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Munich Airport
"A masterwork of minimalism." --Entertainment Weekly
From the critically acclaimed author of The Apartment comes a powerful, poetic, and haunting exploration of loss, love, and isolation, now available in paperback.
An American living in London receives a phone call from a German policewoman telling him the nearly inconceivable news that his sister, Miriam, has been found dead in her Berlin apartment-from starvation. Three weeks later the man, his father, and an American consular official named Trish find themselves in the bizarre surroundings of a fogbound Munich Airport, where Miriam's coffin is set to be loaded onto a commercial jet and returned to America.
Greg Baxter's bold, mesmeric novel tells the story of these three people over the course of three weeks, as they wait for Miriam's body to be released, grieve over her incomprehensible death, and try to possess a share of her suffering--and her yearning and grace.
With prose that is tense, precise, and at times highly lyrical, MUNICH AIRPORT is a novel for our time, a work of richness, gravity, and even dark humor. Following his acclaimed American debut, MUNICH AIRPORT marks the establishment of Greg Baxter as an important new voice in literature, one who has already drawn comparisons to masters such as Kafka, Camus, and Murakami.
From the critically acclaimed author of The Apartment comes a powerful, poetic, and haunting exploration of loss, love, and isolation, now available in paperback.
An American living in London receives a phone call from a German policewoman telling him the nearly inconceivable news that his sister, Miriam, has been found dead in her Berlin apartment-from starvation. Three weeks later the man, his father, and an American consular official named Trish find themselves in the bizarre surroundings of a fogbound Munich Airport, where Miriam's coffin is set to be loaded onto a commercial jet and returned to America.
Greg Baxter's bold, mesmeric novel tells the story of these three people over the course of three weeks, as they wait for Miriam's body to be released, grieve over her incomprehensible death, and try to possess a share of her suffering--and her yearning and grace.
With prose that is tense, precise, and at times highly lyrical, MUNICH AIRPORT is a novel for our time, a work of richness, gravity, and even dark humor. Following his acclaimed American debut, MUNICH AIRPORT marks the establishment of Greg Baxter as an important new voice in literature, one who has already drawn comparisons to masters such as Kafka, Camus, and Murakami.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 3, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews
September 30, 2023
120th book of 2023.
4.5. This was recommended to me years ago by Dr J, one of my university lecturers. I’ve spoken about her before: she was accused of being cruel and unfair by a number of students and my roommate, who was the head of our student committee had to ask me, if it came to it, whether I’d defend her in a kind of trial that was set up. It all seemed a bit absurd to me. He came to me because my good relationship with Dr J was well-known; in fact, he and others used to joke that I was having sex with her in the long tutorials we had in her office. She was married with two children, if I’m remembering correctly, but we had another male lecturer who was in the same marital position and was sleeping, fairly openly, with a fellow student. I remember I was once sitting outside Dr J’s office waiting for her to call me in. I was reading a battered old John Updike novel I’d bought that morning. She opened the door and asked me what I was reading and when I told her, she screwed her nose up, only slightly, barely noticeably to the naked eye, and said, Come in.
Later, Dr J began recommending me things to read, books, I guessed, she thought more of. My devout love of W.G. Sebald is because of her; she made me read The Rings of Saturn once, a writer I’d never heard of then. She rattled off names flippantly, and I missed hundreds over our meetings together, always cursing my memory or the decision not to write them down. Nicola Barker. Greg Baxter. Nicholson Baker (so similar to Barker that I wonder now if she said one or the other, or if she did say both). Derek Jarman. Crossing the grass outside of the old hall where her office was, some fellow students would sometimes spot me and I could feel their sly, sideways glances, groping at innuendos.
Munich Airport is a meandering and depressing read. It is very Bernhardian. The unnamed narrator is a selfish, lonely and troubled man. The entire ‘present’ of the novel is set inside Munich Airport. I’ll be flying into said airport in a few months so I finally followed one of Dr J’s recommendations. A fog has descended and all flights are grounded. The narrator, his father, and a woman helping with the post-death process, are stuck together in the terminal, waiting. The narrator’s sister had previously been found dead in her Berlin apartment, starved to death. It is a novel with a Bernhardian tone but also Bernhardian themes: suicide, loneliness, madness. There are a good number of negative reviews for this book calling it boring, depressing without reprieve, pointless. The structure of the novel is tremendously crafted: despite being stuck in an airport terminal, the novel also contains an odyssey across Germany. By association, the narrator’s mind in the airport goes back years, jumps forwards, and gives us the story of his life and his family’s life in a fractured, non-linear way. It slowly peels back the events that have led them to the point where they sit, hungry, overtired to the point of mania and claustrophobic in Munich Airport. There aren’t many paragraph breaks and there are no speech marks. In fact, most of the time, the dialogue is imbedded in the long meandering paragraphs. The narrator is depressed, processing grief. There is self-harm. There is not much light in the book. The final pages had me wondering, why are we going here? What is the significance of this memory to end the book? But it unsettled me, made me think, perhaps even felt a little cathartic. Like Sir Percival, I decided not to ask of its significance.
Dr J actually lives a few roads from my parents. I’ve never seen her out and about. At university my other lecturers told me she was always on a limb, never joined them for lunch, rarely said much. In her ‘trial’, which took place despite my presence not being needed in the end, she apparently said nothing. Not once did she defend herself or refute the claims that she was cruel, critical and unfair. My housemate, who had to attend it, had come home and made us coffee (it was already nine or ten o’clock at night but he came home and made two coffees as a way of telling me, We aren’t sleeping soon) to inform me what had happened. I remember him saying that Dr J’s silence was unnerving, and everyone present kept looking at her, almost begging her to say anything. In the end, her colleagues defended her and the students’ complaints were pushed under the rug. Their attendance to her classes dwindled before, I think, dropping off altogether. When I saw Dr J after the trial I wanted to ask her about it, even tell her I was prepared to defend her, but as soon as I was in her office again, that felt like a false and gratuitous thing to do. The truth was, Dr J didn’t care.
4.5. This was recommended to me years ago by Dr J, one of my university lecturers. I’ve spoken about her before: she was accused of being cruel and unfair by a number of students and my roommate, who was the head of our student committee had to ask me, if it came to it, whether I’d defend her in a kind of trial that was set up. It all seemed a bit absurd to me. He came to me because my good relationship with Dr J was well-known; in fact, he and others used to joke that I was having sex with her in the long tutorials we had in her office. She was married with two children, if I’m remembering correctly, but we had another male lecturer who was in the same marital position and was sleeping, fairly openly, with a fellow student. I remember I was once sitting outside Dr J’s office waiting for her to call me in. I was reading a battered old John Updike novel I’d bought that morning. She opened the door and asked me what I was reading and when I told her, she screwed her nose up, only slightly, barely noticeably to the naked eye, and said, Come in.
Later, Dr J began recommending me things to read, books, I guessed, she thought more of. My devout love of W.G. Sebald is because of her; she made me read The Rings of Saturn once, a writer I’d never heard of then. She rattled off names flippantly, and I missed hundreds over our meetings together, always cursing my memory or the decision not to write them down. Nicola Barker. Greg Baxter. Nicholson Baker (so similar to Barker that I wonder now if she said one or the other, or if she did say both). Derek Jarman. Crossing the grass outside of the old hall where her office was, some fellow students would sometimes spot me and I could feel their sly, sideways glances, groping at innuendos.
