The Porcupine

A tight, lean, but somewhat heartless political novel from the celebrated author of, most notably, Flaubert's Parrot. It certainly has relevance to today's (or, at least, yesterday's) headlines, for it depicts a recent moment in a fictional eastern European country--{{...}}a la Bulgaria--when the Soviet-infused Communist government has just been toppled and the former leaders must atone for past sins. Specifically, the grand old man of this unnamed country, Stoyo Petkanov, is placed on trial, the case being tried before a special prosecutor, Peter Solinsky. The novel, then, is essentially the courtroom proceedings as Petkanov and Solinsky argue the murky issue of political good and evil. The outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion, but as it is played out, age-old Machiavellian questions about the power of the state arise and are debated--and remain unsettled. This is a novel about control, written with control; but Barnes, as if too caught up in a desire to evoke the sterility of life in that country's past and present, relates the story in a dispassionate, even clinical fashion. Nonetheless, it's thoughtful fiction, and demand, based on the popularity of his previous novels, should prove to be high. (Reviewed Oct. 15, 1992)0679419179Brad Hooper

Though Barnes generally excels at the novel of ideas ( Flaubert's Parrot ) and is a master at disclosing character through adroit dialogue ( Talking It Over) , his latest effort, an interesting thesis conveyed in verbal interchanges between two characters, doesn't cohere into a dramatic narrative. The deposed president of an Eastern European country newly liberated from the Communist yoke is put on trial for the crimes he committed during his 33-year iron rule. The state's prosecutor general tries without success to make wily, cunning Stoyo Petkanov admit his guilt, but Petkanov cleverly represents himself as a man of the people whose only desire was to serve the state. Turning the tables, he deftly questions the competence of the new regime, whose efforts to achieve a market economy have produced economic chaos. Moreover, he insidiously suggests that the prosecutor, a former Communist who rebelled against the system that rewarded him, is himself no less venal, greedy and opportunistic: the accused and his accuser are both corruptible. Barnes is most effective in getting inside the head of an unreconstructed hard-line Communist, showing the mental set of a staunch believer in the ``one true scientific path of Marxism-Leninism.'' Yet in expounding his dark and cynical view of human nature and the nature of all political systems--democratic and despotic alike--Barnes has created a bloodless, fleshless argument between two talking heads. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The upheavals that have recenty rocked Eastern Europe provide the inspiration for Barnes's ( Flaubert's Parrot , LJ 4/1/85) latest novel, an intelligent, if strangely passionless, examination into the nature of political reality. It focuses primarily on the interaction between two men, former Communist party head Stoyo Petkanov, for 33 years the leader of his nation, and Peter Solinsky, newly appointed chief prosecutor for ``justice.'' Rather than adopt a meek, defensive posture, the recalcitrant party chief thrusts out some barbs of his own, suggesting that the new leadership is no less susceptible to lies and hypocrisy than his own government was. In any given circumstance, Barnes implies, it is simply fate that determines who becomes the accuser and who the accused. Unfortunately, Barnes's success in exploring the mind-set of a Marxist-Leninist hard-liner must be set against the story's overall pallidness. A short, interesting work for those not driven by a need for lots of action or high drama. For larger academic and public collections.-- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Barnes's famously light touch is applied to a bar of lead here: the nauseated, exhausted atmosphere of a newly de-Socialized Balkan state. The forever and glorious dictator, Stoyo Petkanov, is under arrest and about to face televised trial, prosecuted by law- professor-turned-prosecutor-general Peter Solinsky. With all his East European peers likewise deposed, Petkanov decides on a tactic of defiance--and with considerable skill Barnes fashions the old monster into the most compelling character: strength does not necessarily dissipate when power moves on. Pen-and-ink portraiture of other parts of the society--students, apparatchiks, ambitious functionaries clumsily changing their spots--are sprinkled throughout here, but the book essentially is a conversation- -pre-trial and during--between corrupt illusion and vain hope and the gradations in-between. Barnes (Talking it Over, 1991; etc) probably is the finest practitioner of a new hybrid form of journalism-fiction. His elegant intelligence skims and swoops and repeatedly scores; his sensibility is dry, well-aimed, and consciously European, rather than stuffily British. But to make a pattern out of classic literature or social mores, as Barnes has done before, is different from bearing down on the tragedies of ideas, as here, in this brazenly short book. He seems to be making a balsa-wood diorama out of the ruins of the century; the story approaches its moral climax only to have the dictator rise in his own defense and read off all the commendations and tributes he was paid by the ``free-world's'' leaders. Meaning, of course, that evil is because we ``let'' it. It's so mingy and fey a conclusion, so disproportionate to the subject, almost mocking, that a reader feels as if he's watched a TV-news segment, a ``focus report'' on Good and Evil. Little about much.

The upheavals that have recenty rocked Eastern Europe provide the inspiration for Barnes's ( Flaubert's Parrot , LJ 4/1/85) latest novel, an intelligent, if strangely passionless, examination into the nature of political reality. It focuses primarily on the interaction between two men, former Communist party head Stoyo Petkanov, for 33 years the leader of his nation, and Peter Solinsky, newly appointed chief prosecutor for ``justice.'' Rather than adopt a meek, defensive posture, the recalcitrant party chief thrusts out some barbs of his own, suggesting that the new leadership is no less susceptible to lies and hypocrisy than his own government was. In any given circumstance, Barnes implies, it is simply fate that determines who becomes the accuser and who the accused. Unfortunately, Barnes's success in exploring the mind-set of a Marxist-Leninist hard-liner must be set against the story's overall pallidness. A short, interesting work for those not driven by a need for lots of action or high drama. For larger academic and public collections.-- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla. Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information.

Interesting but finally bloodless, this novel finds the deposed Communist president of an Eastern European country put on trial for the crimes he committed during his 33-year iron rule. (Oct.) Also in October, Vintage International will reissue Barnes's Staring at the Sun . ($10 *-74820-2 ), which tracks the relentlessly curious Jean Serjeant from her childhood in 1920s England to her flight into the sun in the year 2021. (Oct.) Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information.

Though Barnes generally excels at the novel of ideas ( Flaubert's Parrot ) and is a master at disclosing character through adroit dialogue ( Talking It Over) , his latest effort, an interesting thesis conveyed in verbal interchanges between two characters, doesn't cohere into a dramatic narrative. The deposed president of an Eastern European country newly liberated from the Communist yoke is put on trial for the crimes he committed during his 33-year iron rule. The state's prosecutor general tries without success to make wily, cunning Stoyo Petkanov admit his guilt, but Petkanov cleverly represents himself as a man of the people whose only desire was to serve the state. Turning the tables, he deftly questions the competence of the new regime, whose efforts to achieve a market economy have produced economic chaos. Moreover, he insidiously suggests that the prosecutor, a former Communist who rebelled against the system that rewarded him, is himself no less venal, greedy and opportunistic: the accused and his accuser are both corruptible. Barnes is most effective in getting inside the head of an unreconstructed hard-line Communist, showing the mental set of a staunch believer in the ``one true scientific path of Marxism-Leninism.'' Yet in expounding his dark and cynical view of human nature and the nature of all political systems--democratic and despotic alike--Barnes has created a bloodless, fleshless argument between two talking heads. (Nov.) Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information.