One Big Damn Puzzler - Hardcover

Harding, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385609019 ISBN 13: 9780385609012

Publisher: Doubleday, 2005

Synopsis

Is be or is be not, is be one big damn puzzler...On the day the plane brought the white man to the island, Managua was, as usual, preoccupled with his translation of Hamlet. As the only islander who could read, let alone write, he felt the burden of his culture rested plenty damn heavy upon his shoulders. The plane's arrival meant he'd have to put aside his work, strap on his leg and make his way to the landing beach to greet the newcomer. The island had welcomed visitors before, of course. The British had been there, rather noncommittally, but they had bequeathed their language, half a hotel, the small pigs that now ran wild in the jungle, and Shakespeare. Then the Americans with their military base, its soldiers and guns. That had not been a happy time - as the many landmine casualties testified - apart from the Coca Cola. And there was Miss Lucy, who had embraced island life and its traditions, even if she did over-indulge those silly She-Boys. But what to make of this new arrival, this young lawyer from America with his strange nervous gestures and his fervent belief in doing the right thing and winning reparation for the Islanders?Managua sensed that William Hardt's coming to the island would change everything. And he would be proved plenty damn right...This achingly funny, rich and supremely moving novel confirms John Harding as one of contemporary fiction's most entertaining and observant chroniclers of the human condition.

About this title

About the Author

John Harding was born in the Isle of Ely in 1951. After local village and grammar schools, he read English at Oxford. He worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine writer and editor before becoming a freelance writer. His first novel, the bestselling What We Did On Our Holiday was shortlisted for the WHSmith New Talent Award. His second was the much-acclaimed While the Sun Shines. He lives in Richmond upon Thames with his wife and two sons.

From the Inside Flap

IS BE OR IS BE NOT, IS BE ONE BIG DAMN PUZZLER

On a remote South Pacific island paradise the struggles of an elderly tribesman to translate Shakespeare s Hamlet into the local pidgin English are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a young American lawyer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. From that moment on, nothing will ever be the same . . .

What follows is an ambitious and wonderfully original novel, inviting us into a sublimely imagined world teeming with life, ideas and full of wonders the islanders with their strange notions about sex, their madly logical rituals and their tortured but addictive version of the English language, a curiously large number of people with artificial legs, and the dwarf pigs they hunt (when they can be bothered). It s a place where magic is everywhere, where you can buy a potion to make someone fall in love with you (all it costs is a few yams) and visit the kassa house and discover that the dead may not be so dead after all. It s a world so different it questions our own values and ideas about love, life and even death.

Life-affirming, achingly funny and profoundly moving, One Big Damn Puzzler confirms John Harding as one of contemporary fiction s most entertaining and observant chroniclers of the human condition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385609019
• ISBN 13: 9780385609012
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496