Die Totaldemokraten: Aufsätze über die Schweiz (Edition Suhrkamp)

by Peter Bichsel

German

Perfect Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

About the author

Peter Bichsel was a popular Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Gruppe Olten.
Bichsel was born in 1935 in Lucerne, Switzerland, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after he was born, the Bichsels moved to Olten, also in Switzerland. After finishing school, he became an elementary school teacher, a job he held until 1968. From 1974 to 1981 he was the personal advisor and speech writer of Willy Ritschard, a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Between 1972 and 1989 he made his mark as a "writer in residence" and a guest lecturer at American universities. Bichsel lived on the outskirts of Solothurn for several decades.
He started publishing short lyric works in newspapers. In 1960, he got his first success in prose as a private printer. In the winter of 1963–1964, he took part in a writing course in prose taught by Walter Höllerer.
One of his first and best-known works is And Really Frau Blum Would Very Much Like to Meet the Milkman. Published only in a modest edition in 1964, the book was quickly sold out. The reason was an enthusiastic review by Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Just as successful, Children's Stories, intended for adults, is written in the form of droll tales for children. Both books were translated from German by the English poet Michael Hamburger. A theme of Bichsel's works for younger readers is the stubborn desire of children to take words literally and wreak havoc on the world of communicated ideas. In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bichsel's journalistic work pushed his literary work mainly into the background. Only Der Busant (1985) and Warten in Baden-Baden appeared again with the Bichsel style that was so familiar to German readers. Peter Bichsel gave up being a professional teacher early in his lifetime, later he continued to teach his readers that the drudgery and banality of life are of our own making. He used often a simple sentence structure 'subject-predicate-object' and was a passionate observer of Switzerland.
In 1981, he was a member of the jury at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.
Peter Bichsel's estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bichsel schlicht genial, zur Schweiz äusserst lesenswerte Aufsätze.

Auch Christoph Blocher ist ein Opfer einer romantischen Vorstellung vom Stammtisch: Ein Altherr einer Studentenverbindung, der noch voll im Saft ist, und glaubt, dass das, was am Stamm geredet wird, alles ist, was geredet wird.

[Loris Zivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 10 Aufsätzen bringt Bichsel dem Leser die Schweiz und all dasjenige, das mit ihr einherkommt, in einem ganz eigenen Ton näher. Vielleicht ist es eine spitzfindige Kritik von Bichsel, vielleicht aber kommentiert er auch einfach die eigenwillige Art und Weise der Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft - was schon lange nötig gewesen wäre. Dabei nimmt Bichsel sich selbst aber nie aus der Barrage, sondern wirft sich erst recht ins Getümmel. Meine Lieblingsstelle in Bezug auf das Kultiviertsein soll ein Beispiel hierfür sein:
„Nun gibt es selbstverständlich auch den Snob, der nur so tut, weil man eben so tut, dem es nur gefällt, weil es ihm zu gefallen hat. Wir alle, wirklich alle, schimpfen auf ihn.
Ich bin ein Snob. Wir alle sind es. […]“