Dear Mr. M Hermann Koch. Dear Mr. M

Herman Koch

Dear Mr. M

Kootje Koh-Lap

Hermann Koch

Originally published by Ambo | Anthos Uitgevers, Amsterdam

Translation from Dutch by Irina Bassina

Serial design by Vadim Pozhidaev

Cover design by Ilya Kuchma

Haynes (to the crew). Keep traction. Right. Hold the left handle.

Second pilot. There is a hold on the left handle!

Dispatcher. At the end of the runway there is just a wide field.

Passenger salon. The sound of a collision.

Malcolm McPherson. Black box

Anyone who thinks they recognize themselves or someone else in one or more of the characters in this book is probably right.

The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is available.

Mortality among teachers

Dear Mr. M.

First of all, I want to tell you that I feel better now. I do this because you probably don’t know that it was once worse. Even much worse, but I will return to this later.

In your books you constantly describe faces, but try to describe mine. Here, down at the common front door, or in the elevator, you nod politely to me, but on the street, and in the supermarket, and just a few days ago in the La B. restaurant, where you were sitting with your wife, you showed no signs of recognition .

I can imagine that a writer's gaze is inward most of the time, but then you shouldn't even try to describe any faces in your books. The descriptions of the faces are very outdated, as are the descriptions of the landscapes, so I'm right here. Yes, you yourself, to put it bluntly, are also very outdated, I mean not only your age - you can be old, but not at all outdated - but you are both old and outdated.

You and your wife were sitting at a table by the window. As always. I was sitting at the bar - the same as always. I was just taking a sip when your gaze glanced over my face, but you didn’t recognize me. Then your wife looked in my direction and smiled, and then you leaned towards her and asked something, after which you still nodded to me, the second time.

Women have a more tenacious memory for faces. First of all, for men. Women do not need to describe their faces, just remember them. They understand at first glance whether this person is strong or weak, whether they will have even the slightest desire to carry a child from such a person in their body. Women protect the strength of the species. Your wife also once looked at you from this point of view and decided that your face was strong enough - that it would not endanger your appearance.

The fact that your wife wanted to raise a daughter in her body, who, according to the theory of probability, could have half your face, can be considered a compliment. Perhaps the greatest compliment a woman can give a man.

Yes, I'm better. This morning, when I watched you help her get her luggage into the taxi, I really couldn't help but smile. You have a beautiful wife. Beautiful and young. Regarding the age difference, I do not allow myself any judgment. The writer must have a beautiful and young wife. More precisely, the writer has the right to a beautiful and young wife.

The writer, of course, owes nothing. A writer must write books. But a beautiful and young wife can help him with this. First of all, if this is a wife who completely writes herself off, who sits on his talent like a hen on eggs, and drives away anyone who approaches the nest; who tiptoes around the house while her husband sits in his office, and only at the appointed time slips through the crack in the door with a cup of tea and a saucer of chocolates; who at the table is satisfied with inarticulate muttering in response to her questions, who knows that it is better for her not to say anything to him at all, even when they leave the house for the restaurant on the nearest corner, because scenes are played out in his head where she, with her there is no room for a limited circle of ideas - with her limited female circle of ideas.

This morning I looked at you and your wife from my balcony and the following thoughts came to my mind. I studied your movements: the way you open the taxi door for her - as always, gallantly, but, as always, deliberately rote, so strained and clumsy, as if your body itself was resisting your presence. Everyone can learn dance steps, not everyone can really dance. This morning the age difference between you and your wife could only be expressed in light years. Next to it you make me think of a dark, cracked reproduction of a seventeenth-century painting next to a sunlit postcard.

Dear Mr. M. Herman Koch

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Title: Dear Mr. M.

About the book “Dear Mr. M.” Herman Koch

Hermann Koch entered the top ten most read writers in Europe; his novel The Dinner Party has been translated into thirty-seven languages, sold one and a half million copies and was made into a film in his native Holland, and a Hollywood adaptation, intended as Cate Blanchett's directorial debut, will be released in 2017 (starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny).

In the new novel “Dear Mr. M.” With characteristic brilliance and ruthless attention to detail, Herman Koch explores his familiar themes: love and friendship, jealousy and envy.

