That didn't calm the children down
The children were not calmed down by Alois Hotschnig (2006) is a collection of stories in which everyday life is brought up to the abyss of narrative probability.
content
Nine stories are threaded under the pedagogically waving title "The children did not calm down". It is about attempts to fix something through storytelling. "The same silence, the same screaming" is the name of the opening story, in which a narrator, scratched and diffused, sprouts his perceptions into a neighboring property by the lake. A pair of loungers are set up in it throughout the year and exposed to the weather. The narrator begins to penetrate the neighbors' bodies as a disturbed voyeur, later he interferes in the daily routine by taking photos and duplicating the actions on the neighboring pier on his own property. In the story “A door then opens and closes” the narrator is intercepted by a woman and led into her apartment, where the dolls are already threaded. There is great astonishment when there is also a doll with the narrator's own features. “Maybe this time, maybe now” tells of the fact that it will never or always be that Uncle Walter will come. As in the play Waiting for Godot, the redeeming uncle does not come and comes to the family celebration, but the waiting becomes so intense that the uncle appears to be present.
reception
Alois Hotschnig is the epitome of concentrated storytelling because of his rare publications. His compact texts with minimal plot are often read as a provocative alternative to a society riddled with news.
Initial release
- Alois Hotschnig: That didn't calm the children down. Stories. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2006. 126 pages. ISBN 3-462-03685-8 .
literature
- Helmuth Schönauer : lightning and coma . Materials on contemporary Tyrolean literature 2000–2014. Innsbruck, Vienna 2014. p. 165.