The Austro-German writer Daniel Kehlmann is that fine and sadly rare phenomenon: a serious German language writer of fiction whose books are translated and reviewed in the United states. He achieved worldwide fame with his 2005 novel Die Vermessung der Welt, followed in 2009 with a book of interconnected short stories Ruhm (see my review).
In his 2013 novel F, Kehlmann explores the boundaries between illusion and reality, authenticity and artifice. What does the F stand for? There are multiple meanings. A character watches the Orson Wells film F is for Fake, and fakery is at the center of the novel. The central figure, the failed writer Arthur Friedland tells his granddaughter about "Fatum - das grosse F" (fate). But F is also for "die Familie"for this is above all a novel about the Friedland Family: Arthur and his three sons: Martin, the oldest from his first wife, and the identical twins Eric and Iwan.
The novel begins in 1984 with Arthur and his three sons attending the performance of a famous hypnotist, in a scene lifted from Mario und der Zauberer. The hypnotist - who reappears at crucial moments throughout the novel - manages to erase Iwan's self-identity and force Arthur to confront the mediocrity of his writing. Arthur promptly abandons his family - after clearing out their bank accounts - and proceeds to gain international fame with a novel titled Mein Name sei Niemand (reminiscent of Max Frisch's 1964 novel Mein Name sei Gantenbein). NIemand is a manifesto of nihilism and inspires a wave of suicides.
The heart of the novel takes place 24 years later - on August 8, 2008. The lives of the three sons intersect in comical - but also tragic - ways. All three characters are living a lie: Martin has become a Roman Catholic priest, but he has zero faith. It is doubtful that he ever believed. Instead, he has become a glutton and remains obsessed with the Rubric's Cube his father had given him as a gift when he was a boy. Eric is an investment manager who has initiated a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme and presents his customers with fake account statements showing impressive profits. He self-medicates his growing anxiety that the whole house of cards is about to collapse and he will be thrown in prison. Iwan appears to be the most successful of the three. After abandoning his own painting (which he judged mediocre), Iwan becomes a wealthy art dealer, managing the estate of the famous painter Heinrich Eulenböck. But it soon becomes apparent that many of Eulenböck's paintings - which fetch $$millions in the international art market - are forged - by Iwan Friedland. Iwan has no authentic self. Wer bist denn du? ("Who are you?") he is asked by a knife-wielding assailant. Ich bin ....niemand. ("I'm nobody").
The novel loses some momentum as Kehlmann shifts the narrative perspective to Eric's teenage daughter. But it becomes clear that the fake lives of the brothers are simply a microcosm of a society constructed around fakery. Shortly after the August 2008 events the entire financial system collapses like an enormous Ponzi Scheme as the "risk-free" investment instruments bought and sold by the banks turn out to be worthless. Iwan's forged Eulenböck paintings are celebrated by art critics and find their way in to the great museums.
In one of the final scenes, Arthur Friedland takes his granddaughter to a cheap carnival and she becomes lost in a hall of mirrors. And that is what Kehlmann does with the reader: he leads us through a hall of mirrors, a dark labyrinth where we're never quite sure what is real and what is fake. He shamelssly manipulates the reader, but we are happy to go along for the (highly entertaining) ride.
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