Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Wow, this is painstakingly conventional writing...Iris Wolff tells the story of four generations of a family Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Wow, this is painstakingly conventional writing...Iris Wolff tells the story of four generations of a family from the Romanian part of the Banat region (where the author grew up). While the grandmother is still dreaming of the Kaiser, the largest part of the novel is set during the Cold War and the reign of Ceaușescu, and it ends after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the whole novel revolves about the enigmatic Samuel (3rd generation), each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character - and all of this could make for a captivating read, but alas, it doesn't.
And the problem is not that Wolff can't write - she clearly can, but her text is less than subtle or challenging. The narrative puts every development, every feeling on the table and then turns on the bright lights, and the narrator's voice which does never strictly adhere to the limited view of the person supposedly telling the chapter explains the hell out of everything. This book does not require a reader to ponder events or decisions, it feeds us calender sayings and banal insights none of which are wrong per se or badly worded, but hey, Iris Wolff, do you think your audience is too stupid to grasp the message of your not particularly complex story? In an interview, Wolff stated that who we are depends on who describes us - and that's about the depth of analysis her novel offers us.
The result of this in-your-face writing (that stands in a weird contrast to fellow nominees like Malé or Allegro Pastell) is that I got very, very bored about halfway through the book- and the book only has roughly 200 pages. It's just lacking complexity, although it's a story worth telling. And even if you look at the text's pure power to captivate and smartly entertain: Compare this book about a family torn between Eastern and Western Europe, shaken by the noise of time with The Eighth Life (about Georgia), and the latter, also intended to be a real page-turner for a broad audience, is so much stronger.
To me, it feels like the jury of this year's Book Prize is torn between young, wild, challenging books and the urge to nominate crowd-pleasers in order to appeal to a wider audience (hello, Der letzte Satz) - and don't get me wrong: How many books an author sells doesn't say anything about the quality of the writing, in fact I want good literature to sell like sliced bread (Serpentinen by literary superstar Bov Bjerg is currently at #2 in my Book Prize ranking). But there are books that sell really well because they are targeted at mass consumption, because they are entertainment lit, because they do not challenge readers with innovative tricks - and that's all well, but these books are certainly not material for the German Book Prize, especially when the jury didn't nominate brilliant feats like Hawaii and Arbeit.
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 This short, quiet novel portrays life in contemporary rural East Germany: Kramer, a librarian, takes a bus frLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 This short, quiet novel portrays life in contemporary rural East Germany: Kramer, a librarian, takes a bus from the big city to visit his 32-year-old daughter who has moved to a small, dying village with her emotionally stilted husband. Justine (that's a "Kramer vs. Kramer" reference: the kid was played by Justin Henry) enjoys the outdoors and tries to push away the atmosphere of growing racial hatred and the feeling of being left behind, while her father can't really grasp why his daughter chose to live in a neglected village. In their conversations, the developments in East Germany after the re-unification are subconsciously juxtaposed with the divorce of the Kramers and the events after their separation.
This makes for a very smart construction which often resembles a chamber play, but also plays with elements of the ghost story: As Kramer and sometimes Justine roam the village, an elderly man named Rottmann appears and disappears out of nowhere, ventilating popular beliefs as often heard in pub debates (notice the meaning of the name! German: verrotten = to rot; Middle High German: Rotte = hurdy-gury, but also mayor). Rottmann is the atmosphere haunting the place impersonated, and both Kramer and Justine are trying to come to terms with their place in the greater German (hi)story - while the husband, weirdly named Hans-Günther (an absurd name for a man of his age group) attempts to exist outside history, in a digital space, and the mother took political officer in order to influence history.
And while on the surface, this is a rather simple tale, it's the carefully crafted details that make the book shine and radiate the author's intelligence - e.g., look at the names: In a abook about expectations vs. reality, the kid of the Kramer's is named after the real name of the actor in the movie, not the name of the movie character. Btw: Wonneberger studied engineering in Dresden and worked as a scientist until the regime forced him out of his job - he sure knows a thing or two about oppression by the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the hopes of the GDR activists and probably also the disappointment because the reality of West Germany could not live up to the dreams of the people in the East.
