Bernhard Schlink: Summer Lies

(http://www.diogenes.ch/rights/aktuell/news/523)

Sommerlügen (Summer Lies): I saw the book by pure chance. I was in a bookstore looking for some other stuff. When I saw the author's name, Bernhard Schlink, I bought it immediately. I had read only one book written by him, Der Vorleser, which is a masterpiece.

So I bought the new book and started to read. I was a bit deceived at the beginning: after Der Vorleser, this one seemed to me written in a minor register. Actually it is about deceiving, the way we are trying to deceive ourselves, and to deceive the others. And about doubt: the way we are tempted to respond to the openness of the other, with doubt.

Sommerlügen is a collection of seven short stories: seven hypostases of trying to build or fix relationships that fall short. A new love story is faced by the man with fear. Isn't she too possessive? Could her love last? A new friendship is faced with doubt. Isn't the other one a too good story teller not to doubt his sincerity?

Other stories are told from the deceiver's perspective. A man is so scared to loose his wife that he cuts all their links with the outer world. Another one is gathering all his family to enjoy a nice summer vacation; what he doesn't tell them is about his terminal illness and his decision to die at the end of the vacation, surrounded by them.

Is it happiness possible? Sometimes we try to force it and we screw up. Sometimes we believe we have enjoyed happiness for all our life, while it's been just an illusion. Sometimes we are too scared to accept it. Or too shy. Or too tired. The last of the stories starts with a terrible phrase, the day she stopped loving her children was a usual one.

Each story in this collection is elegantly built, with a natural evolution toward paroxysm, and with the science of stopping shortly before the outcome. It can be either way. Maybe it's possible after all, this happiness?


(Bernhard Schlink)