Η φοβερή τροπή των πραγμάτων

by Tibor Fischer

328 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Tibor Fischer is a British novelist and short story writer. In 1993 he was selected by the influential literary magazine Granta as one of the 20 best young British writers.

Fischer's parents were Hungarian basketball players, who fled Hungary in 1956. The bloody 1956 revolution, and his father's background, informed Fischer's debut novel Under the Frog, a Rabelaisian yarn about a Hungarian basketball player surviving Communism. The title is derived from a Hungarian saying, that the worst possible place to be is under a frog's arse down a coal mine.

In 2009 Fischer became the Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at City and Guilds of London Art School.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I liked the tone and I liked the characters and the historical perspective it gives.

However, it was confusing at first because of the way characters were introduced - names were just referred to with little context and you kind of had to piece together who they were yourself.

The worst part however, was the misogyny sprinkled throughout the book. Almost all female characters were characterized by their looks (mainly their breasts) and referred to as being "dumb" and were just there to serve as sexual object for the male characters. Could analyze this further but whtvr it really affected my reading of the book and I would've enjoyed it a lot more and rated it higher if women were treated as intelligent human beings...

(Γιάντβιγκα was slightly better presented, I mean I liked her character but she was the only one and there was still some male gaze-ness to her depiction).