You Should Have Left: A Novel by Daniel Kehlmann (English) Paperback Book

Description: You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann, Ross Benjamin Now a Major Motion PictureFrom the internationally bestselling author of Measuring the World and F, an eerie and supernatural tale of a writers emotional collapseA screenwriter, his wife, and their four-year old daughter rent a house in the mountains of Germany, but something isnt right. As he toils on a sequel to his most successful movie, the screenwriter notices that rooms arent where he remembers them—and finds in his notebook words that are not his own. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Berlin and New York. His works have won the Candide Prize, the Doderer Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Welt Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages and is one of the greatest successes in postwar German literature. Review "Mind-bending. . . . Part horror, part science fiction." —The New York Times Book Review"A book that should carry a health warning: read alone at your own risk." —Monocle "Riveting." —Entertainment Weekly"Clever, exquisitely terrifying. . . . [Kehlmann] makes entertainment out of metaphysics." —Harpers Magazine "A masterclass in economical storytelling, meticulously attentive prose and imaginative agility. Kehlmann creates narrative complexity with the deftest of strokes." —The Literary Review"[A] master novelist. . . . [Kehlmann] has a rare ability to make complex ideas the stuff of warm, light fiction." —The Times Literary Supplement "A beautifully crafted exercise in terror. . . . [Kehlmann] creates a sense of existential dread that transcends the typical ghost story. . . . A book to keep you up at night." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "[Kehlmann] is in total control. . . . He and his translator Ross Benjamin squeeze an enormous amount of readerly anxiety out of very few carefully placed words. . . . This is a story about a marriage in trouble, and about a seemingly impossible desire to protect a young child from threatening reality, but also about something else, something unavoidable and powerful but terrifyingly vague. . . . This little book . . . has a funny way with dimensions—its effects are amplified, and they linger." —The Spectator "A masterful experiment about the limits of literary realism." —The Brooklyn Rail "Wry, eerie and increasingly terrifying. . . . Kehlmann is a formidable observer with a flair for articulating dysfunctional behaviour. . . . An entertaining Everymans postmodernist Gothic guaranteed to unsettle." —The Irish Times "A quick, fun, breathless read. Its inventive and scary—and a delightful take on the writing life." —The Huffington Post "Chilling. . . . Kehlmann makes deft use of horror staples and offers commentary on the distinction between art and life." —Publishers Weekly "A taut and scary novella." —The Sunday Times (London) Review Quote "This mind-bending novella about a writer losing his marbles contains images that startle and linger....The most arresting of the books chilling moments might do for baby monitors what Jaws did for swimming in the ocean....[Kehlmann] manages a few darkly comic flourishes...provocative...potent...pleasantly unsettling." -- John Williams, The New York Times "A quick, fun breathless read. Its inventive and scary--and a delightful take on the writing life." -- Huffington Post "A beautifully crafted exercise in terror from one of Germanys most celebrated contemporary authors....This novel is, in many ways, a classic haunted-house tale. There are warnings about the house from the people in the village below. Theres a creeping sense of horror. There are frightening phenomena that the narrator cannot explain. And there are specters. Kehlmann uses all these familiar tropes beautifully. But he also creates a sense of existential dread that transcends the typical ghost story....A book to keep you up at night." -- Kirkus Reviews, * starred review * "A well-crafted tale about one man unravelling due to forces beyond his control.... You Should Have Left-- part-horror, part-psychodrama--serves up effective shocks and thrills that keep us rapt and on the edge of our seats. The narrators journal slides from excerpts from his screenplay to accounts of his own creeped-out tragedy, and slips from coherence to jumbled trains of thought, and each time we lose purchase yet delight in the confusion and the tension." --Malcolm Forbes, The National "My favorite German novelist." --Ian McEwan, The Sunday Times (London) Description for Reading Group Guide The material presented within this guide is intended to provide topics of discussion for your reading group. You Should Have Left is a haunting portrayal of a man fighting against the unknown, both inside and outside of himself. Please us these questions as guidelines only, and feel free to wander in your discussion! Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide 1. In the beginning, the narrator and his family move to a vacation home in Germany. What is his initial reaction to the setting? 