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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
war soo gefesselt wie schon lang nicht mehr, am anfang zwar eetwas slow aber dann… CRAZY!!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Police brutality, Antisemitism
Minor: Gore, Sexual violence, Violence, Cannibalism, War
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ein gutes Buch, das leider nicht hängen bleibt aber zwischendurch sich selbst etwas aufhängt. Ist okay und passabel geschrieben, aber kein Muss. Anstatt von "Imperium" vielleicht doch lieber "Faserland" ein drittes Mal lesen.
You want a bizarre read? This one is positively coco-loco!
This is based on the true story of a German man, August Engelhardt, who at the beginning of the 20th century makes for the South Seas and then-German New Guinea. He buys an island — buyer and seller neglected to tell the natives already living there — in order to create a sort of utopia dedicated to the worship of the coconut.
Yes, the coconut.
Cue that scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where two knights are "riding" through the countryside and one is banging the shells of a coconut together to simulate the sound of a horse's hooves against the earth.
Yes, this is pretty much what you would get if you stretched that scene to novel-length and sprinkled in a bit of leprosy and a lot of malnourishment.
August, you see, is a "cocovore." He eats only coconuts, nothing else, believing that their high proximity, up in the trees, made them something of a "godly" fruit.
The surrounding facts of August's coco-obsession are a bit murky, so author Christian Kracht has filled in the blanks. Is the resulting novel more outlandish than the real-life events? Who can say.
There were moments in the first forty or so pages that I considered giving up on this one. The way this is written is, what can one say, unique.
The opening paragraph provides you with some idea of what you're in for:
"Beneath the long white clouds, beneath the resplendent sun, beneath the pale firmament could be heard, first, a prolonged tooting; then the ship's bell emphatically sounded the midday hour, and a Malaysian boy strode, gentle-footed and quiet, the length of the upper deck so as to wake with a circumspect squeeze of the shoulder those passengers who had drifted off to sleep again after their lavish breakfast."
Yes, they're all like that, so it takes you a while to settle in. I read the first thirty pages, put this one aside for a week or so, picked it up again, realized I didn't really remember much on the pages I'd read, went over them again, realized I still didn't quite remember what I'd just read — despite having just read it — but proceeded anyway.
As I said, it takes a while to settle in, for your mind to get on the same wavelength as the sentence structure. If you can't get with the rhythm, it's very difficult to hear the words.
The first part, i.e. the first 70 pages or so, are mostly set-up. I wouldn't call these pages boring exactly, but they aren't especially interesting. More like an experiment in endurance.
In the second part, the subsequent 50 or so pages, things seem to get going a bit, and in the third part, the remaining 50 pages, this actually gets pretty good. Unfortunately, I doubt many readers will have done the work to get that far.
In some ways, this reminds me of an Umberto Eco novel. [b:The Island of the Day Before|10506|The Island of the Day Before|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1435151040l/10506._SY75_.jpg|1792697] in particular. Which is to say, "Imperium," like most any Eco novel, features some rather challenging language obscuring what it is a pretty compelling story. You have to work a bit for this, in other words. It's more stick than carrot, but suffering the stick makes the carrot (or perhaps, the coconut?) all the sweeter when you get to it in the third act.
I don't exaggerate, the third act really is quite good. It's just a shame that the whole book couldn't have been as good, really.
What I particularly liked about "Imperium," though, is that I haven't ever read anything like it before. Yes, it's part "The Island of the Day Before," but also part "Robinson Crusoe," and "Heart of Darkness."
I liked it, I didn't love it, but I won't soon forget it.
This is based on the true story of a German man, August Engelhardt, who at the beginning of the 20th century makes for the South Seas and then-German New Guinea. He buys an island — buyer and seller neglected to tell the natives already living there — in order to create a sort of utopia dedicated to the worship of the coconut.
Yes, the coconut.
Cue that scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where two knights are "riding" through the countryside and one is banging the shells of a coconut together to simulate the sound of a horse's hooves against the earth.
Yes, this is pretty much what you would get if you stretched that scene to novel-length and sprinkled in a bit of leprosy and a lot of malnourishment.
August, you see, is a "cocovore." He eats only coconuts, nothing else, believing that their high proximity, up in the trees, made them something of a "godly" fruit.
The surrounding facts of August's coco-obsession are a bit murky, so author Christian Kracht has filled in the blanks. Is the resulting novel more outlandish than the real-life events? Who can say.
