Death and the Penguin (Смерть постороннего) - Andrey Kurkov

A man, a penguin, and mysterious deaths. What could go wrong? Well, nothing goes wrong, but nothing goes particularly well either in "Death and the Penguin", a quirky, dry and sometimes humorous novel by Andrey Kurkov. The story goes around writer Viktor, a writer of short short stories who just keeps on living without much purpose on his life, his only companion his penguin Misha. But one day he finds a job writing obituaries for a newspaper, a job that sparks a change in his life. What we get from that moment is a dry and detached criticism of a society and of an era, while adding some little attempts at humor that normally fall flat. The novel never seems to have very clear what its purpose is, and the tone is flat and uneven, changing from one page to the other. Sometimes it brings a smile to the face of the reader or even touches some interesting human commentary. But in general it is so dry and cold that the reader will feel they are reading the book through plastic film. And its social criticism is just your typical people from the cold of Europe drink a lot, are corrupt and can only open up with alcohol in their blood. It is a little bit repetitive. It doesn't help that Viktor is not a particularly compelling character and that the penguin, Misha, seems to be an afterthought. Also many of the events of the book seem to happen just to fill pages, without much purpose or interest. "Death and the Penguin" is an easy enough to read novel. But nothing to call home about. The best: some human commentary The worst: the same 'lots of alcohol in ex-Communist European countries'; the same 'lots of corruption in ex-Communist European countries'; the weird relationship between Viktor and Nina; its tone is uneven; it has no clear purpose or objective, its journey just going around in circles; too dry (just in case I hadn't made myself clear) Further reading: read Dostoyevsky if you want a better look into human hearts from the cold, or you can read "Entanglement" by Zygmunt Miłoszewski, a mystery novel from Poland; "The Master and Margarita" is another interesting option 5.5/10 (English Translation by George Bird)