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...all the contemporary pieties of getting people together and moving them off in one direction or another to have fun together, or to edify themselves, or to show solidarity to some underprivileged minority and everybody, as I said, being of the same mind and of one intent, every individual possessed by the spirit of the group, which is the very spirit apparently of humanity, and indeed that of Europe, come to think of it, which this group is now hurtling off to appeal.Jerry, suffice to say, is not a team player--not even when it comes to saving his own job. Together with a group of colleagues and students from the University of Milan, he's off to the European Parliament to protest new Italian laws against hiring foreigners--a cause which he opposes, appealing to an institution he's not sure should exist.
So why is Jerry on the coach in the first place? Because she is there--the same she for whom Jerry left his wife and daughter and who has since broken his heart. The unnamed she in question is a beautiful French woman (of course), a hellcat in bed (it goes without saying), and an intellect of notable refinement (naturellement). She was also unfaithful, and now they scarcely speak to one another. The rest of this dark and often savagely funny novel (shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize) consists of one great Joycean rant, a stream-of-consciousness harangue that circles obsessively around sex, the treachery of she, and Jerry's boundless misanthropy. In between we get glimpses of the bus and its motley cast of characters, including, most vividly, Vikram Griffiths, part Welsh, part Indian, with his nervous tics and his self-consciously Welsh accent and his shaggy mutt, Dafydd. As one might deduce from the title, the dream of the new, unified Europe looms behind this tale like--well, like a big, unwieldy metaphor, given expression in the form of Jerry's affair. As a meditation on the continent's future, the novel works surprisingly well, and though it initially takes some time to sort out the looping rhythms of Parks's prose, the reader's patience is repaid in spades. --Mary Park
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Shortlisted for the Booker prize, Europa is a brilliantly comic and breathtakingly dark novel of obsessive loveDiscover Tim Parks' darkly funny and deeply prescient Booker prize-shortlisted novel about the European experience.A brilliantly comic and dyspeptic novel about an obsessive love gone sour. Europa follows Jerry Marlow, a middle-aged Brit teaching at an Italian university, as he and his colleagues embark on a coach trip to Strasbourg in order to petition the European Parliament for improved working conditions.Jealousy and revenge, passion and dread intertwine in one man's soul as he's trapped in the awful claustrophobia of the trip with a group of people he loathes - and the woman who broke his heart.'The best thing about Europa is the voice Tim Parks conjures up- Marlow's wry, defeated reason keeps you turning the pages.reminding us that it is far easier to unite a sprawling continent than the few cubic metres that contain a human soul' Sunday Times A brilliantly comic, dark and dyspeptic novel about an obsessive love gone sour. Jealousy and revenge, passion and dread intertwine in one man's soul as he's trapped in the awful claustrophobia of a three-day coach journey across Europe with a group of people he loathes - and the woman who broke his heart. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780099268093
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. A brilliantly comic, dark and dyspeptic novel about an obsessive love gone sour. Jealousy and revenge, passion and dread intertwine in one man's soul as he's trapped in the awful claustrophobia of a three-day coach journey across Europe with a group of people he loathes - and the woman who broke his heart. Seller Inventory # B9780099268093
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