Literary autumn – squeezing potatoes against gloom

Dear German literary publishers,

The problem is: soon your terrible, optionally idiot or AI-generated autumn previews will come again. And you can’t do anything about it. Often your publishing catalogs not only look identical, they always reliably announce the respective new releases with the same empty formulas (“incredibly well -written”, “a breathtaking piece of literature”, “an important book that aims in the middle of the heart”, “like a roller coaster ride”, “brave confession” etc.). Most of the novelties advertised with such a modular and finished parts German and finished parties can be identified within seconds than the customary full cheese, which goes through as “literature” in Germany and is also sold as such.

Then the expected pictures on the book envelopes: blond young woman with gnawing hair in the wheat field; Back view of a dark -haired young woman who goes towards a bright blue sky. “Special recommendation of (here the name of any any, illiterate TV Promi dulli)”. “Customers who bought this article also bought articles from July Zeh and Caroline Wahl.” Because the “target group” logically always wants to read the same poor shit. One could be disturbed by a book, for God’s sake. This must never happen. When leafing in these brochures, you involuntarily ask yourself who is a spite, more shameless, tasteless and remover of literature: the people who are sitting in the publishers or the book buyers.

The good column

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Thomas Blum In principle, it does not agree with the prevailing so -called reality. For the time being, he will not be able to change them, but he can use them to exhort them or, if necessary, also cover one. So that the bad withdraws. We are solidarity with his fight against reality. Therefore, “the good column” appears at this point on Mondays. Only the best quality for the best readers! The collected texts can be found at: dasnd.de/diegute

Don’t worry, I have already understood: Today in your business, as you call your dark machinations, it is no longer all the same, things like quality (if that has ever been the case). The average market capacity (to speak to you in your jargon) of book titles such as the fantasy kitsch series “flamed” and others on 800 pages of balanced big issues that read as if you asked a AI about all existing standard phrases (“his eyes narrowed to narrow slots”, “she felt his awakening masculinity”))) Gives you right. Even the eight -thunderous “home thriller”, he was also so awkward, he is so awkward, sells like the proverbial oven -warm roll. So why do something change in “crackling tension and great feelings”, as you call your commercially available reading material mix of Schmonzetten and scraps of throwing (“autumn program”)? After all, this is what the normal people apparently want to read.

I am not sure whether a better future would not earn other literature. In any case, it is certain: If you peel out your publisher programs, you get the impression that it is only a matter of time until the Bibliotheca Augusta is managed by an advertising and marketing agency and the Mario Basler literary archive is led.

Yes, I am also aware of this fact: it is currently not the best with your business. No one reads anything that is longer than a lucky biscuit wisdom. In such times, Peter Weiss’ “the aesthetics of resistance” naturally difficult, logo. Aesthetics, resistance, people have no time: they have to work for 60 hours or go two to three and a half lousy dirt jobs a day to pay their rent every hour. Who should find time to read? And in the Fitzelchen time that still stays, you want to relax, switch off your head, take a break. Books should then serve as a cuddly cloth for the soul consisting of words, as an effective work-life balance tool. Reading as a feel-good and wellness activity, as a foam bath replacement. And unfortunately, novels by Elfriede Jelinek or Gisela Elsner are not good for that. Even students don’t have time to read these days because they are fully utilized with chilling, binsing, inventing new pronoun variants and pro-Hamas demos.

In addition, the following applies as a whole: linguistic precision, intellectual honesty, questions of aesthetics and literary form, literary-historical education-these are so old-school things that may find grandpa and grandma important, but are now so to speak in view of the market indication indicated at the beginning.

But now that we are talking about your lack of interest in language and your lucrative moving in terms of population flowers, another question, which is politely answered: The American author and filmmaker Nora Ephron, who died in 2012, who has become known primarily with her film sequences “Harry and Sally”, “Sleepless in Seattle” and “E-Mail for you” Career the autobiographically primed novel “Heartburn”, which was published in 1983 and was also filmed a few years later. Was it absolutely necessary to give this tragicomic prose work, which is rightly considered a kind of modern classic in the US literature of the 80s, in the German translation the title “Choking potatoes against gloom”?