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| Penguin Island | 
 enlarge | Category: EBooks
Buy New: $0.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 77363
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
ASIN: B0017XONY8
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
"Mael a scion of a royal family of Cambria was sent in his ninth year to the Abbey of Yvern so that he might there study both sacred and profane learning?"
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 savagely funny critique of human nature July 13, 1998
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I first read this book at the age of 12. I remember receiving it for Christmas--an irony in itself. I recollect my feelings of incredulity as I read the chapters--how could such blasphemy go unpunished?! And then, slowly, my disbelief turned into pure joy at the nose-thumbing this author gave all institutions. The Church, the State, Socialism--you name it, he mocked it. I recommend this book for all those who continue to believe in Ideals.
Should have been a Monty Python movie!!! September 13, 1998
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Anatole France spares no one in this satire about the the birth life and death of the Penguin empire. Starting from the baptism of the Penguins by St. Mael (and the associated debates in Heaven about the devine status of penguins) through the founding and subsequent fall of the empire, this story pokes fun at the Church, military, courts and every political movement known to man. The trial of poor Pyrot had me in stitches. If you like satire, READ THIS BOOK.
Outrageous satire June 22, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
A pious monk discovers a previously unknown island. He is half deaf and more than half blind with age. Even so, he can see that the diminutive people here are gentle, serious, and not yet Christian. He performs a mass baptism, not realizing that he has created Christian penguins.
So begins France's straight-faced satire of the church, the state, and anything else he can think of. First, the innocents must clothe their nakedness. This creates modesty for them, but also creates immodesty, lust-inducing arts of skirt and bodice, and avarice for finer clothes and baubles. Next, they develop property law, proven by disputes over farmland. They create a noble class, when one demonstrates his nobility by killing another penguin and taking his land. They create a royalty, by means of fraud and extortion. They even create their first saint, the miraculous virgin Ste. Orberosia. She seemed best known for her miraculous virginity, which she proclaimed until her dying day (and we don't argue with saints). In fact, she was able to proclaim her virginity even after dozens or hundreds of encounters that would have destroyed it in less holy a woman - miraculous indeed. Perhaps the penguins weren't born subject to Original Sin, but they're mighty quick with the imitation.
The History of Penguinia moves forward, through ages of avarice, adultery, elaboarate scams, false accusations, and all the usual goings-on of the political world. The events are painfully funny, right down to the cynical, cyclical view of modern times, locked into an historical rhythm. The views are painful only because they're so very true.
I imagine they would have been even more true for me if I knew more about the political current events of France and Europe circa 1900, when this book was being written. I also suspect some wordplay in characters' names that would have been amusing if I knew French. It is a measure of Anatole France's genuius that now, nearly a hundred years later, it's still true enough for a modern reader, and one unfamiliar with the book's original milieu. I imagine this book will reward the prepared reader even more richly.
This is satire at its finest - funny, but with an edge, and funny because it's so very true.
//wiredweird
 the humans are penguins! April 25, 2000
2 out of 20 found this review helpful
those blasted penguins were baptised and changed into penguins! this satire depicts the history of France! enjoy! :)
Excellent if you enjoy satire August 22, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is almost one hundred years old and it is still very relevant as a source of universal unchanging truths.
I am reading it as an E-book in the original French. France has a lovely style in his native language which is at the same time poetic, erudite and easy to read. Reading classic satire makes you realize how we are fundamentally the same and will probably never change. I was struck by a section punctuating the conclusion of the Pyrot ( Dreyfuss ) affair in which he comments that it was back to business as usual:
"The government remained under the control of the major financial institutions, the army dedicated exclusively to the defense of capital, the navy served only as a source of orders for the steel industry and the rich refused to pay their fair share of taxes. The poor, as before, paid for them."
Sound like any place you know?
If satire is your thing this is good stuff. It helps to be familiar with French pomposity and European history.
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