a spy, a secretary. It is through their eyes that America must come to life.

Love intervenes, and it...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Peter Carey’s dazzling book is a reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville if he had traveled with an English servant to the new world. Hence one character is often true to his model, and the other is crafted from whole cloth. The unlikely pair provide a contrast that would not have been possible had Carey chosen only to explore the historical character.

An exploration of the wild and tumbling place that was America in the early 19th century, the book alternates between the lives and adventures of Oli...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Jerome Parisse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey, was nominated for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. It is loosely based on Alexis de Tocqueville's journey in America. Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who in the early 1800’s wrote what was considered an influential and insightful portrait of the then young America. The book relates the American travels of Olivier de Garmont and of his English servant named Parrot. Olivier is a French aristocrat whose grandparents were guillotined during the French Rev...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Marxist Monkey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Now this is a beauty. An intricate tale of complex feeling, woven through a late 18th-early 19th century setting--that one we all love, with daring bold servants taking care of decaying aristocrats (I almost wrote aristocats), and charming beautiful daring women...wow that makes this sound awful. Peter Carey turns this dead dead setting into an amazing set of paradoxically cultivated wild flowers. Loosely based on De Tocqueville's journey to America, Carey imagines us into the end of a cultural...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you’ve heard anything at all about this book, you know that it’s inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who in the early 1800’s wrote what was considered an influential and insightful portrait of young America. Olivier was Alexis in roughly the same way that Cate Blanchett was Bob Dylan. Historical fiction that’s inspired by real people, and that doesn’t even use real names, is free to make up relationships, back stories, dialogue, and events to make the narrative more inter...more If you’ve heard anything at all about this book, you know that it’s inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who in the early 1800’s wrote what was considered an influential and insightful portrait of young America. Olivier was Alexis in roughly the same way that Cate Blanchett was Bob Dylan. Historical fiction that’s inspired by real people, and that doesn’t even use real names, is free to make up relationships, back stories, dialogue, and events to make the narrative more interesting. In this case, that proved a somewhat elusive goal. It tended to drag at times.

The premise was a good one. It began in post-Revolutionary France where young Olivier, his family, and their fortunes were on a roller coaster headed primarily down. His blood remained bleu, though. Parrot was a different story – literally. He and Olivier traded first person accounts throughout the book, and spent a fair amount of it without overlap. In contrast to his noble counterpart, Parrot was not to the manor born. Along with his itinerant father he ended up working for a printer that they later learned ran a side operation making “legal” tender. This was frowned upon in certain circles and poor Master Parrot found himself separated and made the servant of a shady one-armed Frenchman. The scene was set for adventure.

After a series of filler stories (less adventurous than you might hope), the two finally joined on a boat ride to America. Parrot acted as Olivier’s secretary, scribe, and de facto servant. In the beginning they shared a mutual distrust for each other. Of course, it was easy to predict that this would not last. That said, they took their sweet time about it. And the rapprochement was never fully intact, it seemed. Maybe part of the reason for this was that neither was altogether deserving of respect; Olivier especially, I’d say. It was like the whole of their time in the states they alternated between good traits and bad ones. Tick-tock, to and fro, back and forth – it got so I didn’t care anymore how they might end up on my ledger of likability.

I’ve probably made this sound too negative. There were two aspects of the book that I did like. One was seeing how, or whether, Parrot would reinvent himself in the Land of Opportunity. The rags to riches theme was a big one. The other thing I liked was Olivier’s reaction to the unadulterated democracy (and meritocracy) that he witnessed. He was astute enough to recognize the vast differences compared to the status-conscious European way of things, but was also reluctant to cede his class prerogative. He thought it was notable how everybody in America works, how land was up for grabs (even for the common folks), how a simple woodsman (Andrew Jackson) could become President, and how it was that a farmer’s youngest son could possibly hope to rise above his station. His snobbery was on full display when he talked about how provincial this new world seemed and how dangerous it was for the “tyranny of the majority” to trump those who were born to make more informed decisions in matters of style and state. Those parts of the book made me curious enough about the real de Tocqueville to read the wiki entry. Let’s give credit to Carey for that, at least.
(less)

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Mar 31, 2011 Lobdozer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Olivier, a sickly young aristocrat, is carted off to the newly independent United States to protect him against the chaos of war-torn post-Napoleonic France. A few shady business deals and plots surrounding the young man's journey force the curmudgeonly old servant Parrot to accompany him to the New World as his footman.

