Liebe von Peter Carey - Inhaltsangabe

Exhilarating, exuberant tour-de-force, a literary gem of a book

Peter Carey's "Theft: A Love Story" is a literary tour-de-force, a brilliant book, a witty spoof on the art world, a tale of two brothers and a story about love, a story taking us from Australia to Japan and to New York, to sum it up: a magnificent book.
How often do you find yourself multiply re-reading sentences, phrases, even pages- not for the sake of understanding it, but out of sheer joy of re-enjoying the just-read phrases, sentences and pages. Not all too often, I would think. Peter Carey's writing is so exuberantly enjoyable, that there is actually no way avoiding multiple re-reading, enjoying the prose melt on your tongue. Scenes, sentences, phrases, which I just wanted to read to my friends, but where to start, each and every page is just full of excerpts you want to share with others.
"Theft: A Love Story" is the tale of two brothers, one of them a previously well known painter, now taking care of his art dealer's offbeat located home, also taking care of his huge and "slow" brother Hugh. It's a tale of love too, of brotherly love- they just don't seem to be able to live with each other, but obviously can't live without each other either. The story is told in turn (chapterwise) by the two brothers, and although both are rather huffy, grumpy characters (brothers all the way), who both really seem to have a ball verbally whacking each other, it is, due to master ventriloquist Peter Carey's intriguing prose, easy to recognize, whose narrative we are reading at that moment. Of course, the "Love Story" mentioned as un undertitle is the love story of Marlene (who walks into the lives of Michael and Hugh one rainy night, starting off the story there) and Michael. "Theft" is also a story of an art fraud, of mischief, even of murder, but never (at least I don't recall) have frauds and thieves been more overtly likeable than Peter Carey's characters in this novel.
"Theft: A Love Story" is sheer enjoyment, a literary masterpiece, a gem of a novel. One of the novels, which leaves you (though sad- for having finished reading it) with a big big smile, happy for having been fortunate to have read this book.

(Meine Rezension bezieht sich auf die englische Originalausgabe)