Description
Book SynopsisFor two years Solomon the elephant has lived in Lisbon. Now King Dom João III wishes to make him a wedding gift for a Hapsburg archduke in Vienna. The only way for Solomon to get to his new home is to walk. So begins a journey that will take the stalwart elephant across the dusty plains of Castile, over the sea to Genoa and up to northern Italy where, like Hannibal's elephants before him, he must cross the snowy Alps. Based on a true story, Saramago’s tale is an enchanting mix of fact, fable and fantasy.
Trade ReviewIt is extremely funny. Old Saramago writes with a masterfully light hand, and the humour is tender, a mockery so tempered by patience and pity that the sting is gone though the wit remains vital... a series of contained miracles of absurdity, quiet laughter rising out of a profound, resigned, affectionate wisdom -- Ursula K Le Guin * Guardian *
José Saramango wrote his final book with great panache -- Margaret Reynolds * The Times *
Here is a book as serious as it is charming; amid its ironies runs a sustained pleas for the subversive workings of the imagination: "every elephant contains two elephants, one who learns what he's being taught and another who insists on ignoring it all". Thank goodness for that'
* Guardian *
A novel of wit, warmth and wonder -- Yann Martel
Here he has seized the opportunity to turn an unlikely tale of a transalpine hike into something far larger even than its elephantine subject. -- Amanda Hopkinson * Independent *