2. How does the relationship between the narrator and his wife seem when they move in? What about his relationship with his daughter? 3. How do the characters/plot from Besties contribute to the story of the narrator and his family? 4. "Marriage. The secret is that you love each other anyway" (p. 9). How do you feel about that statement? 5. After the first unintended words in his journal, and his first nightmare, what did you think of the narrators mental state? 6. Discuss the narrators trip to the village store. Why do you think the proprietor questions him so closely about Steller? Who/what does Steller represent? 7. The narrators reflection seems to keep disappearing. Perhaps a trick of the light? A picture that was nailed to the wall disappears. Do you think the house is trying to drive him crazy? What other explanations might there be? 8. Susanna and the narrator agree to leave immediately. While shes packing, he discovers evidence of her affair. Do you think its a coincidence that this happens when they were all about to get away? 9. Discuss what happens when the narrator tries to use the triangle ruler. 10. The store proprietor tells the narrator that the road has always been there, and local legend says a tower once stood where the house is. "The devil built it and a wizard destroyed it, with Gods help. Or the other way around, a wizard built it, and God destroyed it" (p. 87). How does this fit in with what is happening to the family? 11. The narrator tries to escape down the mountain with his daughter, only to be returned to the place where he started. What is his reaction? 12. "Its the place itself. Its not the house. The house is harmless, its simply standing where nothing should stand" (p. 102). Discuss what this means. 13. "I know now why they all have faces like that. Why they look the way they look. Its because of the things they have seen" (p. 103). Who is the narrator describing? Who do you think they are? 14. Do you think the house is trying to make the family leave, or trap them there? 15. How much of what happens to the narrator is due to him going insane? 16. What do you think happens to the narrator at the end? Excerpt from Book I dont understand why I had a dream like that after such a blissful evening. An empty room. A naked lightbulb on the ceiling, in the corner a chair with only three legs, one of them broken off. The door was locked; what was I afraid of? The woman. Her narrow eyes were very close together, on either side of the root of her nose, which had a deep wrinkle down the middle. Her forehead too was wrinkled, and her lips were slightly open, so that I could see her teeth, yellowish like those of heavy smokers. But it was her eyes that were awful. She stood there while my fear grew unbearable. I was trembling, I had difficulty breathing, my eyes were watering, my legs went weak--this didnt actually happen to my real body, of course, so is it possible that I wasnt afraid at all, that it was only my dream self, just as only my dream hands were trembling? No, the fear was as real as fear can be, and burned in me, and when it was no longer tolerable, the woman took a step back, as if she were releasing me, and only then was I back in our bedroom, where I heard Susannas steady breathing and saw the moonlight falling softly through the window, and the baby monitor showed our daughter in a deep sleep. Breakfast: Bright grass and even brighter sun, no clouds, the air full of birds whose names I dont know; Ive always regretted that I cant identify birds by name. The way they let the wind carry them, as effortlessly as if flying were the norm, as if it took hard work to stay on the ground. At the moment Susanna is reading to Esther for the thousandth time from the book about the mouse and the cheese moon, the little one is laughing and clapping, and Im quickly finishing my writing before I head out. Were running low on provisions, someone has to go down to the village, and I volunteered. Get away. Susanna said thank you and held my hand, and I looked into her eyes. Theyre not actually blue, more turquoise, with a sprinkling of black. Will you read me your new scenes? You dont really want me to. Dont be so sensitive, of course I do. I dont have much yet. It just dawned on me where I know the terrifying woman from. I saw her in the photo on the wall in the laundry room--just to the right of the Miele washing machine and the dryer, I noticed it on the first day. But to get nightmares from that is really too much. Details ISBN0525432914 Author Ross Benjamin Short Title YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT Language English Translator Ross Benjamin ISBN-10 0525432914 ISBN-13 9780525432913 Format Paperback DEWEY 833.914 Year 2018 Publication Date 2018-06-12 Subtitle A Novel Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2018-06-12 NZ Release Date 2018-06-12 US Release Date 2018-06-12 UK Release Date 2018-06-12 Place of Publication New York Pages 128 Publisher Random House USA Inc Imprint Vintage Books Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:141703524;

Price: 25.77 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2024-11-06T06:14:07.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 AUD