So, meet Mr. M. He is a famous former writer. Many years ago, he became famous for a novel based on a real incident - the mysterious disappearance of a history teacher after a scandalous affair with one of his students. Now everyone has forgotten about Mr. M. - except for the neighbor downstairs, who does not take his eyes off him and clearly knows something about that old mystery...
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Konstantin Milchin talks about the new book by the Dutch writer Herman Koch, who in just a couple of years became a world-class star. The main thing in this novel is the figure of the author himself, he believes.

A strange man is watching the writer. Here is a writer going to the presentation of his book. Here is a writer kissing his wife. Here the writer gets into a taxi. A strange man is the writer's neighbor. He has a painful relationship between hunter and prey, and which of them plays which role is not completely clear. Sometimes a strange person just follows the writer. Sometimes provokes meetings, for example, by playing loud music. Instead of the writer, his wife comes, and the strange man inhales the smell left behind for a long time.

It’s worth saying right away that this novel should not be considered an ordinary book about a maniac. Everything is much more complicated here. In general, the focus is not on the plot, which will give several dashing zigzags during the course of the book, this is not the main thing here. Although it is a pleasure to follow him.

The main thing in this book is the figure of the narrator, the author himself, the Dutchman Herman Koch, who just a couple of years ago was not particularly well-known even in the Netherlands, and then suddenly became a world-class star, and absolutely deserved it. Herman Koch's method can be described as a stream of consciousness, which brings him closer to the modernists and, say, Joyce, or it can be described as a literary stand-up, which brings him closer to modern comedians. Perhaps the position between modern mass culture and literary tradition quite accurately characterizes Koch.

He is a very skillful and thoughtful writer, some of his novels are better, others worse, but he never falls below a completely decent level, and he can always be read avidly. Despite the fact that, in general, it is always the same. This is an endless monologue of a narrator who looks at the world with a mixture of contempt and envy. In “The Dinner,” which made him famous, the loser hero met his successful politician brother and opened the world’s eyes to his falsehood, and at the same time to the falsehood of the world itself and each reader individually. In "House with a Pool" a retired doctor poured caustic slop on the whole world. In "The Star of Odessa" the main character attacked philistinism and everyday life with all his might.

An attack on the world, an attack on the middle class, an attack on each person individually and on all of humanity taken together. An attack on endless lies, on snobbery, on bigotry, on fears, on pride and on prejudices - this is Koch’s method. Even he himself gets it: “Black holes do not exist. Just like the writer’s creative impasse. These are vulgar excuses of writers devoid of talent. Has anyone heard of a carpenter who has a crisis with a hammer? About a carpenter who, after laying a parquet floor, does not know what kind of flooring will he lay next?

And this hero, who is somewhere below, but always looks down on the world, is surprisingly vile. By criticizing the world, Koch simultaneously criticizes the critic himself. Moreover, he himself is a cheerful person, as cheerful as the rather melancholic Dutch can be. He is not like the image of a caustic grump who burns out the entire space around him with poison, but it is precisely this image that is formed in a devoted reader when he encounters Koch’s prose over and over again. "Dear Mr. M." the thing for a writer is largely experimental; he moves away from a continuous monologue, from a subjective narrator, from torturing the reader with a lack of information. Probably in vain. "Mr. M." good for everyone, but if you are going to read Koch for the first time, it is better to start with “The Dinner”.

Current page: 1 (21 pages total) [available reading passage: 14 pages]

Herman Koch
Dear Mr. M

Kootje Koh-Lap

Hermann Koch

Originally published by Ambo | Anthos Uitgevers, Amsterdam

Translation from Dutch by Irina Bassina

Serial design by Vadim Pozhidaev

Cover design by Ilya Kuchma

Haynes (to the crew). Keep traction. Right. Hold the left handle.

Second pilot. There is a hold on the left handle!

Dispatcher. At the end of the runway there is just a wide field.

Passenger salon. The sound of a collision.

Malcolm McPherson. Black box

Anyone who thinks they recognize themselves or someone else in one or more of the characters in this book is probably right.

The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is available.

Mortality among teachers

1

Dear Mr. M.

First of all, I want to tell you that I feel better now. I do this because you probably don’t know that it was once worse. Even much worse, but I will return to this later.

