Burkhard Spinnen

Dieses Buch habe ich zufällig in der Onleihe gefunden und spontan ausgeliehen. Fasziniert haben mich die verschiedenen Aspekte des Buchs: das Zerbrechen einer Familie nach dem Tod der Mutter, die Welt der Online-Spiele, in die der Sohn abtaucht und dort quasi eine parallele Realität erlebt, die Geschichte des Balkans im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, die sich für Vater und Sohn auf ihrer abenteuerlichen Reise als eine völlig fremde Welt erschließt.

Die Charaktere und ihre Gefühle der Trauer, der Verwirrung und ihre Hilflosigkeit sind gut beschrieben, der vorsichtige Versuch von Vater und Sohn, ihre Beziehung neu aufzubauen, hat mich sehr berührt. Nevena selbst blieb mir allerdings fremd.
Einige Ereignisse auf der Reise erschienen mir nicht ganz stimmig, die Charaktere, die sie auf ihrer Suche treffen, bleiben flach und die jüngere Geschichte des Balkans, ein wichtiges Element und Beweggrund für Nevenas Handeln, wird mir zu oberflächlich abgehandelt.
Positiv fiel mir auf, dass zwar die Probleme einer virtuellen Realität, das Lügen über die eigene Identität im Netz thematisiert werden, aber das Medium an sich nicht verteufelt wird. Stereotype Warnungen vor den Gefahren des Internets und seiner Communities unterbleiben, auch wenn dem Sohn auf der Reise schmerzlich bewusst wird, wie wenig er doch eigentlich über das Mädchen weiß, die sich im Verlauf des letzten Jahres zur wichtigsten Person in seinem Leben entwickelt hat, wie viele Lügen ihm erzählt wurden.
Das Ende erschien mir ein wenig abrupt, für mich blieben einige Fragen offen.

Insgesamt ein gutes Buch, dem ich eher 3,5 als 3 Sterne geben würde.… (mere)

The title of this book roughly translates as "And all of that without love" and is taken from one of Fontane's poems. It sets the scene for this little book that is concerned with Fontane's female protagonists: All of them had to lead their lives without love. Some found someone they loved but weren't able or allowed to start or keep a relationship for various reasons, others did not even find someone they truly loved. This is not the real focus of the book, though.
One after the other, the author examines the female protagonists of the novels Effi Briest, Frau Jenny Treibel, Irrungen, Wirrungen, Die Poggenpuhls, L'adultera, Mathilde Möhring, Stine and Cécile. I have only read the first three novels mentioned here - Irrungen, Wirrungen, available in English as "On Tangled Paths" in a new translation from 2010, was one of my favourite books read in 2020 - so I was open-minded to learn more about Fontane. The foreword was promising, as the author explained that he wanted to provide a fresh and modern view of these women, that he wanted to show that Fontane's works are timeless and haven't aged, that they can be read within a contemporary context and they stand the test of time. I very much agree with this approach, only: This fresh view never came. From page to page, the author rambled on and on without focus.
There were aspects I agreed with - the importance of living your life independently, taking chances when you can because in the end you don't want to regret that you have wasted your life, the overemphasis on keeping up appearances that takes energy away from what you really want to do with your life. However, I can't see why the author thinks that this interpretation is breathtakingly new. When I first read Effi Briest aged 18, I felt all of this and I didn't need a man to explain it to me. There is something cringeworthy about some of the passages and something feels really off: On the one hand, the author celebrates himself as someone who finally understands these Fontane women and who loves these novels because of them. On the other hand, though, there are sexist undertones when he describes young teenage girls as silly things and b*tches and blames them for what happened to them because they didn't fight it. This comes close to victim-blaming sometimes and this was when I couldn't take the author serious anymore, PhD in German literature or not. It is a pity because I do agree with some of the commentary (it's so rambling that you cannot call it an analysis), but I expected a lot more from this.

A note on the cover: It is a painting by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi. I hadn't heard of him before, but I googled his paintings and absolutely love them - so something very good has come from this book in the end!… (mere)

A compilation of short (2-3 pages) essays on sundry topics relating to books. Although a fan of books, the author is uncommitted about whether they'll fare well against digital files. I suspect he hopes so, but he would be disappointed, but not devastated, if not.

The author is German, and it is possible that he is well-known enough to that audience that background details were not needed. But given that he sprinkles the essays with snippets of personal stories, it would be nice to know more about who he is, and what has been his relationship with books he is here writing about. Books with marginalia, he tells us, have no value for him, and thus it would be helpful to know how he could have acquired such wrongheaded notions.

Perhaps his most significant claim is that we should consider the "text" apart from the "book." No one ever writes a book, he says; one writes a text which he hopes will one day be produced into a book. They are thus distinguishable, and the texts of books will be perfectly shared by digital formats, and it is only the book as a physical object, apart from the text, that he writes about. Careful readers will note that he cannot maintain this divide consistently. For instance, it is difficult to understand how he can claim that the book is a "fundamentally ethical object" without considering how the reader has interacted with the text within the book as well as the book itself. Nonetheless, the point is still, maybe, something to keep in mind, even if one does not agree.… (mere)