Berlin

by Michael Mirolla

“As wickedly funny and hilariously angry as vintage Harlan Ellison.”— Spider Robinson, author of Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon “A delightful romp through the metaphysical muck.”— Halifax Daily News “A funny, tragic glimpse into the territory of the absurd, somewhere between Kafka and Vonnegut.”— Calgary Herald “Weird and wonderful . . . imaginative, unsettling, devilishly layered. Mirolla delights in verbal and situational sleight-of-hand, exposing a disorienting world of labyrinthine dreams and menacing recurrent images. Mirolla likes the macabre and grotesque, absurdities and stylistic play. He mercilessly exposes our alienation and primal fears, forcing us to face the awful possibility that we are no more than the product of our own devising.”— Event Magazine The Berlin Wall falls. A continent away, a mysterious mental patient awakes from a two-year stupor. His obsession with Berlin is unexplained. His escape from the hospital launches a surreal adventure in which past blends with future, and death is used to change the fabric of the world in a freakish experiment on transcendental philosophy.  Like Franz Kafka or Italo Calvino in their blending of the real and surreal, or like a psychedelic drug trip, this story brings the reader into West Berlin’s seamy underlife—the omnipresent wall, transvestite bars, and sadomasochism. It is a secret world where a concentration-camp survivor sells gas stoves, a world of philosophical intelligentsia, adultery, and murder.  Frenetic, kaleidoscopic, horrible, brilliant. Michael Mirolla , author of novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, lives in Toronto, Canada. His writing has won many awards and has appeared in numerous journals in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Italy.

Genres: Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2003

About the author

The author of a clutch of novels, plays, film scripts and short story and poetry collections, MICHAEL MIROLLA describes his writing as a mix of magic realism, surrealism, speculative fiction and meta-fiction. Publications include the novel Berlin (a 2010 Bressani Prize winner); The Facility, which features among other things a string of cloned Mussolinis; and The Giulio Metaphysics III, a novel/linked short story collection wherein a character named “Giulio” battles for freedom from his own creator. Other publications include the short story collection The Formal Logic of Emotion; a punk novella, The Ballad of Martin B.; and two collections of poetry: Light and Time, and The House on 14th Avenue (2014 Bressani Prize). His short story collection, Lessons in Relationship Dyads, from Red Hen Press in California, took the 2016 Bressani Prize. The novel Torp: The Landlord, The Husband, The Wife and The Lover, set in 1970 Vancouver during the War Measures Act, was published in 2016 with Linda Leith Publishing out of Montreal. And 2017 saw the publication of the magic realist short story collection The Photographer in Search of Death. A novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Readers View Award, was published in the fall of 2019. A speculative fiction collection, Paradise Islands & Other Galaxies, is scheduled for the fall of 2020. The short story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology; and “The Sand Flea” was a Pushcart Prize nominee. In the fall of 2019, Michael served a three-month writer’s residency at the Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, during which time he finished the first draft of a novel, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Born in Italy and raised in Montreal, Michael now makes his home in Hamilton. For more information, http://www.michaelmirolla.com/index.html.

Reviews

[Inita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stāsts stāstā, līdz nav skaidrs, kas no aprakstītā bija īstenība, kas stāsts, vai kāda pazudusī realitāte. Man patika kā autors kacina lasītāju, novedot sitāciju līdz absurdam un tad atstājot neziņā, vai tā bija realitāte. Vēl arī lieliski izvēlēts fons - sašķeltā Berlīne, kuru var skatīt kā simbolu stāstu varoņu prātam/ apziņai un realitātei.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intelligent book, funny and insane, twisted, hallucinogenic, a trip in and out of lucidity. What is real, what is unreal? What is the future, what is now? Take the trip now!
~Stephanie

[Kristine Kornijanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Par filozofu, kurš paslēpjas ārprātā ... tiek rekonstruēti notikumi filozofu konferencē Berlīnes mūra pakājē (1987.), kurā brīdī sākas katastrofa, kurā brīdī tiek iznīcināts līdzsvara punkts?
Mana paralēlā doma, ko raisīja šis darbs, vai Vācijai jelkad būs atļauts atrauties no holokausta ēnas?
Katrā gadījumā "Berlīne" atgādināja Peļevina darbus, tātad specifiskai publikai ;)

[Signe Mežinska · Rating 1 out of 5]

Daudz slāņu, labirintu un prāta lamatu. Izskatās pēc mēģinājuma sekot Murakami un Velbekam, bet man šķita pārāk daudz visa kā kopā - filozofijas, bezapziņas, politikas utt. Nevarēju pat saprast, vai lasīt līdz beigām. Tomēr izlasīju.

