Goetz, Meyer, Schroeder: A fragmentary tale from the German literary scene (Part 6)

 It was Franz Dobler who wrote the book that the youngsters couldn't write (Aufraeumen, 2008) which proves once again that a writer should wait for the right time to realise a project (given that there are no exterior obstacles). When reflecting upon the very often anaemic quality of new literature at that time, I frequently came back to a phenomenon that could be called the novel syndrome. It was no mystery that the big publishing companies wanted novels, not short story collections, let alone essays. But what if a writer, especially a young writer, is not yet ready to produce a proper novel? Then, instead of letting her develop in a natural way, the PC uses the Procrustes method, or, as they say in German: Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht. 


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Further chapters of Grunge: Ein Sumpfroman


Chapter 6: Schrader decides that he wants to have an affair with the busty chatterbox from North Rhine Westphalia and starts to talk to her regularly at the kitchen table.


Chapter 7: Schrader has a drug-induced illumination in which he discovers that Andrew Eldritch is the secret messiah of contemporary rock music.


Chapter 8: One evening when they're alone in the wohngemeinschaft, Schrader and busty Karina (this is her name) are getting drunk together. Schrader is hitting on the girl and starts to undress her, but finally she says Ich moechte nicht von dir in den Sumpf gezogen werden, puts her tits back in order and leaves him with a hard on.


Chapter 9: Furthermore, Schrader is running out of weed. He is pissed.


Chapter 10: At a party in Kirchheim, Schrader meets his old buddy Schmoldt who reveals that he is now a dealer. Schroeder is happy again.


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This is just one reason why the case of Clemens Meyer is so instructive when trying to understand the mechanisms and the marketing criteria of German Literature after 2000. Meyer was, in many respects, a lucky chance for the official literary scene. Fifteen years ago I was very keen on criticizing the aesthetics and the structure of his first two books, because I felt that the quality of my two novels was overlooked. But this is not what interests me here, especially since Meyer has proven that he is an able writer. It's much more interesting to understand the way in which he fit in the general tendency of new German literature. His emergence inside the circle of writing schools and talent scouts was a lucky chance because it allowed those that supported this tendency to seemingly close the gap between the recent regulatory approaches and a supposed authenticity that constantly threatened to delegitimize them. To put it more bluntly, you know, for example, Jack Kerouac's approach and the systematization of creative writing don't go very well together. I don't want to talk about image and similar exterior things here, others have done that, and it may have served their purposes. What is also worth noticing, especially when you belong to my generation or are a bit older, is that


6.


there really is a gap between the literary direction that somebody like Rainald Goetz represented in the 1990s and the typical state-subsidized conventional writing in Germany of the last fifteen years. I saw my beginnings as a writer not least as an attempt to close this gap, and I surely knew that I was not the only one aspiring to do so.

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