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Air by Christian Kracht review – a metaphysical jigsaw puzzle

Air by Christian Kracht review – a metaphysical jigsaw puzzle

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A portal opens from our modern world of data centres and interior design into a medieval fantasy realm, in this playfully surreal tale from the author of Eurotrash A reclusive interior designer named Paul travels from his home in Orkney to the Norwegian coastal city of Stavanger for a most unusual commission. A data­ce

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A portal opens from our modern world of data centres and interior design into a medieval fantasy realm, in this playfully surreal tale from the author of Eurotrash A reclusive interior designer named Paul travels from his home in Orkney to the Norwegian coastal city of Stavanger for a most unusual commission.

A data­centre housing a vast internet server is located by a fjord on the outskirts of the city, and a prestigious arts magazine is paying him a large sum of money to give it a makeover.

They want him to paint the interiors white – “not just any white, but the perfect white, the singular white”.

Shortly after he arrives, a freak weather event causes a power outage, and Paul goes missing; meanwhile the magazine’s jaded editor, Cohen, takes an overdose of barbiturates.

In alternate chapters a very different tale unfolds, set in a distant medieval world redolent of Norse mythology.

A man, referred to only as “the stranger”, is nursed back to health by a nine-year-old girl who has shot him with an arrow after mistaking him for a deer. He is being pursued by a vengeful duke, and persuades the girl to join him on the run.

Together they leave their plague-ridden town, traverse a barr

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