This is a queer, cockeyed dog of a novel. In it, horses are crucified for their unwholesome sexual appetites, the elderly are auctioned off for the young to abuse and farm animals get days off. Prominently featured, too, is one of my favorite character types, the overbearing and reliably psychotic mother. For a taste of Vian's comedic skill, read pages 58-59, starting with "Vulgar, vulturous, vulpine villagers!.
(Boris Vian had a particularly interesting
life. He was a Jazz trumpeter, film actor, author, playwright, cabaret
singer, translator, record company executive and Transcendent Satrap of
the College de Pataphysique. The man also had a heart condition and, to
make up for the lost hours anticipated by an early death, hardly ever
slept. He calculated that at the age of 40, he would have lived as long
as someone 102 years old who had slept normally. He died in 1959, aged
39, watching a film version of his satirical erotic novel, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (I Spit on Your Grave), of which he strongly disapproved.)
