| View Larger Image | Europa | Paperbackby Tim Parks (Author)
| List Price: | $12.95 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Arcade Publishing | | Page Count: | 272 Pages | | Publication Date: | October 11, 1999 | | Sales Rank: | 643,064rd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Jerry Marlow is on a coach hurtling from Milan to Strasbourg, even though he loathes coaches and everything they stand for:...all the contemporary pieties of getting people together and moving them off in one direction or another to have fun together, or to edify themselves, or to show solidarity to some underprivileged minority and everybody, as I said, being of the same mind and of one intent, every individual possessed by the spirit of the group, which is the very spirit apparently of humanity, and indeed that of Europe, come to think of it, which this group is now hurtling off to appeal.Jerry, suffice to say, is not a team player--not even when it comes to saving his own job.Together with a group of colleagues and students from the University of Milan, he's off to the European Parliament to protest new Italian laws against hiring foreigners--a cause which he opposes, appealing to an institution he's not sure should exist.So why is Jerry on the coach in the first place? Because she is there--the same she for whom Jerry left his wife and daughter and who has since broken his heart.The unnamed she in question is a beautiful French woman (of course), a hellcat in bed (it goes without saying), and an intellect of notable refinement (naturellement). She was also unfaithful, and now they scarcely speak to one another. The rest of this dark and often savagely funny novel (shortlisted for the 1997Booker Prize) consists of one great Joycean rant, a stream-of-consciousness harangue that circles obsessively around sex, the treachery of she, and Jerry's boundless misanthropy. In between we get glimpses of the bus and its motley cast of characters, including, most vividly, Vikram Griffiths, part Welsh, part Indian, with his nervous tics and his self-consciously Welsh accent and his shaggy mutt, Dafydd. As one might deduce from the title, the dream of the new, unified Europe looms behind this tale like--well, like a big, unwieldy metaphor, given expression in the form of Jerry's affair. As a meditation on the continent's future, the novel works surprisingly well, and though it initially takes some time to sort out the looping rhythms of Parks's prose, the reader's patience is repaid in spades. --Mary Park |
Amazon.com Review
Jerry Marlow is on a coach hurtling from Milan to Strasbourg, even though he loathes coaches and everything they stand for: ...all the contemporary pieties of getting people together and moving them off in one direction or another to have fun together, or to edify themselves, or to show solidarity to some underprivileged minority and everybody, as I said, being of the same mind and of one intent, every individual possessed by the spirit of the group, which is the very spirit apparently of humanity, and indeed that of Europe, come to think of it, which this group is now hurtling off to appeal. Jerry, suffice to say, is not a team player--not even when it comes to saving his own job. Together with a group of colleagues and students from the University of Milan, he's off to the European Parliament to protest new Italian laws against hiring foreigners--a cause which he opposes, appealing to an institution he's not sure should exist. So why is Jerry on the coach in the first place? Because she is there--the same she for whom Jerry left his wife and daughter and who has since broken his heart. The unnamed she in question is a beautiful French woman (of course), a hellcat in bed (it goes without saying), and an intellect of notable refinement (naturellement). She was also unfaithful, and now they scarcely speak to one another. The rest of this dark and often savagely funny novel (shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize) consists of one great Joycean rant, a stream-of-consciousness harangue that circles obsessively around sex, the treachery of she, and Jerry's boundless misanthropy. In between we get glimpses of the bus and its motley cast of characters, including, most vividly, Vikram Griffiths, part Welsh, part Indian, with his nervous tics and his self-consciously Welsh accent and his shaggy mutt, Dafydd. As one might deduce from the title, the dream of the new, unified Europe looms behind this tale like--well, like a big, unwieldy metaphor, given expression in the form of Jerry's affair. As a meditation on the continent's future, the novel works surprisingly well, and though it initially takes some time to sort out the looping rhythms of Parks's prose, the reader's patience is repaid in spades. --Mary Park |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 18 reviews)
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The Literary Reader's Fatal Attraction... by D. Kanigan (CT, USA)  5 Stars
April 12, 2008
I need to disclose upfront that I am a huge Tim Parks fan. Anything he writes is 5-star for me. However, to love this book (and his current novel titled "Cleaver") you need to enjoy deeply introspective, first-person narratives, with stream of consciousness rambling reflections of inner monologue that zig and zag back and forth within a lightly veiled storyline (- kind of like this sentence). This book is funny, quirky and Parks does a terrific job in getting the reader into the head of the main character, Jerry Marlowe.
