The latest addition to my website is Arnon Grunberg‘s Figuranten (Silent Extras). Grunberg tells the story of three young people – two Dutch men and and an Argentinian woman – who want to make it in the world but struggle to do so. They have ambitions to become film or theatre stars but only get auditions for second- or third-rate productions and when one of the young men, known as Broccoli, tries to stage a version of Macbeth with the Argentinian woman, it is not successful. They also have money problems. Ewald, the narrator, lives with his parents, while Broccoli’s parents, who live in Switzerland, have been subsidising him but decide enough is enough and head off for Mexico, leaving him high and dry. Even the other characters struggle to get by. It is a bitter-sweet tale and enjoyable enough, though lacking, in my view, that something special.