The Frog

ohn Hawkes' "The Frog" is a sensual, indulgent tale about a boy named Pascal who swallows a frog while sleeping beside a pond. The frog's presence induces severe stomach pains, but when Pascal's mother tries to remedy her son's suffering with curatives from the local pharmacist, Pascal determines that he must protect the frog buried in his belly, and thus prevent his mother from seeing what an oddity he has become. From that point, Pascal's psyche becomes fused with Armand, the frog that lives inside him. Throughout his insular life, Armand chooses when he will emerge from Pascal's throat - once, for example, when wooed by a young girl who is more enchanted by Armand the frog than by Pascal the boy. While Pascal freely operates as an agent of his own passions and desires, other times he is nothing more than the motor while Armand steers him, a host overtaken by its parasite. Pascal seldom leaves the cloistered walls of his various homes - the pastoral grounds of the Domaine Ardente, Saint-Mamès, an asylum for the afflicted, and the brothel of Madame Fromage where Pascal serves as a sort of concierge. His life is paranthetical, almost a footnote. At the end the reader is left to wonder how to weave and assimilate Pascal's enigmatic fable into his own. Perhaps there is a larger meaning to this story, or perhaps it is simply a guilty pleasure, a richly-worded, evocative and pleasurable narrative to fill a rainy afternoon...

This book is as densely rich and layered as its main character.