The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke

German fiction

Original title – Das Mushelessen

Translator – Jamie Bulloch

Source – personnel copy brought on Kindle

Birgit Vanderbeke is a German writer ,she lived in Frankfurt growing up and studied German .Before becoming a freelance journalist .She currently lives in southern France .The mussel feast is her best known book and a set text in most German high schools .

This evening of all evenings we’d say we decided to eat mussels.But it really wasn’t like that .Ypu couldn’t call it a coincidence .After the event, of course

The sit to have the mussels what does it mean ?

So the mussel feast is set on one evening a family sit down for the special meal of Mussels to eat .There is a mother son and daughter .The story is being told by the daughter ,all that is missing is the father .As the evening unfolds we see why there having this meal as it is the fathers favourite meal ,the mother really isn’t keen on this meal but happily spends hours scrubbing the mussel’s to the point that her hands start to bleed .This family now in the west had managed to escape the east of German .The family is a strange one the mother is a teacher a nervous women who seeks solace in playing Schubert on the piano .The father has grown up embarrassed of his origins as an illegitimate child this he make the family feel as he tries to mould them in an imagined image of them .The daughter she is the most level head of the family .The son now he gets a lot of dressing down and abuse from the father . So when they sit at 6.00 there is a Erie silence as the father should and always is there ,the bowl of mussel is laying their cooling there to afraid to eat them .The story is virtually poured out as the daughter lets the history of the family and even the bowl the meal is cooked in that came with them from the East to West Germany .The four-hour later a phone rings what’s happened ?

My mother said ,forget the martyrdom ,this is absolute purgatory ,but my father said it helps ,and he laughed at us when we fussed; stop making such a fuss ,he’d say and ,pain is relative that,in fact is true ,because my father had hardly any sensitivity to the sun .

The mother hates the sun but the father seems to think it is a minor point .

Now I love Peirene ,well Meike choices ,this is a classic choice what is amazing is that it has taken 23 years for this book to reach us in English.This still has an impact but at the time would have  been  electrifying  and timely ,yet again showing the importance of people like Meike that champion the smaller books from round Europe ,even thou it is late we still get the glimpse behind the irom curtain  .Now the book its self ,well I know that this is one of those books that has two levels the first is to see it as a family story the story of a family in fear of a father and coping ,surviving come from East to West ,but in some ways regeretting thinks from the east maybe an early example of ostolgia ? .The pther level is what is the father is he more than he seems is he indeed a simple example  for a wider figure in the old east Germany ,the Stasi man (or women ),is the way the family is all in fear of one a wider view of what life was like in East Germany  .Yes the father seems like a repressive regime at times making the whole family bow and bend to his will . Now style wise this is in the classic vein of central european writing that feel of being full on comma after comma ,give an almost breathless feel to the narrative and  add to the feel of the book that makes you feel the tension at the table ,the shadow of this father falls of the page over you as the reader .To the point you worry is he coming back ?

Have you read this book ?

The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink

The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink

german title -Die Gordische Schleife

German Fiction

Translator – Peter Constantine

Well German lit month is drawing to a close again and I had hope to read this in time for Bernhard Schlink week ,but time went against me so I include it here .This is the third Schlink book I ve covered on the blog and the fifth I have read .I must say this is a change from the others ,Being his first novel is a radical shift in style it is a thriller ,written by him self he had earlier co written a novel .

“And to the nameless professor ,who tried to teach me how to cut through the Gordian knot ” he sat down “I reread the story about Alexander the great and the Gordian knot . it was just as the professor said many had tried to unravel the knot ,but Alexander simply cut through it with his sword .

The title is mention on the last page .

SO The Gordian Knot takes it title from a story of Greek mythology Involving a man who had became king and the gods gave him an impossible Knot to untie ,this was there to Alexander the great ,he cut the knot this giving to a phrase cutting the Gordian knot meaning thinking outside the box .Anyway back to the book it is a thriller we meet a translator Georg Polger ,he is struggling till a job turns up translating plans for a military helicopter .This all happens in the office of mr Bulnakov ,also in the office is Mr Bulnakov secretary Francoise .Well Georg and Francoise fall in love .But then he is shock to discover her one day copying the plans he has translated .Before he has time to confront her she has disappeared ,then a chance mention about a photo she had ,that he shows to friend he says is somewhere in europe he friend says no it is New york so he heads of to New York and find out who the women he fell in love with really is in real life .This is a novel about spies and people getting caught up in that world .

