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A review by robin_go
Kruso by Lutz Seiler
3.0
There’s a hint of Alex Garland's 'The Beach' in the community revelry and suspicious atmosphere, but this an altogether more enigmatic, literary work. A game of cache-cache that some protagonists, on the face of it, don't want to end.
What it’s devastatingly good at is describing the mental aftermath of loss. And specifically way that loss can readily lead to hero-worship. Such a 'head-over-heels' rush is very believably and acutely described here. Indeed it's the last word in bromance-lit.
I visited Hiddensee, the extended grounds of the ‘Klausner’ and down the steps to the beach, while on holiday, in the year before I read this book. But this isn't so much about physical context - there's philosophical notions of freedom here that maybe a reader brighter than myself succeeded in getting a handle on?
The female characters in the book I found extremely problematic – silent, sexy, strangers, seemingly absent of personality with thoughts left worryingly undescribed. Who throw themselves silently and instantly into no-strings-attached, free-love with the first odd-job dishwasher to put them up. Although, outside of these fuzzy scenes, masculine desire following tragedy is described rather more tellingly.
It’s regularly left unclear what’s reality and what’s real life, what’s a dream, a hallucination or an imagining. This distinction is sometimes more important to the reader than the author thinks it needs to be.
Like the women, the personage of Rommstedt is also rather lazily drawn. He says things like “And how are we today Mr Bendler?” like a smug fugitive from an Ian Fleming adaptation.
If most movies are a good 15 minutes too long, then this suffers from the same plight – it strongly feels like a debut novel that had the loosest of editing. And I never got over the fact it's so diary-like yet is written in the third person.
I am maybe making out I didn’t like it, when I actually did - indeed it’s dominated my thoughts a lot. Although I would doubt it was the best German novel of it's year and even more unlikely, the decade. I do recommend it as a good atmospheric book to dip into over a long period and let seep into you – I started it in one ‘season’ and finished it in another, which felt strangely appropriate.
What it’s devastatingly good at is describing the mental aftermath of loss. And specifically way that loss can readily lead to hero-worship. Such a 'head-over-heels' rush is very believably and acutely described here. Indeed it's the last word in bromance-lit.
I visited Hiddensee, the extended grounds of the ‘Klausner’ and down the steps to the beach, while on holiday, in the year before I read this book. But this isn't so much about physical context - there's philosophical notions of freedom here that maybe a reader brighter than myself succeeded in getting a handle on?
The female characters in the book I found extremely problematic – silent, sexy, strangers, seemingly absent of personality with thoughts left worryingly undescribed. Who throw themselves silently and instantly into no-strings-attached, free-love with the first odd-job dishwasher to put them up. Although, outside of these fuzzy scenes, masculine desire following tragedy is described rather more tellingly.
It’s regularly left unclear what’s reality and what’s real life, what’s a dream, a hallucination or an imagining. This distinction is sometimes more important to the reader than the author thinks it needs to be.
Like the women, the personage of Rommstedt is also rather lazily drawn. He says things like “And how are we today Mr Bendler?” like a smug fugitive from an Ian Fleming adaptation.
If most movies are a good 15 minutes too long, then this suffers from the same plight – it strongly feels like a debut novel that had the loosest of editing. And I never got over the fact it's so diary-like yet is written in the third person.
I am maybe making out I didn’t like it, when I actually did - indeed it’s dominated my thoughts a lot. Although I would doubt it was the best German novel of it's year and even more unlikely, the decade. I do recommend it as a good atmospheric book to dip into over a long period and let seep into you – I started it in one ‘season’ and finished it in another, which felt strangely appropriate.