So all in all, I'm surprised that Wonneberger isn't more famous - this can easily compete with novels like Die rechtschaffenen Mörder or Der Turm, it's just a much quieter rendition. You can learn more about the novel in the final installment of Papierstau Podcast's Book Prize battle royale, #4....more
Now shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Oh well, it's not a bad book, but how is this shortlist material? You can learn more about the novel in Now shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Oh well, it's not a bad book, but how is this shortlist material? You can learn more about the novel in our Papierstau Podcast Book Prize Battle Royale #3....more
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, but in Westphalia between ca. 1960-1990: Sichelschmidt tells the storyLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, but in Westphalia between ca. 1960-1990: Sichelschmidt tells the story of the "old Federal Republic", as West Germany during the division is now called, by introducing us to a family of entrepreneurs that mirrors the atmosphere of the time. The Rautenbergs have it all and then lose it all, and the course of their destiny makes for a real pageturner that would also be a worthy title for a translation, not only because of the literary quality, but because there is so much to learn about the time and mores.
Many things are referred to directly, like historical events, food trends, music, and fashion, and others are hidden as Easter Eggs: Wilhelm, the father, once meets Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach of the infamous Krupp dynasty, who was a living scandal for being openly gay and not working - and whose grandfather Friedrich (probably) committed suicide because he was (rumored to be?) gay. The story of the Krupps is smartly mirrored in the story of the family portrayed, and there are other examples for this technique.
The main perspective of the text ist that of Suse, whose mother Inga had married Wilhelm more for pragmatic reasons than for love. When Suse is still a child, Inga dies - and Suse is left between her grandparents, her older sister and her father, who is increasingly losing control over his life. Wilhelm is a passionate dressage rider, a sport which is all about harmony, aesthetics and control - and there is a lot that alienated Wilhelm tries to control and hide away behind his facade, but of course it comes back to haunt him and his business. And many of the repressions he feels are the repressions of the time, a suffocation typical for the postwar generation.
A wonderful addition to the longlist that shines with atmospheric, often sarcastic language, and that would have been a good contestant for the shortlist. You can learn more about the novel in the final installment of Papierstau Podcast's Book Prize battle royale, #4....more
Winner of the German Book Prize 2020 Okay, those judges have a thing for formal eccentricities: German-French author Anne Weber has written a prose poeWinner of the German Book Prize 2020 Okay, those judges have a thing for formal eccentricities: German-French author Anne Weber has written a prose poem without rhymes, or a novel in verse, or a text that is formally an epos but employs the form to subvert its narrative conventions - yes, it's that smart. Her protagonist is Anne Beaumanoir, a resistance fighter who is not only real, but still alive and now counting 96 years. The form elevates Beaumanoir to the heights of a Greek heroine, but at the same time, the content turns her into a very modern figure, affected not only by modern history, but also by questions of identity and ideology. The language is poetic, but, considering the form, not very stylized and highly accessible. The whole mixture is pretty captivating.
Beuamanoir, born 1923, was a member of the résistance during the German occupation and later supported Algeria's fight for independence from its colonial power, France - and while Beaumanoir's attitude is very similar in both cases, she is deemed a terrorist when speaking up for Algeria. She was sentenced to ten years in prison, and fled the country while on leave to give birth - to Tunisia, where she went on to work with Frantz Fanon. What a life.
Like fellow nominee Bov Bjerg with Serpentinen, Weber investigates the important turning points that define a life. And much like Philipp Winkler's Carnival, the text uses a classic form to re-define the idea of the hero. Interesting stuff and well chosen, judges. You can learn more about the book in our podcast special Book Prize Battle Royale, #2, in our Shortlist Special and soon in our special on the winner (all in German)!...more
English: 1000 Coils of Fear (coming up in July 2022!) Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020
In this semi-fictional novel, Olivia Wenzel talks about English: 1000 Coils of Fear (coming up in July 2022!) Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020
In this semi-fictional novel, Olivia Wenzel talks about her life growing up as the child of a punk mother and an absent Angolan father in the GDR and later united Germany. That's right: She's black, female, an "Ossi" (East-German), bisexual - and privileged, because she lives in a wealthy, safe, first-world country, free to travel and express herself. And that's what makes this book about identity (and identity politics) so smart: Wenzel struggles with the fact that she does belong to marginalized groups and experiences discrimination in various forms, but she knows that on a larger scale, she is also part of the privileged few - and both facts do not diminish either reality, experience or emotional effect. Both sides are equally true and valid.
Wenzel's mother tried to leave the GDR, but ended up in a Stasi prison, leaving Olivia and her twin brother Sammy with their grandmother, a semi-racist woman, first firmly convinced of the ideology of the GDR, later leaning towards right-wing parties. Sammy throws himself in front of a train aged 19. (Intergenerational trauma is a big topic on this year's list for the Book Prize, also in Herzklappen von Johnson & Johnson and Serpentinen, e.g.) Olivia / the book's protagonist experiences open racism and micro-agressions that make her ponder whether it's what happens or her perception of it that makes her suffer - it's interesting to compare this to Brandon Taylor's Real Life, set in the US, as the protagonist feels less exposed as a black woman when in the US, but she realizes that the black community in the US displays more solidarity because of the history of slavery and oppression.
