Entry tags:

books, review, shoes

The Shoe Tester of Frankfurt by Wilhelm Genazino

The unnamed narrator of the book is a shoe tester -- a man employed by a shoe company to try their new product. He walks around the streets of Frankfurt and submits a review to the manufacturer for two hundred Marks (soon we find out that the pay is decreased to 50 Marks). Even though this seems to be an unique profession, but the brilliance of the novel is not in the feet, but in the mind of the shoe tester who is having an existential crisis. As he walks around, he gets to ramble and reflect on life, he runs into old girl friends, he manages to have a fling with a hairdresser. After the pay cut, he survives by selling the shoes at a flea market. The stream of thought comes with witty, humorous account. For instance, when the shoe tester notices a woman drop a piece of gum from her backpack:

The woman is engrossed by a jeweler's window display, she didn't notice her loss. Shall I go to her and tell her: You've dropped a stick of gum? Maybe it would be enough to say: I think something fell out of your backpack. Or simply: You dropped something. To clarify things (and because I don't like saying the words chewing gum), I could point my index finger at the object on the ground. Except for the fact that pointing my index finger would (does) embarrass me. It's awful.

Or while selling shoes at the flea market, we find a more philosophical shoe seller:

I keep asking myself which feeling is stronger: futility or pointlessness. It's a question
I can't answer. So I quickly skip to the next question: which will come for me first, insanity or death? The mere mention of the word death intimidates me, and I drop that question right away. But what else should I think about? I sense that my attempt to be a dealer in luxury shoes may be my last chance to find a so-called normal life. I observe the people passing by and tell myself that I'm like they are. I list what I have in common with them. That goes pretty well, for a while. But then I realize that I can make whatever list I want and the details won't all add up.

What I loved about the novel, specially the first part, is the ramblings as he watches the streets. Full of witty commentary, he walks around but he does nothing. His inaction comes through with a nice a sophistication,. However, for me, the novel looses its brilliance at the end when he finds out what to do. At a cocktail party, the shoe tester jokingly mentions about an imaginary Institute for the Art of Memory and Experience, envisioning a radical new treatment that will help people rediscover experiences beyond TV, vacations, highways and supermarkets. It is good, we get to see another side of the narrator, but I would have preferred more rumination.

Wilhelm Genazino is an award winning writer. This is a nice short book, with no plot. The writer, without going into too much details, accomplishes a lot, like his narrator, by doing nothing, just rambling and walking.