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Die Satellitenstadt: Geschichten
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November 7, 2022
It is a cliché, admittedly, particularly here, that a collection of short stories is "uneven". However, it is also a certain outcome of tying together a series of newspaper columns, fictionalized memoirs and a longish work that hasn't quite made it to a slim novel (at least the narrative curve has a novelesque feel: it describes the descent of the narrator from idleness and joblessness into homelessness and insanity), that it becomes a noodle soup with chocolate truffles.
It is a valid method for the publisher and the author to get rid of a drawer in a marketable form; a technical debt that will no doubt be repaid when a Werkausgabe appears.
Some stories (or little story collections, or whatever they are in terms of genre and pragmatics) are independent: a bitter account of a journey on the "Titanic", a set of pieces on a certain Uncle Egon; others are interconnected, which is disturbing to me for reasons not to be discussed, but would be fine, if there were an arch, a thread through the book, some concept behind this.
The columns have a nice strict form: set length, naturally, a lightly philosophical rumination on an anecdote from the writer's past (certainly modified for fictionalization), and a short sharp shock of the ending, but little unites them beyond that. They are probably too widely spaced in time, as publication cycles demand and the selection process exacerbates, and display wild mood swings from almost didactic (the author is not inclined to moralizing, to his credit) fable- or essay-like to elegant anecdotal vignettes.
Many of them are delightful, though. And throughout all 180 pages the text is lined with pearls, wonders of expression, incisive observations, biting metaphors. It seems, however, that Hürlimann builds little philosophical cages for his critters, resents the possibility of losing control, commits to comment, which disappoints slightly. Maybe he did not want the dark matter that seeps into most of the stories to hang around and cause gloom in the reader. One need not, may not be cynical. But I enjoyed my time with him the most, when I succeeded in unthinking his text.
It is a valid method for the publisher and the author to get rid of a drawer in a marketable form; a technical debt that will no doubt be repaid when a Werkausgabe appears.
Some stories (or little story collections, or whatever they are in terms of genre and pragmatics) are independent: a bitter account of a journey on the "Titanic", a set of pieces on a certain Uncle Egon; others are interconnected, which is disturbing to me for reasons not to be discussed, but would be fine, if there were an arch, a thread through the book, some concept behind this.
The columns have a nice strict form: set length, naturally, a lightly philosophical rumination on an anecdote from the writer's past (certainly modified for fictionalization), and a short sharp shock of the ending, but little unites them beyond that. They are probably too widely spaced in time, as publication cycles demand and the selection process exacerbates, and display wild mood swings from almost didactic (the author is not inclined to moralizing, to his credit) fable- or essay-like to elegant anecdotal vignettes.
Many of them are delightful, though. And throughout all 180 pages the text is lined with pearls, wonders of expression, incisive observations, biting metaphors. It seems, however, that Hürlimann builds little philosophical cages for his critters, resents the possibility of losing control, commits to comment, which disappoints slightly. Maybe he did not want the dark matter that seeps into most of the stories to hang around and cause gloom in the reader. One need not, may not be cynical. But I enjoyed my time with him the most, when I succeeded in unthinking his text.
Displaying 1 of 1 review