The text is split in three parts, and all three show the nameless protagonist and narrator (the author's alter ego) standing at a train station at a snack machine, debating herself in her head, asking herself questions, trying to make sense of her own experiences and feelings and trying to access a truth that ultimately might not even exist. And it's not done as a stream-of-consciousness, but Wenzel, the theater author, presents it as dialogue. The middle part also works with the description of images, e.g. Madeleine de la Martinique and the cover of "Things Fall Apart" by The Roots, from which the narrator extrapolates to her own life. The result is an experimental text that is both captivating and easy to read.
The narrator of this text is no hero; she is just a person trying to find a way to live while fighting a severe anxiety disorder brought about by everything described above. The book shows an average person with an average German life, which is the main takeaway: This is no extreme case. And it's important to be aware of that, because it should drive readers to try and change our reality.
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Do you know who Gustav Mahler was? He was a guy with a feeble constitution, bad health, and migraines. That hLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Do you know who Gustav Mahler was? He was a guy with a feeble constitution, bad health, and migraines. That he also was one of the most important composers and conductors in the history of music is apparently of minor interest to Seethaler. Of course, it is possible to write a portrait of a musician without dissecting his artistic achievements, but I'm sure Mahler, the person, was more than his afflictions. It is also possible to employ such a figure mainly to illustrate the times he lived through (point in case: The Noise of Time featuring Shostakovich), but here, the historic setting and the circumstances are just hinted at, never fully explored. What is the point of this text?
We get to meet the composer shortly before he died of bacterial heart infection - he is a passenger on a ship that travels from the States back to Europe (you know, coming home, transfer to death over the river Styx yada yada yada). Seethaler ponders the nature of physical and psychological pain when he shows the great Mahler suffering under the illnesses that have tortured him throughout his adult life. The musician is also feeling depressed because his beloved wife Alma has started an affair with the famous architect Walter Gropius (whom she would marry after Mahler's demise), and he is missing his daughter Maria Anna who died at age 5. And that's it: In Seethaler's text, Mahler is wholly defined by his pain, he is reduced to his suffering.
And I have to admit that this doesn't sit well with me: Everyone who knows chronically ill or physically impaired people knows that they are constantly fighting the perception that they are "the sick one", because they are way more than that. Additionally, Seethaler has a tendency to write kitsch, e.g.: Mahler coughs up blood, and Seethaler claims that if Mahler was a writer, he would turn the blood pattern into a text, but he is a composer...okay: It's not only kitsch, it also makes no sense. Or: The white bodies of Alma and the daughters in the tub, so soft and beautiful, like sea animals...Lord have mercy, this is terrible writing.
So all in all, I don't see why this was nominated for the Book Prize: The writing is highly conventional and often flawed, and the topic is not treated in a way that makes it appear relevant. I demand justice for Gustav Mahler: He deserves better than this. If you'd like to learn more about the book, you can listen to the Papierstau Podcast Book Prize Battle Royale, #1 (in German). ...more
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 I'm usually very interested in books about memory and the connection between the personal and the historical,Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 I'm usually very interested in books about memory and the connection between the personal and the historical, but Frank Witzel just does not manage to properly convey why or how his parents' life stories offer his readers important insights. This is introspective literature that wallows in the past, but what does it have to offer for our present? You can learn more about the novel in our Papierstau Podcast Book Prize Battle Royale #3....more
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Stephan Roiss has an impressive ability to convey to viewpoint of a child, in this case a young boy from his Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Stephan Roiss has an impressive ability to convey to viewpoint of a child, in this case a young boy from his primary school up to his high school years who grows up in a family afflicted by mental illness. The mother found her own father's corpse after he hanged himself when she was a kid and later suffers from postpartum depression which she never really manages to fully escape; the father tries to find strength in religion and numbs himself in front of the tv and later with alcohol; the grandmother holds esoteric beliefs and harbors a dark family secret; the older sister shows signs of OCD and repeats again and again that "everything is good" like a perverted mantra proving the opposite; and our protagonist refers to himself as "we" while he dreams of becoming thick-skinned and strong like the ancient triceratops.
