Imagine being famous. Being recognized on the street, adored by people who have never even met you, known the world over. Wouldn’t that be great?
But what if, one day, you got stuck in a country where celebrity means nothing, where no one spoke your language and you didn’t speak theirs, where no one knew your face (no book jackets, no TV) and you had no way of calling home? How would your fame help you then?
What if someone got hold of your cell phone? What if they spoke to your girlfriends, your agent, your director, and started making decisions for you? And worse, what if no one believed you were you anymore? When you saw a look-alike acting your roles for you, what would you do?
And what if one day you realized your magnum opus, like everything else you’d ever written, was a total waste of time, empty nonsense? What would you do next? Would your audience of seven million people keep you going? Or would you lose the capacity to keep on doing it?
Fame and facelessness, truth and deception, spin their way through all nine episodes of this captivating, wickedly funny, and perpetually surprising novel as paths cross and plots thicken, as characters become real people and real people morph into characters. The result is a dazzling tour de force by one of Europe’s finest young writers.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this brilliant study of the fragility and interconnectedness of life, Kehlmann (Measuring the World) probes issues of identity in nine overlapping narratives, with each pivoting on a moment where a commonplace event becomes a crack and then a flood gate for existential horror. It begins as computer technician Ebling buys a cellphone, only to discover the number he is assigned belongs to movie star Ralf Tanner; at first resistant, Ebling is soon making decisions that alter Ralf's life. Later, after his phone has abruptly stopped ringing, Ralf finds his life taken over by an impersonator. Meanwhile, the telecommunications executive whose negligence led to the phone number switch cracks from the pressures of having an affair. In a parallel plot, Elisabeth, a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, keeps her work secret from her famous boyfriend, the writer Leo Richter, out of fear he will steal her experiences for future adventures of his most popular character. Layers of connection, irony, despair, and humor distinguish this masterful work and announce Kehlman as a worthy heir to Bowles and Camus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Daniel Kehlmann's Fame is a darkly comic masterpiece, a rare and thrilling example of a philosophical novel as pleasurable as it is thought-provoking." —San Francisco Chronicle
“In Kehlmann’s wickedly clever novel of nine interconnected stories, fame is something his cast of widely disparate characters seek, avoid, flirt with, and succumb to. . . [They are] luminous creations, and the coincidental devices that link them are brilliant gambits. Kehlmann showcases a flair for devious satire.”
—Booklist (starred)
“[A] darkly comic tour de force…A brazen take on the modern yearning for recognition. Kehlmann is a writer worth reading.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“[A] brilliant study of the fragility and interconnectedness of life. . . Layers of connection, irony, despair, and humor distinguish this masterful work.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
"Who would have thought contemporary Central European literature could be so fun and so funny? Daniel Kehlmann is who. The young Austrian prodigy, famous everywhere but in the United States, has given us a real beauty of a book, farcical, satiric, melancholic, and humane. Modern fame may have been invented in America, but nobody has dramatized its paradoxes and heartbreaks more entertainingly than the European Kehlmann does here."
—Jonathan Franzen
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"If you're surfing the net as much as I am...you know that reality isn't everything."
September 15, 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Daniel Kehlmann, who has published four novels and a short story collection by the age of thirty-five, has also won the 2005 Candide Award, the 2006 Kleist Award, and the 2008 Thomas Mann Award. This novel can only add to his luster. It is brilliant--clever, thoughtful, satirical, ironic, humorous, and beautifully structured within its experimental style. Non-stop fun at the same time that it deals with important existential issues, Kehlmann's collection of nine seemingly unrelated stories becomes a labyrinth of overlapping relationships, some of them within the plots of the stories, some in the surprising connections among characters, some through his imagery (and one repeating character/symbol), and some through his development of his themes.
