Two battered people, two lost souls tumbling through a city. A city that is constantly in motion, the rhythm of its inhabitants. These two people will be time to walk by invisible powers, in times of very real human-driven, such as in a cocoon, while the world is spinning around you faster and faster, on the search, one after the other and to themselves, full of anger, full of tenderness.

almost exactly 24 hours to search through London, from A. L. Kennedy in “Sweet Serious” tells. A time period in which it has an almost cheesy and yet painful Romance, a big-city novel is told, and at the same time, a society portrait.

author, A. L. Kennedy

Two people in 1965 in Dundee, Scotland-born author in the spotlight: Meg, the 45-year-old alcoholic, been sober for a year, lost her Job as an auditor for a long time, their Dignity and their hope for happiness and Affection. Bruised in body and spirit. And since the 59-year-old Jon, a senior civil servant in the British government is humiliated by his wife and left to any career brought opportunities. A man of the old school, has lost the Belief in a just world and also to yourself for a long time.

These two dissimilar people meet, because Jon has at some point started to write on order writing love letters to foreign women, can write if you want. (The mailbox he used for the information that he is a journalist by stings.) is used Meg is one of these women, and fits Jon one day at the mailbox.

In their Meetings, of which the reader learns in flashbacks, there is a familiarity that you don’t want so much, the trust you. In the letters they re-invent themselves, as they want to be or perhaps once were.

#MeToo and Brexit are to imagine

Kennedy sends Meg and Jon alone for 24 hours through the British capital, through shabby areas, through the fine government district, musty Pubs, desolate community centres, in which Meg goes to a Meeting of alcoholics Anonymous. In the process, Kennedy creates a restless Haste, by lying to the novel with italicized internal mono of the two draws, which give a deep insight into the self-doubt corroded souls – in my thoughts scraps, sometimes in long passages, always a little too fast as thoughts fly.

At the same time, Meg and Jon and all Betbaba the people around you is constantly in motion, in a Taxi, in the subway or on foot. Kennedy tells of the many subway scenes in which people come to rest and the city, but in the past you rest. Meg and Jon are longing for slowness, calmness and a past time. The old-fashioned letters with phrases like “you are sweet” or “In Your heart, so much kindness”, written, hand, sent by Post and sometimes only after weeks answered, are a beautiful image.

Sent Kennedy plays with the language. In addition to the rush of thoughts of its protagonists, the city can act, the humans are at her mercy. The author adds a short London-episodes of very different people and designs as a kaleidoscope of London. For these episodes, she chooses the present tense, which draws you right into the scene.

DISPLAY A. L. Kennedy:
Sweet Seriously

translated from the English by Ingo Herzke, Susanne Höbel

Hanser, 400 pages, 28 Euro

Amazon order. In the case of Thalia order.

Kennedy’s novel, the story of a society dominated by men, with personalities and dirty jokes. Before his sleazy boss Jon plays with the macho posturing, in his thoughts, he speaks phrases like “rape threats as a party conversation, that every woman should be naked, and, of course, the villain. So a man should not be.” In 2016 appeared “Sweet Serious” in the UK, the Hashtag #MeToo was not yet invented.

in 2016 was also the year of the Brexit referendum, the impact of the decision not foreseeable, and yet, Kennedy offers a pessimistic view of the government, for the Jon daily immoral must act – and on the society in General: “the UK is going down the drain,” it says at one point. You might think that you would have seen the Brexit-the decision and its consequences.

“Sweet Seriousness” is a complex, superb novel, full of oblique types and bizarre situations, with a bitter, bad Comedy and a touch of spy story. A novel about love and politics, about the pain and the happiness of relationships, of people heal and be healed. Almost painful to follow Jon and Meg, to find together after a long, long day, finally.