Berlin (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Professor Serratura, Europa Centre, Professor Seppanen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When ex-stationary engineer Giulio Chiavetta disappears from a Montreal psychiatric clinic, his doctor, Wilhelm Ryle, looks into Chiavettas psyche for clues in this offbeat novel from Mirolla (The Boarder). Fortunately, Chiavetta, who on admission accused himself of killing his wife and child (despite the absence of any evidence that wife and child ever existed), has left on his computer a document called Berlin: A Novel in Three Parts, the ostensible recollections of philosophy professor Antonio Serratura, who makes a trip to West Berlin to attend an academic conference. The novel-within-a-novel alternates between dense discussions of philosophical theory and accounts of Serraturas odd exploits on the eve of a visit to the city by President Ronald Reagan. Dr. Ryle studies the various weird episodes in the novels text in an effort to relate them to what he knows of Chiavettas actual life. Fans of the bizarre films of David Lynch are the most likely to enjoy this curious book. (Jan.)
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Product Description

"As wickedly funny and hilariously angry as vintage Harlan Ellison."-Spider Robinson, author of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

"A delightful romp through the metaphysical muck."-Halifax Daily News

"A funny, tragic glimpse into the territory of the absurd, somewhere between Kafka and Vonnegut."-Calgary Herald

"Weird and wonderful . . . imaginative, unsettling, devilishly layered. Mirolla delights in verbal and situational sleight-of-hand, exposing a disorienting world of labyrinthine dreams and menacing recurrent images. Mirolla likes the macabre and grotesque, absurdities and stylistic play. He mercilessly exposes our alienation and primal fears, forcing us to face the awful possibility that we are no more than the product of our own devising."-Event Magazine

The Berlin Wall falls. A continent away, a mysterious mental patient awakes from a two-year stupor. His obsession with Berlin is unexplained. His escape from the hospital launches a surreal adventure in which past blends with future, and death is used to change the fabric of the world in a freakish experiment on transcendental philosophy. Like Franz Kafka or Italo Calvino in their blending of the real and surreal, or like a psychedelic drug trip, this story brings the reader into West Berlin's seamy underlife-the omnipresent wall, transvestite bars, and sadomasochism. It is a secret world where a concentration-camp survivor sells gas stoves, a world of philosophical intelligentsia, adultery, and murder. Frenetic, kaleidoscopic, horrible, brilliant.

Michael Mirolla, author of novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, lives in Toronto, Canada. His writing has won many awards and has appeared in numerous journals in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Italy.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Leapfrog Press (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981514812
• ISBN-13: 978-0981514819
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #621,872 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars well written but weird character study, January 3, 2009

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In a Montreal psychiatric ward, former stationary engineer and wannabe circus mime patient Giulio Chiavetta abruptly seems alert after two years in a constant fog that the staff assumes is related to his belief he killed his wife and child though no proof was found that either existed. He read in today's newspaper that the Berlin Wall crumbled and informs his psychiatrist Dr. Wilhelm Ryle that he must return there. Ryle is stunned as this is the first full sentence uttered by his patient in the two years he has resided at the clinic.

Chiavetta walks away from the clinic shocking Ryle further as the man was a notch above comatose until the article. Ryle looks at what his patient left behind for clues and finds a document titled Berlin on Chiavetta's computer. The full title turns out to be Berlin: A Novel in Three Parts in which Professor Antonio Serratura is in West Berlin attending a conference as President Reagan demands Gorbachev tear down the wall. What Ryle finds makes no sense as Chiavetta was mostly incoherent while here and does not match up with what is known about the missing mental patient; yet there is a weird ring of truth underneath the words as Giulio begins an adventure in a convergence of the future and the past.

This is a well written but weird character study that turns transcendental philosophy upside down as Michael Mirolla pays homage to Kant and Kafka. Not easy to read, fans and Ryle are hooked trying to understand who Chiavetta is; why the Wall falling down awakened him and sent him on his odyssey; and what he needs to accomplish in the seedier parts of West Berlin. Eerie yet fascinating, readers who relish something entirely different will want to travel to the underbelly of West Berlin circa 1989 with on a magical mystery tour guided by an escape mental patient.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Berlin, December 4, 2008

By	Scott M. Anderson (Windsor, N.Y.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Berlin is a writer's melting pot of detail, experience and imagination. For the reader; such vivid storytelling should require a mental Checkpoint Charlie from time to time. Michael Mirolla's thought blender finds you spinning in a dream, then a nightmare, by the reality of it all. Berlin unfolds like magic, your mind is glued to each page, but the hand wants to work quicker than the eye. Mirolla's strange trip will leave you addicted to gravity, as you find yourself on the high wire of emotion with no safety net.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So you think you know Berlin?, January 22, 2009

By	Elizabeth Potvin (Nanaimo, BC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"So the only thing you can assume is that you are here in Berlin at this very moment - or can you? Isn't the assumption of your being in Berlin made a split second too late? Never mind that."

Thus a novel that is ostensibly set in Berlin is really about everything else under the sun. As slippery as Proteus, the authorial voice, the identity of the characters, the very setting and time that you think you are inhabiting with them, and the nature of narrative itself - all are pulled out from under you. Berlin is an idea, or a set of ideas, subject to constant shifts that are stacked up like Chinese boxes, like Borges' stories within stories. Just at the moment that you believe you grasp what Mirolla is getting it, that moment is gone, often in a shocking manner, and some allusion or trick takes you elsewhere. Every stereotype, ever moral certainty, is questioned in a book that is by turns playful, teasing, and outrageous. Nothing escapes Mirolla's philosophical scrutiny. Don't worry, though - he shows you that everything you think is real is just what is happening in your mind. Take this challenging journey in spite of your self and learn to see Berlin in many different lights.