Munich Airport is a meandering and depressing read. It is very Bernhardian. The unnamed narrator is a selfish, lonely and troubled man. The entire ‘present’ of the novel is set inside Munich Airport. I’ll be flying into said airport in a few months so I finally followed one of Dr J’s recommendations. A fog has descended and all flights are grounded. The narrator, his father, and a woman helping with the post-death process, are stuck together in the terminal, waiting. The narrator’s sister had previously been found dead in her Berlin apartment, starved to death. It is a novel with a Bernhardian tone but also Bernhardian themes: suicide, loneliness, madness. There are a good number of negative reviews for this book calling it boring, depressing without reprieve, pointless. The structure of the novel is tremendously crafted: despite being stuck in an airport terminal, the novel also contains an odyssey across Germany. By association, the narrator’s mind in the airport goes back years, jumps forwards, and gives us the story of his life and his family’s life in a fractured, non-linear way. It slowly peels back the events that have led them to the point where they sit, hungry, overtired to the point of mania and claustrophobic in Munich Airport. There aren’t many paragraph breaks and there are no speech marks. In fact, most of the time, the dialogue is imbedded in the long meandering paragraphs. The narrator is depressed, processing grief. There is self-harm. There is not much light in the book. The final pages had me wondering, why are we going here? What is the significance of this memory to end the book? But it unsettled me, made me think, perhaps even felt a little cathartic. Like Sir Percival, I decided not to ask of its significance.
Dr J actually lives a few roads from my parents. I’ve never seen her out and about. At university my other lecturers told me she was always on a limb, never joined them for lunch, rarely said much. In her ‘trial’, which took place despite my presence not being needed in the end, she apparently said nothing. Not once did she defend herself or refute the claims that she was cruel, critical and unfair. My housemate, who had to attend it, had come home and made us coffee (it was already nine or ten o’clock at night but he came home and made two coffees as a way of telling me, We aren’t sleeping soon) to inform me what had happened. I remember him saying that Dr J’s silence was unnerving, and everyone present kept looking at her, almost begging her to say anything. In the end, her colleagues defended her and the students’ complaints were pushed under the rug. Their attendance to her classes dwindled before, I think, dropping off altogether. When I saw Dr J after the trial I wanted to ask her about it, even tell her I was prepared to defend her, but as soon as I was in her office again, that felt like a false and gratuitous thing to do. The truth was, Dr J didn’t care.
August 6, 2016
I can't imagine a better novel being published this year. It's the sort of book you want to use as a weapon to hit people over the head with. Baxter writes like a survivor of really terrible things - and there's not a false note in this desperate, meditative, scary, sad, gorgeous, moving, and incredibly funny novel. Not funny ha ha, mind you. Funny: oh my god. I couldn't possibly recommend it more.
April 13, 2023
A brilliant novel of elusive themes and ideas with three lucidly drawn central characters. Munich Airport is ostensibly about an unnamed American man travelling to Germany with his father to collect the remains of his dead sister. The man hasn't spoken to his sister in a long time and isn't particularly close with his father. The sister, Miriam, died from starvation. It isn't clear if this was due to anorexia per se or somehow a more intentional practice of foregoing food - the latter is hinted at. Both son and father have a great deal of guilt about losing touch with Miriam and not caring for her.
Baxter excels at weaving memories together in a seamless way, which is essentially his compositional technique throughout this single-chapter novel. In a lesser writer's hands it would fall apart or bore the reader quickly, but Baxter keeps you hooked throughout. This is impressive considering there isn't really much of a story. He displays a deft hand in painting scenes and builds sometimes unbearable tension between characters. The prose is crystal clear and intelligent throughout.
There is a lot about war guilt in Germany which is explored through the travels around the region that the son and father take, visiting battle sites and museums dedicated to the Second World War. There is also a lot about Charlemagne and a lot about America's relationship with Europe. I wondered if Baxter is saying something about the US uniting Europe under its sword after the war, like Charlemagne did in a much earlier time. If he is, it is decidedly a critical take and that sword is covered in blood.
Both thematically and compositionally this put me in mind of Patrick Modiano and W.G. Sebald. Baxter achieves the effortless, airy quality of memory of the former and the weightiness of history of the latter. At times, though, the memories feel a bit glued together and the shift in pacing between memories at the end is somewhat exciting but also a little bit frustrating having gotten used to the structure up to that point. I also felt the final scene, another memory, was a little on he nose - it doesn't spoil anything to mention it features the narrator adrift in a small boat.
Overall, I think this falls slightly short of being a truly excellent work, but perhaps only because it sets out to do something so difficult to achieve. I don't want to belittle Baxter's brilliance as a writer, he is clearly a major talent and I will be going back to his earlier work and keenly awaiting what's next. A very strong, intelligent, and interesting novel.
Baxter excels at weaving memories together in a seamless way, which is essentially his compositional technique throughout this single-chapter novel. In a lesser writer's hands it would fall apart or bore the reader quickly, but Baxter keeps you hooked throughout. This is impressive considering there isn't really much of a story. He displays a deft hand in painting scenes and builds sometimes unbearable tension between characters. The prose is crystal clear and intelligent throughout.
There is a lot about war guilt in Germany which is explored through the travels around the region that the son and father take, visiting battle sites and museums dedicated to the Second World War. There is also a lot about Charlemagne and a lot about America's relationship with Europe. I wondered if Baxter is saying something about the US uniting Europe under its sword after the war, like Charlemagne did in a much earlier time. If he is, it is decidedly a critical take and that sword is covered in blood.
Both thematically and compositionally this put me in mind of Patrick Modiano and W.G. Sebald. Baxter achieves the effortless, airy quality of memory of the former and the weightiness of history of the latter. At times, though, the memories feel a bit glued together and the shift in pacing between memories at the end is somewhat exciting but also a little bit frustrating having gotten used to the structure up to that point. I also felt the final scene, another memory, was a little on he nose - it doesn't spoil anything to mention it features the narrator adrift in a small boat.
Overall, I think this falls slightly short of being a truly excellent work, but perhaps only because it sets out to do something so difficult to achieve. I don't want to belittle Baxter's brilliance as a writer, he is clearly a major talent and I will be going back to his earlier work and keenly awaiting what's next. A very strong, intelligent, and interesting novel.
December 15, 2014
I won this book from GR FirstReads giveaway.
I started to read this book. Stopped for a while. Began reading from the beginning. Stopped. Tried to continue reading. Fell asleep. Carried it around with me for a while. Gave up.
That pretty much sums up how exciting this book was. I gave it an honest effort but couldn't continue.
Sorry, but that's my true, unbiased opinion.
I started to read this book. Stopped for a while. Began reading from the beginning. Stopped. Tried to continue reading. Fell asleep. Carried it around with me for a while. Gave up.
That pretty much sums up how exciting this book was. I gave it an honest effort but couldn't continue.
Sorry, but that's my true, unbiased opinion.
January 30, 2018
Dismal. Adrift. Self destructive. Nearly All the characters are depicted this way in the book- but why? Not explained. I appreciate the new experience of the writing. The story is told or revealed by the main character’s continual consciousness; wherever his meandering mind took him, zig-zagging between thoughts and stories both past and present. Usually I say go ahead, it’s different- see what you think. In this case I say, it’s bleak, enter at own risk. You’ve been warned.
