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the complete review - fiction

Short Circuit

by
Wolf Haas

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : good playful fun, very nicely done

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Die Funktionstüchtigkeit von Geschichten manifestiert sich hier unmittelbar, so lässig die beiden Leser -- und bald lesen noch andere mit -- zu ihren Büchern greifen mögen. Auch lässt der gewiefte und krimierfahrene Österreicher Haas es bei der cleveren Konstruktion nicht bewenden. (...) Wackelkontakt ist auch perfekt, weil sich Haas für das interessiert, für das sich seine Figuren interessieren. (...) Bis zum vorletzten Moment hat Haas Einfälle. Das ist eine bezaubernde Virtuosität, von der man dachte, man wäre zu erwachsen dafür. Davon aber kann keine Rede sein. Ja, genau, wie bei M.C. Escher." - Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau
  
  
• "Noch nach der zweiten oder dritten Lektüre bleibt die Spannung: Fehlt irgendwo ein Teilchen in diesem Buch, oder ist es ganz und gar perfekt ? Kann man einen Roman schreiben, der aus dem witzigsten Blödsinn auch noch so etwas wie hermeneutische Klugheit zaubert ? Wolf Haas kann das. (...) Wackelkontakt ist ein Roman wie ein Möbiusband. (...) Wie beim Zusammensetzen eines Puzzles ergibt sich erst am Ende ein komplettes Bild. (...) Der Semiotiker Umberto Eco ist bei diesem Steckdosen-Drama genauso Pate gestanden wie Italo Calvino mit seinen postmodernen Spielen der Intertextualität. (...) Besonders pfiffig sind die Witze, die in Wackelkontakt über das Substanzielle in der Kunst gemacht werden. (...) r wäre nicht der österreichische Schriftsteller, würde es in dieser Geschichte nicht auch noch ganz heftig um Liebe gehen." - Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
  
  
• "Wolf Haas, der große Roman-Tüftler der Gegenwartsliteratur, konstruiert sein neues Werk als binäres System: Zwei Geschichten werden parallel erzählt oder genauer: sind jeweils in der anderen als Fiktion enthalten. (...) Die Handlungsstränge sind wie ein Möbius-Band, dessen Vorder- und Rückseite ununterscheidbar sind." - Richard Kämmerlings, Die Welt

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

[Note: This review is based on the original German version; I have not seen the English translation; all translations from the German are mine.]

