There’s almost no hierarchy of detail or information because Tom doesn’t know what’s significant and what isn’t. In a powerful translation by the novelist Henning Koch, there are sentences of precise and subtle lyricism. “Jersey Girl,” a heartwarming 2004 movie about death starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, uses more or less the same setup. Toward the end, Tom says, “I miss Karin,” but until this point there’s virtually no mention of his feelings. In contemporary fiction, this technique is used infrequently enough for it to feel radical here, particularly in this sustained form.

Source: New York Times January 29, 2018 09:56 UTC