Being a bit of a history nerd, I really enjoyed this book for its portrayal and parodying of early 19th century America and Europe.
But that's not to say that the story and char...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Trish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh, Peter Carey is a hooligan, a rough lad, a clever boy. He takes the opportunity this novel provides to lampoon the national character of France and America, though he went rather easier on the British and Australians. But what a send-up it is! Glorious with imagined scenes of snobbery and pomp in royalist France, and rife with grim scenes of those money-making (literally: counterfeiting) British printers, he moves a youngish Olivier, French aristocrat and lawyer, and his secrétaire, the forme...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Bennet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels-stories, brilliant-voices-and-language

There is not a page from which I could not provide a delightful turn of phrase or description or conversation or all three. Every page was a delight to read, so much so that this is going on my brilliant-voices-and-language shelf.

It is my idea of ideal historical fiction: an imaginative and digressive exploration of the humanity behind the events, by way of metaphor, paradox, farce, foibles, and much empathy. And as such it ranks right up there with other "brilliants" like "Measuring the World,...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I enjoyed this book, but it was challenging to get into. It was written with many historical references and other references that I just didn't get. The basic story was interesting though. It was about two men, Parrot (Larrit) and a French nobleman Olivier. The former was an Englshman and orphan who was befriended (enslaved?) by a Frenchman and taken to Australia and then France. Oilivier's mother wants to put him somewhere safe during the French revolution so she gets him sent to America suppos...more

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Feb 10, 2011 Fred Moramarco rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Writers of historical fiction have things "both" ways: on the one hand they want to give us a convincing, realistic portrait of actual historical figures and a time and place in the past, and on the other they're not bound to the facts as historians are. They can let their imaginations roam freely among the nooks and crannies of what actually happened and give us a free-form, entertaining evocation of whatever it is they're writing about. History is to historical fiction as classical music is to...more Writers of historical fiction have things "both" ways: on the one hand they want to give us a convincing, realistic portrait of actual historical figures and a time and place in the past, and on the other they're not bound to the facts as historians are. They can let their imaginations roam freely among the nooks and crannies of what actually happened and give us a free-form, entertaining evocation of whatever it is they're writing about. History is to historical fiction as classical music is to jazz: in the one form you follow the notes carefully and accurately, while in the other you're free to improvise.

Peter Carey's Parrot & Oliver in America is a jazz riff on the life and times of Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French aristocrat who authored Democracy in America, which remains, 175 years after its initial publication, the definitive European view of what America and Americans are like. De Tocqueville was prescient about many aspects of American life. He noticed that unlike Europe where a landed aristocracy created centuries of class-conflict, disadvantaged Americans didn't hate the rich--they wanted to be like them. Americans believed, much more than their counterparts in Europe, that hard work and loyalty led to upward mobility and a rewarding life. In Europe the working classes had no possibility of becoming rich and the aristocracy found it beneath themselves to discuss financial matters. Although religion had long and deeper roots in European than American society, and he lauded the separation of church and state in America, he forsaw the strong and continuing role religion was to play in shaping American politics and life.

Historically, de Tocqueville travelled to America with another Frenchman, his friend Gustave de Beaumont, a French jurist and prison reformer. He and de Tocqueville were commissioned by King Louis-Phillipe to report on the "success" of American prison systems. In Carey's novel, Oliver, the character who represents Alexis, is sent to America for the same purpose, but by his mother, rather than the King, and is accompanied by an English working class servant nicknamed Parrot. Carey's book is very funny because of the striking contrast between de Tocqueville's aristocratic mannerisms and pretensions and Parrot's down-to-earth working class sensibility.

Carey takes his time wending his way through the events of the French Revolution and the class struggles that that entailed before finally putting Oliver and Parrot on a ship headed for the new world. That's when the fun in the novel really starts, but Carey's narrative style, moving back and forth from one character to the other and back and forth in time and place from one era and physical locale to another, as well as his tendency to call characters by different names depending on who is referring to them or the context of the reference, makes the book somewhat difficult reading. It's simply so densely imagined that it's hard to follow. I kept asking myself: where are we now? What time and place is this?