There were moments in the first forty or so pages that I considered giving up on this one. The way this is written is, what can one say, unique.
The opening paragraph provides you with some idea of what you're in for:
"Beneath the long white clouds, beneath the resplendent sun, beneath the pale firmament could be heard, first, a prolonged tooting; then the ship's bell emphatically sounded the midday hour, and a Malaysian boy strode, gentle-footed and quiet, the length of the upper deck so as to wake with a circumspect squeeze of the shoulder those passengers who had drifted off to sleep again after their lavish breakfast."
Yes, they're all like that, so it takes you a while to settle in. I read the first thirty pages, put this one aside for a week or so, picked it up again, realized I didn't really remember much on the pages I'd read, went over them again, realized I still didn't quite remember what I'd just read — despite having just read it — but proceeded anyway.
As I said, it takes a while to settle in, for your mind to get on the same wavelength as the sentence structure. If you can't get with the rhythm, it's very difficult to hear the words.
The first part, i.e. the first 70 pages or so, are mostly set-up. I wouldn't call these pages boring exactly, but they aren't especially interesting. More like an experiment in endurance.
In the second part, the subsequent 50 or so pages, things seem to get going a bit, and in the third part, the remaining 50 pages, this actually gets pretty good. Unfortunately, I doubt many readers will have done the work to get that far.
In some ways, this reminds me of an Umberto Eco novel. [b:The Island of the Day Before|10506|The Island of the Day Before|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1435151040l/10506._SY75_.jpg|1792697] in particular. Which is to say, "Imperium," like most any Eco novel, features some rather challenging language obscuring what it is a pretty compelling story. You have to work a bit for this, in other words. It's more stick than carrot, but suffering the stick makes the carrot (or perhaps, the coconut?) all the sweeter when you get to it in the third act.
I don't exaggerate, the third act really is quite good. It's just a shame that the whole book couldn't have been as good, really.
What I particularly liked about "Imperium," though, is that I haven't ever read anything like it before. Yes, it's part "The Island of the Day Before," but also part "Robinson Crusoe," and "Heart of Darkness."
I liked it, I didn't love it, but I won't soon forget it.
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It's an interesting premise, and the English edition is well written at the sentence level. As for the intriguing relationship between colonial Germany and this vegetarian cultist, it might have been too understated and sly for my taste. My sense after finishing it is that the book relies on a kind of detached and ironic perspective to avoid creating either a really deep character study or a serious engagement with German imperial culture.
Trotz der komplexen Hypotaxe und der hohen Fremdwortdichte gut bekömmlich und leicht zu lesen. Absurd komisch und unterhaltsam.
First things first: this book is great and you should read it. I found it deeply enjoyable and odd in a a manner reminiscent of Fitzcarraldo: a story of absolutely genius/idiotic zeal.
Second things second: if you don't read this review, at least read the Wikipedia description of the book because if it doesn't make you want to read it, I just don't know what to say to you.
See?
Imperium is another version of history. Is it the true story of what actually happened to August Engelhardt, erstwhile coconut-fancier and daydreamer? The answer is well, maybe? This doesn't claim to be an encyclopaedic retelling of the man's life - instead it uses the bits and pieces that are known and works upon them in a sort of hallucinogenic fugue.
The story, put plainly, is this: man enamoured of coconuts – an offshoot of vegetarianism – moves to a city in a far-flung German protectorate called Herbertshöhe and proceeds to establish his colony.
What sort of a place was the setting for this colony? Well.
So the coconut paradise is set up – more or less – and this idealistic man and reality begin to chafe. Throughout the novel, there's the feeling that Engelhardt is almost a holy fool: he's easily gulled by conmen and those experienced in colonial graft. He inexplicably continues on his mission, and is joined by would-be adherents, bearing honour and ill will both.
This has an impact on the man's health to an extent almost as profound as his all-coconut diet.
There's other characters here, and they're drawn deftly, though without as much effort as is put into the main man. There's a soft touch, particularly with those who actually existed, and there's the distinct feeling that some of the additions are trials sent to a Pacific Job. The figures within sometimes appear a little indefinite, but I suspect that's a conscious choice: there's a vaguely dehydrated, heat-haze aura to the proceedings here.
The novel has an excellent way of attaching Engelhardt's journey farther from civilisation to larger developments in the world he longs to escape. Time and time again, he runs across - unknowing! - larger figures in 20th century history. His life both crosses over and parallels those of other notables – from Einstein to the creator of Vegemite to Thomas Mann to the first Maori NZ MP, to... Hitler? - in a manner that expresses how interconnected the world was becoming at this juncture, despite the novel's key figure's attempt to isolate himself.
