Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162223 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-31
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Franz Kafka meets George Orwell in this dark, dystopian tale. Set in Paris in the near future, the story revolves around a young woman who works as a beautician and masseuse, and for whom happiness is derived from perfumes, shampoos and generally hedonistic pursuits. One day she realizes she is slowly (and quite literally) becoming a pig. Life as a neophyte porker, she discovers, isn't all that bad, though it does contain some unique dangers. She remains extremely popular with her massage customers, who take unusual glee in adopting her barnyard ways. Unfortunately, it is difficult for a pig to find true love in a human world; abandoned by her lover, her days blur into an endless stream of swine-like debauchery. Then she meets Yvan, a young corporate type who sometimes becomes a wolf.Pig Tales, a Prix Goncourt finalist and overnight sensation in France, is Marie Darrieussecq's first book.

Customer Reviews

"Original" just doesn't begin to describe this one...
If you haven't read Marie Darrieussecq's "Pig Tales" yet, then do. This darkly surreal novel relating the gradual transformation of a glamorous young masseuse into a pig while living in a futuristic horror-Paris is, unlikely though it may sound, a stunner. Dark, unsettling, occasionally stomach-churning: well, yes, all of those - but also wildly funny and madly, extraordinarily inventive.

It has predictably been compared with Kafka and Le Fontaine, but one of the early reviewers (in "Vogue") also mentioned Voltaire's "Candide", and for me this is spot-on. Like Voltaire's masterpiece, Darrieussecq's novel features a central character who is very much an innocent abroad in a world gone mad. There is the same oddly compelling combination of cynicism, scathing political satire and occasional moments of profound human (or porcine) sympathy. And, as in "Candide", the reader is always acutely aware of the fine line between laughter and screaming.

The book is capable of many different readings - its various targets include the beauty industry (more specifically, what Naomi Wolf has called "the Beauty Myth"); capitalist consumerism; tabloid television and "dumbing down"; intense farming methods; political correctness (consider the terrifying storm-troopers of the "Society for the Protection of Animals")...the list is almost endless. However, there is a lot more here than just satire. Darrieussecq's story has a life of its own - the reader really starts to care deeply about her piggy heroine - and there is always the pleasure of her disturbingly sensual prose (and Linda Coverdale's admirable translation): "It smelled wonderfully of last autumn's dead leaves and broke up into small, brittle clumps scented with moss, acorns, mushrooms. I dug, I scrabbled - that odour was like the whole planet entering my body, conjuring up in me seasons, flights of wild geese, snowdrops, fruits, the south wind".

Strong meat, certainly, but this is a deliciously decadent read - don't miss out.

"Original" just doesn't begin to describe this one...
If you haven't read Marie Darrieussecq's "Pig Tales" yet, then do. This darkly surreal novel relating the gradual transformation of a glamorous young masseuse into a pig while living in a futuristic horror-Paris is, unlikely though it may sound, a stunner. Dark, unsettling, occasionally stomach-churning: well, yes, all of those - but also wildly funny and madly, extraordinarily inventive.

It has predictably been compared with Kafka and Le Fontaine, but one of the early reviewers (in "Vogue") also mentioned Voltaire's "Candide", and for me this is spot-on. Like Voltaire's masterpiece, Darrieussecq's novel features a central character who is very much an innocent abroad in a world gone mad. There is the same oddly compelling combination of cynicism, scathing political satire and occasional moments of profound human (or porcine) sympathy. And, as in "Candide", the reader is always acutely aware of the fine line between laughter and screaming.

The book is capable of many different readings - its various targets include the beauty industry (more specifically, what Naomi Wolf has called "the Beauty Myth"); capitalist consumerism; tabloid television and "dumbing down"; intense farming methods; political correctness (consider the terrifying storm-troopers of the "Society for the Protection of Animals")...the list is almost endless. However, there is a lot more here than just satire. Darrieussecq's story has a life of its own - the reader really starts to care deeply about her piggy heroine - and there is always the pleasure of her disturbingly sensual prose (and Linda Coverdale's admirable translation): "It smelled wonderfully of last autumn's dead leaves and broke up into small, brittle clumps scented with moss, acorns, mushrooms. I dug, I scrabbled - that odour was like the whole planet entering my body, conjuring up in me seasons, flights of wild geese, snowdrops, fruits, the south wind".

Strong meat, certainly, but this is a deliciously decadent read - don't miss out.

sensual young woman's account of metamorphosing into a pig
this brilliantly written, lyrical, matter of fact story is compelling: grotesque, fantasical, yet striking a chord. It is every womans nightmare on seeing her own reflection in a shop window. the style smacks of the hero of the obscure, metamorphosis, Albert Camus. Superbly indulgent!