The Frog (Paperback)

by John Hawkes (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
An elusive novel about a French boy with a frog in his belly. It belongs in the tradition of modern elliptical parables honed to perfection by Kafka as well as in the tradition of "magical realists" such as Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate). We are never sure if the frog is real or imagined (just as we are never certain if Gregor Samsa really has turned into a giant cockroach), or what, if anything, the frog--or the boy's experiences--might symbolize. Hawkes revels in maintaining this tension of the suspension of suspension of disbelief, and for those of us who love ambiguity, The Frog is an exotic and well-presented literary treat. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Narrated by a French child, Pascal Gateau, whose mother calls him her "little tadpole" and who himself swallows a frog in the early years of the century, Hawkes's (Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade; Sweet William) latest novel is a rather awkwardly told picaresque fairy tale for adults. The frog, whom Pascal names Armand after a fairy-tale amphibian whose story his mother reads to him, takes up residence inside the child's body, becoming his lifelong companion. Pascal's parents work for a rich count, his father as a farmhand and his mother as a cook, until the outbreak of WW I, at which point both farmer and aristocrat go off to battle. Pascal's father returns minus a leg and, clinically depressed, is sent to a mental institution. Eventually, Pascal is consigned there too, and he discovers his abilities as a chef. After the madhouse, he takes a job at a brothel, where Armand begins to make regular appearances of a sexual nature from Pascal's mouth. Hawkes, who has shown himself in previous fictions to be a fantastic stylist of darkly surreal tales that can be as charming as they are disturbing, trips at nearly every step here: Pascal's narrative voice is affected and wearying; his brief tale skims only the surface of every major event and character that crosses its path. Despite the novel's air of allegory, it lacks the thematic depth to carry its conceit. It has its charming moments but, surprisingly, not the sustained wit and invention that usually lifts Hawkes's writing out of the realm of affectation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140252991
• ISBN-13: 978-0140252996
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,368,972 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Irritatingly disappointing, October 16, 1998

By A Customer

"The Frog"'s main character sees the whole world as spinning around him, talks philosophic non-sense since he is only 2 year old and uses everybody around himself in a way that makes himself totally unsympathetic. This book made me wanna put it down after 20 pages. The more I went on and the more I hated it. At the end I could have burnt it. Being able to make a nicely articulated display of the English language doesn't necessarily mean to be a good writer. The story has no plot whatsoever and we only see this stupid boy growing older while the frog he carries in his stomach keeps on being his sexual alter-ego. By the way the story is presented, it is supposed to be a fairy tale, but in this it is totally unsuccessful and it ends up being neither this nor an adult look at the sexual awakening of a young French boy. Don't read it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Writing so good, it's a shame the book is not., June 17, 2001

By	"mike-01" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

The highly elevated and flamboyant style of the unreliable first-person narrator is so scathingly hilarious that I began smiling as I read the first page and did not stop smiling until I had finished the last. For example, here Mr. Hawkes has his eccentric narrator describe a childhood playmate:

"He was as small as an insect, as weak as a spider, a tiny ageless boy who sniveled incessantly and wore large round opaque spectacles. And fear? Why, he was afraid of his own shadow, as the saying goes, and with reason, for Christophe's shadow was a ghastly thing to see, with legs and arms half the thickness of Christophe's actual limbs, which were thin enough, and spindly, black, the poor arms often held outstretched from that wisp of a shadow-body never at rest, and from the ends of which there dangled elongated hands ending not in tiny fingers but in claws, or so it seemed as those brittle uncontrollable hands flapped about to the unheard music of his persecution."

That Hawkes' narrator would choose to describe his boyhood friend with such unabashed derisive mocking (albeit not without a touch of sympathy) is but one of many ways in which he charms us thoroughly even as he behaves monstrously. This playful ambiguity has all the potential in the world to make for a fine and complex novel, but that potential is never fulfilled. The unreality of the fairy tale foundation of the story innately prevents any profundity, and when the story attempts to transcend that foundation and enter our world's reality, the result is absurd: hilarious but not profound or otherwise moving. The writing is a joy to read but the story it tells does not communicate much of a tangible experience, especially given its abrupt ending. I was so taken by the narrator's audacity that I found myself wishing that his story amounted to more it did.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Frog, March 29, 2000

By	Gail L. Gross (USA) - See all my reviews

This book is as densely rich and layered as its main character.