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A Novel Twist to Tocqueville: Competing Visions of Democracy in Parrot and Olivier in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Joel Johnson
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Abstract

Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America is a fictionalized version of Tocqueville's travels through the young United States. Unlike Tocqueville, Olivier de Garmont is accompanied by Parrot Larrit, an English servant who offers a bold egalitarian counterpoint to Olivier's aristocratic liberalism. This article compares Carey's work with Tocqueville's on the consequences of democracy for political institutions, education, and art; discusses Carey's technique of using alternating narration between Olivier and Parrot to capture the complexities of American democracy; and concludes with thoughts about being a friendly critic of democracy in the twenty-first century. Although Parrot and Olivier is no substitute for Democracy in America, it addresses Tocqueville's concerns in a creative and subtle manner, prompting reflection on whether—to use Olivier's terms—democracy has “ripened well.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 79 , Issue 2 , Spring 2017 , pp. 263 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2017 

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References

1 Carey, Peter, Parrot and Olivier in America (New York: Knopf, 2010)Google Scholar. Hereafter cited parenthetically by page number. Carey is one of only three authors to have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction twice. His Oscar and Lucinda received it in 1988, while True History of the Kelly Gang earned the award in 2001.

2 Ursula K. Le Guin, “Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey: Book Review,” Guardian, Jan. 29, 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/30/peter-carey-parrot-olivier-america.

3 Thomas Mallon, “Tocqueville: The Novel,” New York Times, April 18, 2010, Sunday Book Review, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/books/review/Mallon-t.html.

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19 Tocqueville notes that Americans tend to build new prisons out of reformist zeal, before being distracted by other projects. The result is that “alongside the new penitentiaries… the old prisons remained and housed a great number of the guilty” (Democracy in America, vol. 1, part 2, chap. 7, 72). Carey does not make this same argument directly, but in the novel Olivier visits several of the newer prisons while Parrot finds himself thrown into an old-fashioned one. This seems to underscore Tocqueville's point that forms of punishment in a democracy depend on the changing desires of the electorate; except in moments of reformist fervor, the methods of incarceration will be haphazard and will receive little attention from the public.

20 Ibid., vol. 1, part 1, chap. 5, 63.

21 Ibid., vol. 1, part 1, chap. 5, 62–63, 68–70; Jaume, Tocqueville, 23–31.

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25 Elsewhere, Tocqueville signals some interest in how laws can shape mores. For example, in a note speculating about the relative importance of mores, he writes, “Laws, however, work toward producing the spirit, the mores and the character of the people. But in what proportion? There is the great problem that we cannot think about too much” (quoted in Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, ed. Eduardo Nolla, trans. James T. Schleifer [Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2010], 2:499, note M). I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this citation.

26 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 1, chap. 5; vol. 2, part 2, chaps. 5 and 7.

27 Ibid., vol. 1, part 2, chap. 9, 287.

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32 Ibid., vol. 2, part 3, chaps. 8–10, 12, 17; and vol. 2, part 3, chap. 21, 643.

33 More generally, see ibid., vol. 2, part 3, chap. 9, 591.

34 Later, during the 1830 Revolution, Parrot passes on an opportunity to join the Paris barricades, since at that time he was already employed in watching over Olivier (83–84).

35 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 3, chap. 9.

36 Henry James, The American (New York: Penguin Classics, 1986). See also Tocqueville's account of the “immense obstacles” facing those wishing to marry for love in spite of the expectations of an aristocratic order (Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 3, chap. 11, 597).

37 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 3, chap. 5, 577.

38 E.g., Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, part 2, chap. 6, 241.

39 See Dickens, Charles, American Notes: For General Circulation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1842)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

40 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 3, chap. 9, 590–91.

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45 For two wistful accounts of how the American elite has lost its public-spiritedness, see Zakaria, Fareed, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: Norton, 2007), 220–38Google Scholar; and Sachs, Jeffrey, The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity (New York: Random House, 2011), 150–52Google Scholar.

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54 Charles McGrath, “Peter Carey: At Home in Australia, New York and Writing,” New York Times, April 26, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/books/27carey.html.

55 From the preface of Huckleberry Finn: “PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot” (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ed. Peter Coveney [New York: Penguin Classics, 2002]). From the preface of Connecticut Yankee: “The question as to whether there is such a thing as divine right of kings is not settled in this book. It was found too difficult” (Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court [New York: Bantam Classics, 1983]).

56 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, part 2, chap. 7, 254–56.

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58 “American Vertigo: Book Review,” Kirkus Reviews, May 20, 2010, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bernard-henri-levy/american-vertigo/; Carl Swanson, “American Psychoanalyst,” http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/15546/.

59 Garrison Keillor, “On the Road Avec M. Lévy,” New York Times, January 29, 2006, Sunday Book Review, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/books/review/29keillor.html.

60 See, for example, Harvey Mansfield, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2006, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113831901782357605.

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