The Fairy Gunmother

by Daniel Pennac

Book Overview

Maybe the worst indignity for a Paris cop is to be shot dead by an old granny he is trying to help cross the street in Paris on a frosty morning. An old lady needs protection with so many druggies... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1860464459
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Pleurez Malaussène, pleurez de façon convaincante

I haven't read a lot of french books in my life, so I won't lose myself in a pointless discussion of how it compares to the writings of any other French autors. This book needs a little understanding of french culture and history, but of course, if you're reading this it's because they mean something to you, don't they? I still wanted to stress that point, because it's the only way to enjoy it thouroughly. Ok, so what's this book about? This is one of several of the Malaussène "family" stories, which is a rather peculiar group of arabic-ascendry immigrants and old people who have been rescued from their loneliness -er, I mean- drug dependence, living in a quartier of Paris. At first they just look like a bunch of crackpots, but that's one of the virtues of writer Daniel Pennac, who never uses a bad-to-good-guys transformation effect but instead takes his characters, talks about their niceties and wrongdoings, and throws them into a nice story so in the end you'll too embrace this odd family. The way of telling the story varies from 3th to 1st person, and if you don't pay attention (or your level of french is not good enough, which was my case) you'll lose the thread of who's talking or what point of view is being taken into account. But that's part of the author's style, which is actually a 'mélange' of styles, ranging from the use of politeness to a bit of rudeness that never insults the reader. And i need to say, it is too darn fun. So go grab a copy of La Fée Carabine and help Benjamin, the innocence himself, inspector Pastor and everybody else solve the case of 'l'égorgeur des vieilles dames'.

An entertaining evening !

Ceux qui connaissent (et aiment) l'attachante famille Malaussène ne peuvent que se régaler à la lecture de la fée Carabine. L'humour, encore une fois au rendez-vous, mais surtout les liens d'amitié tissés entre les protagonistes font de ce roman, qu'il est impossible de décrire en quelques mots, une nuit (!) de lecture des plus divertissantes ! Un conseil: si vous ne connaissez pas encore, lisez d'abord "Au bonheur des Ogres".

Pennac is the most exciting French contemporary writer!

I have now read all four novels about the Malaussene Family saga a dozen times each. It was love at first sight. Pennac's plots are always solid, while being at the time the support for his social comment. I actually translated last year The Fairy Gunmother (although I called it The Shotgun Fairy), for fun, so that I could share my favourite author with my French-Language challenged friends. Those who did not like the book aren't my friends anylonger!

See Bellville before it disappears

Meet Benjamin Malaussène, certified scapegoat. And then meet the zaniest tribe of French and Arabs you could ever imagine, all located in Belleville, a suburb of Paris near the Père-Lachaise cemetery. And then by all means *GO* to Belleville. Eat couscous with merguez, a pork-free sausage, drink sidi-brahim at a sidewalk cafe, and generally have a good time. Only then will you truly appreciate "The Fairy Gunmother"

This book is great! I read the whole series (3)

I also read this in French, but have wished that an English version would come out so that I could give it to my mother! Benjamin Malaussene is the bumbling hero of this crazy, upbeat story set in the postmodern chaos of a Parisien banlieu. His mother has a habit of being carried away in a flurry of passion, only to return each time pregnant without the father. This eclectic assortment of children grows up together under the care of the big brother and a family of Arabs who adopts them as their own. The tone of the book is light and witty without being overly shallow. Pennac touches on issues that are current not only to French society but also everywhere; racism, class struggle, capitalistic values, family values. Yet this is far from a preaching or political book. We are almost far too entertained to even realize the deeper content until thinking back on it in retrospect.