November 5, 2020
Four stars rounded up from 3.5
If you require a straightforward, linear story: this book is not for you! I'd classify it as stream-of-consciousness in that it jumps around in time and space; I think the author was trying to achieve showing rather than telling that way, but not convinced he did it as effectively as possible? Still, that didn't bother me much. I think had I read the print edition I would have been more bothered by the fact that there are no chapters; ended up putting down the audiobook at points where things shifted to a different scene. For those who are considering the book, here's my best stab at what to expect...
Putting things in as much of a linear structure as I can, the storyline contains elements of the protagonist with his father, and their minder from the Consulate, in Berlin sorting out the sister's death. There is space devoted to the three of them at the airport itself, as well as in Berlin during the three weeks it took to get the authorities to sign off on the paperwork and arrange for her body to be shipped to the States. There are flashbacks to the protagonist's life in London where he's been an expat for decades, as well as to the nuclear family in his States childhood. Near the end, there's also a father-son jaunt around Germany by car.
First person point-of-view means that we get everything filtered through the son/brother. Thing is... by the end of the book I decided that I didn't really like him very much. He struck me as a bit of a clueless brat, so that his ex-wife probably had good reason to end up seriously disliking him. The father and Trish, the consular officer, were great characters; however, I had trouble accepting that she would have been quite so directly present in the situation rather than a behind-the-scenes expediter?
And now we get to the ending... or lack of one. At the risk of a spoiler, I found it almost a cliffhanger (whatever point author felt he made escaped me). As part of the ending, the guy goes on a $$$$ spree at the airport; with coach tickets, where the hell is all that massive loot going to go? (I've traveled a fair amount, but never bought a duty free item). Almost feel as though I need a sequel for closure. The fact that I'd be interested in that possibility bumps it up to a fourth star, though only if it involves his father and/or Trish.
Audiobook worked for me as something to let the decent narration go where it would for an hour or so each day.
If you require a straightforward, linear story: this book is not for you! I'd classify it as stream-of-consciousness in that it jumps around in time and space; I think the author was trying to achieve showing rather than telling that way, but not convinced he did it as effectively as possible? Still, that didn't bother me much. I think had I read the print edition I would have been more bothered by the fact that there are no chapters; ended up putting down the audiobook at points where things shifted to a different scene. For those who are considering the book, here's my best stab at what to expect...
Putting things in as much of a linear structure as I can, the storyline contains elements of the protagonist with his father, and their minder from the Consulate, in Berlin sorting out the sister's death. There is space devoted to the three of them at the airport itself, as well as in Berlin during the three weeks it took to get the authorities to sign off on the paperwork and arrange for her body to be shipped to the States. There are flashbacks to the protagonist's life in London where he's been an expat for decades, as well as to the nuclear family in his States childhood. Near the end, there's also a father-son jaunt around Germany by car.
First person point-of-view means that we get everything filtered through the son/brother. Thing is... by the end of the book I decided that I didn't really like him very much. He struck me as a bit of a clueless brat, so that his ex-wife probably had good reason to end up seriously disliking him. The father and Trish, the consular officer, were great characters; however, I had trouble accepting that she would have been quite so directly present in the situation rather than a behind-the-scenes expediter?
And now we get to the ending... or lack of one. At the risk of a spoiler, I found it almost a cliffhanger (whatever point author felt he made escaped me). As part of the ending, the guy goes on a $$$$ spree at the airport; with coach tickets, where the hell is all that massive loot going to go? (I've traveled a fair amount, but never bought a duty free item). Almost feel as though I need a sequel for closure. The fact that I'd be interested in that possibility bumps it up to a fourth star, though only if it involves his father and/or Trish.
Audiobook worked for me as something to let the decent narration go where it would for an hour or so each day.
December 26, 2014
I was given this book for free by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review for the publisher.
I love a depressing book, and if you are looking for a read that makes you feel empty and depraved, this is it. Munich Airport takes place entirely in the setting indicated by the title, where the main character and his father are waiting for a delayed plane. The family is in Munich to pick up the body of the sister who has died of starvation, an illness that becomes a central metaphor in the novel. While in the airport, the main character continually flashes back to experiences that occurred during his childhood and throughout the several weeks that they spent in Munich while waiting for the body to be released.
One primary strength of the novel is the writing. Well written with imaginative and clever prose, Munich Airport is skillfully composed. (At times, however, it read a bit like an MFA thesis--too many devices compiled one after another.)
Another strength of the novel is the depiction of the main character’s thoughts. Although another reader may perceive this entirely differently, in my opinion, the main character arrived in Berlin as a rather normal, professional adult. Although grieving, he appeared sane, educated and practical. However, the longer he spends in Berlin with his father, the more he seems to lose his mind. By the end, the main character strongly resembles the character from American Psycho. I couldn’t stop comparing the two characters, and the more I read, the more the resemblance increased. His thoughts are erratic and his actions are unpredictable. In this way, the theme of starvation--or perhaps deprivation is a better way to think of it--arises throughout the novel. The sister has literally starved herself to death, dying of malnutrition after admitting that she enjoys the sense of control that not eating affords her. While the reader grapples with the sister’s physical starvation, the minds of the other characters are examined and found wanting. Starved of happiness and comfort, the characters experience existence as painful and agonizing.
I’m not sure if the formatting of the novel was faulty due to it being an ebook and not the final version, at that, but the flashbacks were not clearly indicated in the text. Normally, a novel that contains flashbacks, especially this many, would designate these memories by white space; however, this book moves in between time periods without any visual indication of the change. I found this confusing at times, although I was able to find my way so long as I paid close attention.
Like I said, I love a depressing book, and this one gets a B- in that arena. But it gets a C for development of plot. I don’t need an action-packed read, but this was a bit too slow at several times.
I love a depressing book, and if you are looking for a read that makes you feel empty and depraved, this is it. Munich Airport takes place entirely in the setting indicated by the title, where the main character and his father are waiting for a delayed plane. The family is in Munich to pick up the body of the sister who has died of starvation, an illness that becomes a central metaphor in the novel. While in the airport, the main character continually flashes back to experiences that occurred during his childhood and throughout the several weeks that they spent in Munich while waiting for the body to be released.
One primary strength of the novel is the writing. Well written with imaginative and clever prose, Munich Airport is skillfully composed. (At times, however, it read a bit like an MFA thesis--too many devices compiled one after another.)
Another strength of the novel is the depiction of the main character’s thoughts. Although another reader may perceive this entirely differently, in my opinion, the main character arrived in Berlin as a rather normal, professional adult. Although grieving, he appeared sane, educated and practical. However, the longer he spends in Berlin with his father, the more he seems to lose his mind. By the end, the main character strongly resembles the character from American Psycho. I couldn’t stop comparing the two characters, and the more I read, the more the resemblance increased. His thoughts are erratic and his actions are unpredictable. In this way, the theme of starvation--or perhaps deprivation is a better way to think of it--arises throughout the novel. The sister has literally starved herself to death, dying of malnutrition after admitting that she enjoys the sense of control that not eating affords her. While the reader grapples with the sister’s physical starvation, the minds of the other characters are examined and found wanting. Starved of happiness and comfort, the characters experience existence as painful and agonizing.
I’m not sure if the formatting of the novel was faulty due to it being an ebook and not the final version, at that, but the flashbacks were not clearly indicated in the text. Normally, a novel that contains flashbacks, especially this many, would designate these memories by white space; however, this book moves in between time periods without any visual indication of the change. I found this confusing at times, although I was able to find my way so long as I paid close attention.
Like I said, I love a depressing book, and this one gets a B- in that arena. But it gets a C for development of plot. I don’t need an action-packed read, but this was a bit too slow at several times.
