Product Description

A novel about a British philosopher who teams up with a one-armed French convict to rob banks, from Montpellier to Toulon. Tibor Fischer has also written "Under the Frog", which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #236558 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 311 pages

Review
"Acerbic, dashingly inventive, very funny indeed."-Christopher Hitchens, "Mail on Sunday"
"Hilarious, fast-moving stuff."-"Independent"

About the Author
Tibor Fischer was born in Stockport in 1959 of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London, where he now lives, he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won the Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.

Customer Reviews

The only philosophy book that ever made me cry laughing
Tibor Fischer's excellent meditation upon the indubitable crapness but inherent attractiveness of life instantly joined my top ten novels of all time upon my first reading, and climbs higher up the chart with every revisit.

The quality of writing is impressive, a real joy is taken in playing with words, sending sentences cascading towards sometimes hairy conclusions with the irreverence of a drunken muskateer, to which the plot, when it is evident, plays a sometimes psychotic foil. Do not read this novel in a public place, unfortunately, laughing alone is no longer viewed as socially acceptable.

Somewhere between the laughs though, a depth of emotion and seductive strength of characterisation draw you into this other world, and there are a few one-line asides on the general impossibility of life, that would make any philosopher proud.

All in all then, the novel serves as a hilarious analogy for life as it appears within the novel, hugely imperfect, but strangely beautiful and effective.

This is my favourite book so far
Of the many books I have read so far, I have come to the conclusion that "The Thought Gang" is the best. It's the mixture of philosophy, comedy and improbable situations, all told in such wonderful sentences. It's been a year or so since I last read it and I have so far owned about 6 copies, as I keep giving them away to friends, urging them to read it too. Every time I summarise the plot to people, they fall about laughing and say "That would make a great movie!" Is anyone up to that challenge I wonder?

Funny & Frantic Romps thru Felonies & Philosophies in France
Middle-aged layabout Eddie Coffin wakes up naked & groggy in an apartment full of child-pornography just as the police break in. If you ever find yourself in similar circumstances, Eddie advises "try to be good-humoured and polite" because "it makes the police fret about having got something wrong."

So begins this hilarious tale of a tenured philosopher at Cambridge who absconds with departmental funds to France, where he meets up with a deranged(?) one-armed robber named Hubert, a psychopath with "a gluttony for erudition." Soon the two of them are on an increasingly improbable crime-spree, rifling bank-vaults & schools of thought with equal aplomb.

As the loot mounts and the police circle ever closer, Eddie & Hubert decide to make one last, climactic heist, to put the capper on their caper career and to put their philosophical conclusions (which include contributions from the Ancient Greeks to Nietzche) to the ultimate practical test.

Tibor Fischer has created a side-splitting narrative that is as full of deep intelligence as it is full of belly-rending guffaws. This is a novel whose pace puts the average potboiler to shame and whose implications stretch the envelope for literary fiction. Eddie & Hubert are characters you will love to hate and vice-versa. If you have an appetite for Felony and Philosophy, then this book is a must-read, a re-read, and a keeper.