4 out of 4 stars
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Sometimes it’s easy to ignore infrastructure until something goes wrong. If a highway exit ramp or a city bus seat could speak, what stories would it tell? In Mart Schreiber’s book The Mistaken Hero, the Vienna metro system is the common denominator in four short stories. An innocuous transportation system becomes the setting and perhaps a catalyst for pivotal moments in at least four lives. In the first story, entitled “The Mistaken Hero”, Sven once rescued a beautiful woman during a terrifying subway journey, but he finds out later that his younger brother Erik got the credit - and the girl. A brief, flirtatious exchange on the morning commute causes strife in Clemens’ romantic life in “Newly in Love”. In “A Dirty-Green Backpack”, an abandoned backpack left underneath the seat raises fears and suspicions as commuters recall the ubiquitous anti-terrorism warnings they’ve all heard but never really listened to. Finally, the train ride in “The Last Journey” marks the point where one man comes to terms with his own reality.
Each story in this collection is entirely unique, but there are themes that bring them together beyond the motif of the Vienna metro. In every story, the concept presented or assumed at the beginning gets twisted into a new direction. In more than one story, I grew to dislike the protagonist because of the way events and situations revealed hidden character traits. At the same time, other characters might be viewed more favorably by the way the plot turns each situation on its head.
One small problem I had with this collection is the stiffness that often accompanies translation. The author lives in Vienna and probably wrote the book in German. Translation is attributed to Holger Flock, ostensibly in American English. While the translation is clearly skillfully done, it left a lot of the dialogue sounding slightly unnatural, mixing common slang with forms that are not typical in spoken English. Readers who use forms of the English language closer to British or Australian norms will probably be more comfortable than users of American English.
There were just a couple of minor editing problems in the book. An occasional missing word and a you/your mix-up represent the most noticeable errors. I found no reason to doubt that the editing was professionally done and that the mistakes were anything more than typographical errors.
Despite the slight flaws I mentioned above, it is my pleasure to rate The Mistaken Hero by Mart Schreiber 4 out of 4 stars. The stories were intricate and fascinating, and the characters were vivid. Each story shared something profound with the reader: the importance of self-examination, the healing joy of forgiveness, the tragedy of racism, and the loneliness of aging number among the many other valuable lessons demonstrated by Schreiber’s characters. Since it is immediately evident that the book is written from a Viennese perspective, I think it is not necessary to place too much weight on the small flaws caused by the process of translation. Schreiber’s book is moving and masterful, and I hope readers everywhere can enjoy it as much as I did.
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The Mistaken Hero
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