I started the New Year on a surreal note by reading Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. Not a book I would probably have picked up on my own accord, but given to me by my sister for Christmas. Reading this book in January was ideal – reading about snow bound life in a cold and dark city whilst on the train to work in a dark and snowy London seemed fitting.
The book starts when the protagonist, Viktor, gets a job writing obituaries for the local newspaper. Both his home life and work life are somewhat unusual. At home he lives with Misha the penguin, a King Penguin rescued from the local zoo in Kiev when it went out of business. Misha spends time hanging out in the bath, and staring at the wall in fits of depression. The matter-of-fact way the story of their life in the flat together is told makes it seem quite a normal situation to find yourself in. Sonya, the young girl of his friend also called Misha then moves in after ‘non-penguin’ Misha disappears.
Meanwhile his working life becomes murkier and murkier, as he begins to realise the people he is writing obituaries for before they die (as is common practice in obituary world as my friend who does them for BBC has explained) are mysteriously dying with alarming regularity after his pieces are published. He realises with shock his role in their demise and the link to organised crime takes him into a dangerous world.
