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Zusatztext “Captivating. . . . Sophisticated. . . . Swift and exhilarating.” — The New York Times Book Review “Intense. . . . A driving! brutal snapshot of a midlife crisis.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Poignant and bitterly funny. . . . Reza offers us in Adam Haberberg the tightrope spectacle of a fabulously successful writer describing a failed one.” — Los Angeles Times “Polished. . . . A sympathetic portrait of a writer filled with regrets about his life and art.” — The New York Times Informationen zum Autor Yasmina Reza Klappentext From the award-winning author of Art and Desolation comes this bitingly funny new novel that follows the absurd adventures of a man struggling with a midlife crisis. Adam Haberberg is losing his sight in his left eye. His new book is a flop. And his marriage isn't doing too well. But while sitting one day on a park bench, he sees an old friend from high school, Marie Thérèse, and suddenly his whole life seems to change. Adam soon finds that his own life has somehow become intertwined with Marie Thérèse's, throwing everything into question. A wry tragicomedy and a nuanced study of a man in the throes of an existential crisis, Adam Haberberg has the same wit and panache that have marked all of Yasmina Reza's work to date. Leseprobe One day the writer Adam Haberberg sits down in front of the ostriches on a bench at the Jardin des Plantes menagerie in Paris and thinks, this is it, I’ve found the poorhouse position. A spontaneous position, he thinks, you can find it only when you’re not trying. One fine day you sit down and there you are, you’re hunched in the poorhouse position. He feels at ease in this position; I feel at ease in it, he thinks, because I’m young and there’s no onus on me to stay like this. In normal times Adam Haberberg soon bounces back, but these are not normal times for him, a man who’s paid six euros to walk a few yards parallel with the Quai Saint-Bernard, then come back again and collapse onto the very first bench, opposite the ostriches in what is undoubtedly the ugliest and least attractive part of the garden.So, one day, there in front of the ostriches in the Jardin des Plantes, Adam Haberberg sits down. The bench is wet from invisible rain. The two flabby, gray creatures are eating a kind of straw in front of their hut in a totally bare enclosure. The cell phone in his pocket rings. “Hello?” “Did you see the weather?” says the voice. “Enough to make you blow your brains out.” “Forget it. That’s how it goes.” “Where are you?” “In the Jardin des Plantes.” “What are you doing in the Jardin des Plantes?” “Where are you?” “In Lognes. Eldorauto car accessories. In the parking lot.” “What the hell are you doing in Lognes?” “Waiting for Martine. How’s the book?” “Disaster.” “Will I see you?” “I’ll call you back.”At the brick entrance to the big cats’ house the word shop looms monstrously. The optometrist, he tells himself, the optometrist was not all that reassuring. On the other hand he was not alarmist. But then would an optometrist be alarmist? Would an optometrist say, Monsieur Haberberg, we can’t exclude the possibility that very soon you’ll have lost the use of your left eye, dear Monsieur Haberberg, what guarantee have we that when you leave here you’ll still be able to cross the street like before? No. The optometrist says, the second angiogram confirms the diagnosis of partial thrombosis in the central vein of the retina. Showing more hemorraging than in the first. This is normal. It’s normal for the edema to deteriorate before beginning to be absorbed. It may take between six months and two years before becoming stabilized, it could deteriorate, remain stable or improve. The optometrist also says, you’re lucky, Monsieur Haberberg, you still have good close vision, you’re not seeing things blurred, you’re not seeing them distorted. And he adds, we must also do a ...
