Ben Myers is a serial award winning author: the inaugural years of the Gordon Burn Prize (my least favourite of the three prizes as subsequent longlists have been slightly uneven) with “Pig Iron”; the Northern writing Portico Prize with “Beastings”; the historical fiction Walter Scott Prize with “The Gallows Pole” (a rather brutal tale of coiners which I was I and my fellow judges had previously longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize and which recently was televised) and most recently the experimental fiction Goldsmith Prize and the historical fiction (with a sense of place) Winston Graham Prize with the brilliant (and previously shortlisted for my Barker Prize after its inexplicable Booker omission) multi-generational tale of St Cuthbert and Durham Cathedral – “Cuddy”.

This his latest novel is very much a departure from his usual writing – written during lockdown while he was both trying to write “Cuddy” and also in a rare moment of success due to “The Offing” which while not winning prizes (or even gaining much hardcore literary or critical appreciation due to its rather gentle nature) gained him commercial success – especially and unexpectedly in German translation.

During this time – Myers found himself drawn to the charismatic and controversial figure of Klaus Kinski – an often notorious in life (and post-death now largely disgraced and cancelled due to serious revelations from his family) actor; in particular to a bizarre episode where Kinski effectively killed his stage career and his reputation in his home country of Germany, by attempting a stage performance of a self-penned monologue “Jesus Christus Erloser”, in which Kinski set out to portray the real-life Jesus (correctly it has to be said) as himself a provocative character who surrounded himself with the marginalised in society. Perhaps as much due to Kinski’s own reputation his performance was ruined by heckling.

The performance itself – including the audience interventions which only prompted Kinski to up his ranting leading to further heckling -can be viewed on You Tube; and the first part of the novel is told from Kinski’s viewpoint following closely to the actual events (albeit threaded through with Kinski’s mental rants against both his agent and the filmmaker Herzog), told in a fragmentary stream of consciousness and illustrated with stills from the You Tube.

Then the book breaks into a metafictional/autofictional section – as “the author” (who in almost all respects apart from the apparent absence of his partner Adelle Stripe whose only appearance is in the closing film style credits to the book) explains how they came to write the book (from where I have taken much of the detail above), what drew him to Kinski (including a three way comparison between Kinski, Christ and Iggy Pop) and the likely knowledge that the story that is increasingly obsessing him is potentially commercial suicide.

And from there we revisit both Kinski and again the author – with the closing section particularly strong as the two story lines almost merge,

Overall I thought this was a really fascinatingly and rather uniquely conceived and imaginatively executed novel – which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would not be surprised to see it in contention for prizes – perhaps most likely the Goldsmith and Gordon Burn Prize, as I think it fits the experimentation of the former and the overall sense of the latter.

But overall it is one which really needs to be experienced.

The only other Benjamin Myers book I have read was a five star read and so I have to admit I mostly chose this book based on the author. The description sounded interesting, however I think this book just wasn't for me.

This is just my own ignorance, but I didn't realise that Klaus Kinski was a real person and after a bit of research, I found I wasn't invested in his life or the performance that drives the book. As a result, parts of the book felt like a biography, and I was often lost without context.

The description sets the scene for an exploration of modern culture and perfection and I think I missed some of this, perhaps in part because of my lack of background knowledge.

While this book wasn't for me, I'm sure it will appeal to others who are more familiar with Klaus Kinski. I will definitely still be picking up books by this author, I just wasn't the right audience for this one.

A book in two halves: episodes from Kinski's chaotic life in the 70s, interspersed with lightly fictionalised episodes from the writer writing the book. All rather knowing and left me cold.

Jesus Christ Kinski’s premise initially seems to be the recreation of a single performance by the prolific and legendarily volatile actor Klaus Kinski. After many years acting in movies (of wildly varying quality) in 1971 Kinski returned to the theatrical stage for a one-man show at Berlin’s Deutschlandhalle, a monologue entitled Jesus Christus Erlöser ("Jesus Christ the Saviour / Redeemer”). His intense performance rapidly devolved into a kind of battle between Kinski and the audience. The occasion was captured on film and released as a documentary in 2008. In the book’s first part, we are thrown directly into the performance, told in Kinski’s own voice, and moving wildly between reportage of the event itself and Myers’ invention (using words from Kinski’s autobiographies) of what may have been going through his mind.

