Regarding author Wolf Haas’s novel, “Short Circuit”: It’s genre-less. It boasts much suspense, but suspense is by no means its major element. It’s certainly not a murder mystery though there are a couple of murders that play a fairly important role in the plot. It definitely is not a comedy even though I smiled and laughed all the way through it. It would be selling the novel short and missing the whole point if we were to label it a character study even though its two protagonists are wonderful characters. Can we label it anything, then? Yes. It’s a puzzle. And “puzzle” is not a genre. But reading the entire novel will, I suspect, leave you puzzled; and that puzzlement, I am quite sure, was the author’s intent.
Adding to the confusion, there are two equally important but apparently unrelated major motifs that flow like a river through the novel’s 320 pages. One, as the title suggests, concerns the power and danger of electricity, particularly when it runs free and goes anywhere it wants to, the result of a short circuit. Two, as we’ve already noted, is the ubiquitous puzzle presence, so that not only is “puzzle” the best label for the novel itself, but also the obsession of one of the two main characters.
The first protagonist who enters the picture is Franz Escher, whose first name is rarely mentioned as the novel progresses. He is always simply “Escher,” for a very important reason. The character is obsessed with the works of his namesake, the artist M.C. Escher, many of whose paintings are puzzles. A look at those paintings leaves the observer confused — and puzzled — unable to discern up from down or in from out, or exactly what the artist was trying to “say.” Escher the character spends much of his time putting together 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles which, when finished, are copies of artist Escher’s unusual paintings.
But the novel’s Escher is, despite his obsession, a fascinating and funny character. Every thought in his head, every event in his life, every idea which crosses his mind, is analyzed in every possible detail and in every possible direction its consequences might take him. So the details of the major event that happens to him near the beginning of the novel follow him and haunt him through almost the entirety of the rest of the book: There’s a short in the electrical system in his apartment. He knows it’s dangerous, and after too long a time doing nothing about it, he finally calls an electrician to come and fix it.
After the electrician arrives, the trouble begins. Escher notices that the electrician is very professional and very efficient; doesn’t say much but radiates honesty, decency, and trustworthiness. So Escher goes into another room while the electrician works in the kitchen. Escher lies down and begins to read a book he had started the day before. When he gets up, he takes a look at his fuse box and notices that the electrician seems to have inadvertently left two circuit breakers off. He switches both of them on and hears a thud in the kitchen. It sounds as if something or someone has fallen. It turns out to be a someone. The electrician. He had fallen because he was electrocuted. He’s dead. Escher had killed him by activating the electricity flow the electrician had turned off.
Escher, of course, is horrified, and his passion for detail is ignited. He has killed someone. He might be accused of murder. He must think of excuses for his deadly action. Maybe he’ll claim that the electrician must have forgotten to deactivate the electricity. He’ll say that he tried to apply CPR, but it was too late. Should he call for an ambulance? Should he call the police? Then he thinks of the possible consequences of each idea, and he finally decides to say that the electrician must have somehow forgotten to turn the switches off, and that he basically electrocuted himself. Escher gets away with the phony story but suffers terrible guilt, almost forever. And the rest of his story basically covers all his thoughts, behaviors, and actions to fight the guilt and his attempts to right his own wrongs. It’s a terrific story, full of surprises and unexpected character revelations.
The second protagonist is a young Italian criminal named Elio who has worked with and for a powerful group of Mafia killers, but is arrested early on for his own crimes. Elio is flipped by the cops, and he gives them the information they have needed to put the mafia members in prison for the rest of their lives and even to execute some of them. As a reward, Elio is placed in a witness protection program which requires him to move to another country, in this case Germany, and to present himself for the rest of his life as a native German citizen named Marko Steiner. He does so successfully but, of course, lives in constant fear of being recognized and killed by the remnants of the Mafia group, those who escaped punishment, including the king figure, the man in charge of that whole mob.
Luckily for Marko, he had, as Elio, developed talents which put him in a class of his own as a bike-fixer. He is now practically the most capable bike-fixer anywhere, and he is uniquely capable of fixing any sort of bike — ones that have been in an accident, very old ones, very rare ones, motorcycles, scooters, and even E-bikes. So he eventually becomes an extraordinarily successful bike businessman. Still a young man, he meets and falls in love with a woman whose E-bike must be fixed. She returns his affection, and they marry and live a wonderful life. They also have a lovely and brilliant daughter.
Now, one of the couple’s agreements before their marriage is the understanding and solemn promise that neither will ever ask questions about the other’s background or early life. Obviously, that promise suits Marko perfectly. But when the fourteen-year-old daughter is given a school assignment to research and portray her family tree, going as far back as she can and including as much detail as she can, big troubles ensue. Even the laid-back Marko loses all his self-restraint and slaps her as she insists on pursuing the details of the family history. She runs away from home, pursuing the search for the forbidden family tree, and the run-up to the Marko story’s climax begins.
I’ll supply no more information about the two plots, because if I were to do so, spoilers would definitely emerge. However, there is much more about “Short Circuit” that I should and will explain and describe. Despite the apparent suspense and seriousness that the plots suggest, the novel is filled with cleverness, smiles, and laughs. As a matter of fact, humor fills almost every page. The characters’ personalities and their situations are presented so cleverly that we always feel we are reading a light-hearted novel.
The section, for example, about Marko, the Italian kid trying to learn how to speak German, had me laughing out loud. While the boy is in prison for his own protection before his release into the witness protection program, his cellmate, a rough-and-tumble German criminal named Sven, teaches Elio some “street” German and German slang expressions He also gives him a book to read. Elio happily laps up the book and Sven’s teaching, and the boy proves to be a quick and dedicated learner. But when he arrives at his new German home town, he wisely decides he should hire a German tutor to acquire some knowledge about more formal German vocabulary, sentence construction, and verb conjugations. He practices his new language at any and all times and wherever he goes. His non-stop self-practice sessions are hilarious and informative, particularly his work at conjugating verb forms.
If you’re wise enough to read this novel, I think those sessions will make you, too, laugh out loud. Kudos, incidentally, not only to author Haas, but to his translator, Jamie Bulloch, who is deservedly credited on the cover. He provides all the English language readers with translations of the humorous sections from German to English and, I’m sure, maintains all the humor that the author has provided. Quite an amazing achievement.
And speaking of the author, we must not forget the confusing and puzzling narrative techniques Haas throws at us. When, for example, he transfers from one plot to the other, he offers no apparent clues that he is doing so. You’re reading some information about Escher, and suddenly, with no warning, you’re reading Marko’s story. Talk about confusion! I kept thinking, “What just happened?” No new chapter, no chapter headings anywhere, no transitions. Just Boom! We’re back to the other guy again. But there IS a reason for the technique, a reason I did not discover until I had read the whole book and reread the first fifty-or-so pages. Brilliant.
Taken altogether, there are very many excellent reasons to read “Short Circuit,” especially but not only if you’re a puzzle fan. You should read it because it’s fun and funny; because it’s informative on the subjects of art, electricity, and languages; and you should definitely read it if you love plot twists, turns, surprises, and time loops; and oh! I almost forgot about the ending. When I read it for the first time, I thought I must have missed something earlier in the novel. Then I realized that I had missed nothing at all. And I also realized that the final twist has its own logic, even though it’s as crazy as it is logical and shocking. And I use that word advisedly. I felt that my brain was itself a victim of a short circuit, or more accurately, a “Short Circuit.” Don’t miss this opportunity to experience a truly unique novel and to test your skill at literary detective work. Just enjoy!
This review is based on the final, hardcover book provided by HarperVia, the publisher, for review purposes.
Review by Jack Kramer.