{"id":1668,"date":"2010-09-17T11:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T19:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2010-09-17T11:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-17T19:35:00","slug":"fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/fame\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prophetic Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Though at only 176 pages it might seem like a short novel, Daniel Kehlmann\u2019s Fame<\/em> is one of the more prophetic books that I have read in quite some time.\u00a0 And by prophetic, one could equally refer to the dual actions a of \u201cdescribing the present\u201d and \u201cpredicting the future.\u201d\u00a0 Kehlmann deftly exposes our relationship with technology, its effects on our relationships with one another, and our desires for more out of life, be that a second life\/chance or to live in storied infamy.<\/p>\n

Fame<\/em><\/a> is a \u201cnovel in nine episodes\u201d that focuses on a handful of characters who are loosely related.\u00a0 In one of the stories, we have Ebling, a computer tech who reluctantly purchases a cell phone that is accidentally assigned someone else\u2019s number, Ralf Tanner, a famous actor.\u00a0 Longing for more out of life, Ebling gradually takes Ralf\u2019s phone calls and takes over his life.\u00a0 As a result, the real Ralf fades into obscurity.\u00a0 Later in the novel we meet the employee at the cell phone provider whose\u00a0 intensifying, distracting affair with his mistress might have led to the mistake that resulted in two cell phones having the same phone number.<\/p>\n

In another story, Leo Richter is a famous writer who writes about the ongoing death of culture and the unification of society through technology.\u00a0 He\u2019s also something of a neurotic.\u00a0 He dates Elisabeth, a doctor who works in war-torn areas and is more afraid of becoming one of Leo\u2019s characters than being harmed in her work.\u00a0 Refusing to visit a central Asian country on a writer\u2019s junket, Leo sends another author, Maria Rubinstein, in his place.\u00a0 After a miserable trip, she is accidentally left behind and, because her name was never added to the list of visiting journalists and writers, the authorities refuse to help her, stubbornly insisting that she is in the country illegally.\u00a0 She is stranded, has no local currency, doesn\u2019t speak the language, and cannot contact her husband because her cell phone is dying.<\/p>\n

Rosalie is an older woman dying of cancer who decides to pursue assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland.\u00a0 As her story progresses, we realize that she is a character in a novel who begins to argue with its author when she realizes that he could simply re-write her story and she wouldn\u2019t have to die\u2026a la Stranger Than Fiction<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 She is unable to see, however, that even in her fictional world, her\u2026and the author\u2019s\u2026decisions would result in some of the very same tragic results that she is trying to resist.<\/p>\n

One of the many strengths of Kehlmann\u2019s work is the sense of pathos and impending doom that characterizes almost every story. \u00a0 In most of them, especially Ebling\/Ralf\u2019s and Maria\u2019s stories, the very technology that should unite us unlike ever before distances us and breaks down relationships in ways previously unimaginable (and perhaps only apparent to Kehlmann at the moment).\u00a0 Kehlmann writes, \u201cHow strange that technology has brought us into a world where there are no fixed places anymore.\u00a0 You speak out of nowhere, you can be anywhere, and because nothing can be checked, anything you choose to imagine is, at bottom, true, If no one can prove to me where I am, if I myself am not absolutely certain, where is the court that can adjudicate these things\u201d (148).<\/p>\n

These stories are also tied together by the writer Miguel Auristos Blanco, a character in Kehlmann\u2019s novel, whose books appear as backdrops or objects of appreciation across the various stories.\u00a0 Described as \u201cthe writer venerated by half the planet and mildly despised by the other, author of books on serenity, inner grace, and the wandering journey in quest of the meaning of life\u201d (103).\u00a0 He undergoes something of a theological\/existential crises that comes to fruition in a letter to an abbess who had previously written him a letter questioning his views on theodicy.\u00a0 I am reminded of Nick Cave\u2019s angry, pleading song, \u201cWe Call Upon the Author to Explain<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, in Kehlmann\u2019s novel, the writer Blanco, whose spiritual, inspirational books seem to imply the existence of said author, questions and ultimately rejects his beliefs his letter to the abbess.\u00a0 Blanco writes, \u201cGod cannot be justified, life is atrocious, its beauty amoral, even peace is filled with crimes, and no matter whether he exists or not\u2013I\u2019ve never made up my mind about that\u2013I have no doubt that my miserable death will evoke no more pity in Him than the deaths of my children or, some day may it be long distant, Reverend Mothers, yours.\u00a0 [\u2026There] are no grounds for hope, and even if God\u2019s existence were to be justified by something other than His flagrant absence, every intelligent argument would still pale before the scale of suffering in the world, before the very fact that suffering exists\u201d (110).\u00a0 Life in Kehlmann\u2019s \u201cfictional\u201d world is arbitrary to an almost depressing degree, and yet to gloss over the potential parallels in our own experiences by referring to an omniscient Deity who has a plan for us (whether we know it or not) is to provide an answer that simply cannot hold water when the floods come and to refuse moments of genuine fear, anger, and grief.<\/p>\n

Kehlmann\u2019s novel touches on so many other contemporary, yet timeless, themes, particularly our desires to be known and the ways in which we now increasingly turn to digital social networks and Internet to find this fame.\u00a0 Though his novel is entitled Fame<\/em>, it is full of characters who are just as eager to get out of the spotlight as there are those who want to bathe in it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though at only 176 pages it might seem like a short novel, Daniel Kehlmann\u2019s Fame is one of the more prophetic books that I have read in quite some time.\u00a0 And by prophetic, one could equally refer to the dual actions a of \u201cdescribing the present\u201d and \u201cpredicting the future.\u201d\u00a0 Kehlmann deftly exposes our relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":1710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-print"],"yoast_head":"\nA Prophetic Fame<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Though at only 176 pages it might seem like a short novel, Daniel Kehlmann's Fame is one of the more prophetic books that I have read in quite some time.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/fame\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Prophetic Fame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Though at only 176 pages it might seem like a short novel, Daniel Kehlmann's Fame is one of the more prophetic books that I have read in quite some time.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/fame\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pop Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-17T19:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"J. 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