April 30, 2014
In this poignant novel, a father and son are at Munich Airport. They are planning to return to the States, where the father lives, with the body of Miriam. Miriam – a daughter, a sister - had left America years ago and was living in Germany, while her brother has made a home, of sorts, in London. They are a family split by time and distance and have had infrequent contact with each other since the mother of the children died. Now Miriam has died and, shockingly, she was found in her apartment, having starved to death.
Our narrator is the brother of Miriam and this book takes us through the call, just before an important meeting, to tell him that his sister was dead; back through flashbacks of his life and his visit to Germany with his father . Although this sounds dreadfully serious – and, in parts, it does deal with very important issues such as what makes a family, how you react to life’s challenges and modern life – it is also very full of dark humour and emotion.
Much of the novel takes place inside a fog bound Munich Airport; where flights are delayed and people mill around waiting endlessly. Father and son are accompanied by Trish, a caring and sensitive woman who works at the American Embassy. She has her own problems, but her natural empathy means that Miriam’s father, a former historian, turns to her for understanding. Our narrator himself struggles with what happened to his sister and wonders why he did not do more to make sure she was fine; why he did suspect something so terrible could happen? We follow father and son over their trip to Germany, the weeks of waiting, visiting Miriam’s apartment and of the sadness and horror both men feel over her death.
This is really a very imaginative and moving read. It will challenge you and make you question modern families, where expat life means that families are in danger of losing contact, that support networks may be lost and that elderly parents are left behind. Ideal for reading groups and a personal read you will find hard to put down.
Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, for review.
Our narrator is the brother of Miriam and this book takes us through the call, just before an important meeting, to tell him that his sister was dead; back through flashbacks of his life and his visit to Germany with his father . Although this sounds dreadfully serious – and, in parts, it does deal with very important issues such as what makes a family, how you react to life’s challenges and modern life – it is also very full of dark humour and emotion.
Much of the novel takes place inside a fog bound Munich Airport; where flights are delayed and people mill around waiting endlessly. Father and son are accompanied by Trish, a caring and sensitive woman who works at the American Embassy. She has her own problems, but her natural empathy means that Miriam’s father, a former historian, turns to her for understanding. Our narrator himself struggles with what happened to his sister and wonders why he did not do more to make sure she was fine; why he did suspect something so terrible could happen? We follow father and son over their trip to Germany, the weeks of waiting, visiting Miriam’s apartment and of the sadness and horror both men feel over her death.
This is really a very imaginative and moving read. It will challenge you and make you question modern families, where expat life means that families are in danger of losing contact, that support networks may be lost and that elderly parents are left behind. Ideal for reading groups and a personal read you will find hard to put down.
Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, for review.
January 5, 2015
Just finished this book. Initially I found it hard to get into this book but once I got into it it became compelling. The author's writing style is unusual in that there are no chapters and he does not use inverted commas to denote speech.I think the way I view this book is that it is like a slice of the main protagonists life and at times his stream of consciousness. There is not clear structure with many flashbacks. The end is abrupt with no real sense of resolution or ending. Nonetheless I found this to be be a thought provoking read with themes such as family, identity, mental health and ultimately the meaning of life to the fore. I think I liked the concentration on seemingly mundane events and interactions.the characters were well Drawn, not always likeable and the motivation behind their actions not always clear. Overall I enjoyed this book and I would recommend it, but be prepared to stick with it and go with the rather unusual flow. The point of the book,I feel, is the detail of day to day stuff and the quality of human relationships rather than a more conventional story with a beginning middle and an end.
April 12, 2018
Really got interested in this while I was researching a trip to Munich and this came up. But I got a hundred pages into it and gave up, after being bored as all hell. There doesn't seem like any plot and the lack of quotation marks with the dialogue is both frustrating and annoying.
July 18, 2014
I got this book as a giveaway as part of Goodreads first reads.
In Munich airport a man waits with his father for the fog to clear. They are taking his sister's body back to the US. In flash backs our narrator explains what he and his father did in the weeks that they waited for his sister's starved body to be released to them and he also flashes back to scenes in his personal life explaining how he's reached the point that he's reached in his life.
It was okay. And believe me it's well written so it's not a bad book it's just that I personally don't like it. For one it uses "vertical time" (at least that's the phrase my old english teacher used to use for it). I dislike vertical time when there is no spacing or new chapters to make the transitions more clear. Every so often when I wasn't paying quite enough attention I'd get a couple of sentences in before realising he was recounting a past memory. I have an issue with there being no chapters or quotation marks (hopefully this will be corrected at some point) because I get confused and the book also gets rather heavy that way. I also just didn't like the main character, I don't know why he rubs me the wrong way but he does. There's a point in the story when the character makes some joke about the germans, I read it out loud to my brother and asked him if it was offensive and he had to point out it was a joke because in all the heaviness the narrator doesn't seem capable of jokes to me, so when he makes them it throws me (I didn't even notice it was a joke!!! I always catch the slightly racist jokes!!). He doesn't ever clearly resolve the situation of why Miriam is dead, you're left to assume she had problems but a little more detail would make it feel more well rounded. And our narrator behaves in ways that I don't understand and can't quite come to grips with I just can't get round it, I find it weird and disturbing but it's illogical and I don't feel that he makes much sense.
In Munich airport a man waits with his father for the fog to clear. They are taking his sister's body back to the US. In flash backs our narrator explains what he and his father did in the weeks that they waited for his sister's starved body to be released to them and he also flashes back to scenes in his personal life explaining how he's reached the point that he's reached in his life.
It was okay. And believe me it's well written so it's not a bad book it's just that I personally don't like it. For one it uses "vertical time" (at least that's the phrase my old english teacher used to use for it). I dislike vertical time when there is no spacing or new chapters to make the transitions more clear. Every so often when I wasn't paying quite enough attention I'd get a couple of sentences in before realising he was recounting a past memory. I have an issue with there being no chapters or quotation marks (hopefully this will be corrected at some point) because I get confused and the book also gets rather heavy that way. I also just didn't like the main character, I don't know why he rubs me the wrong way but he does. There's a point in the story when the character makes some joke about the germans, I read it out loud to my brother and asked him if it was offensive and he had to point out it was a joke because in all the heaviness the narrator doesn't seem capable of jokes to me, so when he makes them it throws me (I didn't even notice it was a joke!!! I always catch the slightly racist jokes!!). He doesn't ever clearly resolve the situation of why Miriam is dead, you're left to assume she had problems but a little more detail would make it feel more well rounded. And our narrator behaves in ways that I don't understand and can't quite come to grips with I just can't get round it, I find it weird and disturbing but it's illogical and I don't feel that he makes much sense.
August 28, 2015
I'm as big a fan as anyone of "literary" novels -- those that are driven primarily by exploration of character and the psychological underpinnings of behavior rather than than plot and action -- but this one was a bit much. Nicely written, yes. But what was it about? The unnamed narrator, an American marketing consultant based in London, learns of his sister's death in Berlin, and travels there to meet his father and take the corpse back to the U.S. The odd note is that his sister died of starvation, yet she wasn't destitute. Most of the novel takes place at the titular airport, where the narrator and his decidedly infirm father, accompanied by an official of the U.S. embassy in Berlin, waits for a delayed flight to Atlanta where they will bury the sister. One expects this novel to explore the possible reasons behind her death. I suppose it does, but so obliquely that any reasons went totally over my head. At one point the narrator decides to stop eating and starve himself as well. What's with that? Is there some familial dysfunction that explains all of this? Well, no more so than any other family, and from this account, far less. I admired the writing but the point of the whole thing completely escaped me.