       The original German title of Short Circuit is Wackelkontakt -- a loose electric wiring connection, such as that which causes a lamp-light to flicker -- which is somewhat more suggestive of some of what is going on in the novel, which does involve a loose (and very unusual) connection between its two main threads.
       The novel opens with Franz Escher waiting for an electrician who is supposed to fix a loose outlet connection (and replace the single outlet with one that can accommodate three plugs). Escher is in his fifties and since his university days has worked as a funeral speaker, hired by grieving families to speak about the deceased at funerals. His great passion is doing jigsaw puzzles -- his huge bookcase holds no books, just his large collection of puzzles -- and he was working on a puzzle while he waited for the electrician, but he finished it and so he picks up a book he just recently started. He's still a big reader, but only interested in one subject: the Mafia, and he'll read anything about it, fiction or non.
       The Escher-name is also meant to be suggestive, reminding readers of illustrator M.C. (e.g.) and especially his recursive art (such as Drawing Hands); soon enough, the reader is immersed in a similar back and forth. The book Escher is reading features a Mafioso named Elio who turns state's evidence, spilling enough beans for twenty-seven high-ranking Mafiosi to be put away for ages. In return, he is promised a new identity and life in Germany. While still in prison, he picks up a book that his cellmate, Sven -- a German junkie, put there to help him pick up the new language --, had given him and begins to make his way through it with the help of a dictionary. It begins with a protagonist named Escher, who is waiting for an electrician .....
       So it then goes, back and forth, Escher repeatedly picking up his book and reading about Elio -- soon renamed Marko Steiner, as he takes on his new identity -- and his new life in the German-speaking countries, and Elio/Marko picking up his book and reading about Escher ..... Eventually, there are also others who dip into the respective books, notably -- many years later -- Marko's daughter, Ala; Escher also downloads the audiobook version, to listen to it while driving.
       Both Escher and Elio/Marko go through something significant early on in their respective stories: Elio abandons his old life and becomes Marko, beginning a whole new life, while Escher accidentally electrocutes and kills the electrician who finally showed up. The police assume it was the electrician that forgot to switch off the fuse, leading to his death, and Escher doesn't clear up that he, in fact, absentmindedly flicked it back on, and so Escher doesn't face any consequences.
       While the storylines move back and forth between the two characters, each reading what happens to the other, they do not unfold concurrently: Escher's follows what happens in the days after the electrician's death, with Escher, somewhat wracked by guilt, trying to make things a bit right and hoping, for example, to be able to act as funeral speaker at the funeral, and this takes place in the more or less present-day, in 2024; Marko's story covers a much longer span of time, with him getting his new identity in 2002, and including him eventually marrying and having a daughter, Ala, who is already in her teens when she comes to play a more prominent role in the story (and picks up the book recounting what Escher is up to -- despite finding: "Das Buch war einfach zu spooky. Etwas stimmte nicht damit" ('The book was just too spooky. Something wasn't right with it')).
       Escher has led a fairly quiet life. His early experiences as a funeral speaker had led him to keep a diary of them, and, calling it a novel, he had submitted it to a publisher that, to his surprise, bought it. They expected big things from Eine traurige Angelegenheit ('A Sad Affair'), and paid him a DM 10,000 advance. (This was a long time ago -- before the 1999 adoption of the euro in Germany and Austria.) It did not do well, however, selling a mere 347 copies; Escher was never going to earn out his advance. He invested the money, in the stock of a new bookselling-company, but the stock price soon tumbled and he more or less forgot about his investment; he certainly didn't follow the stock price or the fortunes of the company (though one would think they'd be pretty hard to ignore ...).
       Marko's story -- covering more time, and with him starting a whole new life -- is a bit more action-packed, with Marko becoming an entrepreneur of sorts. He has a knack for mechanical things, and builds up a thriving bicycle-repair business -- though for a long time he avoids taking on Italian bicycles, worried about giving away his origins with a skip of the tongue or the like. He does eventually even try his hand at repairing Vespas -- with almost disastrous results .....
       After another hasty relocation -- Marko is always looking over his shoulder, worried about his true identity being discovered --, Marko meets Gabriele, and they fall in love and marry -- an ideal union, as Gabriele also is hiding her past (her name isn't Gabriele, for one):

Im besten Sinn konnte man über diese beiden Eheleute sagen, dass sie sich nicht füreinander interessierten. Dass Gabi instinktiv spürte, wie gefährlich ein Herumstochern in seiner Vergangenheit wäre, faszinierte Marko. Es war die reine Liebe ohne sinnloses Interesse am anderen.

[In the best sense, one could say about these two spouses that they weren't interested in each other. Marko was fascinated by the fact that Gabi instinctively sensed how dangerous poking around in his past would be. It was pure love, without any senseless interest in each other.]

- M.A.Orthofer, 5 October 2025

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Links:

• HarperVia publicity page
• Hanser foreign rights page
• New Books in German information page
• Ute Körner Literary Agency information page

• literaturkritik.de (German)
• Neue Zürcher Zeitung (German)
• SWR (German)
• taz (German)
• Die Welt (German)

• The Brenner-series
  1. Resurrection
  2. The Bone Man
  3. Come, Sweet Death !
  4. Silentium !
  5. Wie die Tiere
  6. Das ewige Leben
• The Weather Fifteen Years Ago

• See Index of German literature

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About the Author:

       Austrian author Wolf Haas was born in 1960, and is best known for his series of Brenner-mysteries.

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© 2025 the complete review

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