A fictional character in the first story is the narrator of a later story. And this is where it is starting to get truly weird. But in a later story this narrator is identified as Leo, a writer and protagonist in the first story. A narrator stands above the characters in a story, it does not normally interact with them.įair enough. This is amusing and a joy to read, but it also cleverly connects two, normally separate, layers of fiction. In one story, the main character starts interacting with the story's narrator. Often, the links are of a more fundamental, deeper kind. This would be impressive enough, in my view, but I have only scratched the surface. But I don't think Daniel achieved a mastery of the level shown in Ruhm in his earlier work, so this technique is spot on here. Daniel constantly swapped internal and external views of characters in the novel, and I ended up asking myself which view reflected "reality"? Is it the view a character has of himself? Or is it the view others have of him? And of course, we have not seen these flips in perspective for the first time - Daniel loves thinking about internal and external realities, indeed, he explored this theme also in Mahler's Zeit.
When, later on, I inhabited the thoughts of a different protagonist, in a different chapter, I observed the protagonist of an earlier chapter with external eyes. When I encountered a character as the protagonist of its chapter, I inhabited the character's mind from the inside. This device, in the way I read the novel, created an effect as if I (the reader) was empowered to look at an event, or the personality of a character, in two ways. Often, the links between the stories are embedded in one fictional "layer", and we encounter the main character of one story as a side character in another, and vice versa. I do not often give 5 stars to a book, but this one impressed me.ĭaniel presents his material in nine interlinked brief stories. The whole universe conspires to interfere in the storytelling. And connection there must be, for a perfect parody on the silliness of Paolo Coelho's universal humbug follows the characters in the shape of a fictional Brazilian bestseller author whose books litter the hotels of the globe. Nine great stories, forming a novel of sorts if connected. fiction takes over where life left off? Do we want that to happen? Do we have any choice in the matter?
What if there is no difference between reality and fiction anymore, as we all live virtual lives that we can modify according to our level of imagination? What if the author is kind enough to offer a terminally ill character a magical healing - only to make the story disappear altogether by removing the plot? Is that better or worse than the tragedy of the death of the character? How much power does a human being have to write him/herself into a meaningful story? How much power does the author have to change the fate of his characters?
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