Erinnerungen an meinen Porsche by Bodo Kirchhoff

1^1 I > I I * I I * I I ^ I I < I I * I HH l 0 I I * I Bodo Kirch hoff. Erinnerungen anmei nen Porsche. Hamburg. Hoffmann & Campe. 2009. 223 pages. 17.95. isbn 978-3-455-40184-4 Daniel Deserno, Bodo Kirchhoff's narrator, is one of the investment bankers who made a fortune in the overblown bubble we have just seen burst so loudly. He was lucky enough to have stashed his cash in various safe havens just before the financial collapse. But his prema ture retirement,and his writing of these recollections from a luxuri ous clinic-cum-resort on the edge of the Black Forest,was prompted by something else altogether. This was a little sex game with his last girl friend,Selma, thatgot out of hand and allowed his figurative Porsche (his actual one is safely garaged) to get seriously injured with a cork screw (Alessi design, of course). The psychic impact has also lefthis legs paralyzed, hence theneed forphysi cal aswell as psychological therapy. He also treats us tomore pleas ant recollections of his Porsche's sex capades, though he's less explicit about these than the debilitating corkscrew encounter. In the pursuit of women, as in investment banking at this level, it is all about the score, not aboutmaking a livingor having a life.Selma seemed tohave wanted a normal version of the latter, com plete with child. His rejection of her desires, and his approach to life generally, may be a reaction to the radical feministcommune inwhich hismother brought him up, in which the sole man around served only to produce Daniel and todo the cook ing forthegroup. Such a reaction to one's child hood circumstances would corre spond somewhat to the purpose the narrator of Charlotte Roche's Feuchtstellen?the book that these Bodo Kirchhoff Erinnerungen an meinen Porsche Roman i Hoffmann undCampei Erinnerungen are something of a response to?claims for her hospital ization owing to severe self-inflicted hemorrhoid problems. This corre spondence might be corroborated by the fact that a fictiveRoche named Helene shows up inDaniel's clinic as well and tells our narrator that in her book, "all she was trying to tellwas the tragedy of a child of divorce," which isof course true ina superficial sense. Given his experience with the world of high finance, everyone of course asks him about the cur rent chaos, and he says that any one could have predicted it?a cab ride through a couple ofAmerican suburbs would have told you. He had done business inChicago before returning to his (and the author's) hometown, the money mecca on the Main (Frankfurt).He had studied economics, though he thought he would give itan ethical edge with a few semesters of philosophy. When the resort's gardener tells him he lostall his retirementsavings in this latest collapse, Daniel simply gives him a check for the total, a small ^^^H sum for him but perhaps a little ^^^H ethical redemption or at least a guilt ^^^H payment. ^^^H Kirchhoff has a lotof fun with ^^^H all the fashionable brand names, ^^^H fromDaniel's Porsche (the garaged ^^^H one) to his watches and his ward- ^^^H robe,which bespeak life in this "fast ^^^B lane." But he seems himself, with ^^^H thisbook, tobe trading, on the one ^^^H hand, on the obvious currency of ^^^B the financial crisis and, on theother, ^^^H on the stillpersisting bestsellerdom ^^^H of Roche's book. But who's to com- ^^^H plain? Sex and money, money and ^^^H sex,what else is there?Oh, writing ^^^H entertainingly about it.And consid- ^^^H eringthespeedwithwhichhe got ^^^H this book out,BodoKirchhoff has ^^^H donea pretty good jobofthat. ^^^H UlfZimmermann ^^^H Kennesaw State University ^^^H Alain Mabanckou. Black Bazar. Paris. ^^^H Seuil. 2009. 247 pages. 18. isbn978 Alain Mabanckou's narrators (here ^^^H as in his recent Verre Casse and ^^^H Memoires de Pore-Epic) recount their ^^^H experiences with little self-aware- ^^^H ness. In Black Bazar, the narrator is ^^^H Fessologue; as an illegal immigrant ^^^H to France he cannot reveal his real ^^^H name. He is a "bottomologist," a ^^^H specialist of women's bottoms (fes- ^^^H ses). His woman leaves him to go ^^^H with their child and her lover back ^^^H toCongo (not thegrandCongo, ^^^H but the littleCongo, as Fessologue ^^^H explains in a tirade against Zaire for ^^^H having reclaimed thename Congo). ^^^H He calls herCouleur d'Origine since, ^^^H although born in France, she has ^^^H thevery dark skin of her Congolese origins. Naive in his relationship ^^^H with hiswoman, he says thatat least ^^^H he is not a cuckold, since he never ^^^H married her. ^^^H IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM 66 i World Literature Today ^^^H

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