As "we", the unnamed protagonist is less alone, but his alienation progresses and he develops an unspecified skin disease. He is bullied at school and makes friends with two siblings with a punk lifestyle while turning away from the world in general, hiding in his dead grandfather's cabin. The real star of the book is its sinister atmosphere that vibrates between alienation and anger: This kid is helpless in the face of his family's condition, and he is furious about it.
Is this a story of an emancipation from a dysfunctional family? Rather, the truly sad core is that the protagonist never really had a family, as his relatives are severely affected by mental disturbances - you can't blame them for it, but what is a child supposed to do?
This debut has already won awards, and Roiss has also collected honors for his work as a radio play producer and his graphic novels (co-authored by Silke Müller). Oh yes, and he's a musician, singing super weird songs in dialect (e.g. here: "Faust"). Where does Kremayr & Scheriau, the Austrian publishing house, always find those people? Last year, they gave us Tonio Schachinger who inspired our podcast gang to the new turn of phrase "to do a Schachinger" (meaning to try out something risky and go all in, no matter whether it complies to traditional ideas of literature). We are great supporters of authors doing a Schachinger, and Roiss is one of them.
Excellent call for the longlist of the German Book Prize, and if the judges are smart, they are shortlisting this rather than some tame crowd pleaser (update: they weren't that smart :-(). You can learn more about the novel in the final installment of Papierstau Podcast's Book Prize battle royale, #4....more
Now Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 An intersectional debut novel about a young girl growing up poor and in a difficult family situation whiNow Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 An intersectional debut novel about a young girl growing up poor and in a difficult family situation while being perceived as a foreigner due to her cultural heritage. Review on Papierstau Podcast, episode 115, and you can listen to the Book Prize Battle Royale, #1 (in German)....more
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Switzerland, 1313: An illiterate trickster teams up with a foreigner to make sense of the people, place and tLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Switzerland, 1313: An illiterate trickster teams up with a foreigner to make sense of the people, place and time around him - and to follow his passion: Telling stories. You can learn more about the book in our podcast special Book Prize Battle Royale, #2 (in German). ...more
Now Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 I was fully prepared to hate this, but HOLY CRAP DOES HETTCHE DELIVER with this historical novel about tNow Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 I was fully prepared to hate this, but HOLY CRAP DOES HETTCHE DELIVER with this historical novel about the family of puppeteers who founded the famous marionette theater "Augsburger Puppenkiste ("puppet chest from Augsburg").
[image] Hannelore "Hatü" Oehmichen, our main character
At the beginning of the book, set in the now, we meet a little girl who runs away from her father during a production of the Augsburger Puppenkiste and tries to hide in the attic - not knowing that this is where the company stores its treasures (really!). As she enters the magical space, she shrinks to the size of a puppet and encounters all the classic marionettes everybody in Germany knows: Kasperl, Urmel, Little King Kalle Wirsch, you name it. And between these living puppets, she meets Hannelore "Hatü" Oehmichen (still human-sized), the daughter of theater founder Walter Oehmichen. Hatü tells the girl her story, which is the story of the Augsburger Puppenkiste, which in a way is the story of Germany.
Walter Oehmichen was an actor who was sent to the front twice during WW II - yup, he was in the Wehrmacht. He was a POW and when he returned home in 1945, his theater was completely destroyed. With his family and some friends, he started a new puppet theater - and readers who think that Hettche gives us nostalgic childhood memories and escapism for all those who grew up with the stories of the Augsburger Puppenkiste (which is: absolutely everybody born after 1950) are dead wrong. Hatü's coming-of-age story is a story about guilt, trauma, about how to tell stories after the holocaust, about amputees and wooden dolls, about the relationship between Nazi soldiers and their children who roam the ruins of their home towns, and about how to deal with the past - a key word in the text is "Erlösung" ("salvation").
You won't find the word "heart string" ("Herzfaden") in any German dictionary - while it is used in English, it's not an actual German word, but an artificial compound word that Walter uses to describe the magic of puppetry to Hatü: He explains that the most important string of a puppet is the one that connects it to the hearts of the audience, the heart string. The heart string makes the puppet come alive. How do you build the heart strings of puppets if you aim to adress what happened before, in and after the war?
In Hettche's narrative, we have many short chapters that alternate between the events in the attic, where the girl interacts and converses with the puppets and Hatü, and the story of Hatü which she tells the girl. The whole set up is of course reminiscent of The Neverending Story, and the beautifully designed book is also set in two colors, thus paying homage to Michael Ende who is also a character in "Herzfaden". The writer is responsible for one of the biggest successes of the Augsburger Puppenkiste, as he wrote Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer.
