Effectively an appendix to Herzog’s excellent memoir, the chapters here have some familiar anecdotes and some new (to me) ones.
The stories of how he fabricated quotes and incidents in some of his films were the most interesting; hearing his take on AI, deepfakes, and the artificial mimicry of his distinctive voice is at once amusing (especially in the audiobook version, with him reading it out) and surprisingly optimistic; the chapter where he simply relays the plot of an opera far less engaging, hence dropping a star.
But this is Herzog. It’s almost impossible for him to be dull for long. And even when he is dull, there’s usually a point to it – like that seemingly endless sequence of planes taking off through the heat haze at the start of Fata Morgana. It sets the tone.
The tone he’s setting here is the tone he’s set throughout his career – it’s all to encourage inquisitiveness. Because that’s the best antidote to untruths – a desire to learn more, understand more, and get to the bottom of a story, no matter how outlandish or how banal.