7.2 /10 1 Votes
3.6/5 Goodreads Original title Faserland Language German Pages 165 Originally published 1995 Page count 165 OCLC 33834433 | 4.2/5 Inhaltsangabe 3/5 Adlibris Country Germany, Switzerland Genre Pop Literature Followed by 1979 ISBN 3462024078 Countries Germany, Switzerland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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rezension christian kracht faserland
Faserland ("land of fibers") is the debut novel by Christian Kracht, published in 1995. It is considered to have triggered the new wave of German pop literature. It is the swan song of the generation of the 80's, whose characteristics are so carefully described in the book that it has been called the "cult novel of a generation". Critics often compare the book to those of the American author Bret Easton Ellis.
Contents
Faserland has been translated into Russian, Czech, Latvian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Korean, Romanian, Swedish and Hebrew.
Plot
The picaresque novel tells the story of a journey. The unnamed narrator is in his late twenties and is the son of a wealthy family, and travels south from the northernmost tip of Germany down to the Bodensee and onwards to Zürich. He is more an involuntary observer than participant in the events that unfold. He begins in Sylt and heads through Hamburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munich, Meersburg, and finally Zürich. In each of these places he has experiences with decadent excesses in the form of alcohol, drugs, and sexual encounters. These excesses are not enjoyed by the participants, but are more an expression of their hopelessness. The protagonist sees the downfall of his generation – a close friend commits suicide – and experiences his own downfall. He also reflects on unhappy memories of youth.
His odyssey, which can be interpreted as either a search for meaning or a long goodbye, ends on Lake Zürich: the references to Greek mythology (Charon, Obolus, and Hades) suggest the narrator's suicide in the middle of the lake. Another interpretation sees the crossing to the other shore as a sign of the homosexuality of the narrator. Neither has been confirmed by Kracht. The ending is left open.