This is not only a very good novel, it's catnip for the judges of the book prize: It's deep, well written, but very accessible - this novel will sell. I'm still rooting for Allegro Pastell, but Hettche might take the cake this year. Plus: This is the kind of novel that needs a translation, because it says so much about Germany and about the effects of WW II that have traveled through time as intergenerational trauma. When I found out about the secret of Kasperl, I was just as shocked as Hatü and the girl - the war is still present.
Now Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Another postmodern puzzle on the longlist, this time about longing: What drives us, and to what ends? SuNow Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Another postmodern puzzle on the longlist, this time about longing: What drives us, and to what ends? Sugar cane plantations, slavery, wealth, the colonialization of the world and of the mind (the German book title means "From the Sugar Factory")- a myriad of text scraps forms a shimmering mosaic connected by themes, ideas, moods, you name it, reaching from history and classic literature to very current discourses about gender, race and justice. The trick: The story does not really point to connections, the reader makes them and by that forms the narration and conveys something about themselves. This is auto-fiction, essayistic writing, confessional literature, a meditation...and certainly not crafted for fans of linear narration, plot aficionados and cheerleaders of conventional storytelling.
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 While fellow nominee Die Infantin trägt den Scheitel links is proclaimed to be an anti-Heimatroman, CamenischLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 While fellow nominee Die Infantin trägt den Scheitel links is proclaimed to be an anti-Heimatroman, Camenisch offers us a Heimatroman (folk novel), showing a kiosk in a Swiss village where big world events and small village tragedies have been discussed for half a century. Our protagonists Rosa-Maria and Margrit have been running the small business under the neon sign for 51 years, and although it's not making as much money as it used to (cars tend to take the new ring road around the village, thus bypassing the vintage gas pump at the kiosk), it's still an important meeting point. And that's the whole story of this endearing book: Two elderly women talking about the trials and tribulations at the kiosk, about the magic of the place and its customers, about what has changed and what has stayed the same.
While the gas station / kiosk seems to be a strange focal point for a novel (or in this case rather for a novella), it has recently featured as an important meeting place in several major publications, e.g. Herkunft and Nochmal Deutschboden. Meine Rückkehr in die brandenburgische Provinz. This is my first Camenisch, but I found out that this author, born 1978, somewhat specializes in evoking the magic of disappearing places and capturing local stories and regular people. He has been translated in more than 20 languages and assembled quite an impressive number of prizes and stipends, among them the Swiss Book Prize and the Prize of the Swiss Booksellers.
The novella achieves an impressive effect: The language is very distinct and atmospheric, but not in a flashy, loud way. And while I've never been to Switzerland, I recognize the particular kind of talk, what a Northern German might call "a Schnack" or what in my region is referred to as "Hasengespräch" ("bunny talk"): The conversation is seemingly small talk, a light conversation about everything and nothing, but if you listen closer, it captures profound events, feelings and memories that are often adressed in a playful way. I feel like I know these people, and at the same time, they open the door to a another reality, the reality of their Swiss village.
I enjoyed this quiet book that was very obviously written with a lot of love and respect for the characters and the people they stand for. "We made an impact on our time with our kiosk under the neon sign, I'd like to see someone else match our achievement!" - yes, Rosa-Maria and Margrit, you can't argue with that.
An interesting choice for the Book Prize, and one that adds a completely different flavor to the longlist. You can learn more about the novel in our Papierstau Podcast Book Prize Battle Royale #3....more
Now Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Bov Bjerg has written a formally ambitious novel about intergenerational trauma, depression, addiction aNow Shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Bov Bjerg has written a formally ambitious novel about intergenerational trauma, depression, addiction and classism, and it is equally intelligent and moving. After reading the other heavyweight on the list (when it comes to selling books, that is), Seethaler's reductive kitschfest Der letzte Satz, this one proves that you can push copies with quality literature - props to you, Mr. Bjerg. In the text, our narrator is a depressive alcoholic who goes on holiday to Swabia (the author's home region) with his 7-year-old son. In numerous flashbacks, we learn about the family history: The narrator's father, grandfather and great-grandfather have killed themselves (drowned, shot, hanged), and his own affliction, the "black God", makes him ponder suicide over and over again. What holds him back is his love for his son. (Intergenerational trauma is also the main topic of fellow nominee Herzklappen von Johnson & Johnson.)