After a little while, we are given some respite from the mind of Kinski as we switch to a rather different scenario: the countryside of Northern England in the Covid lockdown years. Here we find ‘the author’ living in seeming solitude, enjoying life after the success of a recent novel that had done unexpectedly well in Germany, and postponing work on his next opus (a life of the English Saint Cuthbert) by repeatedly watching YouTube footage from Kinski’s Jesus Christus Erlöser and on and off researching Kinski for another potential book. From this point, we alternate between the two scenarios, back into the thrilling reanimation of Kinski, and back out again to a setting in which our ‘author’ muses on the ethics of writing from the perspective of such a wildly vilified character (especially given his newfound semi-celebrity in Germany, a country in which opinions on Kinski are probably most extreme).

It’s definitely a book of two halves. The Kinski sections are a tour de force, a brilliant rendering of the intensity, near-insanity and creative obsession of an evident genius and equally evident bastard. While it focuses squarely on that one notorious performance, it also gives us brief flashes of other key moments in Kinski’s wild life, from his wartime internment as a POW, through his voracious womanising, his mercenary approach to accepting film roles, and (most entertainingly) his vitriol aimed at long-time collaborator Werner Herzog. Where it suits, Myers allows Kinski to jump forward in time (because why not) and therefore despite the fact that it only represents half of a very slim book, we get an amazingly rich portrait of Kinski - of course very deliberately told from the narcissist’s own perspective and in his own words, so in no way claiming to be an objective portrait.

The other half of the book is helpful at a structural level because it provides a kind of light relief from the intensity of the Kinski sections. It’s also interesting in that it seems on the surface at least to offer a direct insight into the mind of Myers himself, who is usually busy inhabiting the voices of the long-dead or otherwise generally eschewing autobiography in his works. ‘The writer’ lives where Myers lives, is clearly basking in the German success of The Offing and early negotiations around its film adaptation, and killing time in between early drafts of Cuddy. And, of course, contemplating a book on Kinski. Yet there are subtle differences that suggest that we’re not meant to treat these sections as straightforward ‘truth’ and more as a kind of autofiction, or perhaps just another layer in the examination of creative obsession, artistic provocation and the thin line between genius and insanity that the book is clearly interested in.

The modern day sections took me a little longer to appreciate. I enjoyed reading them (albeit not nearly as much as the Kinski parts) and understood their purpose in adding a layer of distance to the depiction of a deeply problematic figure. But in some senses I initially wondered if they might have been in some ways a bit of a cop-out. These sections allow Myers to ponder out loud about the ethics of dealing with controversial figures, especially in the specific climate of social media, ‘cancel culture’ and public scrutiny, via the slightly shifted perspective of his stand-in ‘writer’, and not take the more potentially difficult decision of just putting the Kinski work out there to stand alone. Having said that, there’s a counter argument which is that it allows the Kinski sections to be even more extreme and unfiltered, in that the nuance and moderation can occur in the alternating sections.

Myers is also, I think, inviting us to muse on the very fact that our modern day ‘writer’ must spend an inordinate amount of time prevaricating over the appropriateness of his art, both from a position of increased awareness and genuine concern for those who might have suffered at the hands of some of his subject’s more monstrous behaviour, and - less ideally - from a position of increased nervousness around the potential consequences of putting controversial art out there in a climate of ‘cancelling’ and even more sinister forms of censorship. This we can contrast with Kinski’s shoot from the hip and consequences be damned extremism: which may have been uncomplicatedly BAD in the context of its real-world consequences, but many would struggle to deny that, on its day, it could allow for a more expressive, exciting and boundary-pushing art.

There’s also fun to be had in these sections. Alongside these deeper themes, we also find the writer getting comically lost in the woods, staring enviously at bigger houses over the way, and reflecting humorously on the chance decisions that have made his previous novel such a success in Germany. The treatment of the writer’s Kinski obsession is also comic in places, and yields more than a few laugh out loud observations (as when musing on the lack of insight and originality in Kinski’s allegedly provocative reading of Christ as somewhat rebellious - ‘no Sherlock shit’ sticks in the memory for all the right reasons).

Overall: The most fun I’ve had reading anything in some time. Probably a 10 for the Kinski sections, and a very very slight drop for the other bits. As ever with Myers, you don’t really know what you’re going to get with his next book, or even from one page to the next. Whatever it is, though, you can usually rely on it being brilliant. (9.5/10)

j : Very well. There have been rumours that this performance is nothing more than provocation and therefore has the potential to cause disruption and disorder.
kk : Hopefully.

[j a journalist, and kk Klaus Kinski]

Jesus Christ Kinski is the latest novel from the brilliantly versatile Ben Myers, winner of the Goldsmiths Prize (for Cuddy), the Gordon Burn Prize (for Pig Iron) and the Walter Scott Prize (for The Gallows Pole), among other honours, and this has to be a strong contender for repeat honours for the first two prizes.

