Pygmy (novel)

Pygmy is an epistolary novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It was released on May 5, 2009.

Plot

The plot revolves around a 13-year-old boy named Agent Number 67 from an unnamed, totalitarian state described as a "mash-up of North Korea, Cuba, Communist-era China, and Nazi-era Germany", as an exchange student to live with an American family from an unnamed Midwestern location as a sleeper agent to execute a terrorist attack on the United States codenamed "Operation Havoc". Nicknamed "Pygmy" by his American family for his diminutive size, he is introduced into the rituals of modern American life such as enrolling in public school and going to church.

He sodomizes a bully, who had been victimizing his host brother, in the bathroom of a Wal-Mart. The scene is described in graphic detail. This is only the first of many acts committed by the operative in order to adjust to American life while preparing with his fellow operatives, who are also masquerading as exchange students, to execute "Operation Havoc".

Novel

A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.

The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years". This view sees the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century,

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.

The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including the historical romances of Scott,Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo."

Moon of Israel (novel)

Moon of Israel is a novel by Rider Haggard, first published in 1918 by John Murray. The novel narrates the events of the Biblical Exodus from Egypt told from the perspective of a scribe named Ana.

Haggard dedicated his novel to Sir Gaston Maspero, a distinguished Egyptologist and director of Cairo Museum.

Adaptation

His novel was the basis of a script by Ladislaus Vajda, for film-director Michael Curtiz in his 1924 Austrian epic known as Die Sklavenkönigin, or "Queen of the Slaves".

References

External links

Novel (disambiguation)

A novel is a long prose narrative.

Novel may also refer to:

See also

Pygmy peoples

A pygmy is a member of an ethnic group whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define pygmy as a member of any group where adult men are on average less than 150 cm (4 feet 11 inches) tall. A member of a slightly taller group is termed "pygmoid".

The term is most associated with peoples of Central Africa, such as the Aka, Efé and Mbuti. If the term pygmy is defined as a group's men having an average height below 1.55 meters (5 feet 1 inch), then there are also pygmies in Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Andaman Islands,Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, and Brazil, including some Negritos of Southeast Asia.

Etymology

The term pygmy, as used to refer to diminutive people, derives from Greek πυγμαῖος pygmaios via Latin Pygmaei (sing. Pygmaeus), derived from πυγμή – meaning a fist, or a measure of length corresponding to the distance between the elbow and knuckles. (See also Greek pechus.) In Greek mythology the word describes a tribe of dwarfs, first described by Homer, the ancient Greek poet, and reputed to live in India and south of modern-day Ethiopia.

Pygmy goat

A pygmy goat is a breed of miniature domestic goat. Pygmy goats tend to be kept as pets primarily, though also work well as milk producers and working animals. The pygmy goat is quite hardy, an asset in a wide variety of settings, and can adapt to virtually all climates. Castrated males are called wethers and can be shown in pet classes. There are also pedigree classes at shows for entire goats.

Appearance

Females, called does, weigh 24 to 34 kg (53 to 75 lb) and males, called bucks, weigh 27 to 39 kg (60 to 86 lb). Wither height ranges from 41 to 58 cm (16 to 23 in). The color and pattern of their coats vary significantly, and can be categorized into caramel patterned, agouti patterned, and black patterned. Within these categories, there are caramel with black markings, caramel with brown markings, brown agouti, grey agouti, black agouti, black with white markings, and solid black.

Reproduction

Pygmy goats are precocial and polyestrous breeders; bearing one to four young every nine to 12 months after a five-month gestation period. Does are usually bred for the first time at about twelve to 18 months, although they may conceive as early as two months if care is not taken to separate them early from male kids. Newborn kids will nurse almost immediately, begin eating grain and roughage within a week, and are weaned by ten weeks of age.

Pygmy (disambiguation)

Pygmy may refer to:

See also