Firmin: Adventures Of A Metropolitan Lowlife
Registered by cluricaune of Armagh, Co. Armagh United Kingdom on 9/9/2010
This book is in a Controlled Release!
This book is in a Controlled Release!
2 journalers for this copy...
"Firmin" is Sam Savage's debut novel, and was first published in 2006. It's also one of the very few books I've ever read where the lead character has been a rodent.
Unusually for a rat, Firmin is a very well-read character - one with the soul of an artist and an eye for the ladies. He was born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a bookshop on Scollay Square in Boston in the early 1960s. The location was something of a last resort for his mother, Flo - a fat, twitchy drunk who didn't cry over spilt beer, but drank it instead. Flo made her bedding from "Finnegan's Wake" - and that proved to be the making of our hero. Firmin was the runt of the litter - the thirteenth child of a mother with twelve teats. (He picked up whatever leftovers he could, lapping up just about enough to survive). Eventually, he started eating his bedding - an act of desperation that, for a while at least, subsequently became an addiction. Few can have devoured "Finnegan's Wake" in the manner Firmin did and he believes his early diet led to his "unusual mental development". When, as a young rat, he decided to add a little variety in his diet, it involved finding - and eating - other books. Soon, he notices that each book tastes slightly differently and, before long, that there's a correlation between the taste and the flavour of the pages and the quality of the writing. (Interestingly, "Jane Eyre" tastes like cabbage). As he grows older, he spends more time and more reading the books and scavenging his meals from around the Square.
In time, his siblings grow up and move on - much like Flo, who is the first to disappear. Firmin is the only member of his family to stay on in the bookshop. He loves being able to watch the comings and goings from his vantage points - "The Balloon" (a crack in the roof) and "The Balcony" (a hole in the wall) - and the conversations he overhears keeps him up-to-date with the outside world. How Firmin views himself, however, is in a constant state of flux...possibly because he seems to feel more human than rat. While he has no real problem with his intellect, he detests his appearance and longs to be able to speak. At various points, he refers to himself as a dreamer and a hopeless romantic...and, yet, he'll still shudder at the thought of the "monster" in the mirror. On his first trip outside, he'd fallen head-over-heels in love with the women in the poster on the Rialto's wall. (The Rialto is the Square's cinema - it shows classic, old-style movies during the day, and porn all night. Firmin loves it there - he often dines on discarded popcorn and chocolate bars, and he spends many happy hours drooling over his 'Lovelies'. Unfortunately, he shows no subsequent interest in ogling any lady rats - and, since the only female rat he'd ever ogled up until that point had been his sister - he also views himself as a pervert and a freak). Given his devotion to the female form, then, it's maybe a little odd that the two most important people to Firmin are male. One is Norman Shine - the owner of Pembroke Books - and the other is Jerry Magoon - an author who rents an apartment upstairs.
The Square is the world to Firmin, with the bookshop and the Rialto between them catering for his head, his heart and his belly. Naturally, though, disaster is on the horizon : Boston's Mayor sees the area as a rat-infested blot on the landscape, which is badly in need of a bulldozer.
A very enjoyable, very easily read book - Fermin, despite his appearance and his low self-opinion, is a hugely likeable character. Comfortably one of the best books I've read in recent years, totally recommended !
Unusually for a rat, Firmin is a very well-read character - one with the soul of an artist and an eye for the ladies. He was born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a bookshop on Scollay Square in Boston in the early 1960s. The location was something of a last resort for his mother, Flo - a fat, twitchy drunk who didn't cry over spilt beer, but drank it instead. Flo made her bedding from "Finnegan's Wake" - and that proved to be the making of our hero. Firmin was the runt of the litter - the thirteenth child of a mother with twelve teats. (He picked up whatever leftovers he could, lapping up just about enough to survive). Eventually, he started eating his bedding - an act of desperation that, for a while at least, subsequently became an addiction. Few can have devoured "Finnegan's Wake" in the manner Firmin did and he believes his early diet led to his "unusual mental development". When, as a young rat, he decided to add a little variety in his diet, it involved finding - and eating - other books. Soon, he notices that each book tastes slightly differently and, before long, that there's a correlation between the taste and the flavour of the pages and the quality of the writing. (Interestingly, "Jane Eyre" tastes like cabbage). As he grows older, he spends more time and more reading the books and scavenging his meals from around the Square.
In time, his siblings grow up and move on - much like Flo, who is the first to disappear. Firmin is the only member of his family to stay on in the bookshop. He loves being able to watch the comings and goings from his vantage points - "The Balloon" (a crack in the roof) and "The Balcony" (a hole in the wall) - and the conversations he overhears keeps him up-to-date with the outside world. How Firmin views himself, however, is in a constant state of flux...possibly because he seems to feel more human than rat. While he has no real problem with his intellect, he detests his appearance and longs to be able to speak. At various points, he refers to himself as a dreamer and a hopeless romantic...and, yet, he'll still shudder at the thought of the "monster" in the mirror. On his first trip outside, he'd fallen head-over-heels in love with the women in the poster on the Rialto's wall. (The Rialto is the Square's cinema - it shows classic, old-style movies during the day, and porn all night. Firmin loves it there - he often dines on discarded popcorn and chocolate bars, and he spends many happy hours drooling over his 'Lovelies'. Unfortunately, he shows no subsequent interest in ogling any lady rats - and, since the only female rat he'd ever ogled up until that point had been his sister - he also views himself as a pervert and a freak). Given his devotion to the female form, then, it's maybe a little odd that the two most important people to Firmin are male. One is Norman Shine - the owner of Pembroke Books - and the other is Jerry Magoon - an author who rents an apartment upstairs.
The Square is the world to Firmin, with the bookshop and the Rialto between them catering for his head, his heart and his belly. Naturally, though, disaster is on the horizon : Boston's Mayor sees the area as a rat-infested blot on the landscape, which is badly in need of a bulldozer.
A very enjoyable, very easily read book - Fermin, despite his appearance and his low self-opinion, is a hugely likeable character. Comfortably one of the best books I've read in recent years, totally recommended !
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Welcome to BookCrossing!
Please make a journal entry to let me know that this book has been caught so I know that it has found a good home with you. I hope you like the book, but I'd be grateful if you'd let me know what you thought of it by making another journal entry when you've finished it.
Then, whenever you are ready to send it on its way, make a journal entry if you are giving or sending this book to a known person, or a release note if you are leaving it “in the wild” again for anyone to catch. Then watch its journey.
If you've decided to sign up, you’ll be alerted by e-mail each time someone makes another journal entry. And it’s confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spamless !
Some faqs : http://www.bookcrossing.com/faqs
Thanks for stopping by, have fun!
Passed to Fleurdelys.
Oh dear! A very different opinion of this book. I found the the idea of a rodent for a main character more than a little unsettling. Overlooking the fact of the rodent as a narrator, I thought that this was puerile, as though the author was trying to create something 'a bit different' and got lost along the way.
Passed this to someone desperate to read it :)
