Books | Literature of yesterday: The meaning of the clods of earth

The same applies today: "... as if you had to hold every heap of cow dung to your heart in order to be a decent person." (Irmgard Keun "After Midnight", 1937) Photo: Hansjörg Keller/Unsplash Today, when hardly anyone deals with literature in a serious way and an average book review reads as if it were the publisher's blurb ("a breathtaking novel that you can't put down") Novels are recommended primarily as a means of relaxation or as a kind of life help: Do you suffer from the scorching sun, heat and dryness? Read Karen Duve's "Rain Novel" (1999). There is no shortage of moisture and humidity. Are you thinking about getting married soon? Read Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" (1857). Maybe you'll change your mind. Are you an energetic, determined, professionally successful employee full of energy and willingness to make decisions? A smoothly functioning alpha male who loves his stupid work? Read Wilhelm Genazino’s “Abschaffel” trilogy (1977–1979). Or, even better: Herman Melville's "Bartleby" (1853). It is not entirely impossible that you will subsequently develop a completely new view of the world and that you may even experience mild resistance to the work regime of capitalism.

I'm not sure whether this way of dealing with literature is capable of producing a better future. In any case, one thing is certain: literature often helps to understand contemporary phenomena. Even if (or especially if) this literature was written in the past. Authors of novels, novellas or stories have noted observations from their time. The experiences they have had, the knowledge they have acquired and the contemporary aesthetic processes they have developed have found their way into their books. So the contemporary reader has the opportunity to get an impression of the dreary existence of young factory workers under the patriarchy in Austria in the 1960s ("The Lovers", 1975, Elfriede Jelinek) or to follow the life of a young woman in the USA in the 1950s who falls more and more into a deep depression ("The Glass Bell", 1963, Sylvia Plath).

With the book in hand, the reader can not only have an aesthetic experience, he can also look into a cosmos that would otherwise have remained closed to him.

In general, these days one or two novels from the Weimar Republic or the 1930s represent a treasure trove of scenes that could also take place in Germany today.

The writers have, so to speak, inscribed their experiences, insights and experiences into their characters (or do they attribute them to them)? And do they then reflect this from their perspective? Hmmm. Admittedly, this is an outrageously simplified model of how literary production works. Any half-dedicated literary student – ​​“her eyes narrowed to narrow slits” – would smash my writing hand with Eppelsheimer-Köttelwesch for such simplistic nonsense, and rightly so. But we are not in a German studies seminar here, but in a newspaper column.

In fact, it is often forgotten that literature has always managed to describe certain milieus and their actions or thoughts so precisely in brief words that it is often difficult, if at all, for the reader to determine when the respective novel was written. In “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1929) 100 years ago, Alfred Döblin portrayed individual figures from the Berlin proletariat so knowledgeably that today, when I hear his words, I immediately picture my neighbor from the ground floor.

Thomas Blum fundamentally disagrees with the prevailing so-called reality. He won't be able to change her for the time being, but he can reprimand her, admonish her or, if necessary, give her a beating. So that the bad retreats. We stand in solidarity with his fight against reality. Therefore, from now on, “The Good Column” will appear here on Mondays. Only the best quality for the best readers! The collected texts can be found at: dasnd.de/diegute

In general, these days one or two novels from the Weimar Republic or the 1930s represent a treasure trove of scenes that could also take place in Germany today. Let's take a quick look at "Sodom Berlin" (1929) by Yvan Goll: "A thousand identical German heads: a thousand giant skulls, pink and transparent like balls of tallow, shaved or bald, planted firmly on squat necks, on three folds of fat. The faces were as naked as the skulls and soggy with beer. The mouth alone formed a large hole, the light beer poured into it, and booming singing could be heard from it." When I reread this passage, I couldn't help but think of the bodyguards and election campaigners around Ulrich Siegmund (AfD), their demonstrative Wehrmacht hairstyles and shaved necks, as well as the people, briefly calmed with bratwurst and beer, who roared around the right-wing extremist politician during his public appearances.

Irmgard Keun's satirical anti-Nazi novel "After Midnight" (1937), published in exile in the Netherlands, is also interesting in this context. In it, the somewhat naive narrator and main character, Susanne, a 19-year-old young woman, thinks about German culture at one point: “The poets now all write that you only have to love the natural home of your nature (…) The meaning of the clods of earth is that the poets have to sing about them in order not to get stupid thoughts and think about what is going on in the cities and with the people. In addition, you need the clods for homeland films, which the audience doesn't care about." About her half-brother, who is a successful writer, Susanne says that he now acts "in his stories as if you had to hold every heap of cow dung to your heart in order to be a decent person." This was written in the mid-1930s. But the cultural policy ideas of the mastermind of the Saxony-Anhalt AfD, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, cannot be outlined much more clearly and succinctly.

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