The Blue Soda Siphon (The Swiss List) - Hardcover

Widmer, Urs

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857422111 ISBN 13: 9780857422118

Publisher: Seagull Books, 2014

Synopsis

In the wildly entertaining novel The Blue Soda Siphon, the narrator unexpectedly finds himself back in the world of his childhood: Switzerland in the 1940s. He returns to his childhood home to find his parents frantic because their son is missing. Then, in another switch, the young boy that he was back then turns up in the present of the early 1990s, during the Gulf War, where he meets himself as an older man, and meets his adult self’s young daughter. These head-scratching, hilarious time shifts happen when both the adult narrator and his childhood self go to the cinema and see films, the subjects of which echo their own lives.

Translated into English for the first time by Donal McLaughlin, this novel, in which the eponymous blue soda siphon bottle is a recurring symbol, is a magnificent example of Urs Widmer’s characteristic humor, literary genius, and unparalleled imagination.

About this title

About the Author:

Urs Widmer is a Swiss novelist, playwright, essayist, and short-story writer. He is the author of many books, including My Mother’s Lover and My Father’s Book, both published by Seagull Books. Donald McLaughlin specializes in translating contemporary Swiss fiction. He has translated more than one hundred writers for the New Swiss Writing anthologies.

Review:

"The Blue Soda Siphon, for two and a half hours, gave back to me that feeling I used to have when, as a child, I would lose myself, amazed, in my favorite stories. I'd call this book a masterpiece without hesitation. It is a rarity in German literature: profound and, simultaneously, extremely entertaining." (Die Zeit)"

About this edition

• Publisher: Seagull Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0857422111
• ISBN 13: 9780857422118
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 112