to write
it is Strange that many journalists are animated by a desire, a novel. This is about as promising, such as if a ping-pong-would require Crack on lawn tennis. Just the Bernese Journalist Tom Kummer, 59, has published his second novel. This reads better than I thought.
Tom Kummer made a name for himself by Interviews with Celebrities faked, printed by reputable Newspapers. After he was blown to he hinted his Fakes flight as an art gimmick, as a contribution to the post-modern. His Comeback in the newspaper, was, however, rather as a contribution to the topic of “The cat, the Mice will not leave”. At the age of 45 he wrote his memoirs: “Blow-up. The Story of my life”.
To live in Tom’s sorrow, the story is that 2014 died his wife Nina. At that time, the Couple lived with his two sons in Los Angeles. From this material his first novel, “Nina & Tom” (2017) was born. It was about young love and early death to drugs, Sex and Stars. The emotion, the coefficient was predictably high. The reviews were gracious. But grief is better. His Website advertises for the small novel, with the Slogan: “The greatest love story since “Love Story””. The life of a Blockbuster, what else. The sons still remain, they are material for the second novel. It’s called “bad parents”. And is a good father. This father is called Tom, as usual.
Switzerland is situated on a kind of dead planet. Bern looks like a Ghost town.
Tom is the night chauffeur. He lives with his son in a Berner high-rise building. Employed by a Geneva special service, driving Tom foreign diplomats and business people through the darkness. It goes to airports and often to Ticino. Everything is as black as Tom’s sunglasses. Its passengers are mainly from Africa, opaque, your shops are. On the roadside, strange shapes appear””, dark schemes, refugees, the poor, Emaciated.
Switzerland is situated on a kind of dead planet. Bern looks like a Ghost town. Nevertheless, a light is waiting here. This is Vincent, Vince called, 12 years old and Tom’s son. After his night rides again Tom early in the morning to Vince to bed. He wants to smell the child the smell of his dead wife Nina. Nina died a year ago in Los Angeles and Tom returned home to his native city of Bern. Tom as Tom. Grief as grief.
What’s up here? You might think: Tom sorrow wander between fact and fiction, between the Invented and the experience continues seamlessly. Is only partly true. What is this new novel is remarkable: It increases; he makes the resolution of the boundaries to its Central theme.
A lust pills-Fabrikantin Novartis
The night chauffeur Tom slides in a peculiar gray zone between Africa and the Alpine country. In his Mercedes S 560 he takes the Reading. You can easily get in. The sentences are short, the dialogues are scarce, the outer action is manageable. First of all, Tom is driving a mysterious business man from Dakar, he then brings a lust pills-Fabrikantin of Novartis to Zurich, then a Libyan Colonel to Base-Jump-jumping-off point in Mürren. A man dies, a Somali refugee woman is rescued. Tom drives and drives.
He cares little for his foreign passengers. He is not interested in whether his 12-year-old son is embarrassed to have the own father in bed all the time. Tom is only interested in his own inner life. The Lack of other perspectives, in other novels, a shortcoming, here is something downright spooky. The I-narrator is present to the extent that he reported in the present tense. Moreover, he is a Ghost rider, half past and half to the death will be forfeited.
Between the short conversations with his customers visions of Death, which caused a crowd led by the dead Nina, as she wanted to get her family out of it. A Congolese reported by the “Triumph of the beautiful death”. Son Vince has the “old soul” of Africa. He writes a school essay on “the preexistence of The soul on other planets”, while his dead mother Makes increasingly over the Living wins.
In particular, some of the works constructed. But in a Tour read may fascinate you, this funky Ghost ride quite.
memories of the birth of their first son, Frank to be alive. Tom has left behind the now 18-year-old Frank in Los Angeles at the College. Now he’s waiting urgent message from his Elders. This is the target voltage in this episode Roman: Where is Frank? Will he come home? You can be a real family?
fats metaphors, made by grief: As houses, “such as grave’s high steles in the landscape”, and “fog hanging like shrouds above the valley floor”. And because of the novel “bad” means, we need more parents; Tom loveless mother, Nina’s family’s hatred, of the Berne kindlifresser fountain. Littering-prose, superfluous.
In particular, some of the works constructed. But overall, and in a Tour read may fascinate you, this funky Ghost ride quite. What remains of this novel, is a very special mood. Those diffuse atmosphere, this strange fuzzy blend of African myths and the Modern, dystopia, and death fantasy. The end is open. Staring at Tom through the windscreen into the night and suspects a “sunken area”. The mother, the mother, White Magic Woman. Where is she? In The Lake? What is she waiting for? To Tom and the kids? Maybe on a sequel, a novel trilogy.
Tom Kummer: Of poor parents. Roman. Tropical, Berlin 2020. 245 PP., approx. 33 Fr.
Created: 12.03.2020, 06:41 PM
