The wickedness of music
The Wickedness of Music is a volume of stories by Alban Nikolai Herbst , which contains 13 stories from the years 1972 to 2004. According to the author (in an interview with the magazine “ phantastisch! ”, No. 7, 2002) the volume was due to be published by Berlin Verlag in spring 2003 , but was not published until spring 2005 by the newly founded Cologne publisher Tisch 7 .
The stories
The following is an overview of the stories with a brief summary of each. The author published the dates of creation in brackets in his 2004 weblog “Die Dschungel. Otherworld "noted. The page numbers in brackets refer to the original edition. Reviews are given below.
Rose's Triumph (1978)
The office manager Erwin Rose, who works in a law firm, notices one day, at the age of 51: “ I am free. "(P. 15) He does not want to give up this feeling of freedom, which is completely new to him, by exercising this freedom or declaring to someone:" You had to protect yourself; He realized that nobody was more dependent on his incognito than the truly free person. “(P. 23) With the slander of a colleague against his boss, the lawyer Dr. Dörrbecker, he would like to test this freedom, but then stops his manipulative activities in order not to be discovered. It wasn't until Dr. Dörrbecker when the blow hits, he reveals himself by sitting on his office chair and gleefully watching him die: “ He was doing well because Dr. Dörrbecker had still prematurely learned who his office manager was. "(P. 24) After his retirement, Rose retreats to his allotment garden," which he only left to sleep in his remaining years "(p. 25). At the age of 81 he lay down on a piece of lawn next to the embankment and died. “ Erwin Rose was buried on Sunday. Unrecognized. "(P. 25) - To the reviewer Carsten Schwedes," Roses Triumph "seems like a" broadly rolled out Keuner story ".
Alma Picchiola (1986)
Giovanni Picchiola and his future wife Emmanuela find an abandoned six-month baby at the Colosseum one night . There is a shortage of home places and so the Picchiolas adopt the girl and baptize her Alma. Alma develops quickly, but even as a toddler she is prone to runaway and sadism. She later has to leave school because she becomes obsessed with anyone who steals something from her. She is given psychiatric treatment, where she quickly educates and develops because of her above-average perception. Back at school, a relationship with her classmate Giulio seems to be developing, but at some point she freaks out again. Giulio dies in a bestial way. Alma disappears. The media speak of the "Roman she-wolf". Ten months later, Alma is found trying to get rid of her newborn in the Coliseum. She attacks the approaching guards and is finally shot. Their infant also dies: "But some believe that the creature has been kept alive for the benefit of science " (p. 34). - The story alludes to the Roman founding legend, according to which Romulus and his twin brother Remus were temporarily suckled by a she-wolf.
The Wickedness of Music (1980)
In the eponymous story, the terrorist Kastendiek holds two women hostage in a consulate building , the young Sylvia Weinbrenner (different spelling: Silvia) and the old Frau Marx. Kastendiek demands the release of his comrades. “ If the comrades aren't free in four hours, I cut off one of the women's fingers every thirty minutes. “(P. 38) The head of operations, Police Advisor Michels, doesn't know what to do. Sylvias husband rages at the crime scene "consistently out of his senses" (p. 39), but reminds of the "great cloud of sound over Linz " (p. 40). Then 11 loudspeakers are set up, from which a symphony can be heard. But not the loudspeakers, but “ the pavement, the houses, the rain itself seemed to emit music, and sometimes to vomit ” (p. 40). The police finally storm the house and accidentally shoot old Frau Marx. Sylvia Weinbrenner holds the already dead Kastendiek in her arms and explains: “ He just died between my hands. (...) He loved me, you must know. “(P. 42) She walks out of the building, no longer recognizes her husband, and leaves town. “ Since then, nothing has been more terrifying for her husband than music. "(P. 42)
The Graefenberg Club (1995)
The narrator, who describes himself as the author Alban Nikolai Herbst, finds the following advertisement in the FAZ : “ We are looking for like-minded people with leadership qualities for the purpose of reorganizing society as joint leisure activities. “(P. 43) Herbst is interested and receives a catalog of questions from the Graefenberg Club with 5 completely unclear questions that he should answer. Although he doesn't know what to do with them, he is intrigued by answering them. After a letter of reply from Herbst, in which he asks for more time (“ another one and a half years ”, p. 47), a Dr. Latimer invited to Frankfurt am Main for an interview . Latimer (“ I am an interpreter of Greek origin. ”, P. 49) continues to ask him a wide variety of arbitrary questions, but then asks Herbst to apply for membership. In the club hall he looks up things relating to the Graefenberg Club in the “Enzyklopedia Babilonica”, published by a Jorge Luis Borges (see p. 51). As he turns the pages, the contents of the encyclopedia change . The changing realities confuse him increasingly. Suddenly an old man appears who pretends to be Ernst Graefenberg and, according to the encyclopedia, should be 113 years old. The old man tells the incredulous autumn: “ You don't have too little imagination (...) but you don't know how to use it. "(P. 55) Regarding the strange changing encyclopedia, Graefenberg notes:" The Babilonica only contains the present ":" What does not affect it, it erases. ”(P. 58) The author leaves the property, then finds no trace of the club and sees himself“ at the beginning of a long and terrible war that the unthinkable of reality has declared ”(p. 59).
