How much power does a human being have to write him/herself into a meaningful story? How much power does the author have to change the fate of his characters? Really amazing literature with a capital L. And while 'Ruhm' (Fame) may not be as impressive as 'Tyll' or as bizarre as 'F,' it has strong elements of both and is fabulously Kehlmann in its own way. My fave story 'Rosalie geht sterben' (chapter 3) includes my very fave meta-fictional device of authors talking directly with their characters to illustrate how we all haggle with God or fate about the time and place of our deaths. Pablo Coelho and his mega popular feel-good spiritual stories get a fairly good drubbing in 'Antwort an die Äbtissin,' (chapter 6) North Korea (or similar) gets kicked in the nuts for being backwaters with 1st world ambitions in 'Osten' (chapter 5) and internet trolls are shown up for the pathetic, lonely men they are in 'Ein Beitrag zur Debatte' (chapter 7). These are think pieces - and you have to pay attention to catch all the doubling of characters and events - but Kehlmann gets some jabs in there too. What is fiction? Is it what a writer creates in his head and puts down on paper, or it is also what we see, think and feel? How sure can any of us be that we actually exists and are not - to quote the philosophers - merely a thought in the mind of God? Is it about 'Fame'? Not really, but fame is one expression of the real topic: the unreality and inconsistency of what we take to be reality. These 9 interlocking stories appear to be stand-alones, and yes, can be read as such, but they form a complete statement, a complete thought, when read as a whole. But what I do know is that Daniel Kehlmann is a German national treasure. 😍🤩😍🤩 How does Kehlmann do it? How does he create both narratively absurd, and at the same time multi-layered, fiction that defies categorisation? How does deliver a master class in meta-fiction while never going off-point or turning into one of those tiresome Alice Munro wanna-bes?

Daniel kehlmann novel