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"this lifelong striving to be different from the way one is created this great difficulty in accepting oneself, I knew it and saw only my own longing from outside, saw the absurdity of our yearning to be different from what we are...��



Max Frisch’s I’m Not Stiller begins with the protagonist’s (White/Stiller’s) declaration that he is not Stiller. Then to prove his point, he begins confessing to unsolved murders. He is not trying to escape justice or take the blame for someone else’s crimes; he is trying to escape his former self. The fact that no one believes him—including Stiller’s wife, brother and friends—only spurs the protagonist to weave more elaborate tales.

Following Nietzsche’s dictate to become who you are doesn’t necessarily seem overly-complicated; however, the protagonist shows just how difficult this abstract concept is to attain in real life where one’s identity is trapped in a myriad of relationships. The pull of relationships also competes with the voices of writers and philosophers in the text (including Proust, Kafka, Mann, Kierkagaard, Nietzsche and a Hemingway concerned with bull fighting!). Sometimes the details of White/Stiller’s competing lives seems a bit much, but this is a compelling novel which forces us to think about who we are and whether we are capable of change. 4.5 Stars.