{"product_id":"the-pigeon-penguin-international-writers","title":"The Pigeon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSuskind, German author of the vivid, stylish, but overrated Perfume (1986), a fable of human stink, now offers a more conventional, clinical serving of dour existentialism: one day in the stultifying life of Paris bank-guard Jonathan Noel - whose narrow, rigidly controlled existence is thrown into fearsome chaos by a tiny invasion from nature. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow past 50, Noel lost his parents to a concentration camp in 1942 - and has ever since, only half-understandably, sought \"monotone serenity and uneventfulness.\" So, after being abandoned by his new wife in 1954, Noel carved out his niche: the impassive bank job; utterly regular, utterly solitary habits; a tiny seventh-floor-walkup room, being purchased outright on an installment plan after 30 years of renting (\"the only thing that had proved dependable in his life\"). But then, \"in August 1984, on a Friday morning,\" Noel opens his door, sees a pigeon (\"the epitome of chaos and anarchy\") crouching right there in the hall - and becomes unhinged: \"your whole life has been a lie, you've made a mess of it, because it's been upended by a pigeon, you must kill it, but you can't kill it. ...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\" Terrified of further encounters with the pigeon, Noel flees with a packed suitcase through green spatterings of bird-dirt in the hall, \"certain he would never be able to return.\" For the first time he is absent-minded at the bank; he's filled with \"raging self-hatred,\" especially after tearing a hole in his trousers; he imagines himself becoming like the local bum he sees \"shitting in the street.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmid echoes of Perfume, he is soon railing against the hot, stinking city and everything in it - till, after a near-suicidal night in a flophouse, the status quo is quietly restored. Possibly symbolic (Noel=Christ?), probably readable as a man-vs.-universe fable, marginally amusing in a cruel way - and grimly impressive, at taut novella-length, as a cool close-up study of severe obsessive-compulsive neurosis. (Kirkus Reviews)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patrick Süskind, John E. Woods","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43388122628265,"sku":"9780140173659","price":7.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0424\/9518\/0962\/files\/9780140173659.jpg?v=1699677277","url":"https:\/\/roseyravelstonbooks.com.au\/products\/the-pigeon-penguin-international-writers","provider":"RoseyRavelston Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}