The Elephant Keepers’ Children

Peter Høeg, translated by Martin Aitkin

Random House

Otago Daily Times, September 6th 2012

Peter Høeg’s latest novel, The Elephant Keepers’ Children, is a wonderfully madcap mixture of action, adventure, and existential philosophy. 

Peter and Tilte live on the tiny Danish island of Finø where their father is the local pastor and their mother the official church organist. The children are only too aware of the fact that their parents are far from responsible adults; for years they have been manufacturing ‘miracles’ as much for fame and profit as to build their congregation, but when they go missing en route to a holiday in the Canary Islands it becomes apparent that they are involved in a much larger and more audacious scam than ever before.

Aided and abetted by a colourful collection of local identities, Peter, Tilte and their dog, Basker, set out to find their errant progenitors before they can put their plan into action.  Matters are complicated by the fact they are themselves pursued by political, religious and psychiatric authorities and their misanthropic headmaster, the wonderfully named Alexander Flounderblood.

The narrator, Peter, intersperses his description of events with his own idiosyncratic theories on emotional and spiritual freedom, adding an additional dimension to already convoluted plot. Hugely entertaining and extremely funny, The Elephant Keepers’ Children is the perfect antidote to the ills of the everyday world.