The high-flyer
The high-flyer is a story by Angela Krauss from 1995.
After the fall of the Wall, suddenly in possession of the freedom to travel to destinations outside the former Eastern Bloc , a woman from Leipzig flies westwards in a dreamlike frenzy. Leaving West Germany behind without comment - the first topos mentioned in the text after departure is the Atlantic - the high-flyer visits nice strangers in the USA . Flying further and further west, the high-flyer ends up with friends. They are old correspondents in Moscow .
content
- I. Leipzig
The anonymous, atheistic first-person narrator thoroughly clears out her room in the tenement near Leipzig Central Station . She speaks of "tear off". Not only does it part with the old wallpaper. The comfortable sofa is also destroyed and its parts are maneuvered over 116 steps into the basement. While the neighbors have long been acting - a neighbor, Mr.Handsch, formerly a shunter at the main train station, urges the narrator to take out accident insurance. So far, the narrator has mostly only observed people in action. Now she wants to act herself. Waiting on the junk in the coal cellar - it is a summer month - the woman notices that the man she loves is approaching.
- II. USA
The urine stain in the rear subterranean crossing of Leipzig Central Station, which is decades old in terms of reputation, will be forgotten - for the second chapter only. Impressed by the new world, by the cheers of the Americans when they are amazed, the high-flyer , who landed in the Midwest , finds accommodation with David and Julie in Minneapolis Twincity . David struggles to rescue tortured prisoners from Arab dungeons and Julie does difficult gymnastic exercises traditionally brought from Canada. When the high-flyer is asked to tell the friendly hosts about her life, she rejects this request as not feasible without attempting to justify it.
The flight continues to the complete stranger Lilly and her computer scientist Tom in Madison. The high-flyer gets to know a new characteristic of the social order into which she unexpectedly got caught: the professional relocation of her members. Lilly and Tom have lived in Boston , Chicago , Ann Arbor , Michigan, Iowa, Lion, and Crosstown . Lilly works in the university library as something of a cartographer.
Finally, during the four days at Amy's in San Francisco , the clothes carousel turns. Finally, after the Golden Gate experience , the high-flyer believes she is completely happy. What a miracle, the world is infinite! And finally you have a choice; if only from a series of garish American ties.
- III. Moscow
Finally, in terms of the basic mood, a mixture of the first dark and the second bright chapter is celebrated in the last chapter. During the onward flight - always west and west, of course - there is talk of the Mongols and then Novosibirsk . Having landed in Moscow, the high-flyer is already expected by her pen friend Toma and her Sascha. Off we go to Semjons Chrysler . Back in the GDR times , the high-flyer was addressed by letter with comrade, sister, dearest, most beautiful . Sascha - with the mobile phone to the ear - has become a banker in the now consumer-oriented Russia. The ruble should roll. Actually, however, it is now only about the dollar in Moscow.
Suddenly Semjon's American car can fly with the protagonist on board. The accident-insured high-flyer said she would die in the next minute, but the Russian car driver reassured and roared: "We're landing!"
shape
Some sentences fall out of the scope of this short trip around the world report, even if they were put into the mouth of a former Soviet man : “We will go under or tomorrow will operate in the world currency cycle.” A profane cause of such gentle reader shock may be the nonchalant disregard for the punctuation used in German on the part of the hypermodern, apparently intent on the occasional leveling writer.
Repeatedly presented stereotypes make sense. First of all, it is said: “Flying would be nice” if you were sitting in your native Leipzig and “Flying is nice” on the way to the USA and Moscow. Second, the book yelled out three times: "The Russians are gone!"
- semantics
This text - a fantasy - is hard to digest because it's author, a little atom physically , has hacked with reckless intent in noisy pieces -thermodynamisch breathed. A conventional thread of action can therefore only be detected in this atomized matter with the application of force. Nevertheless, the book is worth reading. There is a young woman who by no means lets herself into the hustle and bustle of the Leipzig Wendehals in her local area , but rather sets off expectantly into a foreign land, i.e. to the west.
- Pseudoscientific humor
Sometimes it seems as if the globally and in places almost intergalactic thinking first-person narrator Angela Krauss knows something about theoretical physics . She says: "The laws of nature cannot be interpreted" and names the " entropy ... as the measure of disorder". It continues with electrodynamics : "... the world ... consists of bodies and charged spaces". The second law of thermodynamics is even easily assembled into the action.
- Penance for the German guilt
Almost only recognizable to insiders (read: Ossis ), GDR history is ironically presented. For example, the grandma on the green sofa in Oberschlema in the context of the Russians (the "friends" are mentioned twice in close succession half a page in front of the sofa) associates exploitation of the uranium deposits in the Ore Mountains by the victorious powers of the Second World War.
interpretation
- Over idea
The whole book soon seems to be laid out as if Angela Krauss wanted to suggest to us that the lucky fall of German reunification in 1989/90 was thanks to Gorbachev . The author expresses this indirectly. For example, Wessis - except for David's sister from Hildesheim - are not mentioned; as if Willy Brandt's word “ Now what belongs together is growing together ” had been deliberately ignored by the high-flyer for the first time.
- philosophy
In view of the new social order that almost uprooted the GDR citizen overnight in the wake of the fall of the Wall in November 1989, for the high-flyer the merciless questioning of seemingly constant terms - such as the Golden West, the country in which milk is Honey flow - displayed. It turns out that nothing is actually constant. For example, if this strange lady flies west long enough, she will end up in the deepest east.
reception
Lützeler praises the humorous book as a work full of deep irony and sees parallels to Thomas Brussig's “ Heroes Like Us ”, Jens Sparschuh's “Indoor Fountain” and Reinhard Jirgl's “ Farewell to the Enemies ”. The reviewer also classifies Wolfgang Hilbig , Ingo Schulze and Sibylle Berg in this “New East German Literature” . His discussion of the "high-flyer" revolves around six "fictional" thing symbols - the sofa and the wallpaper in the Leipzig room at the main train station, flying and the womanly clothing craze of the high-flyer that suddenly breaks out in the USA, as well as the Chrysler and the god dollar all at once capitalist Moscow.
literature
Text output
- Used edition
- Angela Krauss: The high-flyer. 124 pages. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996 (2nd edition), without ISBN
Secondary literature
- Paul Michael Lützeler : About fear and euphoria: Angela Krauss' story »Die Überfliegerin« . P. 125–135 in Paul Michael Lützeler (ed.), Jennifer M. Kapczynski (ed.): The ethics of literature. German authors of the present. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2011. ISBN 978-3-8353-0865-7