September 13, 2015
Munich Airport By Greg Baxter
When rating a book, how should one allocate stars; by the enjoyment of the story, or its literary merits?
I ask this question because I am in a quandary. I didn’t enjoy this book. It was very introspective and a sad little story, yet, a beautifully written, descriptive, piece of work. I can’t really say any more than that. It wasn’t to my taste, but so well written, that I have to give it five stars.
Read 6th September 2015
When rating a book, how should one allocate stars; by the enjoyment of the story, or its literary merits?
I ask this question because I am in a quandary. I didn’t enjoy this book. It was very introspective and a sad little story, yet, a beautifully written, descriptive, piece of work. I can’t really say any more than that. It wasn’t to my taste, but so well written, that I have to give it five stars.
Read 6th September 2015
January 20, 2024
Odd. I kept thinking there would be answers or an ending but it was odd. Not terrible but most odd.
April 22, 2015
Greg Baxter's The Apartment was one of my prize discoveries of the last few years. After pairing it with Munich Airport, I am almost ready to declare Baxter the prince of alienation. His characters are deeply troubled, distant, and disturbing. How they navigate through the trivialities of life's big moments or life's dullest reveals an alienation that is both repulsive but strangely cathartic.
Munich Airport has more "action," such as it is, than The Apartment (an Iraq war veteran looks for an apartment in an unnamed European city), but the mental rootlessness of Americans in Europe is at the heart of both novels.
In Munich Airport, a middle-age divorced American guy living in London meets his father in Germany to retrieve the body of their daughter/sister who has died, we learn, from self-induced starvation. All three of them apparently have the same (or similar) affliction, eating disorders, sleeping disorders, and difficulty maintaining close relationships with others. In the narrator's own words, "I go out of my way to seek women with whom I was safely incompatible, and over drinks or dinner I'd say things that were winning and untrue."
The German bureaucracy is only the tip of what the father and the son go through to get the body sent back to Georgia (USA) where they "live." Their afflictions, their pathologies, and their family ties are all exposed and exaggerated by the circumstances. They don't spend all their time at the airport, thank God (if you've been to the main German airports, you know they aren't much for a novel setting); instead they tour around Germany and border areas while the bureaucracy runs it course. A patient and empathetic lady from the US consulate in Germany takes the edge off of these internally twisted, but still fascinating characters.
This passage is typical of the observations Baxter's characters make routinely, which of course, are spot on for the circumstances:
"It's a shame there isn't a way to get outside for a few minutes. It's a shame there isn't something like a prison yard, surrounded by high fences and barbed wire, guarded towers, whatever it takes, which travelers could be free to walk in circles, breath the air, and get sun on their faces."
Having spent a fair part of my lifetime in airports, I could not agree more! And this is where the power and imagination of Baxter's writing lies. The story has its angles (wait till you get to the scene where the son has to help the father in the airport men's room). But it's these observations the narrator makes on just about everything makes you stop and think, stop and think.
Some of these observations get complicated, like this one of the narrator by a lover who was friends with his former wife (as recalled by the narrator - it's told in first person):
"Maybe you hated your wife so much that you decided to hate all women, or maybe you hated women from the day you started to desire them. I don't know. But that night, out last night, I started to realize that I hated you, except I didn't hate you, or I didn't want to hate you, but you had cast this spell over me. I was sitting next to you and I realized I couldn't stand you. I was going to have a panic attack, but this was precisely what you wanted, this was why you cast the spell, because somehow it was going to vindicate your hatred of me, which you harbored in order to validate your self hatred."
Pretty complex stuff, but is unraveling why you hate the person you married ever easy?
Did I mention no one does alienation like Baxter does alienation? But we are constantly reminded through the story of the eating disorder, that the affliction has much to do with their alienation.
There are a few spots where I think the narrative stumbles (but quickly catches itself). Much as I love classical music and love it woven into stories, a two page passage when they are attending an orchestra performance comes across as a bit forced. A few other "unforced errors" perhaps but they don't detract from the overall story.
And towards the end, this observation: "In her field, expertise could be proven in the smallest of ways, in the tiniest measures of breathtaking erudition, genius, and skepticism. Whereas the world everywhere else - the one my work inhabited [he's a marketing consultant, she a professor or archeology at a museum], or held dominion over - strived, with banality and prejudice, to prove expertise in grand ways, in universalities, or the impotent and stereotyped language of political opinion, journalism, corporate branding, critical thought, or art."
The best literary fiction defies easy characterization or explanation and that certainly fits Munich Airport. You can't help but embrace the alienation whether it repulses you or makes you wonder about how connected you are to who you think you are, and the person others think you are.
Munich Airport has more "action," such as it is, than The Apartment (an Iraq war veteran looks for an apartment in an unnamed European city), but the mental rootlessness of Americans in Europe is at the heart of both novels.
In Munich Airport, a middle-age divorced American guy living in London meets his father in Germany to retrieve the body of their daughter/sister who has died, we learn, from self-induced starvation. All three of them apparently have the same (or similar) affliction, eating disorders, sleeping disorders, and difficulty maintaining close relationships with others. In the narrator's own words, "I go out of my way to seek women with whom I was safely incompatible, and over drinks or dinner I'd say things that were winning and untrue."
The German bureaucracy is only the tip of what the father and the son go through to get the body sent back to Georgia (USA) where they "live." Their afflictions, their pathologies, and their family ties are all exposed and exaggerated by the circumstances. They don't spend all their time at the airport, thank God (if you've been to the main German airports, you know they aren't much for a novel setting); instead they tour around Germany and border areas while the bureaucracy runs it course. A patient and empathetic lady from the US consulate in Germany takes the edge off of these internally twisted, but still fascinating characters.
This passage is typical of the observations Baxter's characters make routinely, which of course, are spot on for the circumstances:
"It's a shame there isn't a way to get outside for a few minutes. It's a shame there isn't something like a prison yard, surrounded by high fences and barbed wire, guarded towers, whatever it takes, which travelers could be free to walk in circles, breath the air, and get sun on their faces."
Having spent a fair part of my lifetime in airports, I could not agree more! And this is where the power and imagination of Baxter's writing lies. The story has its angles (wait till you get to the scene where the son has to help the father in the airport men's room). But it's these observations the narrator makes on just about everything makes you stop and think, stop and think.
Some of these observations get complicated, like this one of the narrator by a lover who was friends with his former wife (as recalled by the narrator - it's told in first person):
"Maybe you hated your wife so much that you decided to hate all women, or maybe you hated women from the day you started to desire them. I don't know. But that night, out last night, I started to realize that I hated you, except I didn't hate you, or I didn't want to hate you, but you had cast this spell over me. I was sitting next to you and I realized I couldn't stand you. I was going to have a panic attack, but this was precisely what you wanted, this was why you cast the spell, because somehow it was going to vindicate your hatred of me, which you harbored in order to validate your self hatred."
Pretty complex stuff, but is unraveling why you hate the person you married ever easy?
Did I mention no one does alienation like Baxter does alienation? But we are constantly reminded through the story of the eating disorder, that the affliction has much to do with their alienation.
There are a few spots where I think the narrative stumbles (but quickly catches itself). Much as I love classical music and love it woven into stories, a two page passage when they are attending an orchestra performance comes across as a bit forced. A few other "unforced errors" perhaps but they don't detract from the overall story.
