Customer Reviews

In Free Fall: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This second novel by the richly-talented German wunderkind Juli Zeh, arrives to considerable fanfare and is being published simultaneously in 17 countries. One can see why. Like the characters it portrays, it is very clever (sometimes a tad too clever), mystifying and thought-provoking. The language and images it deploys are never mundane and often astounding.

It's hard to summarize the plot of a book that is ultimately about the unreality of reality and the possibility of separate realities. On the surface, it has all the bells and whistles of a traditional mystery novel. Below the surface, nothing is as it appears.

Oskar and Sebastian are two brilliant physicists who meet and fall in love as students. Whether their love is purely intellectual or also physical is left unstated. They dress alike like dandified Victorians and dazzle classmates with their brilliance. On one fatal day, they are called on by a professor to offer a particularly complex mathematical proof. They approach the blackboard simultaneously, Sebastian writing down equations from left to right, while Oskar does the same from right to left. As they meet triumphantly in the middle, Sebastian realizes he could never have accomplished what Oskar just did, writing the proofs out backward. He is the inferior scientist.

Flash forward: Sebastian has married the beautiful Maike and has a 10-year-old son, Liam. He has abandoned cutting-edge physics and relegated Oskar to a monthly dinner with his family.

To Oskar's disgust, Sebastian has begun toying with weird theories of alternative realities. Oskar challenges Sebastian to a TV debate, which overflows into a shouting match during which a crucial word is uttered - and utterly misunderstood. Sebastian's theory that our reality is shaped by mere coincidence is about to be tested.

The book proceeds to play with the idea and implications of alternative realities. Liam is kidnapped - or perhaps he isn't. The kidnappers demand that Sebastian murder one of Maike's colleagues - or perhaps they don't. Enter Detective Superintendant Schilf, recently diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor, who wants in this last case, to mend at least one small part of a broken world.

In Zeh's view, the idea of alternative realities, attractive though it may seem, opens the way to a world without morals - a world in which nobody is held accountable for their actions. Schilf wants to hold one of the protagonists accountable for his actions - but the only way to do so is to let the other one off the hook.

Reading this book is a bit like studying an Escher print. It can be beautiful but a little mind-boggling. Zeh is obviously brilliant - and like Oskar she can't resist showing off. Like a piece of deconstructivist criticism, the book deconstructs itself. There are some loose ends and some characters who don't come to life and don't seem to know their place in the book - but overall this is a wonderful exhibition of bravura novel-writing.

A strange, symbiotic friendship between Sebastian and Oskar . . . visits with each other that feel like confrontations . . . a doctor's patients that seem to have died from drug experimentation . . . a murder based on a misunderstanding . . . and conflict over the "Many Worlds" theory, which basically means that everything that can happen HAS happened on a parallel timeline . . .

These are some of the happenings in this unusual, sometimes confusing, tension-filled story. This one is not for the casual reader, as I found myself at times backtracking to figure out what just happened. Although I was interested in what was happening, it was not a quick and easy read. As the stories behind the kidnapping of Sebastian's son and the murder of a man with ties to a suspect doctor came out, however, I was stunned at the duplicity and conceit that caused them, even as I found myself confused by the motivation.

QUOTES

For Oskar, Sebastian is not just the only person whose presence brings him pleasure. Sebastian is also the person whose slightest movement can turn him white-hot with rage.

It is always three-word sentences that change the life of a human being in a decisive manner. I love you. I hate you. Father is dead. I am pregnant. Liam has disappeared. Dabbelink must go. After a three-word sentence, one is totally alone.

Ever since his conversation with Sebastian, the detective has been working on a formulation that he himself does not fully understand: The world is the way it is because there are observers to watch it existing.


Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 3 out of 5 stars
Characters: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 3 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING: 3.25 out of 5 stars

This was a strange book to read, hard at times to "get" the wordings of the author and all the referals to physics, which I don't remember much of from school. Other than that, it moved quickly, was extremely intense and had many surprising twists that kept me guessing how it was going to unfold.

Not one of the best books I've read this year, but good enough that I'd recommend it to suspense lovers.

Would you commit murder as the ransom for your kidnapped child? Was physicist Sebastian's son, Liam, really kidnapped or is Liam's kidnapping a story his father invented? Is there a parallel universe where other versions of our lives play out? These questions all form part of the strange plot of Juli Zeh's intriguing police procedural "In Free Fall" whose quirky cast of characters include two physicists, a socially awkward female detective, and a senior detective with a terminal brain tumor.

While driving Liam to camp, Sebastion stops at a convenience store, leaving his son sleeping in the back seat. When he comes out of the store his car and Liam are gone. He then receives a call on his cell phone with instructions that include the statements, "Dabbelink must go" and "Then everything will be all right." Dabbelink is an anesthesiologist involved in a hospital scandal in which heart patients died when given unauthorized drugs. Sebastion knows there are also rumors that Dabbelink and Sebastion's wife, Maike, are having an affair. When he receives the phone call after his son's disappearance, Sebastion never really questions what he will do, only how he will do it. Thus begins a very unusual police procedural where observations about the nature of time, reality, and parallel lives are a natural part of the backdrop to solving the murder of Dabbelink. Fans of China Mieville's "The City and the City" should love this new offering from award-winning author Linda Zeh.

he story was a little hard to follow in the beginning and as it progressed, I was able to understand the storyline fully. It was a quick read and the characters were interesting. There was a lot of information about physics in which I was unfamiliar with. I have not taken a Physics class in high school yet but I found the book quite interesting. Good crime fiction novel full of twists and turns.

Peopled with interesting characters and a unique murder, the story is intense. The only thing that I can think of to compare it to is the Michael Douglas movie "The Game" and even that doesn't really fit. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Zeh has written an amazing intellectual thriller.

A difficult book to read but well worth the effort. Particularly recommended to those who are fascinated by the world of quantum physics.

I guess this is supposed to be "literary" crime fiction - to me, it was just boring crime fiction. Maybe, the problem is me, maybe I didn't get it - but it was still boring. I imagine there are people out there who will truly enjoy this book, I think there are many others who will SAY they truly enjoyed it but.....". I don't know the author, but she feels like a life-long academic, whose whole world is other life long academics - which is fine, until you write about other character types. I find it difficult to believe that a cop, upon first encountering the prime suspect, begins his interrogation by expressing a desire to discuss the matter of time, parallel universes, etc. Maybe this happens all the time in Germany, and I just don't appreciate their evolved culture. Or maybe it was my frustration over reading crime fiction (maybe it wasn't crime fiction, and that's what I don't get) that includes the following sentence: "Cumulative chaos is a way of measuring the passage of time".