And Bjerg dives deep into the perceptions of a depressive - the unsettling part is that many things that drive his protagonist into alcoholism are so relatable. This anti-hero fails his son and makes bad decisions, but he is also a victim, and Bjerg does not judge. Not only did the protagonist grow up with the image of his dead father who strangled himself (the rope plays a gruesome role in his childhood), he also learns that it's taboo to talk about mental illness, so he drowns out his feeling, just like his father did. He became a sociologist (yes, a guy who professionally studies society and human interaction) working at a university, but he feels like he doesn't belong because he grew up in the working class and displays a different habitus, which leads to him being haunted by the idea that he must always outperform everyone to cover his roots and his past (here, the book relates to another nominee, Streulicht, and even refers to Retour à Reims / En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule by French sociologists Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis).
Until the very end, the reader ponders what happened to the kid's mother, whether the protagonist will kill himself - or even himself and his son - and why his ancestors committed suicide. The narrative steers up and down the hairpin turns (German: Serpentinen) of memory, uncovering a past of violence, fascism, forced displacement, alienation, and most importantly: speechlessness - and that's the spell the narrator can finally break by telling his story. Nevertheless, it is sometimes hard to pin down what really happens as our protagonist is often intoxicated. And still, the language is fascinating: The sentences are quite short, and the keen depictions are relentless, often both foggy and lucid - how does Bjerg achieve this? This is art, folks.
We do not learn all too much about the son or the son's mother, because the protagonist is so closed up in himself, alienated and struggling to hold on to dear life. And the fact that he is caught up in himself makes for an amazing twist ending - people who long for clean resolutions will complain, but I had an epiphany of Fight Club-like proportions. This text is so touching and smart, I was deeply impressed by Bjerg's achievement. At the Bachmann Competition 2019 (one of the biggest literary competitions for German-language authors), Bjerg read parts of "Serpentinen" and entranced the judges, which won him the Deutschlandfunk Prize - and this road novel / family drama / bildungsroman / tragicomedy about German history would also be a great choice for the shortlist of the Book Prize. Fingers crossed.
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Stephanie Helena Prähauser a.k.a. Helena Adler (*1983) studied painting at the über-famous Mozarteum, and it Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Stephanie Helena Prähauser a.k.a. Helena Adler (*1983) studied painting at the über-famous Mozarteum, and it shows in this novel: It's an anti-Heimatroman (folk novel, a genre that usually portrays a certain region and its particular charm in a beautiful and idyllic way), expressionistic and provocative, portraying a stylized version of her home village near Salzburg, including her family. By naming each of the 21 chapters after a painting, she employs visual images to support her narrative intention, and while they mostly aren't directly addressed in the story (unlike in the case of fellow nominee 1000 Serpentinen Angst, which describes different images), they make for an interesting addition and often juxtaposition of this, yes, vicious little text.
Because here, the Austrian family farm is not a Heidi-like haven of purity and righteousness, but a more or less a hell hole of poverty, killed animals, alcohol, and violence - it's a little like The Discomfort of Evening, but with added dark humor and less of a story. Although there are bits and pieces of a narrative arc, starting with the main character and narrator, Adler's alter ego, burning down the house, to her navigating puberty and numerous characters ending up in psychiatric care. If you now think that this might be the evil twin of a bildungsroman: Oh no, no one is learning anything here, no one growing or arriving anywhere better.
And the star of the text is its language, full of word play, references to specific terms and phrases of religion and fairy tales, jokes of varying quality, sarcasm, and irony. It's often grotesque and funny, mostly entertaining and smart, and always offering a unique, recognizable sound - but it's also rather forced. It's intended to be cool and light-sounding, to shock and disturb, and the text is just a little too drunk on its own perceived edginess. The author is happy to tell interviewers how oh-so-shocked everyone in her family and village was about the book and frankly, it's hard to believe, because it's literary and artificial enough to not really hurt.
There probably is a dark heart of truth at the center of this story, but the pain is always kept at arms length - unlike in the case of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's above mentioned Booker winning debut, which is extremely hard to stomach. This book doesn't really throw punches, it's mainly here to play - and some of its games are interesting and captivating, but at some point, this reader felt like "okay, I get it now, that's enough".
