FICTION: Is the bond between reading, writing and drinking quite as intense as the German writer Michael Krüger considers it to be? I'm not sure. But he certainly makes a strong and funny case for a serious examination of these possibly complex, possibly irrelevant relationships in what he describes as 'Epilogue: Alcohol and Literature'.
The tone is as zany and as thoughtful as everything he writes.
This is a deliberate, intentionally offbeat writer who does not waste words, yet nor does he treat language as sacred either. For him, it is the means to an invariably playful and often provocative end. After all, he is the author of a most convincing deconstruction of a work in progress, The End of the Novel. Part gag, part parable, it is funny and it also makes one think twice - now you see it, now you don't.
'Epilogue' is the final short piece in Scenes From the Life of a Best Selling Author, an entertaining volume of short pieces. The others are mainly anecdotal, in which the narrator adopts a conversational tone while passing on a story or details of an event often featuring the antics of family members. This discussion about writing and drinking is completely separate from the rest of the book and takes the form of a formal paper that could well be delivered as a mock heroic lecture. "Every writer drinks . . . What can not perhaps be gleaned from their simple writers' graves is, however, revealed if one studies their non-canonical works- letters and diaries, for example: world literature lies under a fog of alcohol."
Irish writers will be relieved, surprised, perhaps even disappointed, to discover in terms of writing and drinking, or in a ratio of books produced to wine consumed, they are not poll toppers. In Spain, it takes 65 litres of wine to produce four books a year; the Irish require a mere 4.3 litres for an equal output. Admittedly he does not concede that wine is not the dominant alcohol drunk in Ireland. But his, er, findings are illuminating: , his thesis does enlighten: "a German professor requires approximately 18 litres of wine to complete a philosophical manuscript of approximately 360 - that means 0.05 litres, or one mouthful, per page; whereas a French philosopher requires all of 24 litres for a 30 page essay on ethics - i.e. a bottle of wine per page. I do not believe I need to elaborate here on the causes of the relative dryness of German philosophy."
It is easy to imagine the narrative being offered as gospel in a packed lecture hall. It all ends on a cautionary note: "Someone who reads too much without wetting his whistle regularly will become stupid; someone who drinks too much without diluting his drink with literature will end up in the gutter." Elsewhere the narratives are more personal.
All of the stories are rather cryptic, understated in the telling and complex in their meaning. "Shortly before my twentieth birthday, I had the misfortune to learn that the man I had called father for as long as I could remember was not my father." He then proceeds to record how he tracks down each of his father's previous six wives. The first story 'The Beast' presents Krüger at his most deadpan. Here, the narrator is a successful writer who has made a fortune and spawned an industry employing his extended family by writing a history of the clan, "14 volumes so far, if I have counted correctly".
No matter how odd the stories appear, they always manage to stay just this side of the surreal. 'Green Week' is the closest in mood to his episodic, comic novella, The End of the Novel. In both works, Krüger's narrator becomes a passive witness to his experiences, even his daily life is something other people seem to run for him. In the novella, the narrator painstakingly describes how a manuscript some nine years in the writing is slowly but efficiently dismantled when life over- rules invention. It is a perfectly pitched performance and underlines exactly how original he can be.
Born in 1943 he is a complete literary man - publisher, editor, poet, fiction writer and critic. The in-jokes abound: "I have read the new Guünter Grass, nothing can touch me now." Even at his cleverest, he is never too knowing.
Krüger has a natural warmth and as he asks in 'The End of the Novel': "How much does a person have to say?" He says a great deal, if obliquely. His novel, The Man in the Tower, (German edition 1991; English translation 1993) in which a German artist moves into a tower standing in a private estate in the South of France, is a quasi-metaphysical thriller. It also shows the range and versatility of much contemporary German fiction.
There are several moments of deep feeling in these funny, eccentric tales. Krüger is no sentimentalist but he can capture a moment, and express a feeling very well. One speaker remembers how his grandmother and himself shared an unlikely passion - the theatre of Samuel Beckett.
'Uncle's Story' is just that - again the familiar narrator who speaks throughout the various pieces, recalls an individual - in this case a lone uncle. The old man's life's obsession is typographical errors, he saw history "as a web of misprints". In pursuit of mistakes, the narrator, acting as his uncle's assistant explores the classics of world literature. In addition to his literary investigations, the old man also had a car incapable of reversing. The story ends in exposure and disaster yet the uncle's memory remains special. Yet another story recalls a grandfather "who had dedicated his life to the moon.".
For sheer comedy 'My Sister's Boyfriend' in which the narrator describes the day his sister brought a poet named Knut home to the family, stands apart. As throughout the book, everything swings and succeeds on the consistent tone. The great man - well, youth - holds forth to the collected Aunts from his position of having been "awarded any number of prizes for promising young writers", without having actually published anything.
Not only will this deft little book amuse and engage, it should lure many readers to his other books. If there is a message among the insights it could be that art may not hold the answers to life, it does however offer a more attractive alternative.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
Scenes From the Life of a Best-Selling Author. By Michael Krüger, translated by Karen Leeder Harvill. 119 pps. £10
