Tonguecat

by Peter Verhelst and  

Tonguecat tells the story of a city's decline into chaos and violence upon the arrival of Prometheus, the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. Prometheus finds himself in a counterculture of squatters, junkies and story-telling whores, called Tonguecats.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374278431
• ISBN13: 9780374278434
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and original; a new direction in fiction

There are some novels that take such a different path from what a reader is used to that they are absorbed more than read. In other words, they cannot be truly appreciated until they are completed, because their ultimate purpose is hidden from the reader by original forms and language. "Tonguecat" is undeniably one of those novels. Peter Verhelst has created a world that is disturbingly familiar to our own, and yet populated by constructs that for all their apparent normalcy are vastly different from anything in our experience. Set in what I would assume to be the relatively near future, Tonguecat occurs in an unnamed kingdom where the world has frozen over in a rapid ice age. As such, all life begins to revolve around warmth, as a practical matter, but also as an ideology or philosophy. Crime revolves around seeking warmth, and as the cold bleaches the world of hope, dreams become the preferred currency.Thus, the setting is relatively simply described, but the plot is far more difficult. First, Verhelst has chosen to tell his story from multiple points of view. Much like Mitchell's "Ghostwritten", each section stands on its own, but the ultimate purpose, or overarching narrative thread, isn't revealed until the final chapters. Verhelst plays with themes of free will, truth and desire, and comments on our own world where perception is frequently treated as reality, even when it stands starkly at odds with the truth.Beyond this unusual narrative arrangement, Verhelst toys with mythology and religion, to the point where I would argue that he has invented a new creation myth, or perhaps more accurately, a re-creation myth. There are literal references to Greek mythology in the form of Prometheus and the Titans, which is interesting in and of itself because unlike the relatively ordered life of the Greek gods, the titans were primeval beings, existing in a maelstrom of chaos and violence. This essence is revisited countless times as the kingdom comes unhinged in ever greater and less justifiable acts of violence which rather explicitly echo places like Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia. On top of this mythological element, there are references to the Judeo-Christian tradition of varying levels of obliqueness. From rather explicit references to the lives of the saints to strong echoes to the story of Noah, there is an element of religiosity which infuses "Tonguecat".The characters are a fascinating blend of the high and the low; from the young king to a peasant boy who has lost his family, each has a part to play in this odd tapestry, but only one has even a rough appreciation of what is actually happening, and even then his grasp is tenuous. As such, this is a novel that will have as many interpretations as readings. To a degree, this is something of a problem as the sometimes random motivations of the characters can bog down the reader's progress as one struggles to keep up with the rather jarring shifts in narrative flow. However,

Outragously original

Reading Tonguecat is one of the most intense and bewildering experiences in my 'reading life'. I still don't fully comprehend the book, but I'm bewitched by the stunning language, the power of the images and the tenderness AND cruelty of the events. In some way or another, this book tells a lot about terrorism and power, but also about human strength. I loved this book.