The Archive of Feelings

September 18, 2023
In Stamm’s affecting latest (after The Sweet Indifference of the World), a middle-aged archivist reminiscences about a former love who’s now a famous singer. When the unnamed narrator’s archival work for a newspaper becomes irrelevant in the digital age, he rescues the thousands of files slated for destruction by moving them into his basement. Among the clippings he finds is a folder dedicated to his high school flame Franziska, who three decades earlier emerged as the next great sensation in Swiss pop. She’s still popular, and he imagines her appearing now, 40 years later, affectionately teasing him and confessing buried feelings. He wanders the unnamed city and remembers watching fireworks from atop an apartment building and the time he and Franziska were forced to share a bed in a tiny hotel. Though the narrator’s observations can feel a bit maudlin, a brief and thorny romance with a mutual acquaintance of his and Franziska’s adds intrigue as the action builds toward a high school reunion where he hopes to see the singer. Despite a slow start, the looming promise of these old friends being reunited energizes the action, and Stamm delivers a striking and earnest conclusion. Fans of the author will love this efficient and wistful work.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
An archivist remembers his only love while his life's work falls apart. In Swiss writer Stamm's latest novel to be translated into English, an unnamed narrator painstakingly (and obsessively) keeps an archive that, he tells us, "not only points to the world, it is a picture of the world and a world in and of its own. And," he goes on, "unlike the world, it has an order, where everything has its appointed place, and can with a little practice be quickly found." Perhaps because the world has grown so unpredictable, our narrator has gradually stopped going out into it, aside from occasional forays for groceries or walks. He stays at home--the home he grew up in--to work on his archive and dwell on his memories. Most of these concern his long-gone love for a girl, Franziska, he knew in his youth, who eventually became a pop star and lost touch. Once upon a time, our narrator admitted to Franziska that he loved her but, alas, his love was not returned. Stamm's novel is a deceptively quiet meditation on how we live, the choices we make, and the categories that define our world. From the beginning, we know that the narrator has been fired from his now-obsolete job. Still, he carries on his work: "When something is fitted into the hierarchy of subjects," he insists, "it becomes understandable and governable. If everything is equal, the way it is in the Internet, then nothing has any value." It's a gorgeous novel, constructed with subtlety and nuance and the sort of prose that seems to simply disappear as you read, like footsteps on a beach. An understated but profound and even enigmatic novel.

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Starred review from December 1, 2023

When new technology causes him to lose his job at a newspaper's archive, the unnamed narrator of this novel by the prolific Stamm (It's Getting Dark: Stories) takes home folders of clippings that interest him. After reading through them again, he realizes how interdependent one person, or event, is on related topics; any structural change can lead to unpredictable consequences. The narrator reconnects with his childhood sweetheart, Franziska, who has become a popular singer and occupies several folders in the narrator's own archival collection; during the decades they were apart, he realized that she was his true love. By novel's end, the narrator discards his entire personal archive and tells Franziska that he is ready to change his life and spend the remainder of it with her. VERDICT Heartfelt and honest, this poetic and impeccably written short novel takes readers on a deeply thoughtful, realistic psychological journey, admirably translated by Hofmann. Stamm is a writer who deserves a wide audience.--Lisa Rohrbaugh

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2023
Stamm's short novel, translated from German by Michael Hofmann, is a case study on intimate feelings that develop over a lifetime. As a young man, the narrator is engaged in a passionate relationship with Franziska. While he's unsure of his feelings, the relationship evaporates into time and space. Years pass, yet the narrator cannot shake the intensity of his feelings and experiences with Franziska. Decades later, he's living in his late mother's basement, where the aging newspaper archives, remnants of his prior career, serve as a metaphor for his thoughts and feelings from long ago. Bordering on obsession, he recounts his emotions during each stage of his interactions with Franziska and compares theirs to other relationships he's had throughout his life. Franziska is now a world-renowned singer and has had a rich existence, including marriage. As the two inexorably progress toward meeting again, the narrator must separate internal fantasies from reality and prepare for the unexpected. Will they feel the same? Will the challenges of lives lived create an insurmountable and cold distance? Or could love blossom again?

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