Translated by Carol Brown Janeway.
Would it be fair to surmise that Kehlmann’s favourite letter is F? His previous release entitled Fame; the current one taking this conciseness to the extreme? Leaving the reader to guess its meaning. Let’s see …
1) The Friedland family – their dysfunction triggered by an aberrant
2) father. The opening section, in which Friedland the elder takes his 3 sons from 2 marriages on an outing, proves formative for both generations, as
3) fate lies in wait.
4) Fame results for Friedland the elder as he pens a book with the Werther effect.
5) Faith (or rather lack of it) characterises the life of his eldest son who becomes a priest (a father of a different ilk) and finds his solace in food.
6) Flab being the outcome of that.
7) The futures of his twin sons are no less inauspicous.
8) The financier turns to fraud.
9) The artist turns to forgery.
10) Foul play throughout. The Friedlands aren’t alone in their sophistry.
11) Funny for sure.
12) At times a little flimsy. Though that might be due to a filosophy worn lightly.
(Exits with coat …)
© Lizzy’s Literary Life 2014
Thank you for such a brilliant blog post – I’m currently reading this and absolutely loving it and I’m so glad you didn’t post any major spoilers!
Have to agree with you, it has to be his favourite letter!
Thanks again, Hannah 🙂
Fabulous and funny review of a book I keep seeing everywhere!
That’s wonderful! 🙂