This book wins my prestigious "most ridiculous afterword of the 21st century" badge of honor. SoV is a nice collection of bits and pieces mostly about Vienna. Supposedly some of it is based on Jonke's life, but that seems pretty unlikely, except in the broadest, least informative sense. There is some trickiness to the writing, but it doesn't take a genius to work out. Most importantly, it's funny, smart, and just strange enough to be compelling. It's as if Beckett decided to take it easy for once.

The afterword, on the other hand, somehow contrives to need a two page bibliography including, I tish you not, Jonathan Safran Foer; given that this text could easily stand on its own, I'm puzzled by the translator's need to compare it to about 50000000 other books, most of which are less interesting and certainly less enjoyable than this one. Luckily, the translation is clear and very readable.

There's a lot to be said about SoV, but I'll just put in a word for 'Wholesale Fish Dealer by the Danube Canal.' It starts out like a funny pub story about a conspiracy nut, looks like it's about to become a tiresome "but isn't all literature with its plots and forms really just another kind of lunatic conspiracy theory?" tale, then (I would argue) finally develops into a very funny, very cutting re-description of representative democracy. The conspiracy nut suggests that life would be a lot easier and more efficient if he replaced the Chancellor, who is really only a puppet. Indeed. ( )

This novella reminded me a bit of Calvino in its terse style and bizarre images. Like the bulk of his work, this novel is musical, innovative, and difficult, not in a dusty academic way, but as a delightful puzzle, as a well-constructed argument, as a challenging game of chess. Innocence devolves into disillusion and the paranoid appear in unexpected moments.
Beginning with a recounting of the narrator’s birth, and how his skin was tinged blue, the novel proceeds with descriptions of events that helped shape his personality, his consciousness, his obsessions: he encounters a man who thinks the French Embassy was built in the wrong place; he meets another who is unsure whether he is or isn’t the Chancellor’s confidant; he bumps into an eccentric stamp collector in the woods he thinks was imitating a tawny owl’s call; he meets another man (perhaps Jonke’s tribute to André Gide’s The Counterfeiters) who hands him a book called The System of Vienna; and he meets a paranoid fish merchant who believes that he masterminds Austrian politics from his stall.
Filled with eclectic sketches of personal interests of the narrator, his friends, and other characters the images seem to fit together in a magical way that defies analysis. It is a book that bears reflection and perhaps ultimately will leave questions unanswered and thoughts unresolved. From stamp collecting to lovemaking to an opera class the book becomes more fantastic as it spans briefly into nonexistence. ( )