The Fairy Gunmother

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: As in The Scapegoat, Pennac has written a crime novel where the crime aspect isn't actually all that compelling. Pennac makes some hay with police racism, but it's nothing special in that regard. Once again, the translation doesn't really work for me and I'm sort of baffled by the notion that people found this book to be hilarious. Hard to imagine spending time on the third or fourth books in this series.

Rating:
Summary: beauty is precious
Review: I also read this in French, but have wished that an English version would come out so that I could give it to my mother! Benjamin Malaussene is the bumbling hero of this crazy, upbeat story set in the postmodern chaos of a Parisien banlieu. His mother has a habit of being carried away in a flurry of passion, only to return each time pregnant without the father. This eclectic assortment of children grows up together under the care of the big brother and a family of Arabs who adopts them as their own. The tone of the book is light and witty without being overly shallow. Pennac touches on issues that are current not only to French society but also everywhere; racism, class struggle, capitalistic values, family values. Yet this is far from a preaching or political book. We are almost far too entertained to even realize the deeper content until thinking back on it in retrospect.

Rating:
Summary: This book is great! I read the whole series (3)
Review: I also read this in French, but have wished that an English version would come out so that I could give it to my mother! Benjamin Malaussene is the bumbling hero of this crazy, upbeat story set in the postmodern chaos of a Parisien banlieu. His mother has a habit of being carried away in a flurry of passion, only to return each time pregnant without the father. This eclectic assortment of children grows up together under the care of the big brother and a family of Arabs who adopts them as their own. The tone of the book is light and witty without being overly shallow. Pennac touches on issues that are current not only to French society but also everywhere; racism, class struggle, capitalistic values, family values. Yet this is far from a preaching or political book. We are almost far too entertained to even realize the deeper content until thinking back on it in retrospect.

Rating:
Summary: Very very very very very good.
Review: I read this book in it's original French, and then went on to read the rest of the series...Benjamin Malaussène is amazing. My favourite character to date. Worth a read, even just for Pennac's amazing style.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant magic realism murder mystery
Review: I read this book in it?s original French, and then went on to read the rest of the series...Benjamin Malauss?ne is amazing. My favourite character to date. Worth a read, even just for Pennac?s amazing style.

Rating:
Summary: beauty is precious
Review: Life is too serious to be spent reading crime fiction. And most crime writers are too in awe of themselves to write a good story, rather rendering technical reports readable and twisting shaky plots as if they were helter-skelter designers. I have made exceptions in the past, for the likes of Chandler and Hammett, who could use language with skill. I've even made allowances for James Ellroy, but I think I might just have been revisiting the Stephen King phase of my youth there.

Time for another exception to the rule. The Fairy Gunmother, by Daniel Pennac. No summation of its plot would do it justice. Suffice to say it's set in Paris (originally written in French, translated into English) its got old people, drugs, guns, good guys and bad guys and some very very very likeable characters. Just find it and read it and bathe in the beauty of the writing. It's got all the characteristics you'd want of an old friend, plus a plot twist or two that might genuinely surprise you (now how often does that happen?).

Rating:
Summary: brilliant magic realism murder mystery
Review: Pennac has an incredible ease with language, and an imagination that defies defintion. The quasi fairytale aspect to this murder mystery makes it poignant and amusing, but never trite. This book is about language, litterature, character development; not about the murder solving. I read it in French, and appreciated Pennac's mix of the everyday (and even amusingly vulgar), and academic French.
I have never reviewed a book at Amazon, but felt compelled to with this book.
If ever you are looking for an escapist book that still manages to have some weight to it, this is the one.
The 500+ reviewer who concentrated on the race aspect of the book clearly did not read beyond the first 5 pages (a racist detective who has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot gets shot). Shame on them.