Marlowe, 45, is a Brit and a foreign language translator in Italy. He joins a delegation of foreign language teachers and students from Milan who travel on a bus to Strasbourg to protest against the discrimination against foreign instructors who aren't permitted to be granted tenure. Marlowe could care less about the cause but is pulled to join because of his "Glen Close / Fatal Attraction" pursuit of a former lover who dumps him to have an affair with a colleague. The story takes you on the bus ride and back...
Here's a paragraph that gives you a taste of what's to come:
"Except that this in turn reminds you that her name on the contrary, her Christian name her surname her second name her daughter's name her home phone number her work phone number her address her bra-size her birthday her saint's day her daughter's birthday her necklaces her earrings her bracelets her brooches her ankle-bracelets her shoe-size her complete wardrobe her favorite drinks pastas meats and sweets her brands of perfume of deodorant of cigarettes of tampons of chewing gum, and a thousand other details are things you will never be permitted to forget. You will never be permitted to forget them. So that on more than one occasion, having got the phone down on some nameless tottie, I have found myself dialing her automatically, without even being aware of it. 045, it begins, it began, for Verona, for my age. Then I stop."
If you enjoyed this book, run out and buy Park's fantastic new novel: "Cleaver."
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Breakdown by Penny Lane (France) 5 Stars
December 26, 2001
Of all the thousands of books I have read, this is my all-time favourite. The most beautiful prose I have ever read is contained within these pages. The style is deeply contemplative and finely detailed - reminiscent, at times, of Proust's Recherche Du Temps Perdu. The story meanders through the obsessive musings of the narrator as he allows himself to be led reluctantly on a bizarre and seemingly pointless expedition. Like Hemingway, Tim Parks possesses a distinctly expatriate view of life in continental Europe. His wry commentary on the idiosyncracies of the European Union is strikingly apt even today, as anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of living within its borders will swiftly realise.
Europa is a story of and for the introspective among us - those prone to incessant reflection and, inevitably, regret.
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I Agree by taking a rest  3 Stars
June 04, 2001
Pretentious appears to be a common observation about this book and its central character Jerry Marlow. The word is really not intense enough, for if there is a superlative form of pretentious this book and most of its characters would qualify for the description.Hypocrisy would be another apt description as the main character believes in nothing that he participates in, and this is the man who is to give the presentation of grievances to the European Union that are being brought via, "The Shag Wagon". The members of this tale are firstly the academics and secondly their blindly supportive students. For the former group of Academic males the later groups of students are essentially targets of opportunity for personal romps.The book appears to be a commentary on the absurdity of the European Union and that requires the affected pretensions of the characters to communicate the idea. The, "United States Of Europe" sounds like a punch line from a joke to begin with, and only gets better when the country that will function as the central bank for this United Europe is Germany. And people wonder why England wants nothing to do with this mess! The 20th Century's History alone is enough to ensure this Union never prospers. In the book one currency is being devalued as if its the 1920's and 30's of Germany, and in real life the value of the Euro started sinking virtually the day it was initialized.At times the story is funny in a gray pathetic sort of way, but it also becomes tragically dark and exploitative as it winds down. The Author uses a variety of ways to show just how artificial the links to a United Europe are. There is Vikram; a man who is Welsh, but due to an Indian background is dark of complexion, so he exemplifies Europe without borders as he is also discriminated against because of his complex ethnicity.Jerry Marlow like his fellow teachers is an instructor in languages. However regardless of the language an event takes place in, his memory can only recall it in English. Personal conduct is also brutally contrasted between characters of different nations, and may bother a few readers for the cliché's they reinforce.As a final comment the Author's style takes some acclimatizing as well. Mr. Parks likes to write in paragraphs that run to multiple pages, and sentences that should be multiple paragraphs. This makes for a run on stream of consciousness that you will either embrace or detest. This is the first work I have read by this Author, I may try again but it is not a priority.