However, I looked first of all at your wife. And again I saw how beautiful she was. In her white sneakers, white T-shirt and blue jeans, she danced in front of me a dance that, in moments like this, you can hardly appreciate. I looked at the sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, her hair pinned up behind her ears, and in everything, in all the movements of her body, one could see the excitement of her approaching departure, which made her even more beautiful than usual.

It seemed as if, by her choice of clothing and by her smallest gestures, she was anticipating her arrival at the place. And, looking at her from the balcony, for a brief moment I saw dazzling sand and sea water slowly rolling over the shells, reflected in the appearance of your wife, who the very next second disappeared from my field of vision - from our field of vision - in the back seat of a taxi.

How long will she be gone? A week? Two? It's not that important. You are alone, that's the most important thing. A week should be enough.

Yes, I have certain plans for you, Mr. M. You may think that you are left alone, but from today I am here too. In a sense, of course, I have always been here, but now I am here for real. I'm here and I won't leave again for now.

I wish you good night - your first night alone. I turn off the light, but stay with you.

2

This morning I was in a bookstore. It's still lying near the cash register, but you probably already know that. It seems to me that you belong to that category of writers who, in a bookstore, first of all look at how many centimeters their own works take up on the shelf. I think you won’t be embarrassed to ask the seller how things are going. Or have you become timid in recent years?

One way or another, there is still a tall stack near the cash register. There was even a potential buyer who took one copy from the stack and turned it over in his hands, as if trying to judge the book's significance by its weight. I could hardly resist saying something. “Put it back, she’s not worth your attention.” Or: “I highly recommend it, it’s a masterpiece.”

But I couldn't quickly make a choice between these extremes, so I didn't say anything. Probably the reason was that tall pile near the cash register, which spoke for itself. After all, everything that lies in a tall pile near the cash register is a masterpiece. Or quite the opposite. But there is no middle ground.

As that customer stood holding your book, I caught a glimpse of your photo on the back cover. I have always noticed something obscene in the way you look at the world. This is the look of a man who mockingly slowly undresses on a beach full of people - completely shamelessly, because he does not care that they are looking at him. You don't look the reader in the eye, you first encourage him to look at you - and continue look at you. It's like a staring game in which the reader always loses.

However, I haven’t yet asked how you slept last night. And what did you do with the suddenly free space in bed? Did they just lie on their half or did they move closer to the middle?

Last night you turned on some music: a CD that you never played in front of your wife. I heard your steps throughout the apartment - as if you wanted to make sure that you were really alone - you opened windows everywhere, and then also balcony doors. Were you trying to drive something away or expel something? Maybe her scent? Lovers press the clothes of their loved ones to their faces when they are not around. People whose love has outlived its usefulness open the windows, as if to air out an old suit that has been hanging in mothballs for too long, knowing at the same time that they will never wear it again.

You stood on the balcony, and I could hear you singing along. I myself am not interested in this kind of music, but I understand that a person who likes this kind of music writes just such books. By the way, it sounded too loud, on the verge of disturbing the peace and quiet in the house. But I don't skimp on such things. I didn't want to ruin your first lonely evening.

Why, in fact, didn’t you then dare to come down to me to make a remark about the music being too loud? Why did you send your wife?

“My husband is a writer,” she said. - The noise bothers him.

I invited her to come in, but she only took a few steps and stopped in the hallway. I saw that she leaned forward a little, that she tried to glance around my apartment with a fleeting glance. And I looked at her face, at the same time inhaling something - something that I didn’t want to let go.

A few hours later, when I was about to go to bed and walked through the hallway, the smell was still there. I stood in the dark for a long time until I stopped feeling it. And in any case, I did not open the windows and doors to get rid of her smell. I waited patiently for this scent to choose its time to leave.

She really is no longer the same girl who came to interview you for the school newspaper, that evening I could see this with my own eyes. How did you say this yourself? “One day she came in with a notepad under her arm and a whole list of questions that she still hadn’t asked.”

What was her first question after she crossed your threshold? "Why are you writing"? Schoolgirls most often ask about this. What did you answer? And how would you answer this question now?

