Pleasured - Softcover

Hensher, P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099274442 ISBN 13: 9780099274445

Publisher: Vintage, 1999

Synopsis

Philip Hensher is one of our most acclaimed younger novelists and critics. His first two novels OTHER LULUS and KITCHEN VENOM were highly praised, and his reviews in the Spectator, the Mail and elsewhere have made him a highly visible and controversial literary pundit. This, his new novel, is his most ambitious so far. Set in Berlin in the last 80s, before the Wall came down, it tells the story of Heinrich Himmler, a restless young man working part-time as a waiter, who takes on a mysterious errand for the shaady Mr Picker. Picker, a spy for an unspecified government believes that East Berliners will be revolutionised not by political activism, but by pleasure. He pays Heinrich Himmler to deliver $50, 000 of free Ecstasy to East Berlin and hopes to watch the effect of the tabs as east Germany discovers a new world of bliss. But the plan goes seriously awry. Very funny, very unsettling, this is a novel that recalls Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, but has a sophistication and an edge all of its own.

About this title

Review:

Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Philip Hensher's third novel, Pleasured is perhaps the finest literary response to one of the most momentous events of the post-war period. Set in Berlin months before the fall of the Wall, it follows the lives of a disparate collection of characters, centring on Friedrich Kaiser, a Generation X slacker living in the hedonistic atmosphere of Kreuzberg in West Berlin. Hitchhiking back to Berlin from Cologne over New Year, Friedrich strikes up an unlikely relationship with the mysterious, rotund Peter Picker and Daphne, a wannabe urban terrorist. As Friedrich's incongruous relationship with Picker blossoms, they hatch an unlikely plan to free East Berlin from its Stalinist grip through the introduction of a little joy in the shape of a bag of Ecstasy.

Pleasured will undoubtedly draw comparisons with Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, with its brilliant evocation of 80s Berlin and the frustration and ennui which defines its comical, degenerate and often desperate collection of characters. Like Isherwood's novel Hensher vividly captures the Zeitgeist of Germany's painful reunification and the personal impact which the fall of the Wall had in both the East and the West. However, Pleasured is more than a meditation on the state of the German nation. It is also a wickedly observed comedy of manners, embracing drugs, terrorism, childhood, fatherhood and the vicissitudes of sexual identity in a series of elegantly drawn portraits and set pieces. Effortlessly written and beautifully structured, this is a great novel, which confirms Hensher as one of the finest novelists currently writing in English. -- Jerry Brotton

Review:

'What starts out as a Pinteresque thriller turns out to be a rather touching love story... so good it gives you goosebumps.' Time Out

'Hensher's most ambitious novel to date, it is also his most satisfying' Alex Clarke, Guardian

'Highly original and accomplished... An engrossing read.' Barry Unsworth, Daily Telegraph

'A sublimely structured and sophisticated novel' Independent on Sunday

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0099274442
• ISBN 13: 9780099274445
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384