And towards the end, this observation: "In her field, expertise could be proven in the smallest of ways, in the tiniest measures of breathtaking erudition, genius, and skepticism. Whereas the world everywhere else - the one my work inhabited [he's a marketing consultant, she a professor or archeology at a museum], or held dominion over - strived, with banality and prejudice, to prove expertise in grand ways, in universalities, or the impotent and stereotyped language of political opinion, journalism, corporate branding, critical thought, or art."
The best literary fiction defies easy characterization or explanation and that certainly fits Munich Airport. You can't help but embrace the alienation whether it repulses you or makes you wonder about how connected you are to who you think you are, and the person others think you are.
December 13, 2014
** I got this book in GR giveways against a honest review **
What a strange novel? But is it really a novel? I will not describe what it was about because others have done it probably better than I ever could. Especially since I felt lost in a kind of misty parallel universe between life and death throughout the reading of this novel.
Yes, the absence of chapters, indications dialogues (quotation marks or italics or whatever) and passages between past and present is confusing. But it is certainly intended like that by the author. This adds to the impression of living a kind of awake nightmare, feeling certainly shared by the main character after the strange death of his sister.
The main character seems detached from the reality that surrounds him, so detached that he focuses on trivial details, such as to avoid facing facts. His sorrow and guilt anesthetizes him or he anesthetizes himself not to feel the pain and the feeling of not having done enough for his sister. When he cuts himself, is it not to empty himself of this suffering by inflicting another more concrete pain?
Some reviewers were disappointed not to find the resolution of the dead-starved sister's "case". But this is not a thriller, far from it. It is a kind of poetry collection on the themes of life that leads us inevitably to death and the weak control we have over our life, influenced as we are by our past, our parents' and even our grandparents' history, by our national culture, and by so many other things. It's also a compelling portrait of our alienation in the modern world.
While reading this novel, I remembered a few pages I wrote under the influence of marijuana many years ago. The next day, I read them and I didn't know if I should keep them for posterity or put them in the trash can. These pages were poetically describing feelings and emotions, with no real beginning or end, fully anchored in the present moment. I imagined someone else discovering and reading them, then writing around them a whole novel. That would have given something like Munich Airport without doubt.
I don't know either if this novel (Munich Airport) should go to the trash bin, as the drivels of a man prisoner of his pain, or to be affectedly protected for posterity, as Dali's painting Persistence of Memory, that with the melting pocket watch, which would have been discovered by a homo sapiens woman (me), who would have found it beautiful, but without really understanding it. So, I'm not going to take chances, I give this novel 4 stars.
What a strange novel? But is it really a novel? I will not describe what it was about because others have done it probably better than I ever could. Especially since I felt lost in a kind of misty parallel universe between life and death throughout the reading of this novel.
Yes, the absence of chapters, indications dialogues (quotation marks or italics or whatever) and passages between past and present is confusing. But it is certainly intended like that by the author. This adds to the impression of living a kind of awake nightmare, feeling certainly shared by the main character after the strange death of his sister.
The main character seems detached from the reality that surrounds him, so detached that he focuses on trivial details, such as to avoid facing facts. His sorrow and guilt anesthetizes him or he anesthetizes himself not to feel the pain and the feeling of not having done enough for his sister. When he cuts himself, is it not to empty himself of this suffering by inflicting another more concrete pain?
Some reviewers were disappointed not to find the resolution of the dead-starved sister's "case". But this is not a thriller, far from it. It is a kind of poetry collection on the themes of life that leads us inevitably to death and the weak control we have over our life, influenced as we are by our past, our parents' and even our grandparents' history, by our national culture, and by so many other things. It's also a compelling portrait of our alienation in the modern world.
While reading this novel, I remembered a few pages I wrote under the influence of marijuana many years ago. The next day, I read them and I didn't know if I should keep them for posterity or put them in the trash can. These pages were poetically describing feelings and emotions, with no real beginning or end, fully anchored in the present moment. I imagined someone else discovering and reading them, then writing around them a whole novel. That would have given something like Munich Airport without doubt.
I don't know either if this novel (Munich Airport) should go to the trash bin, as the drivels of a man prisoner of his pain, or to be affectedly protected for posterity, as Dali's painting Persistence of Memory, that with the melting pocket watch, which would have been discovered by a homo sapiens woman (me), who would have found it beautiful, but without really understanding it. So, I'm not going to take chances, I give this novel 4 stars.
December 13, 2014
** I got this book in GR giveways against a honest review **
What a strange novel? But is it really a novel? I will not describe what it was about because others have done it probably better than I ever could. Especially since I felt lost in a kind of misty parallel universe between life and death throughout the reading of this novel.
Yes, the absence of chapters, indications of dialogues (quotation marks or italics or whatever) and passages between past and present is confusing. But it is certainly intended like that by the author. This adds to the impression of living a kind of awake nightmare, feeling certainly shared by the main character after his sister's strange death.
The main character seems detached from the reality surrounding him, so detached that he focuses on trivial details, such as to avoid facing facts. His sorrow and guilt anesthetize him or he anesthetizes himself not to feel the pain and the feeling of not having done enough for his sister. When he cuts himself, is it not to empty himself of this suffering by inflicting another more concrete pain?
Some reviewers were disappointed not to find the resolution of the dead-starved sister's "case". But this is not a thriller, far from it. It is a kind of poetry collection on the themes of life that leads us inevitably to death and the weak control we have over our life, influenced as we are by our past, our parents' and even our grandparents' history, by our national culture, and by so many other things. It's also a compelling portrait of our alienation in the modern world.
While reading this novel, I remembered a few pages I wrote under the influence of marijuana many years ago. The next day, I read them and I didn't know if I should keep them for posterity or put them in the trash can. These pages were poetically describing feelings and emotions, with no real beginning or end, fully anchored in the present moment. I imagined someone else discovering and reading them, then writing around them a whole novel. That would have given something like Munich Airport without doubt.
I don't know either if this novel (Munich Airport) should go to the trash bin, as the drivels of a man prisoner of his pain, or to be affectedly protected for posterity, as Dali's painting Persistence of Memory, that with the melting pocket watch, which would have been discovered by a homo sapiens woman (me), who would have found it beautiful, but without really understanding it. So, I'm not going to take chances, I give this novel 4 stars.
What a strange novel? But is it really a novel? I will not describe what it was about because others have done it probably better than I ever could. Especially since I felt lost in a kind of misty parallel universe between life and death throughout the reading of this novel.
Yes, the absence of chapters, indications of dialogues (quotation marks or italics or whatever) and passages between past and present is confusing. But it is certainly intended like that by the author. This adds to the impression of living a kind of awake nightmare, feeling certainly shared by the main character after his sister's strange death.
The main character seems detached from the reality surrounding him, so detached that he focuses on trivial details, such as to avoid facing facts. His sorrow and guilt anesthetize him or he anesthetizes himself not to feel the pain and the feeling of not having done enough for his sister. When he cuts himself, is it not to empty himself of this suffering by inflicting another more concrete pain?
Some reviewers were disappointed not to find the resolution of the dead-starved sister's "case". But this is not a thriller, far from it. It is a kind of poetry collection on the themes of life that leads us inevitably to death and the weak control we have over our life, influenced as we are by our past, our parents' and even our grandparents' history, by our national culture, and by so many other things. It's also a compelling portrait of our alienation in the modern world.
