Collector Collector, The: A Novel [Paperback]

The Collector Collector takes a conventional boy-meets-girl story and turns it into a brilliant comic romp. The hero of Tibor Fischer`s tale is an antique bowl that comes into the possession of a lovelorn, young London art appraiser named Rosa. Rosa`s bowl is no ordinary piece of clay, however: it is a ceramic sage, an urn of uncommon erudition that has witnessed all of history`s major convulsions--revolutions, famines, massacres, wars--and has survived more than four hundred breakages and three thousand thefts.

By investing his bowl with soul, Fischer give us a hilarious, mantel- eye view of depravity and redemption, sex and lust, burglary and archaeology. "A writer gifted with a formidable imagination" (The Washington Post Book World), Fischer takes us on a thrilling ride from the primitive societies of prehistory to the equally primitive society of present-day London.
Tibor Fischer was born in London in 1959 and educated at Cambridge. He is the author of Don`t Read This If Your`re Stupid, a collection of stories, and Under the Frog, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1993, the year he was named by Granta one of the "Best Young British Novelists." He lives in London.
The Collector Collector takes a conventional boy-meets-girl story and turns it into a brilliant comic romp. The hero of Tibor Fischer s story is an antique bowl that comes into the possession of a lovelorn young London art appraiser named Rosa. Rosa`s bowl is no ordinary piece of clay, however: it is a ceramic sage, an urn of uncommon erudition that has witnessed all of history`s major convulsions—revolutions, famines, massacres, wars—and has survived more than four hundred breakages and three thousand thefts. By investing his bowl with soul, Fischer gives us a hilarious, mantel-eye view of depravity and redemption, sex and lust, burglary and archaeology. With prose that is anything but inanimate, Fischer takes us on a thrilling ride from the primitive societies of prehistory to the equally primitive society of present-day London.
"Stranger books have seldom been written, and when they have, they`ve seldom been this fast-paced, this funny or this effortlessly readable."—Detroit Free Press

"Fischer is a pyrotechnic craftsman with a crackling wit and an untethered imagination."—The New York Times Book Review

"A highly entertaining book from a writer who is gifted with formidable imagination, soul and an admirable determination not to repeat himself—or anyone else for that matter."—The Washington Post Book World

"The Collector Collector is the freshest, most fascinating novel I`ve read in years. Tibor Fischer is a literary magi with a dazzling deck of aces up his sleeve. This cat can flat out write."—Tom Robbins