Allegory of French history, which I don't know all that well, but interesting and entertaining anyway as to how little things change in human society. ( )

I like Anatole France; I think his gentle satire and immense learning are a wonderful vehicle for his pleasing prose. But sooner or later I suppose it is inevitable that even in a well-loved author, one will find a book that doesn’t measure up. Sadly—since I was eagerly anticipating this famous work—this was it. The tale is simple: nearsighted monk baptizes the penguins and God, after a curious theological debate, decides to turn the penguins into humans. The rest of the book follows the rise and fall of this “human” civilization and thus gives France the chance to skewer the "high points" of Western civilization. From time to time, flashes of brilliance. Far more often, just disappointing. Tedious even. The successful moments, the perfect set pieces, are simply too infrequent. Not recommended…but don’t let that keep you from France. You just need to choose something else. ( )

A history book about a fictional place. The country in question has a really funny origin and sarcasm and social commentary are what this book is all about.
It starts off in an almost biblical kind of style and progresses quickly through the ages. The later times are longer and more detailed, clearly being a satirical version of real events. Not being a big history fan i know i missed a lot of the jokes but it doesn't matter much.
Even someone like me can still enjoy it from its comedic and social satire angle regardless of my ignorance of french history.
This is just a really good book with a lot of separate little stories in it. I prefer the early parts a bit more than the modern times but it improves again towards the end and is quite good overall. ( )

A strange book, to be sure, and not always interesting to read, but taken as a whole it is a good book. It is essentially an allegory of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization. He shows himself to be a keen observer of human nature and of political systems. ( )

A surprisingly lackluster fantastical satire from Anatole France, the Nobel winner who brought us dozens of French classics. Of the books of his which I've read, this might be the weakest in my opinion. Whereas Thais's prose sparkled like Flaubert's, the writing here is safer. There are moments of great philosophical insight, but it is difficult to take the subject matter seriously. France does not commit fully to fantasy or to Realism and straddles the two awkwardly. He is not really talking about penguins, just humans. They don't act or look like penguins, he is just calling them penguins.

In the small realm of anthropomorphic literature this still serves a purpose, I suppose. It illustrates many of humanity's flaws, but even France has done better elsewhere in his oeuvre. You might look at the discussion between saints on the question of the baptism of inanimate objects and the consecration of animals - the old question of 'will my dog go to heaven?' - as the main thrust of the action in the book, but the developments of the penguinian society requires so much suspension of disbelief that I found myself more annoyed than invested. Dragons? Penguin philosophers, the descent into hell of mythic heroes? Either the author could not decide where he wanted to take his story or he was okay with wandering through every disparate topic that interested him at the time.

Of course, every sentence Anatole ever wrote was well-crafted and intelligent. He's still a great author, but Thais, The Gods Are Athirst, Honey Bee, and any other one of his novels will offer a more interesting display of his storytelling abilities in my opinion. ( )