The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith - Hardcover

Carey, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679438882 ISBN 13: 9780679438885

Publisher: Knopf, 1995

Synopsis

The Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda and The Tax Inspector now gives readers a hero, the malformed but ferociously wilful Tristan Smith, who becomes the object of the world's byzantine political intrigues, even as he attains stardom in a bizarre Sirkus that is part passion play and part Mortal Kombat.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

rize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda and The Tax Inspector now gives readers a hero, the malformed but ferociously wilful Tristan Smith, who becomes the object of the world's byzantine political intrigues, even as he attains stardom in a bizarre Sirkus that is part passion play and part Mortal Kombat.

Reviews

Carey, known for his quirkily skewed re-creations of Australian culture (Oscar and Lucinda; The Tax Collector), has outdone himself in this bizarre, uncannily strange dystopia about the life of a dwarf, who narrates the tale. Tristan Smith, born to an unmarried woman who runs a radical theater in a land called Effica, suffers from a facial disfigurement so severe that only his mother can look upon him without revulsion. His life as a child is unrelievedly sad until he discovers the various guises that theater can provide, which launches him into the vibrant world of his mother's professional circle. A consistent theme-political, cultural and historical-is the position of Effica as an "Ootland" state, peripheral to the culture of faraway Voorstand, a kind of Anglo/Dutch hegemony whose world dominance in all things is beyond dispute, though not unchallenged by such underground dissidents as Tristan's mother. And it is this depiction of an entire world culture-futuristic, in some respects fitted out with unfathomable features, such as a kind of mass-audience shadow play involving live actors and holograms, as well as familiar figures like Rimbaud and Baudelaire-that gives this novel its refreshingly improbable authenticity. When Tristan's mother dies tragically, he falls in with a motley crew of her colleagues; together they embark on a secret mission to Voorstand, in search of his father, an Ootlander actor who has become famous by selling his soul to the Voorstand theater. The second half of the book details Tristan's time on the run in Voorstand, where he finds spectacular renown in the guise of a famous folk figure, Bruder Mouse, whose battles with The Hairy Man are somehow central to Voorstander's understanding of themselves. When he at last is, literally, unmasked, Tristan and his mates are charged with all manner of crimes of mispresentation by the state. Carey's novel approach to the narrative-the entire tale is in the form of Tristan's direct testimony to formal authorities of Voorstand culture-is brilliantly maintained throughout, and the fairy-tale quality of its figuration makes for a surpassingly rich feast of metaphors and mercurial meanings-George Orwell and Lewis Carroll wrapped into one. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Carey creates a fully realized parallel universe in this unusual novel set in Efica, an island nation under the political and cultural domination of the larger Voorstand. Part Bildungsroman, part political allegory, and part meditation on identity, this novel traces the first 23 years of Tristan, its eponymous narrator, a hideously deformed dwarf and son of actress Felicity Smith (the head of a radical theater company and champion of Efican culture). In the novel's first half, Tristan tells of his early adventures with the company, culminating with Felicity's fatal foray into politics. In the second, he recounts his later travels in Voorstand in search of Bill Millefleur, an actor he believes to be his father. This inventive, multilayered work should only add to Carey's already considerable reputation. Highly recommended.
Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Tristan Smith's unusual life makes for an unusual novel. Australian Carey, as much acclaimed on his side of the Pacific as on ours, has created not only a complete human being, but also a complete world. Like a science-fiction writer who imagines the structure of an invented place, Carey fashions an entire, and entirely believable, fictitious environment--the archipelago of Efica, now an independent nation, formerly at the colonial mercy of the European powers. Carey's focus is on the son of a famous actress, who is uncertain about who fathered her offspring. It is this quest--the identity of his father--that is a major part of the impetus behind Tristan's adventures as he grows up. He was born malformed, and because of the way he looks, he suffers from the moment of his birth. Thus his search for his pater is concomitant to his search for a place in life where he can accept himself and be accepted by others. Alternately funny and poignant, a picaresque novel that avid fiction readers will devour. Brad Hooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679438882
• ISBN 13: 9780679438885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 422