Customer Reviews

Pleasured

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I wanted to like this novel, but Hensher's inability, at least here, to create believable characters prohibited me from feeling much of anything about it, except an apathy rivaling that of his character Friedrich. Friedrich, Peter Picker, Daphne, and Mario are all made out of cardboard, and engage in baffling, contradictory behavior that does not ring true, which is a problem because this novel relies heavily on its characters as sites of historical expression. These lifeless characters in turn inhabit a largely lifeless story, in which one of the most momentous historical events of the last half-century is the unfortunate recipient of Hensher's pseudo-lyrical swirling musings on life which, I'm sorry to say, by the third chapter I was skimming through. Perhaps part of the problem is that Hensher is British -- Friedrich's apathetic blankness may be a reflection of Hensher's blankness when it comes to gaining insight into the mind of a German, and the mind of a German in pre-89 West Berlin. (But then again, Peter Picker is not much more vivid, and he's British.) Perhaps the old truism to write about what you know was honed on missteps like this one.