“It’s the cathedral in Warsaw where her parents were married “

A short while later Georg’s friend asked to see the photograph again .

“it isn’t a particularly good one “Georg said .”She didn’t like being photographed ,so often took snapshots of her when she wasn’t looking .Though some pictures did turn out quite ….”

That’s not Warsaw .I know that church can’t think of its name it’s in New York.

First hint that Francoise isn’t quite what she seemed to Georg .

 

 

Well this was a real change from Schlink usual soul of the nation style fiction  .That said it was a page turner thou in the style of an airport thriller  or Holiday read ,well that isn’t quite  fair it is slightly better than them .In fact the two things in reading this I was most remind of was firstly Graham Greene Georg is a hapless guy caught up in a spy story but he doesn’t realise it ,rather like James Wormold in our man in Havana he is not the sharpest tool in the box .The other thing I was reminded of was the world of Alfred Hitchcock I felt Francoise is a classic femme fatale the sort women that frequently crops up in Hitchcock films and could have been played by Kim Novak or Eva Marie  Saint  .So this isn’t the most taxing or deep of Schlink books but it is a cracking read and great to see where it all started for him as a writer .Always nice see a publisher taking chance on an earlier book by a writer .

Have you read this book ?

Do you like to see writers earlier works translated ?

 

The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller

The hunger angel by Herta Muller

German  title Atemschaukel

Translator Philip Boehm

Source – review copy

Well this is the third book from the German /Romanian Nobel winning writer  Herta Muller ,Every time I try her books I found myself more drawn into her style and quirky imagery and wordplay .She is a true one-off, this book is another that is set partly in her homeland of Romanian but this time it is in the mid forties as the war is drawing to an end .We see how the German Romanian suffered at the hands of the Soviets .

What can be said about chronic hunger .Perhaps that there’s a hunger that can make you sick  with hunger .That it comes in addition to the hunger you already fell .Then there is a hunger which is always new ,which grows insatiably ,which pounces on the never-ending old hunger that already took such effort to tame .

Leo on hunger when he has been at the camp a while .

We meet Leo he is in his teens and he is a German Romanian just like Herta Muller is herself .We see his life as he is caught up in the post world war two events ,as Romania side with the Germans the Soviets are now rounding up all the German connected Romanians Like Leo to send to the Labour camps ,WE see how this young man caught up in this copes with the horrors of a labour camp we see how a normal man ,this man has a poet’s eye as you will see from who it based on ,has to struggle and change to cope with the system in the camps and is thus on the other side is a broken man and maybe not as free as he seems  .It seems that Muller largely based Leo on Oskar Pastior a German Romanian like Muller ,she was friends with him and they had planned to write this book together meeting near the end of his life and making a journey to the place he had been sent in the old soviet union (now in Ukraine ) to get a feel for the man here is him reading one of his own poems in German  but Oskar passed  away before they could  finish the project ,so this is her take on his time in a labour camp from what she learned in the time they spent together ..

There are also other partners .

I’ve danced with the teapot .

With the sugar bowl .

With the biscuit tin.

With the telephone .

With the alarm clock .

With the ashtray .

With the house key .

This poem on the last page sounds like Paitor from the two poems I ve read and is Leo when he is free or is he ?

 

Well it is an easy piece to compare this to Aleksandra Solzhenitsyn one day in the life .. and in some ways Darkness at noon by Koestler .Both of which show the horror of the labour camps or soviet prison system (yes I know darkness never says it is russia but it is implied that it is ).It does and it doesn’t ,I feel it is Muller own unique style that maybe sets this above the others and the clever use of the Hunger angel metaphor ,each person has their own Hunger angels in their minds what form it takes is unique to each of them .Another hard look into her own origins and that of her fellow German Romanians .Like in her other books they always seem stuck between two worlds and not of one place or the other not Romanian or German and this is rather like Muller’s writing that always seems misplaced not quite german and not quite east european , it is always uniquely her .Another great read for Lizzy’s and Caroline’s German lit month

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite book set in the labour camps ?

