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A review by selfmythologies
The Following Story by Ina Rilke, Cees Nooteboom
5.0
yoo, i haven't read anything for a few weeks (but i'll be back in april with A TON OF BOOKS PREPARE YOURSELVES I CANNOT WAIT) so instead.... something about this book. i wanted to review it like a year ago when i read it and wrote a paper about it but....i didn't? so here are some brief notes, because it deserves more attention!
It's on my favorites shelf. Why? See, this book has only like 200 pages, and yet it somehow incorporates all of my favorite topics in literature. And feels incredibly wide. I'm rereading this every once in a while and every time I feel like I've just experienced all the Deep Feelings and Big Questions of Humanity.
It's about death (mostly?). It's about the human mind in past and present (the main character is a total mythology / everything Old and Sophisticated nerd and he disregards practically the whole modern world), it's about art, it's about time and reflection, it's about storytelling. It's about love - different kinds of love. It's super surreal but authentic all the same. It's also somehow (and I have no idea how the author does that, but, my total admiration) both (partly) realistic and cynical, and totally beautiful.
And yes, the main character is sort of a pretentious dick - that could cause you to disregard the book pretty easily, and I'd get it, but personally I don't mind that as much because it makes sense in the story. (What I hate is when pretentiousness is treated in an unreflected positive way like ~omg readers root for this character theyre Different and Special~) But in this book it's totally possible to view everything from kind of an ironic distance (given the fact that the whole setting is kind of surreal at the beginning this isn't that hard.)
I especially love the second part, when the protagonist is on board of a ship with other people who also seem to have died recently - it's the mythical motif of the death ship delivering you to some sort of afterlife. It has this wonderful, sort of whimsical....sort of elevating atmosphere to it. But it's never cheesy or melodramatic.
I think this is one of those books that totally depend on personal taste. I mean yes, in a way all books do, but there are some that I would still recommend to anyone because everyone can take away at least a bit from it. This one is more....it has to fit your personality, I think. And it fits mine. It's one of the most "me" books I ever read, and that's why I love it. But I totally get that it's not everyone's thing.
I would still recommend it because it's so short! You can't waste a lot of time. And maybe you'll feel like I do afterwards (super uplifted, a tiny bit sad, and contemplative. Which is my favorite state to be in after reading.)
It's on my favorites shelf. Why? See, this book has only like 200 pages, and yet it somehow incorporates all of my favorite topics in literature. And feels incredibly wide. I'm rereading this every once in a while and every time I feel like I've just experienced all the Deep Feelings and Big Questions of Humanity.
It's about death (mostly?). It's about the human mind in past and present (the main character is a total mythology / everything Old and Sophisticated nerd and he disregards practically the whole modern world), it's about art, it's about time and reflection, it's about storytelling. It's about love - different kinds of love. It's super surreal but authentic all the same. It's also somehow (and I have no idea how the author does that, but, my total admiration) both (partly) realistic and cynical, and totally beautiful.
And yes, the main character is sort of a pretentious dick - that could cause you to disregard the book pretty easily, and I'd get it, but personally I don't mind that as much because it makes sense in the story. (What I hate is when pretentiousness is treated in an unreflected positive way like ~omg readers root for this character theyre Different and Special~) But in this book it's totally possible to view everything from kind of an ironic distance (given the fact that the whole setting is kind of surreal at the beginning this isn't that hard.)
I especially love the second part, when the protagonist is on board of a ship with other people who also seem to have died recently - it's the mythical motif of the death ship delivering you to some sort of afterlife. It has this wonderful, sort of whimsical....sort of elevating atmosphere to it. But it's never cheesy or melodramatic.
I think this is one of those books that totally depend on personal taste. I mean yes, in a way all books do, but there are some that I would still recommend to anyone because everyone can take away at least a bit from it. This one is more....it has to fit your personality, I think. And it fits mine. It's one of the most "me" books I ever read, and that's why I love it. But I totally get that it's not everyone's thing.
I would still recommend it because it's so short! You can't waste a lot of time. And maybe you'll feel like I do afterwards (super uplifted, a tiny bit sad, and contemplative. Which is my favorite state to be in after reading.)