Another ironic and comical novel by the famous German comedian Helge Schneider. Using modern methods of multi-perspectival narration, Robert Fork’s Eine Liebe im Sechsachteltrakt attempts to paint a picture of traditional English garden landscapes and the people who create them. Dispensing with a spectacular plot, Robert Fork concentrates on the emotional inner lives of his protagonists, even if these are dull and boring.
In his new novel, Helge Schneider explores the NOUVELLE ROMANTIC. The main character seems to the reader like a mouldy apple left at the bottom of a shopping bag. Whether Kollendorf is trudging through mudflats in rubber boots or falling out of a plane, the reader doesn’t care because this man is the personification of self-pity. His fate leaves us as cold as the characters in a TV soap. Despite the passivity of his protagonist, however, Helge Schneider succeeds in introducing suspense to his epos.
The many names and many dead people that fill in the story from the periphery are synonymous with the perpetuum mobile of the impersonality of contemporary society. This is how Helge Schneider brings back a hint of family drama into the reading room. Nothing is too trivial to be pointed out again. At the end, however, the question of all questions (the purpose of life) remains unanswered, like life itself – true life does not end.