Kehlmann is exploring the effects of technology on our perceptions of reality, and while this may sound esoteric and ponderous, it is done within a lively assortment of stories in which the characters and points of view are not only realistic and satiric, but usually wickedly funny. He raises questions about what happens to our definition of reality when we spend hours of our real lives "communicating" on the internet, often in chat rooms using monikers instead of real names, where we create whole new fictional lives for ourselves. We converse on cellphones, record cellphone videos, and sometimes post these on YouTube, allowing the world to share them. How "real" are all these versions of reality? And how "real" is the fame that often accompanies our recorded achievements in film, TV, and literature?
Kehlmann's nine stories all deal with the ironies of people caught between reality and fiction. In "Voices" Kehlman tells the story of Ebling, who is mistakenly assigned the private number of famous actor Ralf Tanner when he buys a new cellphone. When he begins to answer as the actor, "It was as if he had a doppelganger, his representative in a parallel universe." In "The Way Out," Ralf Tanner the actor illustrates what has happened to his life since Ebling started answering his phone calls, making him live under an assumed name. In "How I Lied and Died," the telecom supervisor of the man who mistakenly gave out Ralf's cellphone number becomes caught up in a lover's triangle in which he is in love with two women. He lies to both, creating fictional new "lives" for himself through his lies. Four episodes are about writers, one of whom, Leo Richter, has become famous for his stories about Dr. Lara Gaspard. He is now living with Elisabeth, a real doctor with Doctors Without Borders who does not want to tell him anything about her life because she does not want to appear in any of his stories.
Kehlmann writes like a sorcerer here, hiding fundamental metaphysical ideas within sentences which are simple, concise, and straightforward and within stories which are exciting to read. He never lets the reader forget that his own stories, too, must be evaluated---he is, after all, a real person telling fictional stories which reflect real themes using fictional characters, some of whom are fictitiously involved in writing books and some of whom are involved in telecommunications which affect their readers' real lives. "Stories within stories within stories. You never know where one ends and another begins!" Mary Whipple
Measuring the World: A Novel (Vintage)
Kehlmann is exploring the effects of technology on our perceptions of reality, and while this may sound esoteric and ponderous, it is done within a lively assortment of stories in which the characters and points of view are not only realistic and satiric, but usually wickedly funny. He raises questions about what happens to our definition of reality when we spend hours of our real lives "communicating" on the internet, often in chat rooms using monikers instead of real names, where we create whole new fictional lives for ourselves. We converse on cellphones, record cellphone videos, and sometimes post these on YouTube, allowing the world to share them. How "real" are all these versions of reality? And how "real" is the fame that often accompanies our recorded achievements in film, TV, and literature?
Kehlmann's nine stories all deal with the ironies of people caught between reality and fiction. In "Voices" Kehlman tells the story of Ebling, who is mistakenly assigned the private number of famous actor Ralf Tanner when he buys a new cellphone. When he begins to answer as the actor, "It was as if he had a doppelganger, his representative in a parallel universe." In "The Way Out," Ralf Tanner the actor illustrates what has happened to his life since Ebling started answering his phone calls, making him live under an assumed name. In "How I Lied and Died," the telecom supervisor of the man who mistakenly gave out Ralf's cellphone number becomes caught up in a lover's triangle in which he is in love with two women. He lies to both, creating fictional new "lives" for himself through his lies. Four episodes are about writers, one of whom, Leo Richter, has become famous for his stories about Dr. Lara Gaspard. He is now living with Elisabeth, a real doctor with Doctors Without Borders who does not want to tell him anything about her life because she does not want to appear in any of his stories.
Kehlmann writes like a sorcerer here, hiding fundamental metaphysical ideas within sentences which are simple, concise, and straightforward and within stories which are exciting to read. He never lets the reader forget that his own stories, too, must be evaluated---he is, after all, a real person telling fictional stories which reflect real themes using fictional characters, some of whom are fictitiously involved in writing books and some of whom are involved in telecommunications which affect their readers' real lives. "Stories within stories within stories. You never know where one ends and another begins!" Mary Whipple
Measuring the World: A Novel (Vintage)
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's not easy to convey in a short review a sense of the experience of reading Daniel Kehlmann's "Fame." In part this is because the author has packed into its 173 pages an ambitious set of themes and variations. Reviews I found in magazines and newspapers made me wary of picking up a book described as "formally experimental" and "a post-modernist exercise." What were the chances, I wondered, that this would turn out to be a pleasure?
