The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird
By: Tom Michell / Narrated By: Bill Nighy
Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
One I’ll listen to again and again. And again.
Full disclosure: The first time I listened to The Penguin Lessons, I, well, I uhm, fell asleep.
I think, no, I KNOW, that says more about me than about the audiobook. Certainly, you can’t top Bill Nighy as a narrator (well, maybe Alan Rickman doing Hardy? Oh, I dunno). To Nighy, it’s not “gargantuan” but garGANtuan. And people aren’t excited, with his voice, they tremble with excitement. And an animal doesn’t have a voice; rather, a penguin speaks with wit and intelligence (Usually, I think it’s kinda embarrassing when an author tries to make one of his animal characters speak. But with Nighy, Juan Salvador actually sounds like a Juan Salvador).
So it wasn’t Nighy. And it certainly wasn’t the writing, neither was it the story. I musta just been pretty damned tired and scattered. Plus, and this is actually interesting… unless you’re tired… there’s a bit about politics and the political situation in the 1970’s Argentina. Perhaps that’s why I nodded off?
Cuz I can’t think of any other reason, as this go-round I listened to The Penguin Lessons all in one sitting.
You know how I read the Publisher’s Summaries, right? They’re hiLARious, but usually they tick me off because they either say too much, too little, or they say the wrong thing. This time, I was a bit peeved that it said the book was sure to delight listeners who loved such and such books, and any books by Jon Katz…
Jon Katz?!? But wha? I mean, Juan Salvador isn’t put to sleep or sent out to a slaughterhouse….
…just sayin’…
Okay, so it’s 1975, and a 23-year old Tom Michell dashes to Argentina to teach at a boys’ boarding school, heeding his inner call to explore, seeking to find adventure abroad. What he finds in Uruguay is an oil spill and thousands of dead penguins washed up onto the beach. Except for a single penguin, flailing weakly. Michell can’t bear it: He saves the penguin.
And naturally, the penguin, dubbed Juan Salvador, saves him, offers him companionship, loyalty, laughs aplenty. Juan Salvador is a hit at the boarding school, hovers on the sidelines during rugby matches, teaches an awkward, gangly, desperately shy boy that he counts in life. The book is loaded with the difference the penguin makes in the lives of those at the boarding school.
But Michell is an adventurer and knows Juan Salvador can’t come with him when he travels. He searches near and far for a place to return the penguin to the sea, to other penguins. Though Juan Salvador has been nothing but loyal and affectionate, certainly he must be lonely for his own kind.
I shed a tear or two whilst listening this time around, I’ll admit it. And when we come to the older Tom Michell, reminiscing about his dear friend, desperate to find a photo or two, I was reminded of a time I wound up re-developing a roll of film, thinking I was going to find new images of my precious departed Edgar Allan (What a cat!), so I could most certainly relate.
We’ve got it here for National Pet Month, but The Penguin Lessons is more like listening to the story of two equals, friends forever. Juan Salvador, though comical, is a wise creature, adventurous in his own way. And the way he displays his trust when he’s saved then later smuggled into Argentina is precious (Note: The comical really comes in when Michell is trying to chat up a pretty young woman on the bus, and Juan Salvador chooses that time to take the foulest of foul dumps).
Seriously, this is a charmer of a story, and it’s a truly terrific audiobook with Nighy doing the narration honors.
But email me if you fall asleep. I’ll understand, but you’ll be in for a bit of a reprimand, all the same. Do NOT waste this book!
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