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The Color of the Snow: A Novel
The Color of the Snow , German writer Rüdiger Kremer’s first novel, is a most unusual and haunting work of art. Carefully constructed and elegantly written, The Color of the Snow consists of twenty-one texts which spiral around the character of Jakob, who first appears as a seemingly retarded boy born during World War II. The texts include stories, a script for a film, a radio play, a short essay––a tour de force of narrative possibilities. The twenty-one parts are interrelated and form a narrative, but their relationship to the “story” and to each other is intentionally they circle Jakob, they reflect him in his shifting shapes (it begins to appear that he may well be the author of the texts we are reading), but what is at the center remains a mystery. Mysterious too is the alchemy Kremer employs to create a stunningly moving novel out of intellectual challenges.
- GenresFiction
117 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1992
17 people want to read
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February 9, 2025
This unique little book stitches frigid Alpine silence to the feverish clatter of buried truths. Jakob Lorenz, corroded by professional disgrace, returns to his Swiss village. Memories mix with hopes, nostalgia confused with hallucinations, and old truths emerge from the depths of his murky consciousness.
Kremer, a Bern-based polymath whose essays dissect Brechtian alienation and Swiss neutrality’s moral cataracts, salts the text with cinephilic winks. Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour, and countless other references fill many pages. A butchered horse, a lost parent, the death of loved ones, sickness, and other sad events fill the rest. These allusions amplify Kremer’s inquiry into perception—how power manipulates sight, how guilt rewires memory. 3.5 stars rounded up for brevity and originality.
"...Enveloped in a long coat crudely stitched together from woolen blankets, the father returned home from the war at noon one warm spring day, opened the kitchen door without knocking, and stood silently for a moment, regarding those eating, who, looking up from their plates one after the other, at first took the man they thought dead for one of the wandering beggars who came along the road each day, alone or in groups, threatening the safety of house and home, so little did the small figure standing in the door resemble the young soldier in a black uniform who had departed seven years ago with the promise to return from the campaign as a victor or not at all; now, when a thick-set man he didn’t know sprang up from the head of the table and raised his hand with a curse to order him from the house, whistling for the dog, he revealed who he was; he fended off all embraces, would not eat the green bean soup on the table, nor drink the milk, refused blackberry wine, whiskey, just wanted to sleep, not in the bedroom, which they quickly offered to prepare for him, but in the stable with the cows; he slept wrapped in his rough coat for two days and two nights in an empty calf-stall on chopped oat straw..."
Kremer, a Bern-based polymath whose essays dissect Brechtian alienation and Swiss neutrality’s moral cataracts, salts the text with cinephilic winks. Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour, and countless other references fill many pages. A butchered horse, a lost parent, the death of loved ones, sickness, and other sad events fill the rest. These allusions amplify Kremer’s inquiry into perception—how power manipulates sight, how guilt rewires memory. 3.5 stars rounded up for brevity and originality.
"...Enveloped in a long coat crudely stitched together from woolen blankets, the father returned home from the war at noon one warm spring day, opened the kitchen door without knocking, and stood silently for a moment, regarding those eating, who, looking up from their plates one after the other, at first took the man they thought dead for one of the wandering beggars who came along the road each day, alone or in groups, threatening the safety of house and home, so little did the small figure standing in the door resemble the young soldier in a black uniform who had departed seven years ago with the promise to return from the campaign as a victor or not at all; now, when a thick-set man he didn’t know sprang up from the head of the table and raised his hand with a curse to order him from the house, whistling for the dog, he revealed who he was; he fended off all embraces, would not eat the green bean soup on the table, nor drink the milk, refused blackberry wine, whiskey, just wanted to sleep, not in the bedroom, which they quickly offered to prepare for him, but in the stable with the cows; he slept wrapped in his rough coat for two days and two nights in an empty calf-stall on chopped oat straw..."
Displaying 1 of 1 review