5/7/2023 0 Comments F daniel kehlmann![]() ![]() ![]() There are hypnotists who act as therapists, privately consulted, and there are hypnotists who are showmen. Kehlmann compounds the risk (as McEwan and DeLillo do not) by resuming the narrative a couple of decades on, which has the effect of widening the gap between those first thirty pages and the rest of the book, turning it into something close to a crevasse. The first sentence runs: ‘Years later, long since fully grown and each of them enmeshed in his own particular form of unhappiness, none of Arthur Friedland’s sons could recall whose idea it had actually been to go to the hypnotist that afternoon.’ The risk is that a memorable opening section, elaborately orchestrated, leaves a novel with nowhere to go, or at least with the obligation to start all over again, as happens in books as different as Enduring Love and Underworld. ’s new novel, F, takes the risk of starting with a set piece. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |