I’ve never read Daniel Kehlmann before. I hadn’t even heard his name. While browsing in a bookstore, the title of the book – Me and Kaminski – attracted my attention. When I read the back cover and saw that it was about the painter Kaminski, I immediately bought it. And I’m so glad I did. It is a remarkable book.
Me and Kaminski is about a painter detached from the art world and a fascinating journalist who chases after him. The novel is told through this interesting journalist who sees all kinds of things. The journalist, who plans to achieve a reputation by writing Kaminski’s life story, beats around the bush to reach Kaminski. But he has to deal with funny stuff to get what he wants. Since it is such a short novel, you can read in a sitting. If you want to read something different and meet a character that will make you want to slap him, you cannot find a better one.
Me and Kaminski
Sebastian Zollner is set on writing the biography of the painter Manuel Kaminski.
Yet Kaminski – once a pupil of Matisse, now an ailing recluse – is not the kind of character to willingly embrace such a project.
And Zollner – inept, charmless, and with scant knowledge of art history – is hardly the man to undertake it.
So it’s a good job Sebastian has an ace up his sleeve, and that Kaminski will have little choice in the matter…
Half road novel, half satire on the contemporary art scene, Kaminski and Me is a wryly humorous meditation on art, memory, and identity.
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-language novelist and playwright of both Austrian and German nationality. His novel Die Vermessung der Welt is the best-selling book in the German language since Patrick Süskind’s Perfume was released in 1985.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