At the table you usually remain silent. Not that I can make out the words if you're actually having a conversation, but voices have no trouble coming through the ceiling. I hear the sound of cutlery hitting plates, and in the summer, when your windows are open, I can even hear glasses being filled.

While your mouth thoroughly chews your food, your head remains in the office. You can't tell me what you're doing. The wife will not understand, she is, after all, a woman.

This is how your dinners usually go - in silence, occasionally broken by questions. I don't hear what exactly she's asking, I hear that she's asking questions. Questions that you answer by moving your head.

When I don't hear an answer, you make a movement with your head; The head itself is in the office, it cannot speak, only move.

Later, when you get up from the table, your wife is tidying up, putting glasses and plates in the dishwasher. Then she goes to a room facing the street, where she remains until it is time to go to bed.

I still don't understand how she spends hours alone in that room. Is she reading a book? Does he watch TV with the volume turned down to the lowest setting or completely turned off?

Often I imagine her just sitting there - a woman in a chair; life passing by like the hands of a clock that no one looks at to tell the time.

Meanwhile, you will notice that I put on music. This is definitely not your music. The volume control on my stereo is about the same as it was the night your wife came to ask if it could be turned down.

I know that in principle you will not go down. You need to be able to send someone, you are not one of those who come down on your own. So I turn the dial a little more. And now the sound, I think, can be described as a violation of peace and quiet in the house.

I don't have any developed plan. But one way or another, I’m sorry that such a beautiful and young woman lingers in your company, that she fades away in your company.

Now I can still hear the call, you turned out to be faster than I thought.

– Could you turn the music down?

I won’t even try to describe your face; I willingly leave the description of faces to you.

“Of course,” I say.

Closing the door right in front of your face—your indescribable face—I turned down the volume. Then he turned the volume control back. I bet you won't come down again.

I guessed.

Tomorrow you have to sign your books in the store, I saw a poster with an announcement hanging in the window. I wonder if the line will be long or not? Or will there be no queue at all? Sometimes the tall stacks near the cash register mean nothing at all. Sometimes it rains, sometimes the weather is good.

“It’s probably because of the weather,” the saleswoman will tell you if no one comes.

And yet someone will come. I'll come.

See you tomorrow.

3

Sometimes I wonder what mediocrity must feel like. First of all, I mean how it should be felt from the inside, by the mediocre subject himself. To what extent is he aware of his mediocrity? Is he locked inside his own mediocre head, knocking on doors and windows to be let out? And no one will ever hear him?

I often imagine, as in a nightmare, a desperate cry for help. The mediocre mind knows about the existence of the external world. He smells the grass, hears the wind rustling the leaves of the trees, sees the sunlight streaming through the windows - but he also knows that he is doomed to remain inside for the rest of his life.

How does a mediocre mind deal with this knowledge? Is he encouraging himself? Is he aware of the existence of certain boundaries through which he cannot break through? Or does he tell himself that everything is fine, because this morning he solved the crossword puzzle from the newspaper without any noticeable effort?

In my opinion, there is a golden rule, and it says that people with above average mental abilities will never talk about them. It's like millionaires. There are millionaires in jeans and scruffy, ripped sweaters, and there are millionaires in convertible sports cars. Anyone can look up the price of that sports car in a catalogue, but it's ten to one that a scruffy sweater might tip the exact same sports car at a restaurant.

You're more like the ones with the open sports car. In the rain and wind, you drive with the top down past the terraces on the seaside boulevard. “Even at preschool age, I was discovered to have exceptional mental abilities.” This is a theme that recurs often (too often, endlessly) in your writings and interviews. “My IQ is a little higher than Albert Einstein.” I could probably continue: “When, like me, you have such mental abilities that only two percent of the population has…” - but why should I do that? There are women who say out loud that all men turn around when they pass by, and there are women who do not need to say this.

You should see the look on your own face when you boast about your intelligence. Facial expression and gaze. This is the look of a hare who misjudged the distance to the opposite side of the highway - who realized too late that it was no longer possible to dodge the swirling headlights. The look of a man who does not believe himself for a second - in other words, who is deathly afraid that at the first tricky question he will be exposed. The mediocre writer was sentenced to life. He must continue. It's too late for him to change his profession. He must continue until the sad end. Until death comes for him. Only death can rescue him from his mediocrity.