High, I discovered.
Kehlmann has talent to burn. Even more important, he has an unselfish desire to communicate clearly with readers. In this, his sixth book, he brings together nine "episodes" that capture the feel of life in contemporary society. At the same time, Kehlmann offers canny reflections on the increasingly blurry boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, the real and the unreal. He handles these subjects deftly, self-mockingly, and, by book's end, poignantly.
In a nod to post-modernist "metafiction" fashion, a few of the book's tales place front and center the slippery relationship between the author and his characters. In one story, for example, a character begs the author not to plot her demise. In another episode a young woman (an assistant to a famous writer) fears ending up as a mere character in one of his stories. This interplay of real and unreal is not new territory: consider Pirandello's drama, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and, in a different creative medium, the Hollywood movies "The Truman Show" (1998) and "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006). It's a captivating device that remains fresh in the hands of Kehlmann.
There is a debate buzzing around "Fame" about whether it is a true novel, or a set of short stories, or something in between. If you are uncertain, as I was, about Kehlmann's decision to construct a "novel" with no protagonist and with only weak threads connecting its nine tales, my advice is to remember that a similar structure undergirds the films "Short Cuts" (1993), "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "Amores Perros" (2000) and "Babel" (2006). If disjunctions and flights of philosophy of this sort leave you cold, then by all means avoid "Fame." But if you found one or more of those movies great experiences, and if you are comfortable with the narrative methods of such authors as Paul Auster, Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover, then "Fame" will provide a sure platform for your enjoyment.
"Fame" is much more than just a literary experiment. I was pleasantly surprised by how varied and yet how conventional are its strengths. The stories are full of humor and pathos. In one, the course of an adulterous affair (an oft-told tale) is updated to include the intrusions of email, cell phones and instant messaging. Three of the book's characters are authors, and this allows Kehlmann to knowingly track the shifting role of the writer in contemporary society. The vicissitudes of fame and the enigma of identity theft are explored. Keen insights abound. Appearing not once but twice is the Devil himself, and on both occasions he brings to the proceedings a jolt of guilty pleasure. Spying a mobile phone, the Devil notes: "Life is over so quickly -- that's what these little phones are for." The soul-sapping environment of today's corporate offices and off-site conferences is sharply rendered: "People cannot work together without hating one another". In most of the tales, disappointment and bitterness break to the surface, yet one story ends, magically and lyrically, with a sweet salvation.
A character named Leo Richter, a writer, is my candidate for hero of the book. Undoubtedly meant to serve as Kehlmann's alter ego, Richter appears in the second, third, seventh and ninth episodes. He's a terrific creation: funny, ruminative, mesmerized by the creative process, wise, and able to rise to the occasion. The reader is not shown much of Richter's writing and so we are hard pressed to judge its quality, but I suspect it's like Kehlmann's, which is very fine indeed.
High, I discovered.
Kehlmann has talent to burn. Even more important, he has an unselfish desire to communicate clearly with readers. In this, his sixth book, he brings together nine "episodes" that capture the feel of life in contemporary society. At the same time, Kehlmann offers canny reflections on the increasingly blurry boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, the real and the unreal. He handles these subjects deftly, self-mockingly, and, by book's end, poignantly.
In a nod to post-modernist "metafiction" fashion, a few of the book's tales place front and center the slippery relationship between the author and his characters. In one story, for example, a character begs the author not to plot her demise. In another episode a young woman (an assistant to a famous writer) fears ending up as a mere character in one of his stories. This interplay of real and unreal is not new territory: consider Pirandello's drama, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and, in a different creative medium, the Hollywood movies "The Truman Show" (1998) and "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006). It's a captivating device that remains fresh in the hands of Kehlmann.
