A Cocktail Without A Destination

Christian Kracht’s Faserland is book about a narrator who is lost and can’t find his way in life. He traveled throughout Germany and visit Switzerland briefly. The entire journey he has difficulty relating to other people and with his own mental state. Which, probably wasn’t helped by the cocktail of drugs he was taking on a regular basis.

Another mystery is his name. It was never revealed in the book, thus further emphasizing his sense of isolation. Everyone else has a name, but he is nameless. Everyone has a purpose, but does he? This is a question repeatedly pondered upon throughout the novel. Is the a meaning to the narrator’s life? No explanation is given.

It probably didn’t help that his parents sent him to boarding school from a very young age. Then, once he finished boarding school, they gave him a trust fund. So this narrator has had little to no interaction with both of his parents and was given a seemingly never-ending cash flow. This just reeks of a recipe for disaster.

There’s no development of his character throughout the book. He is emotionally the same from the beginning to the end. Since he was lost and had no idea what to do in the world, he was very apathetic towards it. Which leads to the final scene. There, he left his “friend” on the dock, dying, as he rode away on a boat and with that, the story concludes its tale. What is there to be learned? Why does he never achieve his goal of finding a goal? Is the boat scene an allegory to him committing suicide, never to be seen again? All of these questions are left unanswered by Kracht and it frustated me to no end as a read it. If anyone can interpret the narrator’s feelings, please tell me.