The Pigeon - Suskind

Following on from the Perfume thread, I toddled down to the local bookshop and bought myself a copy of The Pigeon, also by Suskind. And I was glad I did.

It tells the story of a middle-aged man, a kind of obsessive-compulsive with a bit of a rejection complex. He's lived in the same small bedsit for decades and worked for the same bank as a security guard the whole time. One morning, however, he sees a pigeon in the hallway of his apartment block and gets The Fear. Suddenly, his life is turned upside down, and the rest of the novel follows him for about 24 hours as his brain begins to buckle under the pressure of losing his routine.

It's a novella, more than a novel, about 100 pages of large-fonted text which one can read in a matter of hours. It's extremely powerful, with some wonderful (if occasionally disgusting ) imagery.

I'd put it up there with the best books I've read for one reason: As Jonathon's (the protagonist) emotions change, so did mine - I was swept along with this guy completely: I was fearful, relieved and angry when he was. The vivid, clear manner in which Suskind writes is a breath of fresh air (especially after a few of the books I've been reading of late).

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's ever enjoyed authors like Camus / Sartre / Houellebecq or, of course, anything else Suskind's ever written.