Being an animal person I couldn’t resist picking up Algerian born writer’s latest novel Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet. Funny title, funny book, what could go wrong? Let’s say a lot can go wrong in this slim volume, coming in at a mere 162 pages, but the good news is it has a lot to say about the state of the world than most novels that are three times the length.
The main characters are a Enzo; a journalist, his mom, neighbor Joseph, and of course Gino the piglet. The book is about the Romanians vs. the Albanians, mother vs. son, bosses vs. workers and finally Muslims vs. Gino the pig.
You’ll find yourself laughing out loud from the witty words of Mr. Lakhous and the craziness of the world that he shows us is lurking right in front of us. He puts the reader on when people start looking for scapegoats (or pigs named Gino) to further their cause the end results are never pretty.
Instead of trying to get people riled up on fears maybe it’s time to step back for a minute and try to figure out ways to get both sides to understand each other. This is where Gino the piglet who is left on balcony with no water by a Nigerian named Joseph gets the story going but also ends up probably stopping World War III from breaking out. It’s because someone decides it would be funny to let the piglet lose in a mosque.
When word gets out that the mosque goers want the pig dead and the person who did it to come forward and suffer the consequences. The mosque leader wants the piglet killed and the animal activists want Gino taken to a sanctuary. You see at this point the brilliance of Mr. Lakhous as he sends a big old wink to the reader letting them know that we all need to take a deep breath (including this reader) and chill out with all this political correctness.
Being a member of citizen Earth is not easy, there is so much misery and suffering that you almost feel like things are only going to get worse. If everybody would take about four or less hours of their lives and pick up Dispute of a Very Italian Piglet I think we could live in a world with a lot less stress and unhappiness. Gino would certainly say, “Oink” to that.