He writes quite well, we are talking about a mediocre writer. His greatest achievement is to publish a well-written book. You have to be truly mediocre to live with such knowledge. To cling to such a life, or rather, just so as not to be dead.

The line at the bookstore was quite long. First it rained, then the sun shone. People stood right up to the door, but still fit inside. For a bestselling author, this is not a queue. This is not a line on the street turning the corner, no, the usual line that you might expect from a writer whose attention has been declining for the last ten years. Lots of middle-aged women. And much above average age, I must say with regret - women for whom no one will turn around.

I took one copy of “The Year of Liberation” from the stack and joined the end of the line. There was a man standing in front of me. The only man besides me. It was clear from everything that he was standing, as they say, not by himself, but with his wife, as husbands and their wives visit IKEA or Furniture Boulevard. At first, such a husband patiently feigns interest in orthopedic beds or chests of drawers, but soon begins to sigh heavily and cast increasingly hopeless glances towards the cash registers and exit, like a dog who, after a long ride in the car, finally smells the forest.

That's why his wife was holding your book in her hand, not he. Women have more time than men. After turning off the vacuum cleaner, they open the book - your book - and begin to read. And in the evening in bed they still read. When their husband turns on his side and places his hand on their stomach, close to their belly button or under their breasts, they push that hand away. “Don’t bother me, just one more chapter,” they say and continue reading. Either women have a headache, or they are on their period, or they are reading a book.

Again I will not even attempt to describe your face. The face you raised towards me when I placed my copy of The Year of Liberation on the table. It is enough to note that you looked at me the way you look at a person whom you once saw only behind the counter. Behind the pharmacy counter, for example, or behind the cash register, and suddenly this girl just walks towards you on the street: a familiar face, but from nowhere. Without the context of the counter, razor blades and painkillers, it is impossible to recognize this face.

– Is this for someone? – you asked, as you asked those who stood in front of me.

Meanwhile you looked at my face. A face that seemed familiar to you, but which you could not recognize.

- No, this is for myself.

You inscribe books with a fountain pen. A fountain pen whose cap you screw back on after each signature or personal dedication. You are afraid that it will dry out. You yourself are afraid of drying up - a cheap psychologist might come to this conclusion, and then ask you to tell you something about your parents and childhood.

- And your name?..

The cap had already been removed, the fountain pen was hanging over the title page of the book, and some thought came into my head. I looked at your hand with a pen, at your old hand with clearly visible veins. As long as you continue to breathe, the blood will continue to carry oxygen to your arm - and you can sit at a table in a bookstore and sign well-written books.

And that's what I was thinking about: I was thinking about your face over your wife's face, about your face in the darkened bedroom, about your face slowly approaching her face. I imagined it from her side, as she sees your approaching face: watery old eyes; the whites are no longer white at all; wrinkled, cracked lips; senile teeth are not yellow, but rather gray; the air passing between those teeth and reaching her nostrils. This smell is sometimes heard when the sea recedes and only seaweed and empty mussel shells remain on the shore.

This smell is so strong that it covers up the usual old man smell - diapers, loose skin, dying tissue. There had been a night just over three years ago when she must have seen the future in all this. The night she decided that the child from that foul-smelling face could be an investment in the future.

That your wife saw the future, I can still understand. But what kind of future did you see? She saw a child who would grow first inside her body and then outside it. And you? How do you imagine yourself near the fence of an elementary school, among young mothers? Like an old but famous father? In other words, does your fame guarantee you the right to have children in your later years?

Because – what kind of future does she have, your daughter? To understand this future, you only need to glance at the calendar. There is no future there. At best, by the middle of school she will be left with only memories of her father. Right in the middle of the so-called difficult age. That very difficult age at which her mother came knocking at your door as the editor of the school newspaper.

I said my name, and you looked at me again with a look in which recognition shone distantly, as if you had heard a vaguely familiar song, but could not remember the name of the singer.

