Goetz, Meyer, Schroeder: A fragmentary tale from the German literary scene (Part 4)

 There are some more things that we need to know about Schroeder.

By far the most important one is that he suffers from chronic migraine which is an inheritance from his mother's side of the family. When he will embark on his first book tour, it will become his trademark introduction to say things like "I am reading under the influence of 512 mg of Ibuprofen" or "I am reading under the influence of 1000 mg of Paracetamol and one third of a litre of Warsteiner pils". (At some point it will become his habit to check out the local beer in the cities where he is reading and to comment on its specific quality during the introduction. He is quite diplomatic in this respect, but his hermetic comment on Beck's in Bremen almost causes a riot.)

Another thing is that he is wearing ridiculous sweaters, like members of the Green party and schoolteachers used to do in the 1980s. This is another trademark that will help secure his pop star status. (One day he sees aggro rapper Bushido on TV wearing the same sweater as he did at his gig in Castrop-Rauxel two days before, an occurence that sends Schroeder into deep thoughts.)



Contents of Grunge: Eine Sumpfgeschichte


Chapter 1: The protagonist of the novel, Schrader, receives a visit from his old buddy Bolte who brings lots of weed and has an alarming taste for goa techno. Schrader and Bolte are getting drunk and stoned while listening to goa techno. At some point Bolte reaches for the bible that he spotted nearby on a shelf. He reads a few parts, but doesn't seem to like the book. He puts it back. Schrader and Bolte are getting more drunk and stoned. Before they go to sleep, Schrader speaks the memorable words:

Weisst du was, Bolte, ich glaube, ich versumpfe.


Chapter 2: Bolte leaves in the morning. Schrader is getting drunk and stoned alone.


Chapter 3: Schrader is too drunk and stoned to go to his courses at the University of Heidelberg.


(Interwoven are of course numerous reflections about contemporary rock and pop music, why Oasis are better than Blur, why techno should be forbidden, how Die Toten Hosen became irrelevant, which kind of electronic music is acceptable etc)


Chapter 4: Schrader is having problems with his flatmate, a nice young girl from the province of Rheinland-Pfalz (Ich glaube, du versumpfst!), and decides to move out.


Chapter 5: Schrader finds a new flat near the Neckar river. One of his new flatmates, a busty chatterbox from North Rhine Westphalia, says to him: Du bist echt nett, aber du siehst etwas versumpft aus. Schrader promises himself to be more reasonable.


*


Now that the novel is published and Schroeder is getting ready to go on the book tour (a real Deutschlandtour from the North to the South, starting in Husum with a special Lindenblock event and ending in Konstanz), he takes some time to see what his contemporaries, especially from his own generation, are writing, and somewhere at this point



4.


Clemens Meyer comes into sight. The year is 2007. In the meantime, I have finished my first novel and am working on my second that is almost finished.


TO BE CONTINUED

Popular posts from this blog

Looking back on my first year as an author/translator in Britain

 I still haven't posted anything here this year, it's April already and possibly a bit late to look back on 2022, the first whole year I've spent as an author/translator in Britain. But I feel like doing it now, and with the time that has passed some things may appear clearer, not only to myself, but also to anyone who is reading this blog. I came to London in the midst of the pandemic and with two small books for translation in my suitcase, the poetry collection Λοιπόν; ( So? ) by Yiannis Ritsos, 1978, and the essay collection Oeffentlichkeit als Partner ( The public as partner )   by Max Frisch, 1967. I've translated the first one into English (and German). I'm still looking for a publisher. Prototype have recently published another Ritsos collection, this may be a sign that the time is ripe for some kind of a Ritsos revival. He is a poet who was most popular at the high time of the (now traditional) New Left. Since then his work has been sparsely published in Eur
Read more

Leaving Graecogermania

  "Die 'Universitaeten' als 'Staetten der wissenschaftlichen Forschung und Lehre' (solcher Art sind sie Gebilde des 19. Jahrhunderts) werden zu reinen und immer 'wirklichkeitsnaeheren' Betriebsanstalten, in denen nichts zur Entscheidung kommt. Den letzten Rest einer Kulturdekoration werden sie nur so lange behalten, als sie vorerst noch zugleich Mittel zur 'kulturpolitischen' Propaganda bleiben muessen." (Martin Heidegger, Beitraege zur Philosophie, c. 1937) It's already November and I haven't posted anything here since June. There was no interesting event I've been to and of which I could have given an account. After last year's disappointment (see April post) I didn't feel like attending Translation Day, all the more, since there hasn't been any notable sign of interest in my work as a translator into English for the last two years, i.e. since I arrived in the UK. This concerns mainly my translation of Yiannis Ritsos,
Read more

Goetz, Meyer, Schroeder: A fragmentary tale from the German literary scene (Part I)

 It's a strange feeling to witness the publication of certain German literary works in Britain fifteen or more years after they appeared on the German market. A strange feeling - at least for me, living in Germany until 2015. Living in Germany, writing in German, trying to get a foot in the door, the entrance door into the literary establishment. Or at least to be published, to find a publisher that shares or understands my literary concept, a concept that, I believed, had a certain appeal to the market as it presented itself around the mid-00s. In retrospect I'm glad that my two novels (2005-06) weren't published, not taken in account the money a potential bestseller would have brought me. The novels were typical for a person in their early thirties, a time when you feel the need to systematize your experiences so far, to tell others about them, to use them as a starting point to create a work of art, if you happen to be an artist. On the way, naturally, you are looking fo
Read more