A Short Little Read On A Sunny Sunday Afternoon

Coming in at a stretched 77 pages, The Pigeon, by Patrick Suskind is a good way to spend an hour on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but is probably not worth the $12 you have to pay for it brand new.

Being a tiny little read it is impossible for it deal with complex subjects thoroughly, but instead does a fantastic job at giving you a snapshot in to the main characters wacky mindset. The entire seventy seven pages are spent wisely on each event that happens during an offhand day displaying just how neurotic Jonathan Noel has become after a life of self inflicted isolation. Entertaining moments include a description of a homeless man taking a squat in full view of everyone on a public road, this gives Jonathan a sense of satisfaction in his job that has kept him standing in the same spot for ten of thousands of hours.

But after the hour it takes to read this novella you are left slightly disappointed. Not enough to use the seventy seven pages as cigarette papers to get some value in the $12 you spent on it, but enough to give the book only a six on the popular penguin out of ten scale. There wasn't anything to give the book an edge, let alone a reason for placing it in the popular penguin series. It was difficult to come up with deeper meaning from the read, or find something to take away which would make you remember the book. I think if it wasn't for writing this blog I'd have forgotten completely ever reading it by now. All The Pigeon is, is a well told story of a neurotic character's day, but nothing more. So get the book out from the library but take your $12 and go for a trip out to a beach and buy an ice cream, then spend an hour sitting in the sun with your short little read.