Uwe Timm’s witty, smart and brilliantly written novella asks how we become what we are, and how we might have turned out. A book that explores the existential question: Whatever happened to the wishes and hopes we once cherished and have I become the person I wanted to be?
Uwe Timm describes the reunion of two men who went to university in Munich in the early sixties, before the start of the student revolution. They used to sit together over a free meal in the canteen of a generous insurance company, talking about everything and nothing, and about their one common point of reference: Arno Schmidt. When they bump into each other again in Anklam, there is a clash of two very different worlds. The narrator worked there as a teacher of literature and history and has run a second-hand bookshop since his retirement, while Euler, once a mathematician with literary aspirations, has come to the area as an investor with plans to build a landfill site.
They jog each other’s memories, regale each other with anecdotes, quote passages from the books they have read and end up talking about the third member of the group, Falkner, a closet writer who is now a well-known author. And they remember the time when the three friends set off on a strange trip to the Anklamer Heide and Arno Schmidt’s estate.
"The strength of the author Uwe Timm lies in his ability to delicately reconstruct fulfilled and unfulfilled desires." (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