Your fountain pen scratched on the paper. Then you blew on the ink before you closed the book, and I smelled it. You are almost gone. A signature or autograph at the beginning of the book separates you from the grave and oblivion. Because we need to talk about this too: about the future after your death. Of course, I could be wrong, but I have the impression that everything will go quickly. In southern countries the dead are buried on the same day. For reasons of hygiene. Pharaohs were wrapped in pieces of cloth and buried along with their most prized possessions: beloved pets, beloved women... I guess it goes like this. The great oblivion will begin that day. You will be buried along with your works. Of course, there will be performances, and by no means small ones. The newspapers will devote half a page or even a whole page to the meaning of your works. A collection of your works will be published in seven volumes - in hardback, in a luxurious edition, to which you can already subscribe. That's the end of the matter. Soon, individual volumes of this luxurious publication will begin to appear on second-hand book markets. The people who subscribed to it, for some reason, will not come to pick up the next volume - or in the meantime they themselves will die.

What about your wife? Ah, she will play the role of a widow for a while longer. Perhaps she will even take her responsibilities seriously and forbid a possible biographer from quoting your personal correspondence. But I don’t think such a scenario is very realistic. Protecting correspondence is more for old widows. For widows without a future. Your wife is young. She is about to start thinking about life without you. She probably still thinks about it all the time.

And by the time your daughter turns eighteen and it's time to apply to get an official document (passport, driver's license), she will be asked to spell out her last name. "I am so-and-so's daughter", she might add. “Who-who?”

Yes, that's how it ends. You will continue to live not in your works, but in a child who was brought into this world in his old age - exactly like everyone else.

You have probably noticed that until now I have treated your daughter extremely tactfully as a private person. So, for example, I did not describe it. In situations where she was physically present, I left her without description. In photographs in glamor magazines, the faces of celebrity children are sometimes made unrecognizable to protect their privacy. So I kept silent about the fact that your daughter was also at the farewell ceremony the day before yesterday. I remember her waving to you through the back window of the taxi. From my balcony I could see her waving hand. I also saw her face, but I won’t describe it.

And I didn’t include it in your dinners together either, because you don’t include it yourself either. Your wife puts your daughter to bed before you start dinner. Silent dinner. Of course, you are completely free in your decision to feed your daughter in advance, alone, and then put her to bed. There are married couples who think that in this way they are maintaining something - something from a romantic time when they were still together. Without children. But what happens next when your daughter grows up? Will she, like her mother, be content with this silence? Or, like all children, will she bombard you with questions? Questions that might be useful to you. From which you could become a more complete person - already now, although she is not yet four.

There are wars in which exclusively military targets come under fire, and there are others in which anyone becomes a target. You, like no one else, know what kind of wars I mean. You write about them. Too often for my taste. So your latest book returns to the war again. Objectively speaking, besides war, you have no other topics.

And here I come to the main question of the day: what does war do to mediocre intelligence? Or, in other words, what would this most mediocre intellect do without war?

I could help you with new material. Women and children, meanwhile, are housed in a bomb shelter. Nothing stops me from handing you new material as if on a silver platter. And the fact that I consider you as a military target can be considered a compliment.

However, this is not entirely new material. It would be better to talk about old material from a new angle.

Now I'm going home.

First I will read your book.

4

This morning you got up earlier than usual. Especially than on Saturdays. When I heard you were in the bathroom, the alarm clock next to my bed showed nine o'clock. Judging by the sounds, your shower stall has a stainless steel tray and an adjustable head: when you open the tap, the streams of water tap like a fresh spring shower on an empty metal barrel.

I close my eyes and see you carefully testing whether the water is too hot or cold. You are probably already undressed by then, your striped pajamas hang neatly on the back of the chair. Then you enter the shower stall. The hum of water jets along the steel bottom becomes quieter. Now I only hear the usual splash of water on a naked human body.

Basically, you still look more like a person who usually takes a bath. I mean endless swimming. With fragrances and bath oils, and then ointment or cream. Your wife, who brings you a glass of wine or port. Your wife, who sits on the edge of the bathtub, puts her hand in the water and makes small waves with her fingers. You are probably hiding under a thick layer of foam so as not to give her unnecessary thoughts. On thoughts about mortality, for example. Or about copyrights, which after death automatically pass to the direct heirs.

