The book I’ve read is Pig, written by Andrew Cowan in 1994. It was his first novel, a drama which made him win a lot of prizes.The story takes place in England, during the industrial restructuring of the country. It is narrated by the main character, a fifteen-year-old boy who has his head in the clouds and lives quite isolated from the real world.The book tells us about the life of an underclass family, seen from the boy’s point of view.The story starts with the death of Agnes, the protagonist’s grandmother and shows how the family reacts to it, taking his grandfather to a residential home for the elderly, and how the teenager spends the summer taking care of the pig his grandparents had, until the house is pulled down to build a theme park.Apart from his Indian girlfriend, the pig will become his only worry, the way he disconnects from all the problems.In this context, the book deals with the troubles of racism, the hate that English people feel towards the immigrants, and the lack of attention that the grandfather suffers. The boy is the only character who really worries about him, the only one who goes to visit him.In my opinion, it is a deep story, but I found it a little bit boring to read, because it doesn’t tell a story in the typical sense, with an ending. It’s just a part of his life. The most interesting aspect in the book is the symbolic meaning that the pig has. From my point of view, the pig is the symbol of the last time of innocence in his life. The pig gets ill and old and finally he has to kill it, what I think it means: he has to face adults’ problems, his girlfriend leaves him and his innocence is gone. All the things that have happened change him and he matures.
To sum up, we could say that it’s a good book, but that’s not because the story is gripping or entertaining, but it has a hidden meaning that makes you think about the problems that appear in the book.
by Águeda Díaz Tuero
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