"Death and the Penguin": A 1994 Melville International Crime Novel

Len: The setting is Kiev’s just after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Victor has a penguin and then he gets hired by a newspaper to write an obituary for people who haven’t died. (I know, right!) Obviously, there’s weird stuff going on and Victor tries to figure it out, all the time taking care of this penguin and then being downloaded with the care of others. The randomness of events and actions of authorities really provides the reader with the sense of what life must have been like in Ukraine during the early 1990s just after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
It has one of the best endings I’ve read in a book.

Canada on Sep 04, 2023

BookWorm: 'Death and the Penguin' is a book that is easy to summarise but hard to truly describe. It's set in Kyiv during the mid-1990s. The Soviet Union has collapsed and organised crime gangs are running the show in the newly independent Ukraine. The novel's protagonist is an unassuming writer, Viktor, who lives what he describes as a life 'neither good nor bad, just ordinary'. Although he does have a pet penguin - rescued from a zoo that gave away small animals it could no longer feed (something that really did happen).

Viktor takes a job writing obituaries for a local paper, which seems ideal for him - reasonably well paid, not too demanding of his time, and enabling him to write even if it isn't the novel he'd like to. But somehow the hapless author finds himself dragged unwittingly into a tangled mess of organised crime that becomes more complex and dangerous by the day.

The story is told in short chapters and it is very hard to put down once you start - knowing each chapter is just a few pages it's too easy to read 'just one more' and not stop. It's really easy to read, flowing beautifully (credit also the translator for that). And it's very gripping, both because the...

United Kingdom on Aug 27, 2023

Suze: An interesting story with good characters. I particularly liked Sasha the penguin and the little girl. There is a lot of humour in the book too.

United Kingdom on Aug 13, 2023

Margaret Patterson: The book arrived promptly but wasn’t what I would describe as in Very Good condition. The pages and cover were intact and unmarked but the cover was creased and pages were faded and yellow giving it a grubby appearance. . Overall I would have described it as Reasonable at best. Otherwise the book is an excellent read.

United Kingdom on Jul 23, 2023

SJ Ryan: Amazon swears I bought this in March, 2022 so it only spent 16 months or so at the bottom of my Kindle queue before I read it. At this point I’m not sure who or what recommended it. That’s too bad – I’d take more suggestions from them. The penguin in the title is a bird named Misha, who finds itself adopted by unemployed writer Viktor Zolotaryov. Viktor winds up with an unusual gig writing speculative obituaries for a local paper, and Misha winds up with a gig attending funerals–often of people Viktor has written obits for.

The result is an interesting mix of mystery with darkly funny overtones, blended with scathing commentary on the state of Ukraine after the end of the Soviet Union. Kurkov writes deftly and in an almost minimal style, and was ably translated by George Bird. Prior acquaintance with Ukrainian politics or history isn’t necessary to enjoy this entertaining story.

United States on Jul 15, 2023

Nigel Melville: Viktor Alekseyevich leads an unassuming life in Kyiv, in an unassuming flat with his only companion Misha the penguin he acquired when Kyiv Zoo couldn't afford to keep all its stock. “Friendship. Something he had never had. Any more than a three-piece suit, or real passion.” He writes short – very short – stories, but they don't sell, so life looks up when “Capital News” offers him a steady income from writing obituaries (“obelisks”, the editor calls them) of prominent Ukrainian citizens. Viktor takes up the offer and turns out a selection of “obelisks” that are as indiscreet as they are flowery.

Through his new job, Viktor gains new friends. Misha-non-penguin who commissions a private obelisk for a colleague, Sergey the militiaman who looks after Misha the penguin when Viktor has to check out obelisk candidates in Kharkiv, Sonya, Misha-non-penguin's daughter who comes to live with Viktor when her father has to conveniently disappear, and Nina, Sergey's niece who acts as Sonya's live-in nanny. Quite the happy family – except that Misha-non-penguin's disappearance hints that all is not as it seems in the wider world. “An odd country, an odd life which...

United Kingdom on Apr 06, 2022

Alex Leonhardt: In this novel, Andrey Kurkov opens a window into life in Ukraine during the 1990’s. This was a unique time in Ukrainian history that is almost an era unto itself. The novel tells this narrative from the perspective of Viktor who is an unemployed writer living in Kiev with a pet penguin. Throughout this novel, the reader gets a sense of the collapse of society as shown through the morally ambiguous decisions made by Viktor and the other people he meets.
Early in the novel, Viktor gets a job writing obituaries for people who are still alive. He later discovers that these obituaries pave the way for the subject’s death. Despite gaining this knowledge, Viktor continues to write them with almost no thought to the consequences. He decides its best to be more concerned with his own situation than someone else’s. Viktor later befriends a zoologist, named Stepan, who specializes in penguins. Viktor later gets a call from Stepan in which he tells Viktor that he is sick. He finds out that the paramedics had come earlier but did not help Stepan. Viktor has to bribe the paramedics to help him and later has to bribe the doctor at the hospital just to get treatment for Stepan. It is a...

United States on May 11, 2015

Eleanor Lynn: Andrey Kurkov’s novel Death and the Penguin revolves around Viktor Zolotaryov and his penguin, Misha, who Viktor bought on whim when his girlfriend left him and the Kiev zoo was selling its animals. Viktor becomes a contributor to a newspaper—as an obituary writer for the living. Eventually, the people that Viktor writes living obituaries for begin to end up dead and Misha is hired to attend their funerals (because who doesn’t want a penguin at their funeral). As the story continues so too does the complexity of Viktor’s life. Viktor becomes acquainted with a mobster, non-penguin-Misha, who leaves his daughter, Sonya, with him for an unspecified amount of time, which turns out to be forever. Viktor hires a nanny for Sonya named Nina. Together Viktor, Nina, Sonya, and Misha make up a distorted “family” that attempts to wade through the tumultuous mess that is Ukraine in the 1990s.

The most compelling aspect of the entire novel is Kurkov’s portrayal of the 1990s in a broken Ukraine. This era was a time of transition from communism to democracy/free market and thus is a time where rules are not entirely there nor are morals. When one of Viktor’s friends,...

United States on May 01, 2015