Parrot and Olivier in America

Einhard

I always like reading the reviews on Amazon after I've finished a book, but because I'm a contrary fecker, I only ever read the reviews that are the opposite of my own. So, if I loathe a book, I read the most glowing reviews, and argue with the reviewers in my mind, and I do the same with books I love.

Anyway, I loved Parrot and Olivier in America. I admit that I started it twice, having initially put it down because I wasn't in the mood for this type of work. Having taken it up a second time however, I thought it absolutely wonderful. I love the way we learn about the characters and the histories of the two main protagonists entirely through their own words- our views of Parrot and Olivier are shaped by how they view the world, and each other. The absence of the heavy hand of the narrator pressing the reader in a certain direction is wonderfully refreshing, and one feels a great freedom in evaluating both the world and the protagonist through their eyes. The fact that there are two protagonists, and that the work is written alternately from either perspective, makes their story even more engaging. One gets two views and opinions on everything, and can balance and contrast one with and against the other. One learns more about Olivier through the eyes of Parrot, and vice versa, than either would admit about themselves.

In the Amazon reviews, much of the negative criticism focuses on an alleged lack of plot, or of a supposed weakness of the same. I think though, that much of this misses the essential theme of the work- the unlikely friendship between two very different men, and their striving to be something in a world. The world that might have been Olivier's had been rent and sundered in the Revolution, and the arrest and death of his father had a similar effect on Parrot. They are both afloat, both as rootless as the other, but in very different ways. There is a commonality between them, that perhaps both miss, but which allows them to become even more than friends. There is a genuine warmth and compassion between the two, all the more striking because of their initial less than cordial relations. I think many of the Amazon reviews miss this entirely, with some even claiming that the work is about a young America, even though the New World isn't even sighted until a third of the way through.

Another brilliant aspect of the work, is the differing views both men have of the new world. Initially Parrot isn't all that impressed, while Olivier feigns delight, the more to win over his friends and contacts, and especially his belle. One of the finest moments of the work is the breaking of Olivier's mental damn, his self-willed delusion about America, when all his doubts and dismay about the new democracy wash over him during the fourth of July celebrations.

Anyway, I really came on to bitch about the crazy reviewers over on Amazon who could dare rate this work negatively, and there I am reviewing the whole thing myself!! What do others think of Parrot and Olivier in America?