 

Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink

Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink

German fiction (short stories )

Translator – Carol Brown Janeaway

Source review copy

Now I am a huge fan  Schlink’s works ,he studied law and now is a professor of law  ,he  also writes crime fiction ,but for me it is his more literary options that always grab me .So when the chance to read this his latest collection of short stories I couldn’t turn it down .It was a perfect fit for both Lizzie and Caroline’s German Lit month ,but also the first Bernhard Schlink reading week which Judith over at Readers in the wilderness is hosting this week .This also follows the news last week that his most famous Novel The reader is one of the world book night choices for 2013 ,I ve already put it down as my first choice to give away .

He had arrived thirteen days before .The season was over ,and with it the good weather .It was raining ,and he spent the afternoon with a book on the covered porch of his bed and breakfast .When he made himself go out into the bad weather the next day to walk along the beach in the rain to the light house ,he first encountered the woman on the way there ,and then on the way back .

Richard and Susan meet on the story after the season .

Well to summer lies .Now my first question is do you ever give a book a theme song ?Well I’ve had a song for this book with the lyric along the lines of  summer days . but for the life of me I can’t place the song .But yes as I read sometimes a song helps me along .So back to the book summer lies is a collection of almost and what might have been .A very clever  collection of stories of what it is to be middle-aged  man and face those points we all have too at some point .We meet a couple  Richard and Susan in the first story He is a man who is set in his way the meets the lovely Heiress Susan on holiday and then wonders how he will fit this women in his everyday life .Elsewhere we see a professor looking into the abyss  as he has cancer .A middle-aged man takes his elderly father to a music festival .We see this as a way for the father and son to connect .A chance meeting on a plane will lead two lives off on different paths .

“I expect you’re pleased that the government …”

It sounded as if father wanted to launch into one of their customary political arguments .He didn’t let him finish .”I haven’t read the paper for days .Not til next week.Shall we take a walk on the beach ? His father insisted on reading the rest of the paper.But stopped trying to draw him into an argument .Finally he folded the paper and laid it on the table “Shall we ?”

The father and son at the Bach music festival looking to connect

This is collection I recall connect with ,something about men at a certain point in there lives .turning points in the path of life .I was reminded of the lines in the film history boys about turning points in history .These stories on the whole are about turning points can A man have a women in his life or not ,what will that decision make in his future (this your are not told but you do wonder ). The son and father will these new sense of closeness last or is it a fleeting moment to be remembered in the future .Schlink does a wonderful job of just revealing enough about each character and there lives to make the story work but just that these are lean stories ,he also has a great eye for the world around him . .These stories cover the world but the fact that the men in the stories seem to be all of a similar age you get a feel of connection via that .It was adapted for radio here recently ,but I thought this is the sort of collection that would make a great film along the lines of Magnolia or short cuts where each story can be jumped in and out off  could be strung into an earlier one .

Have you read Schlink ?

Do you theme songs to books ?

From the diary of a snail by Gunter Grass

From the diary of a snail by Gunter Grass

German fiction

Translator -Ralph Manheim

Source –  personnel copy

Well it’s here again German lit month and this is my first offering a Gunter Grass I have reviewed cat and Mouse by him Before ,so won’t say much about him ,He has won the Nobel prize for literature  in 1999 and is known for quite outspoken at time and being  controversial as well his latest following comments about Israeli  .But he has also campaign for social reform and the social democrats in Germany .This is where this book from the diary of a snail .

This book seems a very personal book looking into Gunter Grass back story ,he was quite close to Willy Brandt (at time he meet he was starting to campaign to be chancellor of Germany ) so from 1961 Grass had worked for something called the political election forum of German writers .This book in the main part follows the narrator that is part of Brandt’s election team as they follow the election of him as chancellor  ,this is also coupled with a story of a Jew during the second world war  in the home city of Grass in Danzig .I ve also wondered a about Willy Brandt from the time I spent in Germany I know how well-regarded he was almost mythical so some glimpse I got by this book where interesting .Also another view of Danzig during the second world war was interesting his great trilogy is also based there but was from a German perspective , not a German Jewish perspective like this book .The title is also a view of how politics work slowly like a snail but also is maybe symbolic we see slugs and snails crop up through out the prose .

For me the election campaign began in a drizzle on the lower Rhine .In the Kleve town hall I spoke on “twenty years of federal Republic ” a speech which afterwards lost weight in some towns ,put a topical fat in others ,and never came to a full stop .

