Literature: See the hot sun for once

How time flies: Thirty years ago I was at the event for the 50th birthday of the writer and Frittenbudenfeld researcher Jörg Fauser, which took place in a completely overcrowded Munich computer company. Afterwards we continued to the private celebration in the apartment of his widow Gabriele Oßwald. The Hanoverian writer Kersten Flenter and the two “Cocksucker” editors Oliver Bopp and Mario Todisco were there. While the celebrities high-fived each other in the living room, we talked to Ms. Oßwald next door for hours while her lover, a bed salesman in unflattering sweatpants, wandered around nervously and didn’t let us out of his sight like a calf-biter.

The table in the writing room had been half-heartedly redecorated into a sacred Fauser book table; no one but us looked at the works. Mrs. Oßwald gave us a few long looks into her husband’s poison cabinet on the wall next to the door, secret notes and such. The “Cocksucker” editors had just published a great special issue on Jörg Fauser and the busy Wolfgang Rüger had published the “Letters to the Parents” at Paria Verlag in Frankfurt, and “The quietly smiling no and other texts” was also published by Rogner & Bernhard in Hamburg « as a supplement to the Fauser edition – something was moving.

Ms. Osswald, however, had no hope. She thought her husband was unknown and forgotten. Mario Todisco and I talked her out of this nonsense and told her that Jörg Fauser would “make it big” again thanks to the constant advertising we were doing for his literature with our social beat literature movement. That’s how it happened.

The next day there was to be a radio broadcast on BR3 in honor of Fauser. However, none of the friends and companions who were soldering their bulbs next door wanted to take part. Ms. Oßwald asked Mario Todisco and me to do it. We were amazed and almost said yes. But there was a small problem. But first Maria, Jörg’s mother, broke up the party relatively early (at least for us) because she couldn’t sleep. Instinctively I headed for the kitchen and fridge and fished out as many bottles of white wine (there was nothing else) that could be stowed somewhere and then we headed to the Isar. When everyone was properly emptied, we sank our heads into the dry bank grass and only woke up again when the first joggers made bambules with their toels. Then we went back home, in this case to the area around Riedstadt, southern Hesse.

»I consider a writer who is not read to be a pathetic and meaningless figure.«

Jörg Fauser

Because it was like this: At 9:30 p.m. CET, the Hungarian referee Sándor Puhl wanted to blow the whistle for the World Cup final between Brazil and Italy in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Not a good day for a radio show. Mario Todisco’s garden was filled with what felt like three dozen real or later-born Italians, and there were mountains of money on the table. When Roberto Baggio missed the third penalty after captain Franco Baresi and Daniele Massaro, I was broke (we had bet three times, I always changed), but the puddles of beer glittered on the table, in which wasps that were too willing to take risks and had passed away were shining . We didn’t hear anything more from the radio show.

Jörg Fauser would have turned eighty today. It’s a shame that he wasn’t able to provide journalistic coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Lafontaine assassination attempt, September 11th or the corona pandemic. Would the conservative anarchist be better understood and classified today? It is now read, and not too briefly. One edition of the work follows the next, a bottomless pit for collectors. It’s like buying a notebook: what one doesn’t have, another has, but in the end you’ll have to and be able to decide. With Fauser’s collected works, all that’s left is a visit to the casino or the good old gas station robbery. But I have a whole shelf full of one of my favorite books ever, “Papillon” by the Frenchman Henri Charrière. In several languages ​​and different editions within these languages. Do you think I’m crazy now?

A slim book from the Andreas Reiffer publishing house provides a remedy. It was written by Sascha Seiler, a “private lecturer at the Institute for World Literature”. He picks out his personal raisins, emphasizes above all the multifaceted nature of Fauser’s writing, and does it quite well. Of course, there are no new insights to be found, but the book is ideal for newcomers for little money. Fauser’s highlights are actually common knowledge: the wonderful “tip” columns, the Marlon Brando biography, the novella “Everything will be fine”, the novel “Rohstoff”, the song lyrics for Achim Reichel.

In the crime thriller “The Snowman” it says: “Once you see the hot sun, and when the bill comes, please do it with all the stamps and a big bang.” His last book “Kant” ends with the sentence: “The longest journeys begin , when it gets dark on the streets.” From a press report from the professional fire department: “4.20 a.m., A94, direction Munich: A pedestrian was hit by a truck near the Feldkirchen junction. The East fire department emergency doctor could only confirm the death of the 43-year-old man. It was July 17, 1987, and the dead man was Jörg Fauser (who, among other things, came from his birthday party). The next day, “Bild” quoted a Ullstein editor: “He was in the process of writing a new book. He worked meticulously. Maybe he wanted to watch the sunrise there.”

Sascha Seiler: Bornheim Blues, Jörg Fauser – An essay, Andreas Reiffer publisher (edition kopfkiosk Vol. 9) 140 pages, br., €10.50.