Christian Kracht's new novel, Air, presents two parallel narratives that gradually intertwine. In the first, a reclusive interior designer named Paul travels from Orkney to Stavanger, Norway, to paint a data centre white—"not just any white, but the perfect white, the singular white." After a freak power outage, Paul vanishes, and the magazine's editor, Cohen, overdoses on barbiturates.
Medieval fantasy and modern ennui
The second narrative is set in a medieval world reminiscent of Norse mythology. A stranger, shot by a nine-year-old girl who mistook him for a deer, flees with her from a plague-ridden town. They cross a wasteland and discover a subterranean stone city where inhabitants live communally on seafood and kelp.
Connections between the stories emerge through obscure references—a painting of Merlin and Lancelot, neopaganism, Arthurian legend—and an anachronistic modern handgun used by the stranger. After Paul's disappearance, Cohen finds instructions for 3D-printing a ceramic pistol in Paul's bag. The outage at the data centre seems to have created a glitch that opens a portal between modern and medieval worlds.
Metaphysical themes
Cohen speculates that if thoughts can reside in physical space, like a digital server, they might outlast organic life: "What if memory could just persist? Would an entity in data storage have an ego, a self, or not?" Later, the stranger becomes aware of himself as a character, experiencing deja vu and feeling that the world was flattening into two dimensions.
The novel explores middle-aged ennui. Paul laments "this disgraceful world, with its lack of boundaries, Instagram, and the horrors of vernacular architecture," dreaming of a remote island with no electricity or phone reception. Cohen is tired of Nordic chic and believes "the wars of the future would be waged out of boredom."
Satire and escapism
Kracht, known for satirizing Generation X affluence, adopts a dull, world-weary tone here. Paul and Cohen are archetypes of cosmopolitan privilege, their self-hatred conveyed through references to Muji stationery and normcore fashion. Cohen's overdose happens "not out of sadness … but because he just didn't care."
The fantasy narrative offers escapism through visions of natural beauty—ice sheets, rock formations, migrating birds, the aurora. Cohen's desire to paint the data centre white feels like a therapeutic intervention to bring order and clarity to accumulated hopes and memories.
The novel's rough-hewn quality suits its fuzzy reality. Air works as a parable: if consciousness is vulnerable and can be corrupted like a radio signal, madness is never far away. Kracht takes a familiar premise and makes it suggestively strange.