[Matīss Mintāls · Rating 4 out of 5]

woody allen + trainspotting + fear and loathing + fight club + k-pax +.....

[Gabriele Pallonetto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Penso che nella vita di ogni lettore ci si sia almeno una volta imbattuti in un titolo che a fine lettura vi abbia fatto esclamare a gran voce: "Ma che Caspio ho letto?!".
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È questo il caso di "Berlino" di Michael Mirolla.
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La storia è quella del signor Giulio Chiavetta, ex tecnico energetico di professione, sedicente artista circense, nonché paziente da oltre due anni di un ospedale psichiatrico canadese, che alla notizia dell'abbattimento del muro di Berlino decide di scappare per recarsi presso la capitale teutonica!
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Assurdo no?
Ma questo è ancora niente...
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Il dottore che lo ha in cura e che vuole in tutti i modi ritrovare quest'uomo apre il PC del signor Chiavetta alla ricerca di tutti gli indizi possibili e si imbatte nella cartella "Berlino.nov".
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I 3 files che compongono la cartella sono documenti di testo dal titolo: "Venerdì.doc", "Sabato.doc" e "Domenica.doc".
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E il protagonista di questi documenti word è il signor... Antonio G. Serratura! 🤣
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La storia interna allo schermo del signor Serratura, così come quella esterna del signor Chiavetta si sviluppa nell'arco di 3 giorni ed è tutta giocata sul principio che è anche il titolo che da il nome alla casa editrice che ha deciso di portare questo titolo in Italia: "Alter-Ego".
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Tirando le somme "Berlino" è un romanzo che nonostante le assurde premesse non mi ha particolarmente entusiasmato. Dalla sua però c'è da dire che in molti punti mi ha ricordato le sensazioni che ho provato durante la visione delle pellicole di registi quali il mio amato/odiato Lynch! ♥️
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Il finale circolare e al contempo criptico alla "Mulholland Drive" mi ha piacevolmente colpito.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racconto surreale, folle, comico e tragico in una Berlino alla vigilia della svolta epocale che è stata la caduta del muro.
La perdita di identità, la molteplicità delle identità che sono dentro di noi e che sono parte stessa di Berlino, raccontate seguendo un professore di logica che deve partecipare ad un convegno. Il suo apice che è il suo declino, le sue personalità che combattono per esistere.
Un romanzo interessante e piacevole.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are perversions going on here." (p. 145)

It's the height of the Cold War. US President Ronald Reagan is about to speak in Berlin and demand that the Berlin Wall come down. But none of that matters. The Berlin that novelist Michael Mirolla writes about is more like the corrupt and degenerate Berlin of George Grocz from the 1920s. Many of Mirolla's characters are in fact gross caricatures of people just as George Grocz's drawings were. Seen through the eyes of Mirolla's unreliable and schizophrenic narrator/protagonist, logical (positivist?) philosopher Antonio G. Serratura, these Berliners are morphed by his delusions into dark Dada depictions of a depraved humanity filled with sexual perversions and Quixotic behaviors.

Mirolla begins with a third person narrative introducing Serratura's creator (or perhaps alter ego), Giulio A. Chiavetta, an "ex-stationary engineer by trade and self-styled freelance circus mime" who has apparently gone insane and is living in a clinic in Montreal while being treated by Dr. Wilhelm "Billy" Ryle, a psychiatrist. As the story begins, Chiavetta has apparently escaped from the institution and as the authorities look for this putatively harmless nutcase, Dr. Ryle gets access to Chiavetta's computer and discovers a document written by Chiavetta entitled "Berlin: A Novel in Three Parts." Thus we have a novel within a novel.