Early on read this and knew I d love it as I lived in Kleve for a year

So after the book visiting a town I had lived in I was gripped .I am a fan of Grass not the man himself I do find he is someone the maybe like the myth of himself and also to be in the public eye a lot .But this has all the classic marks of his writing the Danzig war setting is a theme that has cropped up in a lot of his books ,as has social commentary a book ,like “my century ” also touched these subjects .Maybe not the book to begin a journey with Grass as it is complex but it is also a personal book with the strong first person narrative in the present well the Brandt campaign you feel this is grass himself not a character ..Grass has since published two vols ‘(in english ) of an autobiography the third to come some time soon but due to the nature of the book a dictionary of Grimm’s words that tally to Grass life it will be a while to translate . I shall be reading peeling the onion part one of the collection soon and will see if the character in this book is Grass .

Have you read this book ?

Do you think Grass is maybe a bit outspoken ?

Axolotl roadkill by Helene Hegemann

Axolotl roadkill by Helene Hegeman

German literature

Translator Katy Derbyshire

source review copy

Now Helene Hegeman is the voice of a new German generation of writers this her debut novel she wrote when she was just 18 she had already caught the eye in germany via her blog .It has caused a storm of controversy when it came out in Germany  ,even more when it was found out she had sourced some of the passages from another book on the berlin club scene .Any way she isn’t the first to use other writers work to help there book or the last I would imagine .So what has the voice of generation zero got to say ,this the first real digital generation grown up in mobiles and computers as thou they where part of them .

I grew up wild and I want to stay wild .It’s 3am and my partied-out body is sitting in a taxi ,submerged or death in its role as a victim .The driver telling  me about his son,who left his wife after ten years ,and about his own wife ,who is cheating on him ,and about god ,with whom he claims to have a pretty good connection .

From the forward and haven’t we all had these taxi rides ?

The book is the story of Mifti she is young in fact I picture her as the same age as Helene Heggmann ,as part of this feels like Heggmann has written about her own life in a way she was from a broken family and her mother died  .Anyway back to Mifti she is the youngest in a family by a long way all her siblings have grown up and left home and she is the last one at home and is a very rebellious teen . She has a huge problem with her mother that seems didn’t want Mifti well in Mifti’s eyes .So she discovered her most private thoughts have been read by her mother in her secret diary and descends into a scene of drugs clubs and sex .We see this through her own eyes and also via e-mail ,also each chapter is the title from a song or programme almost giving you a soundtrack to the book .How will it end .Did her mother want her ? Well these are all answered in the book .But I will give you one answer and the is the title of the book an Axolotl is a small amphibian that is popular as an exotic pet to keep because of its strange look and almost smile like face .Yes Mifti tuns into one in the course of the book .

 

Now this is a coming of age book,part of me had to draw my forty-year old self back to my own late teens and early twenties  to see if I could associate Mifti and the answer is yes ?(I always like to do this for coming of age although I have come of age would I like to do it now or then is what I always look to compare ) I could see her life ,in a way had  echos of my own, ok I never club in a big city that often  but I went of the rails a bit drank partied more than I should have done  and railed against my parents .Mifti is maybe a little  more extreme than mine, but I feel  her life would ring true with most modern teens .As for Hegeman borrowing parts of the books from other books or mixing it as she calls ,ok she should sort this before people discovered it ,but the book doesn’t read as thou it is stitched together and as she has grown up in an age of dance music which on the whole tends to sample and mix together other people’s work into something new .I feel this is the first in what maybe a great new voice in german writing but time will tell it is an accomplished debut by a young writer .She has also raised is this maybe the way fiction could go like dance and other media boring from other people’s work could we see Joyce’s books brought to a modern Dublin ?

Have you read this book ?

Do you see a future in people mix other people’s books ?

Alice by Judith Hermann

Alice by Judith Hermann

German fiction (short stories)

Translator – Margot Bettauer Dembo

Judith Hermann is from Berlin ,she grew up there studied German and philosophy ,work at German newspaper as an intern after that .The got a grant from the Berlin Academy of art to live in Alfred Doblin house ,she then published her first collection summer-house ,this Alice is her third collection and is darker than her earlier works .Judith Hermann is part of the new wave of female german writer like Julie Zeh AND Jenny Erpenbeck .Alice made the longlist for the independent foreign fiction prize and is from the new press The Clerkenwell Press  first collection which is an imprint of Profile books .

