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Under the Frog

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Under the Frog

By: Tibor Fischer
Narrated by: Gergo Danka
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About this listen

Short-listed for the Booker Prize, Under the Frog is set in Hungary in the years immediately following the end of World War II, culminating in the 1956 uprising.

Tibor Fischer's hilarious first novel follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the revolution of 1956. In this spirited indictment of totalitarianism, the two improbable heroes, Pataki and Gyuri, travel the length and breadth of Hungary in an epic quest for food, lodging and female companionship.

©1992 Tibor Fischer (P)2018 W.F. Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Witty

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Critic reviews

"I began Under the Frog on a crowded double decker in a London traffic jam...and soon found myself laughing like an idiot... It is a triumph...painfully moving, it is also uproariously funny." (The Guardian)
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This book is one of the of the most brilliantly witty things I have ever read. The humour is jet black; how could it not be with subject matter so dark? It is very moving too – not all the tears are tears of laughter. A wonderful book.

Laughter and tears.

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From WW2 to the failed Hungarian uprising in 1956, the narrator his takes us through his life under a deeply cynical and dysfunctional system. The writing is brilliant and laugh out loud funny.

Sharply funny take on life in soviet era Hungary

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I’ve started and failed to listen this book 4 times. It start’s off sounding trivial, and the characters a little two dimensional. It then picks up and enters that grey area of “I’ll listen to the end, but it will be mediocre”. But all the while you’ve been unknowingly drawn into one the bleakest and harshest periods of history narrated by characters you cannot fail to care about. Finally, the people pop like Technicolor in the middle of an old black and white movie. The last hour is filled to a level that’s difficult to describe; of hope, pain, utterly heart rending tragic moments, part time dark comedy, ambivalence and caring. It’s the only audio book (I’m well over the 500 mark as I write this) that I ever finished and listened to immediately for a second time. I’m writing this review about 2 years later after a third listening. If I was king for a day (maybe a week) and could mandate everyone to listen to one book, it would be this one.
Buy it. Listen to it. Stick with it as you keep thinking that whoever wrote this review must have been off their trolly. And them finally realise the pleasure of knowing you’ve experienced one of the greatest books ever written. Utterly remarkable.

Greatest book ever written

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The narrator is excellent. He is probably the reason why I persevered to the end. I was hoping the book, based on other reviews, would give a good insight into life in Hungary between 1945 and 1956. It didn’t. It contained a lot of swear words (which wouldn’t have bothered me if the book itself had been good) and I felt it made a shallow book even shallower.

Really not for me

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Too many characters come onto the stage. We get a quixotic portrait of each but they remain no more than actors in a drama rather than people with real lives. I got to the mid point of the book and realised I don't really care what's coming next

Often very funny but is too whimsical to provide much interest

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