Marcel Möring

Hell and nothing but that. That is the world.

In a Dark Wood: A Novel is an urgent retelling of the Inferno as by Patrick White. Ulysses, The Odyssey and The Flounder are all at play. There are also motorcycles, plenty of them -- and beer. This tale may involve survival but certainly not redemption. I have my doubts about the former as the central character emerges damaged and bereft, a healing transformation isn't in the cards. What was actualized within the novel was the incontinence of memory and a diminution of empathy post-Shoah.

3.5 stars

Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JchD-NZWPM… (mehr)

I sat at the table, the intoxicating smell of fresh bread around me, and listened like a child being told that there's no such thing as Sinterklaas.

There is a wandering frame and focus to In Babylon. The disillusionment detailed above is an aspect of its effect, as is entropy: the latter receives a lengthy digression. The novel is also about false starts and dead ends. Its about picking up the pieces and attempting to find order, just as one's genetic code is screaming: RUN. Nathan Hollander, author of fairy tales and owner of a dismal romance record, has inherited his uncle's house. There is but one stipulation: he must compose a biography of his Uncle. Instead, a Oulipean taxonomy of the family ensues, most of which remains unfinished, the rest misleading. It reminds one of Mulisch or Nooteboom, the national bleak stare is evident, the need to look outward from the Netherlands: a harbor, designed for commerce and cultural projection. This is an engaging modernist epic stretching from Los Alamos to Israel on the cusp of the Yom Kippur War. An added perspective is a pair of family ghosts, prowling the estate since the 17th Century. It isn't all fun, but it is interesting.
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