While reading this novel, I remembered a few pages I wrote under the influence of marijuana many years ago. The next day, I read them and I didn't know if I should keep them for posterity or put them in the trash can. These pages were poetically describing feelings and emotions, with no real beginning or end, fully anchored in the present moment. I imagined someone else discovering and reading them, then writing around them a whole novel. That would have given something like Munich Airport without doubt.
I don't know either if this novel (Munich Airport) should go to the trash bin, as the drivels of a man prisoner of his pain, or to be affectedly protected for posterity, as Dali's painting Persistence of Memory, that with the melting pocket watch, which would have been discovered by a homo sapiens woman (me), who would have found it beautiful, but without really understanding it. So, I'm not going to take chances, I give this novel 4 stars.
April 25, 2020
About 90 percent of the way through Munich Airport, Greg Baxter's mesmerizingly grim second novel, the unnamed protagonist's elderly father shouts "What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this? Why don’t you do something?" His unexpected outburst was directed at airport staff, but could have (and probably should have) been directed at any of the existentially paralyzed protagonists - his son, the American consular official accompanying him, his deceased daughter, or himself - or any of the minor characters encountered during the three weeks he and his son waited for the daughter's body to be shipped home for burial as well as all of the characters that popped in and out of the son's many stream-of-consciousness memories and reflections. The book's assorted cast of characters seem to randomly float through the narrator's recollections as so much flotsam and jetsam, encountering a major character and then floating away without providing any meaningful plot development or life-affirming insight.
The outwardly normal, moderately successful narrator circles through scattered memories and makes ever more tenuous associations between his current situation and the incidents, possessions and obsessive behaviors that comprise his emotionally impoverished life. Along the way are searching meditations on love, loss, medieval history and the vitality and precariousness of human connection. There are also discourses on classical music, Nazism, and dioramas that seem forced. Nevertheless, Baxter, clear-eyed and without a trace of sentimentality, presents the narrator's attempt to make sense of his personal and familial histories while he spirals downward through increasingly disturbing levels of mental imbalance (nightmares, binges, panic attacks, self-mutilation and other compulsive actions). It is a harrowingly convincing descent into madness while searching for meaning.
With poise and pace Baxter depicts unraveling at a personal level that can only be seen as a parable for the modern condition. Despite the overwhelming tone of loneliness, despair, and malaise, however, the climax presents a hopeful epiphany. The fog lifts and having endured the novel's pervasive sense of dread and meandering, plotless digressions of the narrator, the reader is offered, at last, a bittersweet modicum of optimism and one final opportunity to shout "What is the meaning of this?"
The outwardly normal, moderately successful narrator circles through scattered memories and makes ever more tenuous associations between his current situation and the incidents, possessions and obsessive behaviors that comprise his emotionally impoverished life. Along the way are searching meditations on love, loss, medieval history and the vitality and precariousness of human connection. There are also discourses on classical music, Nazism, and dioramas that seem forced. Nevertheless, Baxter, clear-eyed and without a trace of sentimentality, presents the narrator's attempt to make sense of his personal and familial histories while he spirals downward through increasingly disturbing levels of mental imbalance (nightmares, binges, panic attacks, self-mutilation and other compulsive actions). It is a harrowingly convincing descent into madness while searching for meaning.
With poise and pace Baxter depicts unraveling at a personal level that can only be seen as a parable for the modern condition. Despite the overwhelming tone of loneliness, despair, and malaise, however, the climax presents a hopeful epiphany. The fog lifts and having endured the novel's pervasive sense of dread and meandering, plotless digressions of the narrator, the reader is offered, at last, a bittersweet modicum of optimism and one final opportunity to shout "What is the meaning of this?"
November 8, 2016
Amerykanin mieszkający w Londynie odbiera telefon. Niemiecka policja informuje go o śmierci głodowej jego siostry. Kilka tygodniu później razem z ojcem i urzędniczką przydzieloną z ambasady, czekają na swój samolot do USA. Długie godziny jakie przychodzi im spędzić na lotnisku wywołują fale wspomnień.
Czasami, po przeczytaniu niektórych książek, zadaje sobie pytanie - "Czy ona naprawdę była mi potrzebna?". I czasem stwierdzam krótko, zwięźle i treściwie tak lub nie. Jednak czasem, mam dylemat bo obie odpowiedzi są poprawne. I to jest właśnie jedna z tych książek.
Wszystko dlatego, że "Lotnisko w Monachium" to książka wręcz idealna na jesień. Dla masochistów zwłaszcza. Jest melancholijna, nieco depresyjna i na pewno skłania do refleksji. Bohater wspomina swoje życie, jego dobre i złe strony. Poddaje analizie to co wie o swojej zmarłej siostrze. Zastanawia się nad tym co kieruje jego ojcem. I czytelnikowi udziela się ten refleksyjny nastrój.
Jednak żeby nie było tak idealnie - ta pozycja może zmęczyć w pewnym momencie. Nie ma w niej rozdziałów czy dialogów. Cały tekst jest jedną, długą opowieścią, która przypomina nieco ludzki umysł. Zupełnie jakbyśmy byli bohaterem, a cała historia odbywała się w naszej głowie. To już tym bardziej może zmęczyć czytelnika. Wszystko to potęguje wszechobecny chaos. Przeskoki czasowe, dłużyzny nie wpływają na korzyść książki.
Z drugiej strony, to opowieść pokazująca ludzkie zachowania. Gdy bohater rozmyśla nad życiem swoim i swojej rodziny, czytelnik dostrzega pewne schematy i zachowania. Wręcz dla nas niepoprawne. Dzięki temu Baxter pokazuje obraz ludzi zachodu. Dla nas może on być dziwny i niezrozumiały. I chyba o to też chodziło. Byśmy dostrzegli sposób działania innych.
Zbierając to wszystko w całość, nie umiem jednoznacznie określić czy ta pozycja mi się podobała. Z jednej strony zmęczyła mnie strasznie. Dłużyła się, była chaotyczna i niepoukładana. Z drugiej strony coś mi pokazała - nieco dziwaczne podejście do tematu rodziny i jej członków. Mogę stwierdzić jedno - jeśli ktoś nie lubi się nieco męczyć z książkami, niech odpuści. Jeśli jednak potrzebuje swego rodzaju refleksji i jesiennego masochizmu, to właśnie to.
Tekst z http://smieszna-nazwa.blogspot.com/
Czasami, po przeczytaniu niektórych książek, zadaje sobie pytanie - "Czy ona naprawdę była mi potrzebna?". I czasem stwierdzam krótko, zwięźle i treściwie tak lub nie. Jednak czasem, mam dylemat bo obie odpowiedzi są poprawne. I to jest właśnie jedna z tych książek.
Wszystko dlatego, że "Lotnisko w Monachium" to książka wręcz idealna na jesień. Dla masochistów zwłaszcza. Jest melancholijna, nieco depresyjna i na pewno skłania do refleksji. Bohater wspomina swoje życie, jego dobre i złe strony. Poddaje analizie to co wie o swojej zmarłej siostrze. Zastanawia się nad tym co kieruje jego ojcem. I czytelnikowi udziela się ten refleksyjny nastrój.
Jednak żeby nie było tak idealnie - ta pozycja może zmęczyć w pewnym momencie. Nie ma w niej rozdziałów czy dialogów. Cały tekst jest jedną, długą opowieścią, która przypomina nieco ludzki umysł. Zupełnie jakbyśmy byli bohaterem, a cała historia odbywała się w naszej głowie. To już tym bardziej może zmęczyć czytelnika. Wszystko to potęguje wszechobecny chaos. Przeskoki czasowe, dłużyzny nie wpływają na korzyść książki.
