The June NYRB subscription book, Sand by Wolfgang Herrndorf (translated from the German by Tim Mohr) has the distinction of being the 500th book published in the Classics series. I am equally intimidated by it and excited to be reading it. The last few NYRBs have been somewhat challenging, though they are always worthwhile. Actually I don't think any of this year's selections have been particularly easy breezy reads, but as many of my current in progress books are far more summer-y (some verging on beach) reads, I guess I need a little challenge.
I've just jumped right in and am trying to orient myself. Already I can tell this is a story that is going to require longer bursts of reading and not one that will be easy to just dip into. Here's the teaser NYRB sent via email recently:
"North Africa, 1972. A strange series of events has begun to unravel in the Sahara: a man wakes in the desert having lost his memory; four people are murdered in a hippie commune; a briefcase of money goes missing; and this is only the beginning."
"Vivid and cinematic, Sand has the dark frenzy of a Coen brothers film and was the last book written by the celebrated author Wolfgang Herrndorf before his untimely death in 2013."
As yet no bodies have appeared but I am becoming acquainted with two men, one in particular, who are going to be (I believe) the main protagonists in the story. Canisades and Polidorio work at the Central Commissariat in Targat and I think it will be up to them to investigate the forthcoming crime. I'm intrigued by Polidorio and as it seems (at the moment anyway) to be more his story, let me describe him.
"It had been two months since Polidorio started his job there. And for two months he's wanted nothing else but to return to Europe. Already on the day of his arrival he had realized that his knowledge of human nature didn't function among the foreign faces--a realization for which he had paid with his camera. His grandfather had been an Arab himself, but he had emigrated to Marseilles when he was young. Polidorio had a French passport and after his parents' divorce had grown up in Switzerland. He'd gone to school in Biel, then later studied in Paris. He spent his free time in cafes, in cinemas and on tennis courts. People liked him, but when there were arguments they called him pied-noir. If his serve had been better, he might have been able to become a tennis pro. As it was, he became a policeman."
I had to look up 'pied-noir'--it translates as black feet, which is what he white French colonists in Algeria were called. So that helps create a picture. Polidorio has come with his wife, who was his second girlfriend (not his first choice, but . . .). I find myself rereading passages not only to make sure I am getting the details straight, but because I am finding the story really very interesting. It's one of the chunkier NYRBs that I have received in a while--over 450 pages, but I am looking forward to the challenge. Can something be intimidating in a good way? This is it for me.