This said, it's very much worth your time and effort. Carey is an Englishman living in America writing about a Frenchman who visited America and wrote about it. You'll get a healthy sample of DeTocqueville's supercilious attitude toward American egalitarianism in passages such as these:

"I had not known America would look like this. In my innocence I had hoped to find here a model for the future of France, or at least some sign as to how, if democracy was unstoppable, we might at least safeguard our future with certain principles or institutions.
Yet all I had learned was that when the mob was allowed to rule, a second mob sprung up beneath them, and the difference between the Americans and the French is that the Americans do not need to steal from their fellows; when they can roam the countryside in bands, cutting trees and taking wealth. Anyone can claim a site for his chateau, whether he be a night soil man or a portraitist."

"Oh Blacqueville, I wish you were here to see these Americans. They are the most turbulent, unpeaceful, least-contented people, far worse than the Italians and Greeks. Clearly there is nothing less suited to meditation than democracy. You will never find, as in aristocracies, one class that sits back in its own comfort and another that will not stir itself because it despairs of ever improving its status. In America, everyone is in a state of agitation: some to attain power, others to grab wealth, and when they cannot move, they rock. They dig canals, they tear along the rivers in a rage of machinery, the engines pumping like sawyers in a pit, the shores denuded of their ancient trees."

"It is strange, in New York, and Philadelphia, to see the feverish enthusiasm which accompanies Americans' pursuit of prosperity and way they are ceaselessly tormented by the vague fear that they have failed to choose the shortest route to achieve it."

These and many other similar "definitive" judgments set in concrete many Europeans views of American "crassness," and Carey has a jolly good time with them. Like many Brits he seems to have something of a love-hate relationship with America and things American. After all he lives here, but this novel gives him the opportunity to speak about contemporary America (that last quotation could certainly apply to the dot.com boom of the 90s or even more accurately, to the financial meltdown of 2008). Reading this book you certainly get the distinctly French sense of plus ca change, plus c'est la meme.
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Feb 01, 2011 Roberta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I like this book though its not for everyone, probably a 3.5 for me. It follow the story of Parrot, a man of lively background and Olivier de Garmont ( a royal) as they befriend one another and learn what it is that makes American democracy a force to be reckoned with. Since Olivier's grandparents have lost their heads to the guillotine, and Olivier's mother feels it wise to send her son off on a trek to America in the company of Parrot who serves as his servant, confidante and spy. Olivier cons...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Brayden rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wished I loved this book, but I was a little disappointed. I'm a fan of Alexis de Tocqueville, the social and political theorist, upon whom the book was based, and so I was very excited to get this one. The book follows Olivier de Garmont - the Tocqueville character - and his manservant, John Larrit, or Parrot as he's known, to America as they seek asylum from what seems to be an impending war in France. Olivier, born to a French aristocratic family, went to the U.S. ostensibly to study prison...more

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Oct 21, 2010 Ann D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love Peter Carey’s novel Theft and am interested in American history, so I’ve been anxious to read this novel, and I read it quite quickly. My slight disappointment probably has more to do with my high expectations than any failure on the part of the book, and ultimately I recommend it, even highly. The writing is stylish and witty, and Carey (here as always) is skilled at bringing characters to life through their voices. The book’s ideas are worthy, too, particularly about the relationship be...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
21st Century Lite...: * Parrot and Olivier - Completed Book (Contains Spoilers!!) Now Open!	52	39	Aug 29, 2012 10:15am
21st Century Lite...: Section 1 - Olivier I to VII	51	42	Aug 18, 2012 04:31pm
21st Century Lite...: Section 3 - Olivier in Phily, Pg. 222, e-reader 58%, kindle loc. 3723, ends with "Wept except I had no right."	9	23	Aug 16, 2012 10:59pm

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About Peter Carey

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.

He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arriv...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.

He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.

In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.

For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.

After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.

From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.

In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.

He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.

In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
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“I have traveled widely. I have seen this country in its infancy. I tell you what it will become. The public squares will be occupied by an uneducated class who will not be able to quote a line of Shakespeare.” — 4 people liked it

“Would you rather have the lords and nobles back? What is Democracy for? Not so we can rob each other. Or cheat.' I said cheat and felt the teeth in it, the cleat, the cut, the eat.” — 2 people liked it

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