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Cargando... The Friends of Freelandpor Brad Leithauser
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In this roomy, bawdy, exuberantly comic novel, Brad Leithauser takes us to an imaginary island-country, Freeland, during a crucial election year. Freeland occupies its own place in the North Atlantic, somewhere between Iceland and Greenland. A geological miracle, it is desolate ("What green is to Ireland, gray is to Freeland") -- and inspiring. The "friends" of the title are Hannibal, an expansive, lovable, unruly giant of a man who has been President of Freeland for twenty years, and Eggert, his shrewd, often prickly, always devious sidekick and adviser, who is Poet Laureate of Freeland and the book's narrator. As the book opens, Freeland -- long happily isolated and stubbornly independent -- is in trouble. The sins of the rest of the world have begun to wash up on its shores in the form of drugs, restless youth, and a polluted, fished-out ocean. And, to add to the complications, when Hannibal, who has promised to step down as president, decides to run again, the opposition imports three "electoral consultants" from the United States. As the story unfolds, the histories of the friends are revealed. While Hannibal is Fate's adored, Eggert travels perpetually under a cloud. Orphaned early, he must make his way by his wits. We follow him from his youth as he adventures Down Below (any place south of Freeland), collecting women, lovers, children, restlessly churning out fifty books in his search for love and admiration, returning home at last to raise a family and to serve his friend in his political hour of need. This huge, stunning, magical book brims with pleasures: delicious satire as the independent-minded natives meet the U.S.-trained "spin doctors"; a vibrant comic-strip vitality; and an edgy poignancy. Best of all, Leithauser has created a whole world, at once uncannily like and unlike our own. Readers who journey to Freeland will find it both a land of wonders and an ideal place from which to view the world they've left behind. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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Eggert Oddason is a amall, weasel-faced man who can't seem to get women, at least not for very long. Eggi tells this story, and he doesn't make himself out to be much of a hero. He is the author of forty-nine books, but he is also known locally as The Nazi, due to his moderately successful efforts to protect his homeland from foreign words and rock music.
Eggi tells his story, as well as that of his best friend, Hannibal Hannibalsson ("perfect Viking" "Olympic Champion" "splendid ruin of a man"), President of his country for the past twenty years. His country is Freeland, modeled loosely but not precisely on Iceland.
In a chapter describing Freeland, Eggi talks of public displays of affection:
"Men display little public physical contact with each other. They shake hands warily, as if reluctant to have temporarily immobilized their weapon-wielding arm, or, on occasion--throwing personal safety to the winds--will hurl themselves into great, back-clapping embraces. Intermediate contact of any sort is viewed with suspicion."
And The Youth Question merits some thought, since Hanni needs the youth vote to win a fifth term...
"What have we been fighting for?...that's the Youth Issue. They're no longer needed on the farms, more and more of which are abandoned each year. A single ship--provided it's a two-hundred-ton floating factory manufactured in Norway--can haul in enough fish to feed not only everyone in the village but foreign multitudes as well. The young have leisure, freedom to do what they want when they will--but the only place they can think to go is Independence Square, and the only thing they can think to do is to stand around, in the drizzle, swigging vodka. "
And how is the rest of the world, below Freeland, seen?
" ...the notion that that pair of enormous troll-dens lying at Freeland's feet, the one called Europe and the other America, might nurture a new dawn of the spirit--well, this ran counter to everything I'd ever learned. A man might well fall in love with...these clever trolls...but you would never trust them to behave uncivilizedly. They were trolls, after all."
The main characters are engrossing, probably because they are depicted in a realistic fashion, without all the typical hooks designed to make you like them. I couldn't put this book down! Hanni and Eggi truly seemed to materialize as I was reading this book, and I was sorry for it to end. I immediately went on BookMooch and mooched some of his other novels.
You have probably read Brad Leithauser. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and the New York Times Book Review.
For a book that will capture your interest and hold it for 505 pages, read this. ( )