The Thought Gang

by Tibor Fischer and Fischer

Book Overview

Tibor Fischer's first novel Under the Frog was one of the most widely praised books in England in 1993. That book followed the fortunes of two young men in the pursuit of sex and the avoidance of work as part of a traveling basketball team in the Hungary of the 1950s, and everyone from Salman Rushdie to A.S. Byatt responded with unbridled enthusiasm.

Now comes his eagerly awaited follow-up, another hilarious chronicle of an unusual dynamic duo--this time chasing after something quite different--and the London papers are even more enthusiastic. The Thought Gang is an unabashedly comic novel of ideas and uncertainty. It is a philosophical novel (or perhaps just a novel about a philosopher). It is also an unusually cinematic novel. As the Sunday Telegraph said, "There are novels which are crying out so loudly to be made into films that you cannot read them without a cinematic version taking shape in your mind, frame by frame, as you turn the pages. Tibor Fischer' The Thought Gangis one of them." Perhaps it could best be described as Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction crossed with Woody Allen's classic comedy Love and Death.

The setting is France; our hero, a washed-up middle-aged British philosopher named Eddie Coffin. Broke and unsure as to his next meal, he meets Hubert, an incompetent, freshly released, one-armed robber, and the "thought gang" is born. Applying philosophy to larceny, these unlikely bandits question the meaning of life, the value of money, and the role of banks as they wind their way from Montpellier to Toulon in search of the greatest heist in history. Unexpected and volatile, The Thought Gang is the hilarious and thought-provoking story of their travails.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565842863
• ISBN13: 9781565842861
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Eddie Coffin, Unfortunately, Is My Role Model

I've read this thing every bit of twenty-one times. It is a work of audacity, genius and supremely mordant humor. To say I over-indetify with (and more than somewhat resemble) the protagonist (excepting the baldness) is to do a great injustice to Dr. Coffin. This is the book that got me through graduate school sane, for a relative value of "sane." This is an unwholsome book to take as a guide to life at *any* age (paraphrasing Hemingway), but damned if it hasn't mostly worked so far. I only got canned once. You've *got* to read this. Get someone else to do the work.

Fischer at his best

My favorite work by Fischer. I can't say anything about this that hasn't been stated already- I just wanted to add my two cents. I love this novel. I've read it four times since I first picked it up in '99. It is whimsical, hilarious, poignant, original and (best of all) a completely dead on send up of academic philosophy/ers. Experience in point: as an (philo)undergrad, I lent my copy to all my favorite philo profs. Only one of them thanked me. And he didn't return it. Even if you don't dig on the love 'o wisdom bag- you will laugh out loud at this book. And his other novels as well (though I will say, if you are a female- you may like Under The Frog or The Collector Collector, better- I've noticed a trend that way, with my female friends who ask for good reads).

Cliches are the truths we're bored with....

Tibor Fischer is one of the best writers on the planet -consistently hilarious, fiercely inventive and possessed of thatintuitive insight which makes you think - "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" The Thought Gang is a blast - a bald, lazy, dishonest Cambridge Philosophy professor joins forces with a one armed, sociopathic, French armed robber to form the Thought Gang - bank robbers with a philosophical bent who embark on a bank job spree in the south of France. From the ridiculous to the.... well, even more ridiculous really, Fischer draws you into his world where statements such as "I suppose we've all found ourselves running brothels in Amsterdam without the proper training at some time or another" or questions like "Does it help being the clever pig on the way to the abbatoir?" are pretty much the norm. Many zeds and Fischer's penchant for turning nouns into verbs add to the sense of absurd realism, giving the Thought Gang the feel of a Woody Allen movie, but with more philosophy (if that's possible).Both the Collector Collector and Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid are excellent, while Under the Frog is even better. If you've never read any Tibor Fischer, you are definitely missing out. So treat your brain to some comic philosophy (or is it philosophical comedy?) - read the Thought Gang.

A Slacker's guide to Riches

I feel that if I don't get you to read this book I've done a great wrong in the whole scheme of things. This book is the funniest thing I've ever read (Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a close second). Fischer has a brillant command of the English language and the way he twists words around will have you gwaffing as you reach for your Greek/English Lexicon. I couldn't put it down--even the fourth time I read it! If you like books that aren't straight laced and that break every rule of novel writing you'll dig this. In other words, if your idea of a debaucherous time is renting a R rated movie on Saturday night, look else where, but if you've got a pulse and muscles to laugh with, don't hesitate to buy this book imeddiately.

Funny & Frantic Romps thru Felonies & Philosophies in France

Middle-aged layabout Eddie Coffin wakes up naked & groggy in an apartment full of child-pornography just as the police break in. If you ever find yourself in similar circumstances, Eddie advises "try to be good-humoured and polite" because "it makes the police fret about having got something wrong." So begins this hilarious tale of a tenured philosopher at Cambridge who absconds with departmental funds to France, where he meets up with a deranged(?) one-armed robber named Hubert, a psychopath with "a gluttony for erudition." Soon the two of them are on an increasingly improbable crime-spree, rifling bank-vaults & schools of thought with equal aplomb. As the loot mounts and the police circle ever closer, Eddie & Hubert decide to make one last, climactic heist, to put the capper on their caper career and to put their philosophical conclusions (which include contributions from the Ancient Greeks to Nietzche) to the ultimate practical test. Tibor Fischer has created a side-splitting narrative that is as full of deep intelligence as it is full of belly-rending guffaws. This is a novel whose pace puts the average potboiler to shame and whose implications stretch the envelope for literary fiction. Eddie & Hubert are characters you will love to hate and vice-versa. If you have an appetite for Felony and Philosophy, then this book is a must-read, a re-read, and a keeper.