Reading group reviews: Down the Rabbit Hole
26 June 2012 / 5 Comments
We gave away reading group sets of Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos. If your reading group or book club has read the book, please do use this page to post your reviews and see what other reading group members think of it.
About the book
Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants and the odd corrupt politician or two.
At 130 pages, Down the Rabbit Hole is a gem. To find out a little more about the book you can read an extract here.
Find out more about Down the Rabbit Hole.
About the author
Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. He studied marketing and Spanish literature. He has done a great deal of market research and published travel stories, and literary and film criticism. He now lives in Brazil and has two Mexican-Brazilian-Italian-Catalan children.
About the translator
Rosalind Harvey has lived in Lima and Norwich, where she fell in love with Spanish and translation respectively. She now lives in east London where she translates Hispanic fiction. She is currently working as translator in residence at London's Free Word Centre and co-translating the latest novel by Enrique Vila-Matas with Anne McLean.
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5 Comments
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Gail Rogan 08:59, 20 September 2012
Down the Rabbit Hole is a chilling and thought-provoking book – the narrator is an amoral child being brought up in isolation by a drug lord – despite this, there are elements of humour throughout. The voice of Tochtli has an authentic ring and the author and translator have done an excellent job in making this realistic. While his pre-occupation with corpses and various forms of murder disturbed many of our group, we could not help but feel that this was the voice of a lonely child who was rich in possessions but who lacked for human contact. He has no mother and is unable to relate to other children. The biggest influences on his life appear to be his tutor, television, the dictionary and the employees of his father. The journey to track down the Liberian pygmy hippopotamus was quirky and full of fascinating observations – the ending of that story was quite painful to bear though. The introduction of the book was also a fascinating read and worth reading both before and after the novel – given the subject matter it appears strange to compare it to Alice in Wonderland but after reading, we could see that it did fit with that genre – the quirky characters and the bloodthirsty theme. (Bluebirds Reading Group, Craigavon)
sarah ormes 09:25, 20 September 2012
What Tochtli wants is a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus… And what Tochtli wants, he shall get. Tochtli is a young boy living within the surreal confines of his uber-rich drug baron father's guarded compound. As you can imagine, such an upbringing gives a rather unique and shocking perspective on life. The novella pivots around the quest to procure Liberian pygmy hippos as playthings for young Tochtli. Told through the eyes of Tochtli, who is overindulged, and isolated from the outside world, it’s a fascinating character study of a little boy, who is as ordinary and intriguing as any other boy his age, but also extraordinary with regard to his grandiose expectations and the mentors and companions he spends his time with. In the course of one pivotal and surreal episode in his life, it charts a spectacular demise of innocence. Tochtli’s earnest turn of phrase is hilarious. But the reality is grim. If you like your stories darkly comic, quirky, thought-provoking and even heart-breaking, give this special little book a go. A real one-off. Ali, Reading In the Bath Group
Tracy Herrmann 09:56, 5 October 2012
This book was read by 9 members of reading Group 1. The general feeling was that the book is an example of good literature and probably well written but it is not an enjoyable book and is not easy to read. Some of the groups comments :- - I can imagine it will be read in centuries ahead and studied as an example of 21st century society. - I was saddened by the book because it was quite realistic and and I fear too many people share the same bad perspective of life. - I did not enjoy the book and will not be rushing to read others by this author. The writing did not flow. Although the sentences were short the names were too long and I could not pronounce them. -A strange tale of a 7 year old boy living with a wealthy father and the child has no understanding of his father's drug dealing. The boy picks up knowledge about different weapons and the ways people can be killed but with a child's innocence as to the consequences. Both tragic and comic. - This book did nothing for me. I read it in the hope that it would go somewhere but it did not. - This was a non- read book for me. It should have been put down the rabbit hole and then buried!
Geraldine Wilson 11:29, 8 October 2012
What a strange, yet wonderful little book! Only 70 pages long and quite unlike anything else I've ever read. Tochtli is a little boy living a lonely existence in his drug-baron father's compound in Mexico. Very bright and precocious, Tochtli's interests are wide ranging and macabre. He is preoccupied with death and methods of killing people, yet talks with an endearing matter of fact innocence. His father has a private zoo with tigers and big cats (handy when he wants to dispose of the bodies of his enemies) and Tochtli has a longing to own a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. The expedition to procure this creature goes disastrously wrong but Tochtli's pragmatic pleasure at receiving the stuffed heads is both comical and horrific. I found myself chuckling at the little boy's thought processes, but underneath the surface the dark realities of his father's dealings threaten and the scene where they watch a samurai movie together is full of foreboding. The book can easily be read in one sitting and it is probably best to do so. I thought it was a little gem.
Shadforth WI Book Group 11:38, 19 December 2012
Review from Shadforth WI Book Group: At only 70 pages long this is more of a novella than a novel but it packs a powerful punch. Seven year old Mexican boy Tochtli loves long words, hats and the Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. He is being brought up in isolation and loneliness surrounded by his drug baron father Yolcaut and his henchmen, none of whom baulk at cruelty and murder. Tochtli is not protected from this - in fact his ability to look dispassionately on a man already beaten up and about to be further tortured and killed is seen as a test of his ability to be 'macho' by both his father and himself. Yet Tochtli is only seven and he does not understand the reality of what he sees. He does not face what death means until late in the book when he watches two killings and because he cares for the victims he finally cracks, screaming and wetting himself. Even then his father does not try to comfort him and yet Yolcaut loves his son in his own way - he never hits him, buys him endless presents and protects him. What he is doing though is psychological abuse and Tochtli's apparent ability to deal with all the horrors he sees is belied by the fact that he regularly suffers crippling stomach pains which a doctor rightly diagnoses as psychosomatic, much to the anger and disbelief of Yolcaut. Tochtli's isolation is made very apparent in that he can count the people he knows - 16 by the end of the book, none of them children - but he points out that he knows many more corpses! His tutor Mazatzin offers a different perspective but he too has his problems. He is obsessed by all things Japanese, even calling Tochtli by a Japanese name. As the boy points out, educated people know nothing of the world. What he does not see is that he also knows nothing of the world. Bleak as all this is there are moments that make you smile simply because Tochtli sees things as a child e.g. after a graphic description of ways to kill he points out that humans have necks which is a great temptation - especially for the French people! (He is very interested in the French Revolution and the guillotine!) It's depressingly clear at the end that Tochtli's future will be to become his father - there is no-one to help him, no feminine influence, no friend - and it left us feeing very sad. Having said that it was an intriguing and interesting story and we would like to read more by this author.