The Pigeon [Hardcover]

Patrick Suskind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1988

Set in Paris and attracting comparisons with Franz Kafka and Edgar Allan Poe, "The Pigeon" is Patrick Suskind's tense, disturbing follow-up to the bestselling Perfume. The novella tells the story of a day in the meticulously ordered life of bank security guard Jonathan Noel, who has been hiding from life since his wife left him for her Tunisian lover. When Jonathan opens his front door on a day he believes will be just like any other, he encounters not the desired empty hallway but an unwelcome, diabolical intruder...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Suskind's previous novel, Perfume, was a tough act to follow, so perhaps he deliberately curbed his aspirations for its successor. Where Perfume was a rich feast of language and vision, this slim novella is a light snack, a simple fable simply wrought. After a childhood marked by repeated abandonment, followed by years devoted to cultivating the lifestyle of an urban hermit, Parisian bank guard Jonathan Noel awakes one morning to find the titular bird outside the door of his rented one-room flat, the presence of which so unnerves him over the course of the day, that he finally goes to sleep vowing to commit suicide the next morning. Redemption comes at daybreak in the form of a rainstorm and the realization that, despite the sadness of his early years, he "cannot live without other people." Like the monster scent-stealer of Perfume, Noel is an extreme example of a social outcast, but despite a few nice toucheshe recognizes his first rush of adrenaline as something he has read abouthis characterization lacks the inventiveness of the former. The verbal flights of fancy that dazzled in Perfume are missing here, although that book's less interesting allegorical affinities remain. Readers with high hopes for The Pigeon will be disappointed; those who approach the book with limited expectations will be better suited to appreciate its modest rewards. 35,000 first printing; paperback rights to Pocket Books; BOMC and QPBC alternates.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

$14.95. f In Perfume ( LJ 10/15/86), his internationally acclaimed first novel, Suskind explores the obsessive inner world of a monster genius. In his new novella he paints a humorous if disquieting portrait of an ordinary man who is nevertheless as obsessive as Suskind's first protagonist. Jonathan Noel is a bank guard in Paris. Deeply traumatized by his childhood experiences during the German occupation of France, he strives with singular dedication to reduce his life to utter uneventfulness and monotony. The sudden appearance of a pigeon on his doorstep completely unhinges him, threatening to plunge his life into chaos. A fine translation of a masterfully crafted novella, essential for literature collections. Ulrike S. Rettig, Wellesley Coll., Wellesley, Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 115 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (May 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394563158
• ISBN-13: 978-0394563152
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,106,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A rewarding, subtle work., June 7, 2002

By 

A. C. Walter "awalter" (Lynnwood, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The PIGEON (Board book)

Imagine you are an old man so afraid of life that you have spent most of your years alone, living in a small room and working in an insignificant job as a security guard on the front steps of a bank, your only pleasure somehow derived from the monotony of your daily routine. Then one day a living creature, a pigeon, appears unexpectedly on your doorstep, and it shouldn't be there--it is out of place. And this frightens you like nothing has in many years. You flee your apartment (for good, you think). Because of your agitated state you break your own routines; you begin acting strangely, and your perceptions alter. This sets off a chain reaction of encounters in which you, despite your lifelong precautions to the contrary, begin interacting with a world that seems determined to drive you over the edge.

Suskind's "The Pigeon" is subtly meticulous in depicting its protagonist's complex psychological journey. The story is at once free of sentimentality, raw, honest, and yet life-affirming in the most vital sense. While it is reminiscent of Kafka and--most notably--of Knut Hamson's "Hunger," Suskind's novella also manages to glimpse something just around the corner, something almost out of sight, beyond the valley of despair.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh man, we need more from Suskind., October 11, 2002

By 

steven (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The PIGEON (Board book)

I had to get a copy of The Pigeon used after reading Perfume. I read it in one sitting. It's such a gem. I don't know how many pages go by where the main character is just standing in front of this bank thinking, not doing anything. It's riveting. He eats a meal towards the end of the book and I've never read such tasty descriptions of food. And rain, and peeing in the tub, and ripping your pants in public.
I'm going to have to do some searching to get my Patrick Suskind fix. This is one of the most satisfying books I've ever read. It left me on a high for a couple weeks. It's since worked it's way somewhere deep in me, I won't forget it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short and satisfying, December 7, 2003

By 

Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The PIGEON (Board book)

The central achievement of Süskind's novella is the way it articulates the social anxiety of a man whose childhood fear of abandonment has played out as a lifetime of limited scope, controlling routines and self-imposed isolation. That might sound heavy but it isn't - mainly because Süskind wisely chooses the "free indirect" narrative style (mastered by Henry James). The story is told in the third person, but is nevertheless filtered through Jonathan Noel's gaze and consciousness so that external reality exists only as refracted in his mind. The result is that we see the world as he sees it, but without the unreliability that such a point of view entails. Süskind is thereby able to show us precisely what he wants us to see - both the horror and humour of Noel's experience - and to deliver a climax which remains somewhat objective and thereby inspires hope. Other reviewers seem to have found the ending cloying and unrealistic, but I think they're assuming more than Süskind suggests. Noel and his life are not utterly transformed at the end - he has an epiphany, he loses his fear, but it may or may not last.