F: A Novel

by Daniel Kehlmann

Other authorsCarol Janeway (Translator)
Hardcover, 2014

Call number

FIC KEH

Collection

Publication

Pantheon (2014), Edition: Reissue, 272 pages

Description

Having a profound experience on a hypnotist's stage in spite of not believing in magic, Arthur abruptly abandons his family in the middle of the night and becomes a famous author while his sons grow into men shaped by loss and doubt.

User reviews

LibraryThing member thorold
A complicated, postmodern sort of novel, dipping into philosophical questions about who we are and who we pretend to be, whether our identities are imposed on us by genetics, environment or God, or are freely chosen in some way, what art is, whether what you see might really be what you get, and so
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on.

Arthur is drifting through life doing nothing in particular until an encounter with a stage hypnotist leads him to the decision to abandon both his families and go off to write a bestseller. One of Arthur's sons, Martin, becomes a (non-believing) Catholic priest when his dream of a career as a Rubik's-Cube-solver evaporates; one of Martin's twin half-brothers becomes a crooked financial adviser who is only saved from exposure and disgrace by the 2008 crash; the other twin uses his knowledge of the art market to manipulate critics into declaring his mediocre-but-contented partner a genius.

And in between all this we get the traces of two of Arthur's successful stories, one of which hits the headlines by apparently driving a wave of suicides among its readers, and the other of which creates an entirely mythical family history of Arthur's ancestors (because the past, after all, is simply what we say it is...), including a sinister messenger-of-death who then apparently turns up in the actual story, if not quite in the right places in it.

Fun, and cleverly done, but I think I enjoy Kehlmann more in his role as a historical novelist.
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Pages

272

ISBN

0307911810 / 9780307911810
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