What I am reading
this is the highly subjective way I read and interpret literature
(I mostly read classic belles-lettres, but you’ll find some examples of trashy readings here and there as well)
A labyrinth worth getting lost in
Believe it or not, but I bought and read this one solely because I might have (had) a little crush on the translator, who btw is not only a really sweet and charming guy, but he does an amazing job of translating Bulgarian into German as well.
I honestly wasn’t really expecting much from Physik der Schwermut, but surprisingly, it pulled me in really quickly with a multifaceted story that is not too easy to follow, but also not too hard, that is as twisted as it is exiting and as nostalgic as it is modern. Gospodinov wrote a very postmodern novel with an unreliable narrator, a protagonist with a fragmented self and some leaps in time as well as in space which takes the reader on a somewhat melancholic journey through the corridors of the Minotaur’s labyrinth mirrored by various European cities.
Gospodinov has an amazing way of creating different atmospheres and of playing around with ambiguity and irony on a literary level which you rarely come across in contemporary literature. What I am trying to say is, that basically this book had no reason for being this good.