Naturally, this includes commentary on the rise of fascism across the globe, and of antisemitism. Despite isolating himself, Engelhardt cannot escape the greater machinations of the world no matter how secluded, how mosquito-eaten his surroundings. The connectivity of the globe increases, despite his reticence. The problem is that he loses his ability to adapt to the world, and views his surrounds through the cracked prisms of self-doubt and self-belief. He runs up debts he'll never pay and encourages adherents he cannot transform. He is liberated and broken upon the wheel of his coconut dreams, and Kracht creates an excellent portrait of someone enslaved to their dream.
Again, if you've read the Wikipedia description of this book, you don't need my words to push you towards it. Make the leap: you may not transition to the ranks of god-eating cocovores but you will have a good time.
Second things second: if you don't read this review, at least read the Wikipedia description of the book because if it doesn't make you want to read it, I just don't know what to say to you.
Imperium is a 2012 satiric novel by the Swiss writer Christian Kracht. It recounts the story of August Engelhardt, a German who in the early 20th century founded a religious order in German New Guinea based on nudism and a diet consisting solely of coconuts. The fictionalized narrative is an ironic pastiche.
See?
Imperium is another version of history. Is it the true story of what actually happened to August Engelhardt, erstwhile coconut-fancier and daydreamer? The answer is well, maybe? This doesn't claim to be an encyclopaedic retelling of the man's life - instead it uses the bits and pieces that are known and works upon them in a sort of hallucinogenic fugue.
The story, put plainly, is this: man enamoured of coconuts – an offshoot of vegetarianism – moves to a city in a far-flung German protectorate called Herbertshöhe and proceeds to establish his colony.
What sort of a place was the setting for this colony? Well.
The German protectorates in the Pacific Ocean were without exception, in contrast to the African possessions of His Majesty Emperor Wilhelm II, completely superfluous. In this the experts agreed. The yield of copra, guano, and mother-of-pearl was far too inadequate to maintain so large an empire sprinkled around the infinitude of the Pacific Ocean.
So the coconut paradise is set up – more or less – and this idealistic man and reality begin to chafe. Throughout the novel, there's the feeling that Engelhardt is almost a holy fool: he's easily gulled by conmen and those experienced in colonial graft. He inexplicably continues on his mission, and is joined by would-be adherents, bearing honour and ill will both.
Engelhardt was overwhelmed by that realization. Indeed, it cut him to the proverbial quick and began to take effect there as if it were a resounding, humming field of energy. Yes, indeed, the coconut—the delectable thought now revealed itself to him—was in truth the theosophical grail! The open shell with the meat and the sweet milk within was thus not just a symbol for, but in actual fact the body and blood of Christ.
This has an impact on the man's health to an extent almost as profound as his all-coconut diet.
There's other characters here, and they're drawn deftly, though without as much effort as is put into the main man. There's a soft touch, particularly with those who actually existed, and there's the distinct feeling that some of the additions are trials sent to a Pacific Job. The figures within sometimes appear a little indefinite, but I suspect that's a conscious choice: there's a vaguely dehydrated, heat-haze aura to the proceedings here.
The novel has an excellent way of attaching Engelhardt's journey farther from civilisation to larger developments in the world he longs to escape. Time and time again, he runs across - unknowing! - larger figures in 20th century history. His life both crosses over and parallels those of other notables – from Einstein to the creator of Vegemite to Thomas Mann to the first Maori NZ MP, to... Hitler? - in a manner that expresses how interconnected the world was becoming at this juncture, despite the novel's key figure's attempt to isolate himself.
Naturally, this includes commentary on the rise of fascism across the globe, and of antisemitism. Despite isolating himself, Engelhardt cannot escape the greater machinations of the world no matter how secluded, how mosquito-eaten his surroundings. The connectivity of the globe increases, despite his reticence. The problem is that he loses his ability to adapt to the world, and views his surrounds through the cracked prisms of self-doubt and self-belief. He runs up debts he'll never pay and encourages adherents he cannot transform. He is liberated and broken upon the wheel of his coconut dreams, and Kracht creates an excellent portrait of someone enslaved to their dream.
Again, if you've read the Wikipedia description of this book, you don't need my words to push you towards it. Make the leap: you may not transition to the ranks of god-eating cocovores but you will have a good time.