There is a debate buzzing around "Fame" about whether it is a true novel, or a set of short stories, or something in between. If you are uncertain, as I was, about Kehlmann's decision to construct a "novel" with no protagonist and with only weak threads connecting its nine tales, my advice is to remember that a similar structure undergirds the films "Short Cuts" (1993), "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "Amores Perros" (2000) and "Babel" (2006). If disjunctions and flights of philosophy of this sort leave you cold, then by all means avoid "Fame." But if you found one or more of those movies great experiences, and if you are comfortable with the narrative methods of such authors as Paul Auster, Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover, then "Fame" will provide a sure platform for your enjoyment.
"Fame" is much more than just a literary experiment. I was pleasantly surprised by how varied and yet how conventional are its strengths. The stories are full of humor and pathos. In one, the course of an adulterous affair (an oft-told tale) is updated to include the intrusions of email, cell phones and instant messaging. Three of the book's characters are authors, and this allows Kehlmann to knowingly track the shifting role of the writer in contemporary society. The vicissitudes of fame and the enigma of identity theft are explored. Keen insights abound. Appearing not once but twice is the Devil himself, and on both occasions he brings to the proceedings a jolt of guilty pleasure. Spying a mobile phone, the Devil notes: "Life is over so quickly -- that's what these little phones are for." The soul-sapping environment of today's corporate offices and off-site conferences is sharply rendered: "People cannot work together without hating one another". In most of the tales, disappointment and bitterness break to the surface, yet one story ends, magically and lyrically, with a sweet salvation.
A character named Leo Richter, a writer, is my candidate for hero of the book. Undoubtedly meant to serve as Kehlmann's alter ego, Richter appears in the second, third, seventh and ninth episodes. He's a terrific creation: funny, ruminative, mesmerized by the creative process, wise, and able to rise to the occasion. The reader is not shown much of Richter's writing and so we are hard pressed to judge its quality, but I suspect it's like Kehlmann's, which is very fine indeed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Max Hammer
Format:Hardcover
I wasn't going to write a review here because I didn't want to poo poo on the high praise parade, but this book struck me as rushed and superficial. Certainly, there are a lot of clever plot situations going on in this book and that is in some way the backbone or carrying force of the book. Also interesting is the self-consiousness/meta-fictional relationship in some of the stories between author and character. The most I can say about this is that it is entertaining, but it didn't really have the stuff of great fiction like insightfulness, great detail or even bringing the characters alive or being worthy of empathy (except in one story, where the lady begs the writer to not write the story such that she dies at the end. Even this story could have been done better, fwiw.) That's why I say it was rushed and superficial. This isn't really too far out of the realm of something that I normally would pick up, and I did b/c Jonathan Franzen recommended during his book tour stop/visit to Cleveland Public Library.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
curate + egg
On the thin end of 3 stars. The content of the book is covered in other reviews, but for me Fame was at best appealingly clever; I found neither metaphysical speculation nor... Read more
Published 1 month ago by monica
4.0 out of 5 stars
Laughed outloud
This was vastly different than most novels and structured in a very contemporary fashion.I found the chacters and the situations highly satirical and humorous. Read more
Published 14 months ago by S.J.Tagliareni
4.0 out of 5 stars
a very fun experimental and philosophical novel
It is a long time since I have read cutting-edge fiction, and this certainly fits the bill. In the form of inter-connected stories, this novel moves between fact, the creation of... Read more
Published on March 18, 2011 by Robert J. Crawford
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fame, Facelessness, and Fiction
FAME is a clever book - which is both a compliment and a critique. It takes place in nine loosely woven chapters and, at its core, it's about the power of stories. Read more
Published on October 23, 2010 by Jill I. Shtulman
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