GODS WITHOUT MEN, by Hari Kunzru. Hamish Hamilton, 2011, paperback, pp 400. ISBN-10: 024114311X; ISBN-13: 978-0241143117.
In Gods Without Men, the fourth novel by English novelist Hari Kunzru, a hedge fund manager takes his protégé, Jaz, to the Neue Gallerie in New York to show him a silver coffee set made by the Wiener Werkstätte.
“There’s a tradition that says the world has shattered,” he tells Jaz, “that what was once whole and beautiful is now just scattered fragments. Much is irreparable but a few of these fragments contain faint traces of the former state of things, and if you find them and uncover the sparks hidden inside, perhaps at last you’ll piece together the fallen world.”