Tuesday, 4 August 2009

Kneller’s Happy Campers

by Etgar Keret
He is a brilliant writer, entirely different from any other I know. He is the voice of the next generation.

The quote from Salman Rusdie, that graces the cover of this book by Etgar Keret, was enough to persuade me to read it. Indeed, it is very much unlike Rushdie, whose writing style is not my cup of tea at all. For starters, it is short (less than 100 pages). It is not easy to write about suicide and be funny and touching without being nasty. But this is what Keret manages to do. He creates a whole world inhabited by those who have “offed” themselves. Like the world we all know, that other world does not make much sense at all. I liked all the crazy characters, and till the very end hoped that Mordy will make out with Leehee.

I told Leehee about Uzi’s dad, who calls this place Deadsville, and about how the people here all seem like they don’t want anything, and that most of the time when you’re next to them it feels like everything is OK, when actually you’re half dead already. And Leehee laughed and said that most of the people she knew, even before she offed, were either half dead or completely dead, so I was in pretty good shape.

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