Herscht 07769

Florian Herscht, the simpleminded hero of this magnificent single-sentence opus from Hungarian postmodernist Krasznahorkai (Satantango), desperately attempts to warn German chancellor Andrea Merkel of a looming apocalypse. As is often the case in Florian’s life, his conviction is born from a misunderstanding, having interpreted a lecture on the big bang theory to mean the planet will imminently collide with pure antimatter. By day, Florian is a flunky to “the Boss,” a neo-Nazi gang leader in their Podunk town. A Bach obsessive, the Boss regulary slaps Florian and makes him scrub graffiti from monuments to the composer. The mistreated Florian elicits sympathy from kindly librarian Frau Ringer, whose husband vocally opposes the gang and its alleged influence on the community: “Almost everyone here is a Nazi, even the ones who don’t realize it yet.” After the Boss is murdered, the Ringers fall under suspicion. Then wolves begin attacking the locals, and Florian moves into a cave, where he nurses an obsession with one-eyed gang member Karin. “Apocalypse is the natural state of life,” Florian writes to Merkel, a line that doubles as an artist statement for Krasznahorkai’s brilliantly cacophonous novel, which conveys the sense that the end is already here, and that the trappings of civilization are easier to scrape away than paint from stone. This stands with Krasznahorkai’s best work. (Sept.)