Incentives - New Literature from Austria

readme.cc provides multilingual access to the latest Austrian literature. In collaboration with the Literaturhaus in Vienna the reading forum offers the latest insights about literature published in Austria.

Literary journalists and researchers introduce current new publications; reading samples allow for a closer look at the texts; short portraits of the authors complement the picture.

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The Project "Incentives" targets at the internationalization of Austrian literature, respectively the translation of current texts.

Project realization: the Office of Documentation of Contemporary Austrian Literature (reviews, author’s portraits) – The Association of Translators (translations) – readme.cc (infrastructure).

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[ book tip by Angelika Reitzer ] A new and wild novel by the writer Ferdinand Schmatz: Durchleuchtung [Illumination]. Obviously if you grew up in Austria, it immediately makes you think of Durchleuchten-Gehen [‘getting yourself illuminated’], as the older generation (our parents) informally put it when they had to go for an x-ray or be slid into the tube, when their insides were turned outwards; and they probably still use this term. (And being a well-versed Austrian, it also makes you think of ‘Durchlaucht’ [a form of address for an aristocrat], and here too, we have an artist with a noble soul!) A wild novel made up of Danja and Franz: illuminated into, illuminated through and through – and this makes one wild book! The mix of characters works - Franz (the artist to be illuminated), Danja (the woman at Franz’s side - perhaps an anagrammatical Nadja, in any case, an inspiration and mystery, not just a muse – ‘the name had already been taken...’), and Pokisa (doctor, analyst, and expert illuminator, who actually holds court one floor above the artist’s sickroom). Their voices merge, as do their thoughts and speech, without abandoning the narrative. And they also dictate the pace. Or perhaps the three voices belong to one character, the narrator (Ferdinand). He speaks: rapidly and sensuously, associating unrestrainedly, and constantly reflects on the language he uses.The novel begins with the crisis, or possible illness, of the artist Franz, though, vulgo, on paper, nobody’s ever ailing. That’s because an irony hovers over, or rather sweeps through, the entire book. And because, in an upfront but subversive way, the narrator comes and goes as he pleases in the novel – and as a rule, he encounters his characters, though sometimes he doesn’t (‘but more about that later’) – and above all it’s because, in the sense of Adorno, that is, in a true sense, Durchleuchtung is a künstlerroman [an artist-novel]. A book that is able to demonstrate plausibly how everything is interconnected; which metaphors can be found for a language (of, for instance, feelings; or love, of course; and about language/speech, and contemporary art theories) and insights, too. Here space and time overlap – perhaps it is all just a moment. In the end, however, (and J. Drews compares Danja’s dialogue with Franz to Molly’s monologue as Penelope in Joyce’s Ulysses! we are not left with the doctor’s diagnosis, but with the self-assurance of the artist in view of a painting by Lorenzo Lotto, showing a man with a lion’s paw.

[ book info ] Schmatz, Ferdinand: Durchleuchtung. Ein wilder Roman aus Danja und Franz. (original language: deutsch) Haymon-Verlag, Innsbruck-Wien, 2007 . ISBN: 978-3-85218-543-9.