Robert Pinget - Baga

I'm blessed with the willingness of others to share literary treasures and guide me on reading pathways that transcend the three-for-two offers tables of local bookshops.

One such discovery is the French author Robert Pinget. My starting point (available at my local library) was the comic novel Baga. The story is of a corpulent king of a mystical nation who seems to want no more than to be left alone. Leaving actual management of the country to his Prime Minister (a somewhat sinister and manipulative character) drags the country into war leading to the king retiring to the forest to live as a hermit. Later he poses as a women and lives with a pair of nuns, before being restored to the throne. The novel is delightful, absurd and irrelevant - taking well aimed sideways potshots at the great institutions of monarchy, government and the church. A small but perfectly formed book which deserved re-reading.