Perhaps this would have been better if France had chosen elephants rather than penguins

While I did enjoy Penguin Island by Anatole France, I believe I only enjoyed it because I had a semblance of a background in French history. Having performed in the Marat/Sade years ago I had to complete a crash course in French history and I think that without that prior knowledge I would not have appreciated this book for what it was.

Anatole France painted an interesting picture of the history of the country of France through the eyes of Penguins made human as a result of a botched baptism by a blind monk. Believe me, I too was on the verge of tossing this book out the window at first and think that had I been more interested in the subject matter, I would have enjoyed the book much more. As it stands now, I would not recommend this book unless one is very interested in a satirical look at how France became France, at least up to the early 1900's.

Removing the "human" element from the story of French history by anthropomorphizing penguins was an interesting choice on the part of France, however I felt that this choice made understanding the direction of the novel difficult at times. Also the fact that he threw in both references to both the Christian faith and the gods and goddesses of Rome and Greece, created a sometimes difficult to follow narrative. I was also at times confused as to who was narrating this novel. For some parts we are being spoken to by a first person narrator, at others by a third person omniscient narrator. The transition between these two narrators had no rhyme or reason nor forewarning and resulted in my having to turn back several times to see whether or not I had missed something.

While not as dense as Dickens, this book was indeed challenging and as I indicated earlier may have proved more enjoyable if I was indeed more interested in French history. Thus, I can say that I can check this one off the list, but will not be revisiting it ever in the future.