German subscription cinema and literature
10. Fundbüro
Reasons to study this work
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A linguistically accessible book for A level students particularly with our full page by page vocabulary, Fundbüro offers plenty of scope for the discussion of a wide range of themes.
The interest of the work
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Published in 2003 this feel-good novel is set in the lost property office of a station where the main protagonist Henry Neff quickly settles in to a routine punctuated with unusual finds which culminate in friendship, the pursuit of an apparent criminel and other apparently random events.
The novel seems to me to be an extended reflection on the nature of the stories we tell and the stories we live within our work place, our community and within an extended international context. The author has set the book in an indeterminate town and in an indetermined time before the arrival of mobile phones when the typewriter still reigned: it seems almost to be its own slightly other-worldly universe.