Ryle begins reading the first person singular novel, the contents of which are set in quotation marks--at least for a while they are. After a few pages the document becomes a third person narrative. This may seem complicated or abrupt or even unnecessary, but Mirolla writes so well and so engagingly that we don't care about the niceties of narrative construction. It seems that Chiavetta's protagonist, Serratura is on his way to Berlin to participate in the "Wittgenstein World Symposium on the Realism/Anti-Realism Debate in Contemporary Philosophy."

So. We have the makings of a satirical novel about modern philosophy and philosophers seen from the vantage point of the mentally disturbed. Naturally this is interesting to avant-garde writers and effete intellectuals such as myself, and so I read on. It doesn't take a lot of keen discernment to see that somehow Giulio A. Chiavetta and Antonio G. Serratura are more connected than as author and author's character.

All goes interestingly introspective as Serratura reveals his thoughts and meets and converses on the plane with a seller of restaurant supplies named Singer. It appears that a novel of ideas is developing. Perhaps a contrast between the airy, abstract world of philosophy and the practical world of business is being set up for some thematic development.

Serratura himself seems a down to earth and unpretentious philosopher, a man with a wife and daughter back in Montreal who has obviously achieved some success as a philosopher since he has been invited to speak at the symposium. Yet, something seems a bit amiss or a bit quirky. Serratura's wife has threatened to leave him, and has probably taken on a lover, "one of the plumbers or other handymen who'd swarmed their house as it underwent renovation," Serratura muses, although he believes that her leaving is just a threat. And there is something a bit too eager about this traveling salesman that is also a bit off.

As Serratura arrives in Berlin and secures his lodging at the weird Pension Aryana away from the campus where the symposium is being held, we begin to have forebodings of danger. There are riots in the streets to protest "the cowboy" Reagan's visit, youths throwing rocks and such; and at the pension Fritz, the proprietor and his sister Frieda, ("nutty as a breadfruit," Fritz informs Serratura) seem a bit odd. Furthermore, Serratura seems somewhat adrift and ends up that first evening at…

Well, enough of the plot. Mustn't give away too much. Suffice it to say that things turn quirky and odd and then bizarre and then something beyond bizarre. Mirolla's structure has the narrative return to Dr. Ryle who continues to read from Serratura's novel as the search for Chiavetta continues, so that we go back and forth from one reality to another.

In the end it is not entirely clear what is real and what is not. Much of what Serratura experiences did not or could not have happened outside his increasingly deranged mind, yet what is described in the final scene may be the truth about what happened to the author Chiavetta himself. Clearly Mirolla's intent is to play with reality just as philosophers play with reality, philosophers who, in the postmodern interpretation, cannot decide what is real and what is not real, or whether we can ever know, or even whether a question about reality even makes sense. A quote from the comedian Robin Williams as Mork in the old TV sitcom "Mork and Mindy" might be appropriate. What he said most profoundly was simply, "Reality, what a concept!"

Judging from the reality/unreality of this very interesting novel, I think that Mirolla would identify with that point of view, as do I.

Bottom line: a diabolic, rough-edged, violent and decidedly unPC black comedy of a novel with a few loose ends, well and humorously rendered.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

irritante e noioso (soprattutto quando fa il filosofo che non si capisce se scazzi terribilmente o faccia sul serio, ma in ogni caso è palloso e
ridicolo) ma il finale è piuttosto sorprendente.
sono indeciso se abbandonarlo in giro o no…

[chloe]

weird! some of the women characters were VERY obviously written by a man and the end was a little much but it was interesting, and a quick read

[Igor Neox · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover had a quote comparing the author to Kafka, Vonnegut and Calvino; that’s all it took to convince me to read it. I wasn’t disappointed ✨

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rocked. I was constantly drawn in by the plot and reality twists. Plus it follows along with my latest fiction topic- Germany and Eastern Europe pre- and post- WWII. Dig it, want to read more by this author.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful and very readable story about professor's bizarre trip to Berlin and mysterious escaped mental patient. Fun and fascinating, especially the late eighties setting.

[Diletta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Che dire se non: Philip Dick vibes only.
(Mi è piaciuto, sì.)

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