It's always difficult when an author tries very, very hard to be clever, and while this is certainly a worthwhile novel with many tricks up its sleeve, it ultimately lacks substance. You can learn more about the book in our podcast special Book Prize Battle Royale, #2 (in German). ...more
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Roman Ehrlich has written an edgy climate dystopia: No, there's no war in which people are battling for the lLonglisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Roman Ehrlich has written an edgy climate dystopia: No, there's no war in which people are battling for the last remaining resources; instead, there is a bunch of dropouts and adventurers from all over the world who travel to Malé, the capital of the Maldives, to witness the atolls drowning in the floods of the Indian Ocean. While the waters are rising, they are making plans for the future, tell stories, take drugs, and look down upon past generations (yes, guys, those people are us). On the shoreline, militias patrol with a luxury cruiseship, a relict of the old times of mass tourism, and they trade goods with and produce drugs for the international visitors.
Water, decay and doom are the setting in which the vast cast of characters exchange stories, dreams, visions, fears. People disappear in the disappearing city and are sought after, causes of death become metaphors, and it appears less and less certain what's more relentless: The rising waters or the character's determination to enjoy this mixture of angst and spectacle. What remains very dry is the language, it's almost like a matter-of-fact account of events - the narrator is the one remaining clear-sighted while recording, but not explaining!, events.
And thus the whole book becomes a puzzle of stories and motives: The moon appears again and again, we are shown maps, there's the blue flower of German romanticism popping up etc. But as this is the record of the world turning into ruins, the rubble cannot be put together again into a coherent whole. The world stops making sense as fact and fiction collapse into each other.
So in case someone didn't notice yet: This is a challenging text, Ehrlich makes his readers work and ponder and puzzle. I was quite surprised that some people found rather accessible texts like Serpentinen already too challenging (oh no, there are time jumps! How confusing! *sigh*), so if you have low tolerance for postmodern narrative games and ambiguity, stay away from "Malé". But the jury made a good call to nominate the book, of course: This is young, complex, and daring, this is a text that wants to be arty and smart and gives zero fucks about pandering to popular taste. Kudos, Roman Ehrlich.
Now Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Fritsch's rather short text is a lyrical meditation on intergenerational trauma and pain, both physical aNow Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Fritsch's rather short text is a lyrical meditation on intergenerational trauma and pain, both physical and psychological. We meet four generations of a family: The grandparents are traumatized by WW II where the grandfather not only became guilty, but also lived through a Russian prison camp as a POW -the war turned him into a broken man, and he's the one with the title-giving artificial heart valves. The generation of the parents is entrapped by passive-aggressiveness and a lack of love, while their child, our main character Alma (Latin for "soul"), dreams of a full life as a child, only to become deeply disillusioned. Alma, an illustrator, gives birth to a child who looks like the grandfather and is unable to physically feel pain.
Needless to say, this text mainly relies on its metaphors and allegories which are presented in a dense, heavy language. There is no dialogue, and the narrative restraint that dictates pure descriptiveness is only sometimes permeated by some very indirect speech. This approach evokes a feeling of suffocation, of a thick emotional fog that veils the characters, which is of course fitting. I needed some time to get into Fritsch's language because it is so particular, but once you get the hang of it, it flows very nicely.
Fritsch's main topic is how pain and guilt travel from one generation to the next, and what it does to people. As this is a lyrical, allusive, atmospheric text, the reader needs some tolerance for vagueness and a storyline that hardly deserves the term. Towards the end, the book becomes a little lengthy, but the playful ending of this dark read managed to made me laugh. An interesting text that puts readers to work.
(As an aside: Did the person at Suhrkamp who wrote the description of the book actually read it? The advertisement raises false expectations, which will lead to readers becoming upset - this nonsense will harm the book's reception.)
Now Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Birnbacher, Bachmann-Preisträgerin 2019, erzählt die Geschichte des jungen Arthur, der gerade aus der HafNow Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Birnbacher, Bachmann-Preisträgerin 2019, erzählt die Geschichte des jungen Arthur, der gerade aus der Haft entlassen wurde und mit Hilfe eines experimentellen Resozialiserungsprogramms mit Namen "Starring" ins bürgerliche Leben finden soll. Das "Starring"-Konzept, entwickelt vom kauzigen (sic!) Dr. Vogel a.k.a Börd, verlangt von den Programmteilnehmern, dass sie die Vorstellung einer Idealversion ihrer selbst entwickeln, der sie in ihrem realen Verhalten nacheifern können. Arthur erkennt aber recht schnell, dass er nicht ein anderes, besseres Ich werden, sondern einen neuen Zugang zu seinem eigentlichen Ich finden muss: Er braucht sich an seiner Seite, er muss seine eigene Geschichte verarbeiten.
