Die sanfte Gleichgültigkeit der Welt

the long version

"In this alluring, melancholic novel--Peter Stamm at his best--a writer haunted by his double blurs the line between past and present, fiction and reality, in his attempt to outrun the unknown. Lena is a young actress in Stockholm. Christoph writes her a message. He wants to meet her. He just indicates where and when and that he wants to tell her a story. She must have wondered about such a note. They meet, go for a walk and he tells her that he wrote a book, just the one. Lena says her boyfriend is also a writer, writing his first novel. He knows, he says: 'That's why I want to tell you my story.' This story changed Christoph's life and will call into question everything that Lena has taken for granted until now. Twenty years ago, Christoph loved a woman who resembled Lena, who is in fact just the same. He knows about the life she leads, knows what still lies ahead of her. And so begins a uniquely existential game of past and present that will leave no one unharmed. In the terse and precise language that is his hallmark, Peter Stamm explores a fundamental question: Can we escape our destiny, or must we come to terms with the sweet indifference of the world?"--