What Lottmann isn’t all about: “steam talker” (Neider), “Fips Asmussen of contemporary literature” (Thomas Blum), “lying bucket” (“Tagesspiegel”) – and everything is true.
Photo: imago/Christian Thiel
The bang came suddenly. Nothing had prepared one for the following lines that appeared on Facebook on July 8th of this year: “One phrase says that everyone has the death they deserve, another says that everyone dies as they lived, a third , er, I forgot. The second phrase could be true. Ever since I received the frightening, hope-killing cancer diagnosis, i.e. being in the most adverse of all possible situations, the familiar adrenaline is rushing into my head, which is happy about every new thing. Completely new location! New options, new opportunities, everything changes completely, what luck! Of course no one will believe me, which is why I have to elaborate a little further. My many readers should not have to believe that my life ended well, that it was a good life, but should be able to relive it. If I am still walking the earth at the time of going to press, I want you to feel that you have nothing to worry about. The author no longer gives interviews, but is happy about every relieved reader.«
Rums! Kawoom! Rawums! No Juli Zeh or Daniel Kehlmann writes like that. Only one person can master this sound – because style would sound far too sedate and sedate: Joachim Lottmann. In a fair world, his books would be bestsellers. His novels have what German literature still lacks today: flow, groove, swing. That’s why one or two envious people contemptuously called him “steam talker.” “Kerosene Narrator” would be more accurate. Here someone looks down from above on the complications and screw-ups of their own life. Nothing is glossed over, there is a lot to smile about, yes, a lot to laugh about. Lottmann’s coolness lies in the fact that he flaunts his own uncoolness in the most smug way.
Lottmann’s coolness lies in the fact that he flaunts his own uncoolness in the most smug way.
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Others cultivate the image of the lost in thought, world-forgetful literary man. Lottmann, on the other hand, wants to be part of the full, wild life. He has no understanding for Wolfgang Herrndorf’s obsession with writing in the face of death: “It would have been better if he had been productive and happy in the time before the tumor and then used the time given to him to say goodbye to the world and people . After all, it is a privilege to know the time of his death.
This is Lottmann’s bluntness, with which he got into trouble in artistic circles back in the 80s. This later went so far that Rainald Goetz judged him: “This person is really evil. Dark, deep down, deeply and without reason, simply evil.« Of course he isn’t! What possibly irritates Goetz is the fact that Lottmann is elusive and constantly acts out. The latter announced in a statement that in the future he would sell texts in limited editions – comparable to a numbered art print – “for a lot of money”.
“This new way of writing, bypassing the public and any censorship/jurisdiction, opens up limitless new freedoms for me,” he explains his move. Which of course is Kokolores! One of those typical Lottmann’s Großer Zampano sentences that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be a soufflé. This is as absurd as if the Pope announced that he would henceforth renounce polygamy. Censorship has never bothered Lottmann. He has always made private matters public, sparing neither himself nor others. This won’t make you popular. In return, you entertain your readers brilliantly.
He also does this with his story “The Grand Friends,” which he dedicated to the publicist Holm Friebe and which he sells secretly (with the request that the corresponding amount be transferred to his account). In it, Lottmann celebrates the exclusive Hamburg circle of the late 70s and early 80s, which included, among others, the pop intellectual Diedrich Diederichsen and the painter Martin Kippenberger. It’s only 19 pages (which is very little for a man who usually writes 300-page novels), but in it he brings to life a lost world that seems stranger today than a native tribe far from civilization.
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This gem costs 100 euros, a fortune compared to the 9.95 euro paperbacks from before. But the material is worth the money. Joachim Lottmann has always been the happiness pill dealer among writers, the emotional counterpart to Franz Kafka. Life below the subsistence level has never been described more absurdly than in “The Money Complex.” And when he exposes his mental problems to “amongst doctors”, i.e. psychiatrists, even his social phobia becomes a farce.
So it would have been a spectacle to see the sparks that Lottmann brought out of a fatal illness. It just won’t happen. In October, the sick man gave the all-clear: “I will be treated until the end of November, after which I will definitely be HEALED. I’m already feeling like a bomb, as they say in Vienna.” So there’s still a lot to come.
If you are interested in “The Grand Friends,” please contact Joachim Lottmann via Facebook.
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