Visit to the Country (1973)
The story takes place in a world that is strictly divided into town and country. Life in the cities is determined by simulative processes. When driving into the countryside, safety precautions are necessary, because instead of simulations, the “immediate” prevails there (p. 67). The narrator and his wife Katrin visit the jam producer Schmidt in the country and live out this immediacy there by torturing camels to death and shooting a so-called savage. Both enjoy the outbreak of pain in their objects of violence, which reminds them of traces of their own sensitivity. When Katrin slowly stings to death a fawn on the way back , the narrator believes “ that Katrin really felt something ” (p. 69). - “Visit to the Country” recalls Aldous Huxley's novel “ Brave New World ”, the distinction between civilization - which is completely simulated in autumn and regulated in Huxley by the mandatory consumption of Soma - and wilderness. As with Huxley, a savage appears, a " male of perhaps six feet with dark, tangled hair " (p. 69).
The Victory (1973)
The story takes place somewhere in the eternal ice, far removed from civilization, without any direct indication of the place or time . Three men are stationed in a barrack, Wolfgang, Georg (the commanding colonel ) and the nameless narrator. Georg announces some unspecified visit and wants the other two to leave the barracks for two weeks and patrol the eternal ice . Their survival seems completely uncertain, but both consent. Georg bets the two of them for a three-digit sum of money that they won't make it to survive. On the way, Wolfgang actually dies of exhaustion, but the narrator can return to the barrack. There Georg explains to him disappointed: “ You're not coming. They're not going to get us. “(P. 77) At the end the narrator walks out again, apparently towards the redeeming death.
Main River (2002)
The story takes place at the end of an unspecified war against terrorism. One characteristic is the contaminated environment: " a strange silvery fog shines over flowing water, a kind of lead shimmer ". The order of the soldiers, to which the narrator George belongs, is: “ No survivors, immediately burn everything that is genetically human. "(P. 80) They kill on their way through Germany ( Eschborn , Mannheim and Frankfurt are mentioned) Sunnis , Arabs, Afghans (" who keeps them apart? ", P. 81) and Germans who are called guerrillas: “ The cowards. It was good that they and the terror came to an end. We'd be relentlessly decimating them, even if we found our fucking commands basically disgusting. "(P. 82) The private Karl Smith, a comrade of the narrator, also gains positive aspects from the destruction of the cities:" Basically (...) the terrorists have given us back our basic values. Drink, eat, reproduce. Live honestly ”(p. 84). - "Main River" is a barely disguised allegory of the US war on terrorism after September 11th . The term "cowards" could be directly traced back to the so-called "cowardly acts" of the terror aviators by George W. Bush . - By the way, the title “Main River” should not be translated as “Main River”, but refers to the Main .
Gaudí's handle (2002)
“Gaudís Klinke” is a story about the strangely restrictive futuristic rooms in an architecture company. Walls seem inaccessible and the various handles described to be the actual doors, which, due to their shapelessness and their constant movement and change, represent almost insurmountable thresholds. The narrator, who often comes to appointments with a Klaus Verheusen, has to spend most of the time waiting in the reception. When he is finally let in, he ends up in an open-plan office. When the oldest of Verheusen's four receptionists is about to be released, the narrator seems to take his place. At the end, a narrative frame is sent as a kind of punch line, in which it is suggested that Verheusen himself let the narrative " see Mr. Charlier on the threshold " (p. 96). - " The (...) described difficulties of getting to an ominous client are clearly reminiscent of Kafka ", writes Carsten Schwedes in his review.
