Luck

I expected to like this book more than I actually did. No, that's not actually what I mean to say. I mean to say that I expected to enjoy this book more than I actually did. I found it admirable, painful, bleak. I guess that I was influenced by all the copy I had read before I bought the book that described it as funny, light, and ironic. The irony I certainly see, the qualities of lightness and humor weren't things that I saw at all. Gert Hofmann was a German novelist and academic who died in 1993. A number of his books (including this one) have been translated into English by his son, Michael Hofmann. (I picked up this book as a result of knowing the younger Hofmann's poetry.) Luck tells the story of the destruction of a family in a small German town. It is set on the day that the father finally moves out and that the mother's new lover will be taking possession. The belongings are to be split; the children are parceled out-- the boy with his father and the girl to stay with the mother. All love is gone between the two adults, and the woman sees her life and happiness at stake. The story is told through the voice of the young son. It isn't to say that Hofmann doesn't reach for humor. He does. It is more that I just plain old didn't find it funny. To me, it was a symphony of pain-- and it didn't get far enough past the pain to earn the bitter humor that I find in some of Beckett's pieces. Luck for me was simply sad-- and often quite difficult to read. So. I didn't enjoy the book-- not as I would a book which is described on the back cover as a "beautiful, bittersweet novel". Although Hofmann captures much of what I didn't think could be captured about childhood, I would use the world "bleak" much more readily than "sweet" to describe the project. Recommended.