"Der fernste Ort" is a
book written by the German
writer Daniel Kehlmann. At the moment (Dec. 2001) there is only the original German version available, an English translation doesn't exist. The book itself was
published in
2001 by the
publishing house Suhrkamp and consists of 148 pages.
The Story
The
protagonist of the book,
Julian, is a young man who isn't able to catch up with his
life. He's working for a
insurance company, and he neither can
feel any
satisfaction from the job nor from his life which seems to be
frustrating and
surreal. After he nearly
drowned while
swimming in a sea, he decided to
pretend his own
death and start a new life. However, his
plan doesn't work out
well. In his new life, he's always
confronted with
persons and
actions from his old life, his
ghost can't really
leave his old life.
My two cents
Daniel Kehlmann wrote with "Der fernste Ort" a
brilliant book. The language is from the
pop literature, and can in it's
style be compared with the
writings of the german
author Sven Regener, whom I consider as the
best German
writer for
pop literature when it comes to
style and
art. Nevertheless, "Der fernste Ort" is the best book I've
read in
2001 because of the
content. The
plot of the book is
skilfully written, as the
author starts the story with the pretended
death of
Julian, at a time the reader doesn't know so much about Julian. Together with Julian the reader explores Julian's new life, and caused by the
impingement with the old life, explores also his old life. This old life is similar to the new one, Julian isn't able to leave his old life. Soon I noticed also some
failures, not in the
story, more in the way Julian is
seeing his life, and in the way his life is. This led to
reflections of my own life as well as of his life, and some text passages which seemed
unimportant suddenly get a new
sense.
Doubt appears, and also
suppositions. It's the
genius of
Daniel Kehlmann that he
establish these doubts and
fuel them but
solve them togehter with the reader near the
end of the book. The solution is
stunning. Because of the doubts not a
real surprise, but to know the
truth is
stunning.
Additional Information:
ISBN: 3-518-41265-5
Online review: http://www.netzeitung.de/servlets/page?section=585&item=168208 (in German)
Other books by this author:
Mahlers Zeit
Beerholms Vorstellung
Unter der Sonne
See also: literature, pop art, pop literature, books