This monumental novel tells the story of the Deliuskin family's secret interventions in music, mysticism and revolutionary thought over the course of three centuries, spanning six generations. Each figure engages in obsessive and absurd acts, which depending on who controls the narrative could be genius or madness, so often indistinguishable. Countless minor characters also appear, intersecting with these stories in a suggestion of infinite parallel narratives. The title predestines this philosophical, political, historical, literary, sentimental, erotic, religious, scientific and artistic book to evocative incompleteness. To attempt perfection is a joyful act of throwing oneself into the world, the task at hand is not to capture life but create, in and through words. Poised on the edge of something between reality and its negation, Daniel Guebel's The Absolute is an undeniable masterpiece even as it questions if the novel is a failed project.
