Honestly: Who has never imagined being able to watch a film about your own life? The author Stefan Meetschen fulfilled this wish and – in a figurative sense – even directed himself. Because in his new novel “Ghost like us” he does not search dusty archive boxes for family history, but lets them stage them by an invented filmmaker. Like the writer, he also has a German-Polish background and spent his youth in Duisburg. Taken together with the escape experience of your own mother, you can see all of this as an excellent fabric for the cinema!
However, the autobiographical work of the protagonist Albert Simon is initially not a good star. German film funding rejects support. In addition, the director will soon get into the headlines and his team gradually go to him at a distance.
What initially sounds primarily after a literary examination of one’s own origin, hence the role of the ancestors in National Socialism, is far more pending. It is probably the journalist gene of the publicist born in 1969, which gives this text clear features of a time stream. The writer sometimes works critically on the political reality in the poles of the past two decades or gets to the bottom of the morast of new xenophobia and homophobia.
Meanwhile, fake news is in the main focus. The director, which is repeatedly rapping, also becomes one of her victims when an employee ultimately raises the wrong allegation of sexual abuse against him. Meetschen opposes this image of strong femininity to a “monster”, which is degrading feminism, by telling, for example, by an activist who bravely is involved in Ukraine. Simon »Women, who did not end without themselves, gender justice and their emotional sensitivities, but knew that evil cannot be divided into gender categories. Both genders are attacked – from the inside and outside. «
We all affect our existence at any point, we are all put to the test, regardless of the requirements that we bring with us. However, not using this is the main message of this text, which is written with heart and time diagnostic expertise. He strives to “transform the wounds of our lives into beauty”. It is no coincidence that the title of the film in the book is therefore “transmutation”. Like his parents, the protagonist goes through a way of changing. In the end there is a possible paternity, the prospect of a better future.
Meetschen, even a creditor Catholic, primarily sees human action in the duty. But not only. Many encounters – from the angelic nun to the arsonic priest – seem to be fateful in this story, as well as a rather unexpected millions. Nevertheless, the story does not seem over constructed, precisely because the author wants to point out a metaphysical backdrop. So there could be a global and personal crisis, so the hope. The fact that you can still find such bright, graceful books in a present ruled by dystopias, you have to call it a real gift. So you can confidently trust the spirits of this novel.
Stefan Meetschen: Ghost like us. Ruhland, 236 pages, born, 24 €.
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