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Peter Stamm

Author of Agnes

34+ Works 1,559 Members 63 Reviews 3 Favorited

About the Author

Image credit: Peter Stamm Foto: privat

Works by Peter Stamm

Agnes (1998) 262 copies
Seven Years (2009) 245 copies
Unformed Landscape (2001) 167 copies
On a Day Like This (2006) 141 copies
To the Back of Beyond (2016) 138 copies
All Days Are Night (2013) 115 copies
We're Flying (2008) 85 copies
Blitzeis (1999) 66 copies
Seerücken: Erzählungen (2011) 49 copies
It's Getting Dark: Stories (2020) 32 copies

Associated Works

Best European Fiction 2010 (2009) — Contributor — 166 copies
33 Days (1992) — Afterword, some editions — 91 copies
McSweeney's Issue 42 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): Multiples (2013) — Translator/Contributor — 62 copies

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Reviews

To the Back of Beyond is the first novel by author Peter Stamm that I have read, but hopefully it won’t be the last. This is an unusual story that can affect the reader in many different ways as it slowly draws you into the story of a seemingly happily married man, who one evening while out in the yard, just up and walks away.

He walks across Switzerland, moving mostly at night to avoid being recognized, sleeping in the forest or in abandoned huts, scavenging as he moves along. And what of his wife and the two children he has left behind? The book alternates between Thomas, the husband and his wanderings and Astrid, the wife, and how she copes with his disappearance. Walking away from one’s obligations is interesting, but at the same time to abandon one’s family seems unnecessarily cruel so I found it difficult to be too sympathetic towards Thomas. At the same time, I found Astrid’s reluctance to accept his absence, her flimsy excuses to both herself and to others hard to understand. I wanted more, I wanted to understand the character’s motivations but the author kept us at a distance. His measured, cool prose gave us plenty of detail but nothing that truly satisfied my curiosity.

I suspect the author deliberately left his character’s motivations unfocused allowing the readers to ponder upon a variety of questions, is our current life the one we want, are our routines meant to bring comfort or to chain us down, can one ever really know another person? To the Back of Beyond is a perplexing, strange yet fascinating story that I enjoyed but I suspect there could be many readers who would simply want to toss this book against a wall.
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DeltaQueen50 | 8 other reviews | Jan 24, 2022 |
Ist alles nur erfunden oder geträumt? Kommt die Wirklichkeit des gezeichneten Bildes aus einer parallelen Realität? Der Suspense dieser Story hält sich in praktikablen Grenzen. Peter Stamm geht in der existenziellen Frage, was sich hinter dem Sichtbaren verbirgt, keinen Schritt zu weit in Richtung Philosophie. Vielleicht ist er deshalb der Philosoph unter den Schweizer Schriftstellern, weil er die Klugheit des Schweigens ebenso beherrscht wie die Kunst der kurzen Sätze.
 
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mwerz | Oct 28, 2020 |
Ein norwegisches Dorf nördlich des Polarkreises, am Rande der Welt. Hier lebt Kathrine, die Zöllnerin. Hier ist sie aufgewachsen, hat mit zwanzig von Helge ein Kind bekommen und sich wieder getrennt. Tagsüber kontrolliert sie die einlaufenden Trawler, ißt zu Mittag im Fischerheim und trinkt abends ab und an im Elvekroa, der einzigen Bar im Dorf, ein Bier. Nur manchmal, wenn im April endlich die Sonne ihr diffuses Licht über die weite Schneelandschaft wirft, bricht sie aus dem grauen Einerlei der Tage aus, schnallt ihre Langlaufskier unter und fährt zum Leuchtturm. Mit achtundzwanzig heiratet Kathrine zum zweitenmal: Thomas, Produktionsleiter in der Fischfabrik, promoviert, sportlich, weitgereist, reiche Eltern. Eine "gute Partie" und ein Mann, der weiß, was er will, der von nun an einen Strich durch die ungefähre Landschaft von Kathrines Leben zieht. Doch Thomas hält nicht, was er verspricht, und als das Schiff der Hurtigroute in den Hafen einläuft, geht Kathrine an Bord und fährt mit der Polarlys nach Süden...

Peter Stamm, der Autor der vielgerühmten Debüts "Agnes" und "Blitzeis", erzählt in seinem neuen Buch "Ungefähre Landschaft" mit einer wunderbaren, schwebenden Leichtigkeit und atmosphärisch dicht von einer jungen Frau und ihrer Reise in eine nur scheinbare Fremde.
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Fredo68 | 9 other reviews | May 14, 2020 |
‘There are distinctions, variations. Those are the mistakes, the asymmetries that make life possible in the first place.’

Peter Stamm’s new novel (novella?) is an intriguing meditation on identity and life choices that somehow always seems slightly out of reach. The book raises plenty of questions, but leaves many of them unanswered, and that will be its strength, for some, and its weakness, for others.

Christoph, a middle-aged writer whose last book was based on his failed relationship with an actress called Magdalena, becomes convinced that he has a younger doppelganger, who works in the same hotel where he used to work, and is in a relationship with a woman called Lena. Christoph leaves a message for Lena to meet him, and they spend a day wandering around Stockholm as he tells her his story, that might also be her story. As they talk, incidents from both twenty years ago and the more recent past are replayed but in slightly different versions, people meet in the same places but the outcome is a variation on the ‘original’. In his telling of the story, it transpires that Christoph met and told the same story to his younger ‘self’, called Chris, four years earlier in Barcelona. In that meeting it somehow becomes apparent that the book that Christoph wrote either doesn’t exist or has somehow been deleted from all records. And so, he proceeds to try to recreate the book from his memory, but things are more problematic: ‘the memory dissolved, and I realized how much I had forgotten.’ In trying to write the same book, it turns out to be different.

Throughout the book there are subtle hints that something decidedly odd is going on: Christoph follows Lena round as she shops and visits an art gallery, but she never notices that he is there; Chris, whom he also starts trailing, never recognizes him whenever there eyes meet; Christoph starts to see what can only be described as visions, or ghosts, of people that no-one else seems to be able to see. As the stories of the four individuals weave in and out of themselves, the whole notion of writing a story becomes central to the book itself; if our lives are written as stories, how free are we? And just how reliable is Christoph?

This is a beguiling and thought-provoking short novel, full of ideas and questions without offering much by way of solutions. It is, perhaps, a little too cerebral for its own good and this slightly detracts from the overall feel of the book. It is a little detached, full of wistful moments of gazing at nothing, lost deep in thought. However, there is fun to be had watching the motifs and events play out in there many different variations, and the whole thing will indeed make the reader ponder the notion of how our lives are somehow just playing out over and over. Thoughtful, intelligent and well worth a read. 4 stars.
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Alan.M | Jan 2, 2020 |

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