Thomas Glavinic

Who has never hoped upon seeing a shooting star that their secretly expressed wish will come true one day? (…) Yet you would be taken aback if a man were to sit down beside you one day and offer to fulfil three wishes for you. Presumably you would consider him to be mad. Perhaps, like Jonas, the hero of Thomas Glavinic’s latest novel Das Leben der Wünsche, you would respond brusquely, “But what business of yours are my wishes? I do not even know who you are." And perhaps, also like Jonas, you would accept his offer out of a sense of fun and curiosity. (…) Before sending him on his way, the man tells Jonas to give himself time for his wishes to evolve. After this introduction, Glavinic starts off by telling us in a quite unhurried way about his 35-year-old hero’s very ordinary life. This would all be not particularly spectacular and rather boring if it were not for the introduction, which gives this novel a shady, if not even dark atmosphere from the outset and allows it quite literally to lead a life of its own, with each new incident in Jonas’ life, however small, being filled with meaning and sometimes a meaning he does not even seem to deserve. In some inexplicable way, Jonas’ life has started to slide out of control. To put it another way, Jonas is living in a parallel world, and it is one where he lives all alone.

Garrit Bartels: "Das bin doch nicht ich"
© Die ZEIT, 1 September 2009