F is for finance. F is for fake. F is for father who's absent. F is for frantically running from the life you've made and F is for fraudulent. For nobody in this book is who he pretends to be.
Arthur is the father, who wants to be a writer, and suddenly leaves his three young sons after taking them to a hypnotist one evening.
Martin, the eldest, becomes an overweight priest who doesn't believe God exists, concentrating instead on perfecting his skills with a Rubiks Cube.
Ivan becomes an art forger with his lover, Heinrich.
And Eric, Ivan's twin, becomes a financial consultant who completely mismanages the enormous funds of extremely wealthy clients.
Their lives are a parody of what it means to be successful, which is something they each search for but cannot attain.
"Truth," he (Ivan) said, "that's all well and good. But sometimes none of it gets you anywhere. Always ask what people are expecting of you. Say what people say, do what people do. Ask yourself who exactly you'd like to be. Then ask yourself what that person you'd like to be would do. Then do it."
This is wisdom for "getting somewhere"? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Finally, F is for fate. And perhaps for some of us, F is for faith.
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Berlin and New York. His works have won the Candide prize, the Doderer prize, the Kleist Prize, the Welt Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages and is one of the greatest successes in postwar German literature.
F a novel, is the second book I've read for the IFFP long list. Find other reviews from the Shadow Jury at 1stReading's Blog, David's Book World, Messengers Booker, and roughghosts.