Z drugiej strony, to opowieść pokazująca ludzkie zachowania. Gdy bohater rozmyśla nad życiem swoim i swojej rodziny, czytelnik dostrzega pewne schematy i zachowania. Wręcz dla nas niepoprawne. Dzięki temu Baxter pokazuje obraz ludzi zachodu. Dla nas może on być dziwny i niezrozumiały. I chyba o to też chodziło. Byśmy dostrzegli sposób działania innych.
Zbierając to wszystko w całość, nie umiem jednoznacznie określić czy ta pozycja mi się podobała. Z jednej strony zmęczyła mnie strasznie. Dłużyła się, była chaotyczna i niepoukładana. Z drugiej strony coś mi pokazała - nieco dziwaczne podejście do tematu rodziny i jej członków. Mogę stwierdzić jedno - jeśli ktoś nie lubi się nieco męczyć z książkami, niech odpuści. Jeśli jednak potrzebuje swego rodzaju refleksji i jesiennego masochizmu, to właśnie to.
Tekst z http://smieszna-nazwa.blogspot.com/
July 7, 2014
Munich Airport tells the tale of a disjointed family, living separate lives across many miles. Father and Son are bought together by the untimely death of daughter and sister, Miriam, who has died of starvation.
Munich Airport is told from Miriam's brothers point of view, from the moment that he took the phone call informing of her death right through to the delay at Munich Airport where Father and Son are waiting to bring Miriam's body back to the USA.
Whilst the characters pasts are touched upon, I didn't feel that Miriam's story was told as fully as it could have been, and for me, the novel quite a few unanswered questions.
Nevertheless it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to others.
Munich Airport is ultimately an imaginative and moving novel that will make you question the complexity of the modern family, and if you could or should be doing more within your own.
Munich Airport is told from Miriam's brothers point of view, from the moment that he took the phone call informing of her death right through to the delay at Munich Airport where Father and Son are waiting to bring Miriam's body back to the USA.
Whilst the characters pasts are touched upon, I didn't feel that Miriam's story was told as fully as it could have been, and for me, the novel quite a few unanswered questions.
Nevertheless it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to others.
Munich Airport is ultimately an imaginative and moving novel that will make you question the complexity of the modern family, and if you could or should be doing more within your own.
January 22, 2016
Okay, maybe the fact that it's not divided into traditional chapters contributed something to reading straight thru to 70% before nature's call could no longer be ignored, especially since it really was not at all delivering on how promising the premise sounded in NYTBR. I mean you got father and son douches, a real couple of Class A prigs, and their facilitator Trish from the American Embassy, who seems pretty cool, kinda saintly actually, being stuck in the fogged-over Munich airport with those two, you got nothing really happening except in flashbacks, and it's totally bereft of humor. So why then did I keep on reading non-stop? I honestly don't know. It wasn't really to find out how Miriam came to such a tragic end, since I knew going in this wasn't one of my beloved crime or horror novels. Anyway, my hat is off to Greg Baxter for bringing about such a unique reading experience, and even though I really don't know why, I do recommend it.
July 26, 2016
Munich Airport is an interesting book. A father and son are in Germany to retrieve the body of their daughter and sister who died a tragic death. The novel is written in a stream of consciousness format from the son's viewpoint. Scenes shift from the Munich airport where they are fogged in at the end of a gruelling three week wait for the body to be released, to their stay in Germany and to the family history. This is a disjointed family living solitary lives and what's done cannot be undone. Unlike many novels that use this format, the son's thoughts are coherent but his actions are those of someone whose bereavement has him clinging fragilely to his sanity. Thought provoking and engrossing, this is an excellent novel.
Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 5, 2015
Flygplatsen, en liminalzon, enligt sociologer? Får man då som författare lösa upp kronologiska och typografiska gränser? Så tänkte möjligen Baxter. Efter lite initial irritation p.g.a. tämligen själlöst språk, känner jag mig när allt kommer omkring berörd på ett existentiellt plan.
Lågmäld roman om amerikansk åldrande akademiker och hans sedan många år Londonexpatrierade son, berättarjaget. De två sitter fast på Münchens flygplats p.g.a. dimma. De befinner sig i Tyskland för att fatta beslut angående dotterns/systerns kvarlåtenskap efter att hon påträffats död i bostaden i Berlin. Sorgereaktionerna yttrar sig i form av psykosomatiska symptom, självdestruktivitet samt överdriven konsumtion, vilket kan läsas som psykologisk fallstudie.
Lågmäld roman om amerikansk åldrande akademiker och hans sedan många år Londonexpatrierade son, berättarjaget. De två sitter fast på Münchens flygplats p.g.a. dimma. De befinner sig i Tyskland för att fatta beslut angående dotterns/systerns kvarlåtenskap efter att hon påträffats död i bostaden i Berlin. Sorgereaktionerna yttrar sig i form av psykosomatiska symptom, självdestruktivitet samt överdriven konsumtion, vilket kan läsas som psykologisk fallstudie.
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January 8, 2016Munich Airport nimmt einen von der ersten Seite an mit. Die Handlung beginnt in medias res, sofort werden Fragen aufgeworfen, sofort entstehen Informationslücken, die stetig bis zur letzten Seite gefüllt werden. Eigentümlich fand ich zu Beginn die fehlenden Kapitel, doch im Laufe der Lektüre machte es Sinn. Der durchgehende Text passt zum Bewusstseinsstrom des Ich-Erzählers, der sich in einer ewig in die Länge gezogenen Transitsituation befindet. Die Rückblenden machen dieses Buch narrativ wertvoll. Herrlich ist auch der Humor des Erzählers - meine Lieblingsszene: der größenwahnsinnige Einkauf im Elektronikladen. Dann auch noch in meiner Heimatstadt München. Großartig!
August 26, 2015
This should have been a short story or a novella, rather than a novel. The writing is very good, but there's not enough story for a full novel, so instead of being poignant and to the point, it starts dragging on, with nothing much happening. How many times can you appreciate the hunger metaphor? After a while you feel like shouting at the author "Okay!! I got it!!!". So everyone is malnourished physically and emotionally, but there is not much else to deepen and bulk up the novel, which is a shame. This is a good writer shooting himself in the leg here.
December 19, 2016
I have never been a fan of the "our hero wanders around and has random thoughts and memories". And of all the places to do the wander Munich Airport is the most soul destroying. A man and his father have come to Germany due to horrible circumstances, and the circumstances are really horrible, and are now on their way home. It starts of boring and then becomes numb post traumatic stress syndrome in a novel. It's not enjoyable particularly but then I don't think it is meant to be.
April 7, 2020
This has to be one the the most meaningless and futile novel I have ever had the misfortune to read. It starts nowhere, and ends where it started. It is one long chapter of meaningless neuroses and American preoccupations, filled with small jolts of anxiety, frissons of angst, tales of excess eating and drinking, and an orgies of wasteful spending. Pointless, aimless and ultimatly tedious to the nth degree.
March 19, 2015
Dark and depressing. No chapters. Not chronological and difficult to follow. Read the first depressing 100 pages and then skipped to the end. Discovered that the book ended, but there was no closure. Abandoned this book after the first 100 pages and the last 5 pages.
July 18, 2014
Left me speechless. Don't let Baxter's blunt sentences trick you. This is a frightfully powerful novel, a true reminder of the capacities of literature.
June 20, 2015
Świetnie napisana książka o samotności i wyobcowaniu.
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