[ book tip by Pascal Blum ] Jonas, a rather dull guy, wakes up one morning in Vienna to find himself alone. There’s not a person left on earth, not his neighbours, not the rest of the townspeople, not even his girlfriend Marie. The only person around to keep Jonas company as he gradually goes mad is the reader. He or she looks on as Jonas rearranges things in a number of flats, rides around the countryside in stolen cars, and drives himself completely nuts by filming himself as he sleeps. It’s not exactly comforting to know that this monster with the empty eyes on the television screen in front of him can be no one but himself. And it doesn’t help any that Jonas nods off at the wrong moments and walks in his sleep. He has even begun to fear his own darker side. In the end Jonas does what any reasonable person would do in a world devoid of others. Though at no point does he stop believing that love is still possible.   Thomas Glavinic’s outlandish horror story explores what it would be like if there were only one person left on earth. Do other places, times, movements exist if there is nobody else to see them? Jonas soon installs cameras all over Austria to make sure that at least something else exists besides himself, i.e., points in time, registered by modern technology. However what he ultimately sees in these images throws him even further off balance. Austrian writer Thomas Glavinic has published a number of humorous works, including Das bin doch ich /That’s Me! (2007), a comedy about the literary world; and the coming-of-age novel Wie man leben soll/How to Live Your Life (2004). His telegram style, used excessively in his mystery Der Kameramörder/The Camera Murderer (2001), does not necessarily make him a great stylist. What’s more, Die Arbeit der Nacht is written with a somewhat forced austerity. In using operating-instruction language, Glavinic is sometimes off the mark, for example, when Jonas’ mind is described as “not available”. Though this hardly matters, because once you’re involved in reading Die Arbeit der Nacht, it’s a very suspenseful, post-apocalyptic novel that presents the science-fiction notion of an extinct world, without actually being science fiction itself. In fact, (almost) nothing unaccountable or extrasensory happens to Jonas. Glavinic fulfils exactly what Dietmar Dath demands of drastic art – literalness. The book does not tell us why Jonas has been left all alone. But this question recedes as one reads. One quickly succumbs to the story and follows it with mounting intensity – an intensity that becomes so strong towards the end that it feels like one is experiencing it physically.

[ Favourite quote ] “At one minute to four he scaled the roof of the driver’s cab. He fixed his eye on the second hand of his watch. At four on the dot, he stretched out his arms. Now.”

[ book info ] Glavinic, Thomas: Night Work. (original language: German) Canongate Books, July 2008 . ISBN: 1847670512.