Crushing Banalities

2018, Germany. A bungalow, with anthracite walls and a flat roof. Jerome Daimler’s parents purchased it. They’re divorced now. He lives there alone. The light outside is always muted, gray with little pockets of soft blue. He is constantly renting Teslas, and driving them down the A66. He plays Discover Weekly Spotify playlists via Bluetooth technology. He was born in 1982 and designs websites, which he considers an art form. He lives outside of Frankfurt, in Maintal, where he grew up. He is proud to have never lived in Berlin. His life is a long list of perfectly curated banalities. He likes the music of Bladee. He doesn’t do molly anymore, but he does do ketamine. He is politically left-wing, often thinking to himself, “More people should do various things.” And when we read this, we laugh. Or we’re supposed to. Jerome is one of the two protagonists in Leif Randt’s Allegro Pastel, first published in German in 2020, translated this year into English by Peter Kuras. It is a book that marvels at frictionlessness. A love story and a satire that seems to simulate what it is like to fall in love when you have never experienced resistance, when your consciousness is fully formatted by the internet. Does this make your life seamless, perfect?