Auffällig an dem Roman ist vor allem seine fragmentarische Konstruktion: Immer wieder werden Rückblenden eingeführt, die beleuchten, wie es zu Arthurs Verurteilung kommen konnte, welches Leben er vor der Haft geführt und was ihn geprägt hat. Teilweise werden diese Rückblenden als Arthurs Gedanken, teilweise als transkribierte Tonprotokolle eingefügt, welche er im Rahmen der Therapie für Börd aufnehmen muss. Einen wichtiger Teil der Erzählung sind zudem Arthurs zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen, etwa zu seinen Eltern, Freunden, einer Palliativpatientin und auch zum eigensinnigen Exzentriker Börd, zu dessen Hobbys offenbar Alkohol und Purzelbäume gehören.
Birgit Birnbacher ist nicht nur studierte Soziologin, sondern war selbst jahrelang als Sozialarbeiterin tätig - ihre Hauptfigur Arthur hat sogar ein reales Vorbild. Diesen Realismus merkt man dem Roman an, denn er driftet nie in den Sozialkitsch oder die weinerliche Gesellschaftskritik ab. Arthur ist ein wahrhaftiger Protagonist, der zwar offensichtliche Fehler begeht, aber auch verdeutlicht, wie es dazu kommen kann, dass ganz normale Menschen schlechte Entscheidungen treffen, die ihnen und ihrer Umwelt massiv schaden. Die vielen Sprünge und die nüchterne Sprache verlangen dem Leser einiges ab, aber trotzdem ist dies ein sehr lesenswerter Roman.
Now Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Leif Randt gives us post-pop literature: References to brands, music and movies abound, there's brutal irNow Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2020 Leif Randt gives us post-pop literature: References to brands, music and movies abound, there's brutal irony, laconic language maxed up so it almost seems camp, and of course spiritual emptiness among young(-ish) people. Around 20 years after the height of the German pop literature movement, this author plays with the tropes of the genre to reflect today's world, and the contrast to the 90's/early 2000's becomes abundantly clear: In what reads like an evil spin on von Stuckrad-Barre's Soloalbum, we witness a couple and their estrangement, but instead of acting out intense emotions and and an almost-religious love for Oasis & Jörg Fauser, these people are, more than anything, beige. They entirely live on the meta-level, try to avoid mistakes, want to talk it over, want to understand, they are into self-care and therapy and mindfulness - they are absolutely terrible. Von Stuckrad-Barre's protagonists, almost too flashy, were burning in bright colors, Randt's characters are living in pastel - and that depiction of lukewarmness is the whole point, and it's often painfully hilarious. Comparing it to Faserland, the other great German pop novel, it's funny how these overbearingly self-conscious and over-conforming characters are just as repulsive as the hedonistic alcoholic who carries Kracht's text.
Randt's protagonists are Tanja Arnheim, a young novelist from Berlin, and Jerome Daimler, a web designer living near Frankfurt/Main - this set-up already shows the author's love for parody, as the big city hipster novel has recently been a real pain. Those two are in a long-distance relationship that turns sour, and they struggle to work it out while dealing with their friends and parents. But the real star is Randt's language, as he constantly reflects Tanja's and Jerome's thought processes, how they are over-thinking and dissecting everything, trying to analyze their surroundings and to choose the correct options in life. The sound, as usual in a novel by this author, is very particular and will certainly divide opinion, because the humor and the irony are packaged in wicked sentence constructions, deadpan remarks and argumentative build-ups that lead exactly nowhere. Randt works with circular thought processes, empty phrases and cringeworthy buzz words, and you either think it's viciously funny (like me), or you scratch your head in disbelief at what this guy is serving you.
While in classic pop literature, music is used to construct and reflect identity and a beloved band can bring deliverance, Randt leaves it as a mere noise in the background; while classic pop novels still interpret drugs as transgression, Tanja and Jerome use them as controlled mood management, which is just as bleak as any text by Tao Lin suggests; while the characters in classic pop literature (and here's the link to Beat lit) are always searching, trying to deal with a feeling of inner emptiness, Randt's characters have lost the urge to really feel life, and they aren't even sad about it, because that's the one thing they haven't contemplated yet: That the pastel life is no life at all. Rather, they send each other mails and messages sharing their feelings, snowflaking the heck out of each other.
This text is really out there: Written in forcefully wicked prose, it contemplates postmodern relationships, and it's both funny and sad - and it's also highly entertaining. Leif Randt is a very special writer with a unique style, and I see why this book was nominated for the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair.
If you want to hear more about the book, you can listen to the pod gang and me discussing the book here, and you can listen to the Papierstau Podcast Book Prize Battle Royale, #1 (in German).
(Btw: The design of the hardcover edition is stunning.)...more
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