Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By David Finchley, Hybrid Publishers, $21.95.
The connections here are apparent. Doppelganger is a German word consisting of two parts. It is said that we all have a doppelganger, someone who looks like us, somewhere in the world.
Finchley creates a scenario when just such a situation unfolds. It’s also much more than that: a rational social commentary on attitudes, behaviour and accepted wisdom through generations.
Two families are onboard a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and in each family there is a member celebrating his 70th birthday.
On the one hand, there is Australian Arnold Rosen and by coincidence, on the same cruise ship, is American Gus Smith.
When the two men meet, they appear to be identical in appearance, but clearly not related. Arnold is the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, while Gus’s parents were German – indeed, his father was a rabid anti-Semite.
They may not be just doppelgangers, or ‘doubles’. However, it may be more complicated than that. Coincidence takes major priority. Not only were the two men born on the same day, it turns out that they were both born in the same small town, in post-war Germany.
Despite their similarities, their backgrounds are very different and they could be related. What will they find when they get to Waiblingen, the small town in Germany where they were both born?
There is a belief in fate.
Arnold and Ben part-succeed and part-fail in their mission, but realise you don’t need a certificate or a DNA sequence to know who you are. It’s all in the history and the resulting impact of our thinking, opinions handed down through age groups and the ‘hand-me-downs’ of philosophy.
What’s even more amazing is the author, who practices as a neurologist, writes fiction in his spare time! This is his fourth.
