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Faserland
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Wikipedia article
'Faserland' is the debut novel by Christian Kracht, published in 1995. It is considered to have triggered the new wave of German pop literature. It is the swan song of the generation of the 80s, whose characteristics are so carefully described in the book that it has been called the "cult novel of a generation". Critics often compare the book to those of the American author Bret Easton Ellis.
'Faserland' has been translated into Russian, Czech, Latvian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Korean, Romanian, French, Ukrainian, Swedish, Norwegian and Hebrew.
Title
The title allows many different interpretations. Directly translated, it means "land of fibers"Kiepenheuer & Witsch, [http://www.kiwi-verlag.de/rights/buch/fiber-land/978-3-462-04239-9/ 'Faserland foreign rights'], a possible reference to the narrator's recurring fixation on clothing, in particular his Barbour jacket. Other meanings that could be read into the title are the verbs 'zerfasern' ("to fray"), referring to the fraying of society, and 'faseln' ("to prattle on" or "to blather").
It also is similar to the English word "Fatherland" spoken with a German accent, and hence was interpreted as an allusion to Robert Harris' 1992 novel 'Fatherland', which presented an alternative history setting in which Nazi Germany won World War II.
Plot
The picaresque novel tells the story of a journey. The unnamed narrator is in his late twenties and is the son of a wealthy family, and travels south from the northernmost tip of Germany down to the Bodensee and onwards to Zrich. He is more an involuntary observer than participant in the events that unfold. He begins in Sylt and heads through Hamburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munich, Meersburg, and finally Zrich. In each of these places he has experiences with decadent excesses in the form of alcohol, drugs, and sexual encounters. These excesses are not enjoyed by the participants, but are more an expression of their hopelessness. The protagonist sees the downfall of his generationa close friend commits suicideand experiences his own downfall. He also reflects on unhappy memories of youth.
His odyssey, which can be interpreted as either a search for meaning or a long goodbye, ends on Lake Zrich: the references to Greek mythology (Charon, Obolus, and Hades) suggest the narrator's suicide in the middle of the lake. Another interpretation sees the crossing to the other shore as a sign of the homosexuality of the narrator. Neither has been confirmed by Kracht. The ending is left open.
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Category:1995 novels
Category:Novels by Christian Kracht
Category:Picaresque novels
Category:Novels set in Germany
Category:Novels set in Switzerland
Category:Culture of Zrich
Category:1995 debut novels
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