In this novel, Uwe Timm has succeeded in depicting with great literary precision the ongoing loss of meaning in life that endangers a whole generation by illustrating the causes for this alienation through the immediacy of diary entries.
Christian Kerbel, 29, cannot get over the loss of his girlfriend. He has dropped out of university and a meaningful job is nowhere to be found. He does not want to become one of those well-adjusted salary earners like some of his old friends. The insight he gained into sociocultural mechanisms at the time of his politically active life does not help him in times of personal need. Weighed down by self-doubt and resignation he begins to lose his footing. His personal crisis becomes evident in his notes which are literary protocols of the loss of identity and at the same time of the attempt to make the suffering bearable. The escape from himself and from the world ends in an act of desperation.