Do you have a plastic boat? Or a duck? No, it doesn't look like it. You don’t allow yourself such frivolities; even in the bath, your head continues to think about things that most people would consider beyond their understanding. It's a pity. A missed opportunity. With mountains of foam and a boat, you can play “Titanic”: on a fateful night, the captain of the Titanic ignores all warnings about icebergs, the ship with the sternpost raised almost vertically goes into the icy water.

What I think you are capable of is blowing winds. Strong winds with lots of bubbles that come up like thunder and make a hole in the bubble bath iceberg. But I doubt it makes you laugh. I see a serious face. The serious face of a writer who takes everything about himself, even his own winds, seriously.

One way or another, this morning, as a big exception, you decided to limit yourself to a shower. Surely you must have your reasons for this. Maybe you need to go somewhere and are in a hurry. Maybe it's because you're home alone and won't be able to tell anyone if you feel unwell. You wouldn't be the first writer to meet death in a bathtub.

I think about you while the water flows through your body. Not for too long, because these thoughts cannot be called pleasant. I have the impression that older people generally prefer showers because they don't have to see their bodies. You must correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously you have no difficulty with this. Obviously, you stand it well - the spectacle of a body that, with all its folds and wrinkles, points in advance to the near future when it will be gone.

As far as I can tell from here, your wife never takes a bath. Although she has nothing to be ashamed of. In front of the mirror, under water, half-covered with a hastily thrown terry sheet - it doesn’t matter - she can admire herself. But she never stands in the shower for more than two minutes.

Personally, I'm sorry. I'm not made of stone. I am a man. During these two minutes I often think about her, just as I think about you now. Then it is not pajamas hanging on the chair, but a white terry sheet or terry robe. Meanwhile, she herself is standing in the shower stall. She closes her eyes and raises her face towards the water streams. She welcomes the touch of water to her eyelids - like the sunrise, like the beginning of a new day. She shakes her head briefly but vigorously. Drops of water fly off her wet hair. Somewhere in the corner of the shower stall or right next to the window, a small rainbow appears for a moment.

Water flows down her neck. You can rest assured that I won’t go into detail about what I’m thinking about next. I will not desecrate her beauty - not out of respect for your feelings, but out of respect for her.

So, the shower itself lasts only two minutes. But after that she remains in the bathroom for a very long time. To do all sorts of things, I suppose. Sometimes I fantasize about what these things might be like. Sometimes I wonder if you ever fantasize about such things or if you no longer take them into account.

I'm unsure about the new material this morning. In new material that I could help you with. Last night I read your book, hence my doubts. Yes, in fact, I read “The Year of Liberation” in one sitting. I deliberately do not use words like “in one sitting” or “in one breath” - I just started at about seven in the evening and finished at midnight. It’s not that I couldn’t put your book down or, moreover, that I wanted to know how it ended. No, it was something else. This happens sometimes in a restaurant: you order the wrong dish, but you are embarrassed to leave too much on the plate and still end up eating more than enough.

It's hard to say anything definitive. Basically, I had the same experience with all your books. You take a bite and start chewing, but it doesn’t taste good. It's worth the effort to swallow. Small pieces remain between the teeth. On the other hand, it’s not so terrible as to call the waiter to the table and in a raised voice demand that he send the dish back to the kitchen.

I think that everything is much simpler: absorbing an unsuccessful dish also enriches our experience. We eat everything on the plate. We feel our stomach resist hard work. Maybe to make things easier for him, we drink another cup of coffee and a glass of alcohol.

In the new novel “Dear Mr. M.” With characteristic brilliance and ruthless attention to detail, Herman Koch explores his familiar themes: love and friendship, jealousy and envy. So, meet Mr. M. He is a famous former writer. Many years ago, he became famous for a novel based on a real incident - the mysterious disappearance of a history teacher after a scandalous affair with one of his students. Now everyone has forgotten about Mr. M. - except for the neighbor downstairs, who does not take his eyes off him and clearly knows something about that old mystery...

For the first time in Russian!

The work belongs to the genre of Foreign detectives. It was published in 2014 by the ABC-Atticus publishing house. The book is part of the "ABC - bestseller" series. On our website you can download the book "Dear Mr. M." in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. Here, before reading, you can also turn to reviews from readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In our partner's online store you can buy and read the book in paper version.