Luck

by Gert Hofmann, Michael Hofmann (Translator)

A heartwrenching tale of a family's dissolution told from a child's crystalline perspective. Luck is the beautiful, bittersweet, and very funny novel about a nuclear family living in a small German townwonderfully translated by Gert Hofmann's son, acclaimed translator and poet Michael Hofmann. It begins and ends on the same day, the "last day" of the narrator's childhood as he prepares to leave home with Father, because Mother is waiting for her new man to arrive, and his sister will stay behind. Or will they really leave? Mother sits in her room, squirting herself with perfume. Father endlessly postpones his packing, hoping for a magical conversation that will mend his marriage. His little sister spits on her new dress, and asks....

Genres: Germany, Fiction, Literature

Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

About the author

Gert Hofmann (1931 – 1993) was a German writer and professor of German literature.

He was the father of poet Michael Hofmann, who translated some of his father's works into English.

Reviews

[João Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro engraçadíssimo, e com traços de expressionismo alemão que o demarcam de outros livros do mesmo género. A irmã é uma personagem inesquecível. É um grande livro, e o nível dos diálogos é difícil de ultrapassar.

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

What if all goes well?
Then she can wash his socks, beginning Monday.
And his underpants? asked my sister.
Them as well, said Father, and laughed. He was being very malicious. And all the plates and spoons and coffeepots that we had always used, and that Mother would now use with Herr Herkenrath, I thought. But enough of that, said Father, I need to think! There, have another look out of the window, soon we won't be able to do that any more!

Father malingers to fate, looking for a sign that he is not going to have to leave his home. His son is meant to go with him and he waits for a sign if they will go to Russdorf after all, or perhaps Berlin or Africa. The street is too narrow for the moving van, see. Look, children, see there is the sign.

Luck is through the eyes of the son. It is a life out of the corners of the eyes, a microscopic view of a festering mold for a husband. Luck would be the queasy feeling in the stomach when the thing you are dreading, the big change, doesn't hurry up and come already. You could look forward to good things before or after if only the upheaval could occur. Hofmann recreates this waiting room hell and it is the books strength and weakness. It becomes tiresome to read as it is all too believable. The parent who won't let go and you are hostage to the memory of their failed relationship. Luck puts you under his thumb because he is the largest object in the mirror. The sister makes a lot of commentary and asks a lot of questions. She is part childhood fascination and growing disbelief. Hofmann is the best at portraying how both larger and life and at the same time ridiculous they were through the sister's questions. It would be worse than staring at yourself too long in the mirror to stand exposed in front of these kids that need you to be better more than you need to fool yourself into thinking it could all still work out. Luck is TOO good at reliving this particular discomfort. Hofmann could probably make you feel an atomic wedgie if he wanted to. His daughter asks if he can see the back of his head to know that he hasn't changed. How old are you, father? The mother finally just says it isn't polite to ask a lady her age. The daughter is going to stay with her mother. I can imagine she will have to find her own life then because they won't pay any notice of her, her mother and new fella. The kids stand in the hallway and go from mother to father as if they could hold up mirrors to the backs of their heads and inspect for change. I wished that the children could go out into the street and play, anything but listen to their father mourn his dead marriage any longer, or his failed writing career (if I never again read about a writer whining about how he can't write it will be too soon. For a reader to be invested at all in his plight wouldn't they have to have something to say? Boo-hoo you aren't world famous. I'd say an audience was the last thing he needed, this man who doesn't listen to others). Luck is a family that slowly dies as if it were an over actor milking his final stage on scene for all it is worth. I didn't feel the loss of a great love once had. It was a husked man without another shell to crawl into. If his marriage wasn't over he would fill all of his time with I could've been Thomas Mann whining. The children would wait for him to write novels until they discovered that the world had novels written. The sirens say there is a dead animal in the road and he died from unknown causes but afterwards someone came along and beat it with some bats.

I can't really fault the book for feeling exactly as if you were trapped with a man who won't let go and still it was so so so tedious to read it when it kept going on and on and I already knew what it was all about. Why did the kids follow the father around and listen to this shit? I had the feeling that he was this tedious for as long as they could remember. I have noticed that children tend to side with the "losing" parent in divorces, or the one who is leaving. He had their pity. I didn't feel love.

Michael Hofmann translated. Gert Hofmann is his father. The New Directions book jacket says he's highly regarded in Germany. I don't think all that many people read this in English. If they do they aren't writing about it on the internet. I can't really blame them. It isn't all that exciting to talk about. This is probably the most bored I've been writing a review.

[Kurishin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a heartbreaking story about divorce, a theme that is not explored as much in literature as one might think and it is done from an original perspective and with a rather original outcome. This novel, as it takes place over a short period of time but including memories, is a slow burn with some repetitive elements, but this focuses the reader to stay in the moment with the narrator and suffer with him as his family dissolves. As the narrator is a child, one can also sense time passing slowly this way, as it does for children.
I would not quite know what to compare this novel to as a frame of reference. It is singular.

[Davidcharlesbowmangmail.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is poignant, clever and funny account from the naïve and quirkily insightful point of view of a child in the midst of his parents' separation and divorce, with his mother's awkward lover slowly interposing between her misguided primness and the gradually decaying and failing father. It covers no more than a few days, jumping backwards and forwards to produce a grim and ironic picture of failed love, broken friendships, desire and social propriety. It is unpretentious, rather moving and powerfully evocative.

[Aida · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. The father is the most memorable of all--and perhaps the young girl--with such a generosity of spirit despite of all his glaring failures. Luck had me laughing aloud on more than one occasion. (Ryan O'Connor)

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

It really just didn't do it for me. The major characters failed to engender any kind of sympathy, and while the young narrator could have played this role, he seemed merely a cypher to the other (frustrating and annoying) people in his life.

[D. Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having studied under Michael Hofmann he mentioned many things about his father's book that he has translated. In part the book tells a true story of his father and the little boy of course was Michael. A truly great read.