Jörg Fauser's The Snowman (Bitter Lemon Press) can hardly be said to be crime fiction, although there is crime, or even a thriller, although there are occasional subdued thrills. This book, originally published in Germany in 1981, appears to be some sort of pseudo-autobiographical tale about a bum who finds he can't sell his Danish porn in Malta, exchanges it for high-grade cocaine which he hopes to offload to make enough money to be comfortable for the rest of his miserable life, and ends up rushing about Holland and Belgium and various parts of Germany, falling out of one mess into another. Blum, the bum, is variously paranoid and strangely trusting; adding colour to this strange little book are a Pakistani (agent? smuggler? businessman) Mr Haq and an American (agent? smuggler? businessman?) Hackensack.The author evidently led a dissolute life comparable to Blum's: after kicking off a heroin habit, he spent the rest of his tired life mired in alcohol. But, chemically-fueled, his brain evidently was a superb recording medium for acute description, and the book abounds in neatly executed portraits of the low-life and the marginal that one finds dotting pretty much all of Europe.
This was a pretty solid little tour of the criminal underground-- generic dirtbag Blum finds himself with some coke he needs to unload, and even though he knows he's out of his depth, it takes him a while to find his level.It's good, though for me, it asked a little to much of the reader, to remember the myriad characters Blum encounters and the disguises they don-- this isn't Melville's _Confidence Man_ in terms of its thematic ambition, but it wants to ask as much of its readers. And I might be misreading stuff here, but the last strophe-- into Amsterdam and then Ostend, Belgium, read a little too freighted politically. But that might've just been me.Still, a brisk and unsentimental little tale, told in brisk language that never panders. Pretty solid, overall.
What do You think about The Snowman (2005)?
Ich musste immer weiter lesen, weil ich wusste, dass noch was kommt. Immer wieder passiert was, auch wenn´s nicht viel ist, und eher erfolglos. Fand ich gut!! Offenes Ende, wie ich finde.
—Meju