This is both a meta-fictional novel, and an attempt to channel the inner voice of the actor Klaus Kinski, an audacious choice of subject, particularly in the light of revelations post his death, that raises questions of literary censorship and the separation of one’s appreciation of an artist’s life and work, particularly difficult to separate in Kinski’s case when his misanthropic persona was key to his art.

The novel centres on a stage performance given by Kinski at the Deutschlandhalle, West Berlin, on 22 November 1971. He performed - or rather attempted to perform - a self-written monologue “Jesus Christus Erlöser.”

However, almost from the start he was heckled by the audience, leading Kinski to react furiously and storm off the stage several times before finally completing the performance to a much diminished private audience.

Video of the performance, with English subtitles, can be found on YouTube and I would recommend at least watching the first attempt to perform the piece alongside the novel.

The novel is told in two intertwined sections. The first, told in the second person, places us in Kinski’s thoughts, including transcriptions of the English translation of the performance, which are taken from the Youtube videos linked.

The following quote is the point at which the first attempt disintegrated as the actor angrily invites a heckler on stage who, rather bravely, complies:

“You beckon with a finger, say, Come up here.
(An earnest Christian enters stage left and takes the mic from Kinski.)
I’m no great speaker, and maybe some of you are looking for Christ. But I don’t think this is him. As far as I know Jesus Christ was patient. If people contradicted him, he tried to convince them. He didn’t say ‘Shut up!’
(He hands mic back, exits stage left. Kinski continues, shouting at full volume, facing the wings.)
No! He didn’t say ‘Shut up!’ He took a whip and bashed them in the face! That’s what he did! You stupid pig!
(The crowd heckles, whistles, boos.)
(Kinski turns to audience.)
And that can happen to you, too!
(more heckling)
There are two possibilities. Either those of you who aren’t part of that riff-raff throw the others out, or else you spent your money for nothing!
(Kinski throws down mic, storms off stage and down steps, stumbles, disappears behind the green curtain with a theatrical flourish.)
(Stage lights go down.)”

Alongside the events, transcripts and also photographic images of the performance, the Kinski character also revels in his own self-assessed genius (here Myers has drawn on Kinski’s vainglorious and outlandish autobiography) and Bernhardian rants against the philistines with who he works, notably his agent Gino de Stefani and the director Werner Herzog.

The second section is auto-fictional, and tells, in the third person, how “the writer” (ie Myers) came to write the book, which he began in the January 2021 lockdown, while he was supposed to be researching and writing the book that would become Cuddy, and feeling more financially secure after the success, in German translation, of The Offing.

“He was not so self-absorbed as to not recognise that Kinski was less relevant today than at any time in the century or so since he was born. Nor could he overlook the fact that allegations of sexual abuse made by his eldest daughter Pola meant that he was also widely reviled, especially in Germany, where he had, since his earliest theatrical and cinematic roles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, been a divisive and often derided figure due to his angry temperament, rampant egotism and depraved personality.
…
Devoting a significant portion of one’s life to attempting to transcribe the innermost thoughts of a widely disliked–some might even say despised–figure is usually a short cut to poverty (at best) or ostracisation amongst one’s peers (at worst). Or insanity (at even more worse).

Yet the writer had enjoyed some good luck of late. After twenty years of putting his words out into the world to decent reviews and aggressively modest sales, his most recent novel, a relatively gentle affair (harsh critics might call it twee) which he had written primarily as an antidote to his ongoing anxiety over the state of things, and with no publishing deal in place, had, against the odds, unexpectedly found a home–and gone on to become a bestseller–in Germany.”

This section also allows Myers to explore the writer’s artistic and socio-economic challenges and the impact of the pandemic (both isolating and yet anxiety reducing). I think this should be taken as auto-fiction rather than auto-biography and notably the writer in the novel appears to endure (enjoy?) lockdown alone, whereas I assume Myers spent it with his wife, the writer Adelle Stripe.

As the writer comments, the contents of Kinski’s monologue were, of themselves, somewhat trite. The provocation of and interactions with the audience are - although Kinski’s anger at their inability to listen in reverent silence appears to be genuine - what makes this a compelling performance:

“This didn’t excuse the fact that the content–the message–of Jesus Christ Redeemer was both tedious and unnecessary. Kinski was saying that Jesus was someone who lived amongst society’s most marginalised, and was not the blonde-haired blue-eyed boy of a thousand busts, paintings and effigies, but someone of simple virtues, whose associates were prostitutes, criminals and the dispossessed.

No Sherlock shit, muttered the writer with a smile at the wordplay that he took pride in having invented. Hadn’t the great book said that all along? Did the citizens of a Berlin reborn really need a ranting lunatic in bellbottoms to reassert this?”