Max Frisch: I'm Not Stiller

[Rigana]

Having a look around amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, it seems that this novel is hardly known outside the German-speaking countries, which it doesn't deserve.
The novel starts out in a Swiss prison, where the main character, the American White, is accused of being the missing Anatol Stiller, a Swiss citizen, who disappeared several years ago. He denies everything.
His lawyer wants to know the truth about whom he is, but all White/Stiller tells him are lies, but White/Stiller has a different understanding of truth. He expresses himself in parables (Isidor, Rap van Winkle), but the people don't understand him.
In the course of the book we get to know the history of Stiller as White/Stiller hears it from various persons out of Stiller's former life, most importantly his wife and an old love and maybe from his own memories.
The novel consists of seven books, written by White/Stiller during his time in prison and an epilogue written by a friend of him, telling how the story went on afterwards.
Main topics are amongst others identity and marriage, which the author discussed in his other works, too. Especially "Homo Faber" shows a lot of simularities, the main characters have a lot in common.
I like the style of the novel, some passages I even read aloud, especially the descriptions of the desert.

 

[jay]

Yes, I’ve mentioned this book a few times. An excellent read.
But you’ll probably have noticed by now that 98% of this board only gives a shit about Stephen King and/or books that at least hundreds/thousands/millions of people praise.
j

 

[Øystein]

Wonderful novel. It's unfortunately been too long since I read it - and my memory's too shoddy - for me to be able to say much about it at this point, but if nothing else, this thread deserves a wee bump just on the off-chance that someone might get tempted to give it a click. He's a pretty easy read, but can be devastating emotionally - so I suspect fans of, say, Kundera, might do well in giving him a shot.

The only other Frisch I've read is "Homo Faber", which I found to be just as fine as Stiller, if not even better. He's one of those authors I'm looking forward to reading in the original language once I get a bit better at the German thing, as I've only read him in Norwegian translation so far.