Doctor Criminale [Paperback]

Malcolm Bradbury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 1993

Naive, anonymous, provincial Francis Jay has ambitions to break out of Camden and into the media. Writing a TV documentary about Doctor Bazlo Criminale - urbane polymath and the "Great Thinker of the Age of Glasnost", he steps into a world outside his experience and beyond his comprehension.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (August 16, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140139605
• ISBN-13: 978-0140139600
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,281,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars My introduction to Malcolm Bradbury, September 9, 2010

By 

Robert M. Sterry "iconograph" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Criminale (Paperback)

I was not tempted to write a review of Doctor Criminale until I read one dated 1992 in the Independent newspaper (UK) that thoroughly ripped it up and down shortly after the book was published. Without using the word cliche (or perhaps he did) the reviewer, whose name I will not drop (sic) here, plainly wished to let us know that the book was a series of them, a dull unnatractive work that insulted us all. Then I am insulted and gladly so. I read this around the same time as I read Kasuo Ishiguro's novel 'The Unconsoled'. The dreamlike chases and continual lack of resolution are similar in both works. I was also a fan of David Lodge and the unmerciful pillorying of acadamia. This book, along with those by Lodge and Ishiguro have made many trans-oceanic ordeals not a pleasure but tolerable. If you like language, frustration and mystery I say take this book with you on your next flight.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best academic comic novel, October 11, 2004

By 

Ben the Pedant - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Criminale (Paperback)

Along with To the Hermitage, Bradbury's last ever novel, Doctor Criminale is a quintessential scholarly comedy that manages to engage literary themes from Borges to Derrida and back again without breaking a sweat or, worse still, appearing pretentious. In short, a thinking person's David Lodge and definitely worth (if the publisher should happen to read this) a reprint.