Obituary for Asmus Hornáček (1995)
This story is formally a (longer) obituary for the (fictional) scientist Asmus Hornáček, who was born in 1902. While it is clear from the beginning that some terrible event is at the end of Hornáček's career, his biography is expanded. He received his doctorate three times (in biology , in philosophy , later also in theology ) and did his habilitation once (“ on a genetic topic ”, p. 99). The mixture of his studied subjects finally led him to social biology . In 1934 he went from Prague to Germany, but left it again in 1939 because he did not want his research - he had apparently worked in the field of pest control - to be instrumentalized. In 1950 he left the USA for the same reason for Europe in the face of the Korean War . He had been involved in the organization of ant species since 1929 , and that is exactly what later seems to have been his undoing. The narrator reports some of the theological implications of the work of his friend, whom he wants to defend against various negative headlines with this obituary, and then comes to the showdown. Thanks to an ominous patron, Hornáček had withdrawn into a property near St. Gallen , and there one of his experiments with mutated ants got out of hand. Despite the fact that this accident is apparently enough to threaten the world, the narrator wants the ant researcher rehabilitated and concludes: “ I mourn Asmus Hornáček. "(P. 106)
Initiation (2001)
According to Herbst's weblog “The jungle. Anderswelt ”should the title of this story, which comes along in the gesture of a confession, originally be“ Aunt ”. Why is easy to see: The narrator's aunt (“ She was incredibly beautiful ”, p. 110) deflowered several of his schoolmates, all of whom had to have “a very precocious form of intelligence”. One day the aunt decided to take on the narrator too, and he now confesses this “initiation”. When the aunt dies at some point, not a single woman appears at her funeral, but “ around a hundred men ” (p. 111).
Joana. Night Piece (1978)
Six young people are together, they watch a thriller and spend the evening. There is a girl who falls in love with the narrator. The narrative perspective is sometimes quite opaque, alternating between "I" and "He", between the narrator and an alter ego . In a spontaneous game in which more suitable first names are chosen for each other, he assigns the girl the name "Joana" (p. 126). The next morning he finds Joana dead in a pool of blood in the bathroom and informs the others. At the beginning and at the end, the story mentions Bonaventure's “night watches” as a reference text .
Chain (1987)
The narration (the longest in the volume at 30 pages) begins and ends in the middle of the sentence. The transitions between the total of 20 sections also take place in the middle of the sentence. Gregor von Darlhaus met the artist Martha Werschowska at a vernissage , from whom he hoped to have an affair. Pulled by her, he visits her, but instead of the affair he is used by her as a living model for her pictures. Werschowska says of herself that she prefers representational painting. How that is meant becomes clearer bit by bit: “ She is a lover of the concrete. Of the skin. "(P. 142) Because:" You can try however you want, the lady told me, the image always lacks life. “(P. 146) That is why she vivisizes her models and uses their body fluids as material for her pictures, such as the sperm that she taps into a test tube from the battered Darlhaus. - This story, which transfers the Herbst's theme of physicality to the representationality of painting, was already published in the magazine " Sinn und Form " No. 2/1997.
Isabella Maria Vergana (2004)
This more recent story by Alban Nikolai Herbst is apparently one of his own favorite texts, because he has given it several times at his readings since the beginning of 2005 . The narrator, who bears the name of the author, took part in a symposium in Linz and is now, on May 23, 2004, on his way back to Berlin . While driving, he tries to remember what happened last night. He had been in a bar at a dance and singing evening given by a certain Isabella Maria Vergana. He describes her as a “ girlish-looking Indian, perhaps half-Indian, but with a distinctly Asian touch. She might be sixteen, seventeen at the most. "(P. 168) After describing the intense eye contact before the show began, the narrator anticipates the end:" I strangled Maria Vergana. She beat me. It scratched my face, my neck, my upper body. “(P. 169) For other viewers it increasingly seems that Vergana knows the narrator, and he actually understands that he must have met her before. However, he does not mean this literally, but metaphysically when he writes that years ago he met her in her South American homeland " in someone else, as someone else " (p. 173). At that time he had made promises to her several times as the other, which he had not kept, and moreover forced her into prostitution . In the following, the narrator Herbst emphasizes two contradicting things: on the one hand, that these encounters actually took place; on the other hand, that he has never been to these meeting places. The story slides deeper and deeper into the surreal and it becomes clear that the relationship between the narrator and Vergana is an allegory for the sometimes disastrous encounter between the European firsts and the South American Third World . In the end, both of them leave the pub together. Instead of fleeing again, this time the narrator seeks a (also sexually motivated) fight with Isabella Maria Vergana when she attacks him with a kind of steel hatpin . He then wanders through Linz without a plan and finally takes the train to Berlin. The fear of a police investigation is trumped by the feeling that this long story has finally come to an end.
In a “Small Poetological Note” from January 2007, the author writes: “The Vergana story (...) brings together almost all the strands that have ever interested me in a single event. Apart from small slip-ups in the formulation in three or four sentences, it is perfect. "
Reviews
- Martin Halter: Orange fragrance and myrrh. Alban Nicolai (sic!) Herbst's fantastic stories. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 2, 2005 (summary at perlentaucher.de )
- Carsten Schwedes: Mirror battles with the imagination. In: Cover Magazine, October 9, 2005.
Web links
- Information about the book in the publisher's backlist
- "Roses Triumph" (the introductory story of the volume in full text on lyrikwelt.de)