I didn’t find this a gripping novel in the way that the
author’s previous book The Collini Case is
gripping: I read that book in a single sitting (see my Review 16 March 2014). With
this one, I struggled.
Roland Barthes back in the early 1950s developed the
concept of a “Degree Zero” of unmarked prose in modern writing; he had in mind
works like Camus’ L’Etranger – the original
English translator of that novel found its plainness so unacceptable that he or
she simply padded out the Spartan text with invented flourishes. Von Schirach adopts
a Spartan style reminiscent of Camus. For well over a 100 pages everything is
described in flat prose, short sentences resisting emotional charge or effect. I
don’t think this is the translator getting it wrong.
For example, though there are clear similarities
between this book and some of Houellebecq’s writings (notably La carte et le territoire reviewed here
1 August 2012), von Schirach – unlike Houellebecq who is very good at it - does
not try to write erotically charged and arousing prose; he just narrates sexual
scenes as he might narrate having a shower.
I was on the point of giving up (even though the book
is very short) when the murder mystery section opens – at page 115 of the 215
page book - and the writing becomes more lively, more open and even funny. The
first joke appears as late as page 142 (top line) and I found it inordinately
funny – that’s what emotional starvation does to you.
Alternatively, you could say that it shows good
crafting, good pacing. I don’t think so. I think the pace – or if you like, the
tone – is unchanged for too long (115 pages say) and then the murder mystery is
compressed and underdeveloped.
Like Houellebecq in La carte et le territoire von Schirach imagines himself into the
work of a modern artist of conceptual orientation (actually a photographer) and
is thus able to create a complete work – a project, an installation – for his
character just using words. The reader can enter fully into this totally
imaginary art work. This perhaps illustrates the weakness of conceptual art,
which is often no more than a narrative illustrated with a few props. But von
Schirach has done his background reading and some of the more interesting
passages in the second half of the book are those which give the background to
his photographer’s disappearing trick.
There is a happy ending which is so brief and abrupt
that it could be called trite.
My advice: in his next novel, von Schirach should
give himself another 50 or 100 pages and he should change the pace, the emotional
tone, more often. Trite but possibly true.
