Praise: About literature
Praise: About literature is the title of a collection of reviews, essays, speeches and lectures by the German-Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann , which was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 2010 . The work comprises a total of 15 articles and is based on Where is Carlos Montúfar? Kehlmann's second volume of such collected writings.
content
In this anthology, Kehlmann deals with great writers such as Thomas Bernhard , Truman Capote , JM Coetzee , Stephen King , Max Goldt , Roberto Bolaño , Imre Kertész , Heinrich von Kleist , Knut Hamsun , Thomas Mann , Samuel Beckett and Shakespeare . Mostly Kehlmann finds words of praise for his colleagues, considering Shakespeare the greatest of all writers, whose work makes his own literary work appear questionable.
The novel Holzfalls by Bernhard Kehlmann seems to have been written by two cooperating authors. On the one hand, an abysmally humorous observer describes the human frailty in a grandiose manner; on the other hand, a critic who is well versed in cultural politics invites people to identify with it all too cheaply. JM Coetzee describes Kehlmann as perhaps the most important experimental novelist of our day, whose literary provocations initially leave the critics at a loss and then become a classic. In Kehlmann's view, the calmness of Max Goldt's prose initially reminds of Thomas Mann, but only hides the madness and absurdity of the plot. Kehlmann considers the novel 2666 by the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, who died in 2003, as authoritative for the literature of South America as the major works by Gabriel García Márquez , Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortázar in the 20th century . The novel of a fateful man by Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész is one of the most important works in European cultural history for Kehlmann.
The essay These very serious jokes , which served as a template for two lectures by Kehlmann at the Georg-August University of Göttingen , was included in this volume . Kehlmann comments on poetological topics and his own work in the form of an interview he wrote himself . Among the writings is the acceptance speech for the award of the literary prize of the daily newspaper Die Welt in 2007. The volume closes with Kehlmann's opening speech at the Salzburg Festival in 2009, in which he caused a sensation in the cultural scene with his criticism of German directorial theater .
contents
/ I /
- The melancholy lobbyist . Thomas Bernhard : Felling wood
- The reporter . Truman Capote
- The old man and the book . JM Coetzee : Diary of a Bad Year
- Not honest rock 'n' roll . Stephen King : Pulse
- ... and hear the most wonderful music . Kleist Prize -Laudatio on Max Goldt
- Four critics travel hell . Roberto Bolaño : 2666
- Imre Kertész , 80
/ II /
- Kleist and the longing not to be a self
- The hero without a motive . Knut Hamsun : Hungry
- Dionysus and the accountant . About Thomas Mann
- It wasn't midnight. It did not rain. Samuel Beckett's prose
- Shakespeare and the talent
/ III /
- These very serious jokes . Two poetics lectures
- The catastrophe of happiness . Acceptance speech for the award of the WELT Literature Prize
- The light test . Opening speech of the Salzburg Festival 2009
Press reviews
“Smart and well-read, Kehlmann is not afraid to write and judge great writers. Most of the time, however, the judgments are positive and unsurprising. "
“As a writer, Daniel Kehlmann [...] takes on the role of the scholar with such enthusiasm that he derives a superiority from it. It's not exactly pleasant and sometimes presumptuous. [...] Perhaps Daniel Kehlmann has to ask himself whether his “overview” role is often not just an attitude. "
expenditure
- 2010: Daniel Kehlmann: Praise: About literature . Rowohlt Verlag , ISBN 978-3-498-03548-8 .
- 2010: Daniel Kehlmann, Frank Arnold: Praise: About literature . Audio book . Argon Verlag , ISBN 978-3-86610-936-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from lvz-online.de
- ↑ Quoted from Daniel Kehlmann's new book: "Lob" An Ave Maria for Stephen King - review in the FAZ