So what is Alice about well it is a collection of five short stories ,rather like the collections from Kauzo Ishiguro and Cees Nooteboom in the last couple of years these are theme stories but also all contain the same person Alice ,the theme is death  so maybe it is a composite novel of interlinking stories ,but these two recent short story collections sprung to my mind straight after reading the book .We see how Alice is effected by these deaths and the deaths are of people she is connected with the first few are friends ,some she really isn’t that close to then by the fourth story Malte her gay uncle and lastly her own husband and how she deals after he suddenly died  .I must admit I wasn’t overly bowled over by this collection ,I found the first there stories very similar in tone Alice was there some one died ,the writing is beautiful but I felt the first three stories were very similar in tone and feel also other than place Alice as the heroine ,friend and a little bit about her as a person ,as the first three men die ,Misha is dying zweribruken with his wife and children Alice is there to help ,then a couple she vaguely knows in Italy invite her to stay  and lastly a friend in berlin as he knows his death is impeding planning out what happens during and after his death she visits him and his wife  .

The last time she visited richard and Margaret she’d brought peonies at this same stand ,having first thought about it for a long time .Seven peonies please ,and don’t add anything ,an uneven number a superstition ,five were to few and she didn’t have enough money for nine .

Details is something Hermann does well like this thought on buying flowers .

 

 

I just wasn’t  very inspired by this collection ,I m not sure if that is at moment or it’ll be one of those books that six months down the line I ll go yes I get it  totally and what Judith Hermann was trying to do . As an insight into death and coping with it’S aftermath it is well written the way every one copes those stages of grief  as something I ve dealt with via work for over twenty years  I struggled to connect with Hermann’s vision and using  Alice as the motif through the stories   thou we do see her interact with the dying , bereaved and her own grief  ,she never leaped of the pages as a character for me to connect with .I felt she was just there to drive the stories not be built on as a character in herself  I know it is come in short stories for us to know little of the character other tha the situation we meet them in ,I just felt Alice’s character maybe need some more filling out .I must admit Dembo has done a wonderful job in translation as Hermann’s writing is beautiful in parts she has a real eye for details that was enough to keep me going to the end ,in parts remind me a little in the skeleton prose of Carver and Cheever  .Those thin slices they brought to life so well  ,in this case it is death we’re dealing with but unlike carver and Cheever Hermann just hasn’t hooked this reader yet .I will try her other books at some point .Oh I must admit this is strange my first slightly negative review but that is beauty of reading a longlist like the Independent foreign fiction prize you get to try books you may not normally try out  books out of your comfort zone and this book fell into both these categorises

Have you read this book ? 

Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki

Next world novella by Matthias Politycki

German fiction

Translator – Anthea Bell

Matthias Politycki is one of the most succesful German writers of recent years having published twenty novels and some poetry collections .Shocking this is his first book in English !!.born in Karlsruhe he has won numerous awards ,recently on board ship as a writer in residence on a cruise ship .he is also a huge real ale fan .

Now I quickly tweet with Matthias last year when the book came out I then read the book,but got stuck on reviewing it always intending to get round to it but some how it fell from my review pile ,then when the IFFP longlist was announce I remembered I need to review it .Well my main problem first time round was how to describe the book but like every good book coming back and glancing through it months later you go oh yes and oh that .So what is next world novella about it is a story of a couple on is alive the other has just died although you could say in hind sight she maybe died before that .the couple Hinrich schepp a sinologist ,now we discover he recently had an eye operation and as his sight improved his eyes reopened on the world .Doro his wife another academic working on manuscripts .She is the one that has died and now we Hinrich who has found her looking through this manuscript .

Schepp almost reached towards the manuscript to put it some where dry then only to embrace Doro ,warm her perhaps put her to bed .

this manuscript will change his life .

Well as he reads he sees something different the notes his wife had been writing in the margins form another story that as it unfolds he sees it  is his story ,his wife knew what he was up too (don’t they always my Amanda knows me better than me ) .This shocks him there in later  middle life .He had an affair with a younger women a waitress in a bar he went to after his eye operation .This man like Hinrich has had bright hopes but hasn’t seen them through and it turns out the Doro an equally talent women gave up her chances academic stardom to be with Hinrich .

