Waldemar Toula has woken up to find himself “excused from time”, held in a strange, timeless version of his aunt’s apartment. From there, he writes to an ominous Mrs Haven about the history of his family (all “failed physicians”) and their shared obsession with decoding a great-great-grandfather’s cryptic notes on a discovery he made, just before he died, about the nature of time. Toula’s narrative spans a century and traces the rise of antisemitism in Europe, the emergence of nazism and experiments by, and romances of, the Toula family. Along the way, we encounter, among others, Wittgenstein, Klimt and Buffalo Bill. It is an ambitious novel, sprawling and complex. Metaphysical concepts appear in digestible chunks as part of the narrative, which jumps back and forth in time. However, while there is lots of fascinating content (we meet Klimt’s models; observe Wittgenstein discuss physics), the novel – perhaps trying to cover too much ground – never quite comes together. In the details, some great writing can be found, but a preoccupation with philosophical and metaphysical inquiry gets in the way of the emotional trajectory of the characters.
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