What's that guy smiling about?
"A noirish rumination on being too happy..."
This book asks a simple question: Is it possible to write compellingly about a happy person? In the hands of celebrated (but never before translated into English) Swiss author Hansjörg Schertenleib, the answer is a resounding yes—because, as it turns out, even happy people are surrounded by unhappy people, which can make for considerable stress, and, well, what’s a happy man to do?
And it’s not as if the hero of this book—whose name is, well, This—is a pleasant but unaware zombie. He’s a smart, interesting, quirky jazz musician...albeit with a wife suffering from depression, and a rebellious teenaged daughter. They find his contentedness more and more irritating. And yet This just can’t help it—life makes him happy. And the mounting tension that results is beautifully set off by Schertenleib’s lyrical prose, the smoky setting of Amsterdam, and the dialogue that’ s as edgy as that of a noir movie.
And thus a book that seems at first a writerly experiment becomes a gradually intensifying tale of a simple bit of human hope holding on against great odds, to an inspiring and shocking ending.
The Contemporary Art of the Novella series is designed to highlight work by major authors from around the world. In most instances, as with Imre Kertész, it showcases work never before published; in others, books are reprised that should never have gone out of print. It is intended that the series feature many well-known authors and some exciting new discoveries. And as with the original series, The Art of the Novella, each book is a beautifully packaged and inexpensive volume meant to celebrate the form and its practitioners.
AvidArie
Posted May 15, 2012
I've spoken before of bad and good endings and what they do to a story. This is a classic example of a not too great book with a pretty good ending. This book is mundane. It took me over half the book to even remotely get into it. It's basically only character development of one, sole, character, with little flashes of the past--but there is almost no story. No plot. Well...it's there...it's just really subtle.
The flow of the book was incredibly disjointed, but that's actually one of the things I liked about it. One moment the reader is on a street in Amsterdam with This (yes, that's the character's name), then two paragraphs later, the reader is by a barn of This' youth with a dog. It is very well written and quirky. I was interested in his life and the lives of those he affected, but there wasn't enough.
The book is short--only 90-something pages--but it took me forever to read because I just could not get into it. My life did not change one way or another, having read this book
Overview
What's that guy smiling about?
"A noirish rumination on being too happy..."
This book asks a simple question: Is it possible to write compellingly about a happy person? In the hands of celebrated (but never before translated into English) Swiss author Hansjörg Schertenleib, the answer is a resounding yes—because, as it turns out, even happy people are surrounded by unhappy people, which can make for considerable stress, and, well, what’s a ...