Millionaire (novel)
Millionär is a 2007 novel by the German writer Tommy Jaud . The book is a continuation of the novel Vollidiot and is again about Simon Peters and his chaotic life. The third book in the series was published in 2012 under the title Überman .
action
Simon Peters can no longer find a job after being released from the T-Punkt and becomes a Hartz IV recipient. He has to swap his spacious apartment for a small one in Cologne-Sülz and sell his car. He copes with everyday life by clinging to old habits. For example, he drives to the “office” every morning, using a PC in the Persian Internet café Shahins WebWorld . From there he writes complaint e-mails to various companies and thus gets free packs that help him make ends meet and encourage him to make further complaints. He is on the phone more and more often with Annabelle Kaspar, who works for Procter & Gamble's customer service department, and feels a growing affection for her while chatting about private topics. Annabelle used to live in the immediate vicinity of his current apartment and during this time often went to a kiosk where he now goes shopping.
When Simon complains to his landlord about the volume of construction workers, he shows him the renovation work: A penthouse is being built on the upper floor of the house with a beautiful view and elegant interior. But Simon cannot get along with the new tenant of the apartment, Johanna Stähler, who is the managing director of EMI Europe , which is why he decides to become a millionaire in order to be able to buy the entire house from his landlord and give Stähler notice. After a deposit of 10,000 euros, which he borrowed from his former work colleague Flik, Simon now has two weeks to get the remaining money. A bizarre business idea that Simon implements with the help of the operator of the Internet café turns his hobby into a profession: He creates a website on which he promises people to solve their problems and advertises it with the eBay- like slogan 3… 2… 1… No! . After a few jobs and reports on television that helped his business idea to quickly gain fame, Simon sells his website to eBay for 4 million euros.
In fact, Simon now buys the house, but realizes that it was all in vain, because Stähler is moving out anyway because she is being transferred to Lithuania. Through the kiosk owner that Annabelle and he know, Simon finds out that Annabelle lives in Cologne again. He walks over to her and rings the bell, after which the door is opened after a while. The happy ending of the novel is illustrated by the following e-mail from Simons to the customer service department of a mousse-au-chocolat manufacturer, whom he praises for its fabulous product by saying that he and his girlfriend cannot stop making mousse to eat.
criticism
The novel, designed as a read for entertainment, was received very differently by the press:
"In his third novel, Tommy Jaud burns down a firework of ludicrous ideas, but at the same time ensures that the reader gets stuck in the throat!"
“A plot of the substance of a breath of air, which Jaud inflates by inserting all sorts of episodes until it becomes a book that, through its pure existence in a bookstore, should lower the average IQ of the customers who happened to be there by at least 20 points and its first sentence is: 'A third of humanity is crazy.' "
Audio book
As in Tommy Jaud's first two books, Christoph Maria Herbst lends his voice to Simon Peters and speaks the other characters by changing his pitch.
literature
- Tommy Jaud: millionaire . Scherz, 2007, ISBN 3-502-11033-6 (first edition).