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A painstaking, plodding read by J. Mullin (Plantation, FL USA)  2 Stars
March 27, 2001
I wanted to like this book, I really did. The seductive cover, high praise on the jacket, and the fact that this novel was "shortlisted" for the famed British Booker Prize whet my appetite. But I must say, having just put it down, that the book was one agonizing read.The premise for the novel is hopeful - a 45 year old visiting professor at the University of Milan, against his better judgment, joins a motorcoach full of academics and students on a trip to the European Parliament, to protest perceived discrimination by Italian laws restricting their employment. Apparently many of these visiting professors took their jobs as a temporary measure, on a break from writing books or furthering their academic careers elsewhere, and then realized they wanted to keep teaching despite agreeing to term limits. In any event, Marlow agrees to accompany the motley crew despite having no real passion for the cause. There is some unspoken belief that the trip will result in decadence and romance among the students and their older lectors, whose jobs they are all presumably fighting to retain. In fact the whole idea was hatched by a Welsh Indian named Vikram, who chases anything in a skirt, with a wink to our narrator. The reader is reminded a little of the "key party" of The Ice Storm as the riders of the bus begin to nervously sort out their roommates for the hotel.We soon learn that Jerry is plagued with guilt, and that he is obsessed with one of the younger members of the entourage, referred to throughout the book namelessly as "she," with whom Jerry previously carried on an extended torrid affair that ended very badly. Jerry feels guilty for striking the girl, and is likewise guilty about walking out on his wife and teenage daughter after confessing of his affair. At the climax of the novel, as the group makes their pitch at Parliament, Jerry's daughter turns 18 back home without him. Europa is told in the first person, and Jerry's account of the trip is endlessly interrupted by long, looping narrative histories of his affair, of his prior philosophical discussions with his girlfriend, and of his chauvinistic rambling with other male professors discussing conquests of their "totties" (apparently a British term for loose women). The action is never in the here and now, as the reader is taken on one digression after another. For example, a simple question posed to Jerry, when his fellow bus rider asks him what he is reading, leads to pages of self-analytical nonsense that leaves the reader numb. Parks never stays with the action long enough to engage the reader's attention, even when the plot seems to be moving toward an engrossing idea or event. I know it's stream of consciousness, and perhaps we all think like Jerry narrates, but I still like a little bit of plot and narrative structure to my novels. There were a few memorable parts to be sure. Jerry's devastating skewering of the film Dead Poet's Society (which the party watched on monitors on the coach) forever changed the way I view that movie. And the bittersweet tale of a past dinner party involving Jerry, his wife and daughter, and a clearly disturbed Vikram and his young son left a lasting impression. Unfortunately, these lucid moments came all too infrequently in a book dominated by rambling, middle-aged angst. This would have made a better novella than a full length novel.
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Wonderful book by a remarkable writer. 5 Stars
March 10, 2001
I read this rather lenghty book in two consecutive days, immersed in Park's looping, breathtaking, inner monologue, stream of conscience writing. This novel is about an obsessive love afair, a troubled, alienated, at times self-loathing academic with his heart not in the academic game show at all, a tale about the "other" as another reviewer succintly put it, about the complexities of life and the self, and more. A tour de force for this remarkable but underrated writer, with a writing style unlike anything you 've read recently, managing to be literary without being tedius and artificial(see m. amis, pynchon, barth et al.for that), and a striking, powerful ending. Park's musings on life and philosophy, european history and themes are never out of place or turgid, and they make very good reading material, adding a texture to the words.Caught up in an unsatisfying marriage, a dead-end lifeless job, a failed yet once passionate and potentialy life-changing love affair, conflicting feelings and instability, Jerry the protagonist somehow agrees to take a trip to the European parliament to express his disagreement with the wage cuts on his job, which he does not particularly like, with a few fellow academics and a number of female students at his Italian university, and, of course, the french woman who is the cause (or is she just the pretext) for his recent worries. Riding on a bus through Europe and at the same time travelling intensely in his thoughts and memories, Jerry Marlow finds himself thinking more and living less in the present. While all too human interaction takes place, he stays a shadowy figure for the most part of the book for any outsiders to his consciousness. Memory mingles with outer reality, obsession takes hold of him, until they finally arrive to their destination (to his destination possibly) where the last act is played. The mental images from the various settings of the book come back to me very vividly as I write these lines. This is a really good book and I am not going to spoil it any more for you with my mediocre analysis. I hope I made clear that this is not your average type of novel. Do read it.
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