As you see this is a book where the point of view shifts what was real at the time wasn’t what is thought hidden wasn’t and Hinrch had missed it all but I must admit as a man we do sometimes miss simple things(although I ve never had an affair I tend to miss things I done that upset Amanda don’t we all ?) .I think that is why I struggled to review this first off although Hinrich life isn’t like mine at all I can see faults he has and faults .I maybe found that hard to deal with first off sign of a good book .This book also has a number of motifs a painting of a lake and the after life as Doro was obsessed with the afterlife when she was alive maybe she is living it via Hinrich reading .I was also reminded of the film Last year in Marianbad a bit that film is about a man who thinks he met a women the summer before but the women says she hasn’t that is a bit like the fact that Hinrich saw his life one way but in Doro’s eyes it was different  This book would make A great book for a male book group and might I say as I know Matthias like his ale this would be on to discuss and have a drink other at the same time .I’m pleased this of all the year of man Peirene press books made the longlist of IFFP .A very gentle translation of a book that is subtle and clever by the wonderful Anthea Bell .

Have you read this book ?

The wall jumper by Peter Schneider

The wall jumper by Peter Schneider

Translator – Leigh Harfey

German Fiction

Peter Schneider is a German writer in the sixties he was very active on the German student movement ,he has written numerous novel ,short stories and film scripts ,he currently teaches at Georgetown in the USA .This book was originally published in the early Eighties and is about the Berlin wall we are introduced to an array of characters that have jump the Berlin wall and survived from east to west ,one such character is Robert an east Berliner who was attracted to the bright lights ,we meet him in a bar in Berlin and we find that he is finding it hard to adjust to his new life in the west .As he struggles he has descended into drink .Other stories are about people wanting to see western films .Lena an ex lover of the narrator of this book whose whole family are still stuck in the east side of germany .There is a lot of sorrow at times in these tales of the grass not being greener on the other side of the fence .

In conversations with Robert ,it has become clearer what I’m looking for :the story of a man who lose himself and starts turning into a nobody .By a chain of circumstances still unknown to me ,he become a boundary walker between the two german states .

the narrator weighing up Robert .

When I saw this on the library shelf I was quite looking forward to it as one of my favourite films is der himmel über berlin (wings of desire )which is set just before the Berlin wall fell and the wall is a large character in that film ,and it is in this book but some how I found Schneider writing very dry almost Journalistic in a way .The description of the people the narrator talks to all feel like the could have been drawn from the newspapers of the time ,you never get further than the story of how they got there and how they are coping ,we also get a lot of factual info that slow the narrative at a point .I m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book I did I just think if I d read it twenty years ago just as the wall was there or just after it has fallen  I d called it the best book I d ever read but time has passed and it is a good book on the time and the power the wall had on the city not just as a barrier but also as a symbol for the cold war .I m sure in another twenty years this will be a must read for the generations that can’t remember the wall .The book was translated by Leigh Harfey a reasonable translation you get no clue to if the book was a s dry in the original german but I think it may have been .

Have your read this book ?

The pigeon by Patrick Suskind

The pigeon by Patrick Suskind

German fiction

translator – John E. Wood

 

Suskind is best known for his book Perfume and also the fact he doesn’t give any interview so very little is known about his life .This book is a very short fable like story of a man driven to the edge by a pigeon .er that sounds familiar a bit like the raven by Edgar Allen Poe yes this is sort of homage to that .

So we meet Jonathan Noel a french security guard this man likes order in his life in fact you could say he is a little to order and has borderline OCD .hiding himself from the world since his wife left him .So when one day a Pigeon decides to make his home in his apartment.

Now he saw the pigeon .It was sitting to his right a distance of about five feet ,at the very end of the hall crouched in one corner ,So light fell on the spot and Jonathan cast such a brief glance in that direction ,that he could not discern whether it was asleep or awake ,whether its eyes was open or closed .

Jonathan weighing up the pigeon .

I could imagine Jonathan being a reality tv star ,the man who hide for 30 years with a job that has minimal contact with people as that is what Jonathan thinks he wants little human contact  and a small apartment in a large building where he can hide as he dash trying to be unseen for the communal bathroom .You feel  Suskind is maybe using this as wider vision of modern man don’t we all live somewhat in bubbles these days ?This story has that strong German tradition of fables like Grimm the story can be read in many ways and although very short 77 pages in this edition from penguin with a largish font  .is the pigeon a symbol of something Jonathan lost in his life and by trying to chase the pigeon he may find again ?The book owes much to the Poe poem for the inspiration of the bird to drive some one to the very edge and has what many would call a Kafkaesque edge to it in the fact that Jonathan is facing a unknown foe in the pigeon and also facing the world some what a new because of the pigeon .I liked perfume and was pleased this although different to perfume completely is still beautifully written tale .

Have you read this book ?

do you like fables ?