I love these stories. One narrator buys a locomotive from a man in a bar. Another slowly crawls inside a guitar. In one story a man's life is celebrated beause of the seeemingly benign things he prevented from happening. These highbrow yarns are quirky beyond quirky. The humor is absurd but usually gentle. The author's voice sustains its power to hold the reader despite the filter of translation. What a shame that this little gem is out of print.

This book gives a very sensitive picture of the feelings and thoughts of an extraordinary english nobelman living in the early 1800s with a special place in history of art. Hildesheimer doesn't pretend to know more of Marbot than what's known out of his letters and comments of third persons (letters, diaries etc.) He always makes explicite when he changes to his (the authors) comments. Reading this book helps to understand the history of critic of art. One really wants to read the original book by Marbot, which is not available in the Amazon bookshop unfortunately.

I have to laugh. There's a reason "the original book by Marbot" can't be got at Amazon.com (or anywhere else)--Hildesheimer's book is a FICTION, albeit one that looks for all the world like a straightforward biography. For all that it is a wonderful book, very much worth seeking out. If some intelligent publisher ever reissues it, the review below deserves to appear as a jacket blurb.