The good column – Everything shines golden

The truth is: contemporary German literature is the most boring in the world. And probably the worst written. Which is, of course, because neither the majority of German writers and publishing idiots nor the majority of German readers understand the slightest thing about literature. However, no one talks about it openly. On the contrary: the literature simulation put into continuous operation by the German literary civil service works like clockwork.

This struck me when I recently saw a current “Spiegel” bestseller of fiction lying around in the relaxation room of the sauna and, already frozen with fear before opening the book, I bravely took a look at it. I was promptly not disappointed: »When I felt sand under my feet, it was one of the best moments of my life. We made it. Together we can do anything, I think for a moment as we let ourselves fall into the sand (…).«

Against this mixture of desolation, kitsch, perfect world and team-building calendar sayings, even reading the current products of those West German sprightly literary retirees (Biller, Goetz, Goldt, etc.), who had their best time in the 80s, seems like pure adrenaline.

The most striking thing about this type of contemporary novel is its staidness: the novel’s protagonists are fairy-like creatures with intellects on the back burner. Male characters in the novel are white-blond, athletic, well-trained and have a “narrow, striking, tanned face” and “ice-blue eyes”, roughly corresponding to the type that Himmler liked to see in the SS. The waves of the sea are “absolutely beautiful”, a copy machine is “stupid”, an advertisement is “pretty cool” and a won bet is “already strong”. This is what world literature sounds like today.

The material, told with the vocabulary of an eleven-year-old, oscillates between a bitter love story, a collection of old clichés and a melody of fate, is intended to give you the courage to face life, to provide edification, to provide calm and relaxation and to be easy to read on the designer sofa with a cup of lukewarm turmeric-ginger tea . Prose like “a hairdryer for the frozen sea inside us, and it runs on the lowest setting” (Hans Mentz, “Titanic”). The gender image that dates back to the Adenauer era, which is currently experiencing a renaissance, is now readily accepted by the reader (he: “its straight, fast, powerful features” / she: “I look at the pastel evening sun sky”).

The worst thing about all this Biedermeier snot that floods the bookstores month after month is that Generation Z now also thinks that it has to start writing “literature”. So those people with an extra dose of narcissism who are only interested in themselves, their own progress and their Instagram account and will have a nervous breakdown if their smartphone is taken away from them for three seconds.

They have the main prerequisites for being an author in late capitalism: extreme overconfidence, a pronounced penchant for self-expression, a simple crack-and-bake mindset and electricity-comes-out-of-the-socket attitude. They like to pose for PR photos for their publisher (whose officials also have no shame) in leopard-print dresses and look teasingly, cheekily and seductively into the camera (female) or give a Brad Pitt look with their arms crossed over their chests, Man Bun and intellectual glasses or scarf the gentle mansplainer (male). The most popular motif that publishers choose for their author photos printed on dust jackets: Author and/or author, smiling patronizingly, leaning against a tree trunk. With a look that says something like: “There’s nothing I’d rather do than make a lot of money with worthless feel-good prose.”

The literature they produce reads like a dime-sized booklet from the series “The Mountain Doctor”: “My warm body twitches and a cold shiver runs down my spine.” – “But then the evening sun comes out on the brown-gray day, and everything shines golden and glitters. And the scent. Magic.”

Every single sentence is a copy of a copy of a copy. Even the poorest fanfiction on the Internet seems like pure Joyce. But the schmaltz prose, which was quickly assembled from prefabricated components by an AI, is not laughed at by literary critics today, as it deserves, but instead becomes a “Spiegel” bestseller (“1st place”) and by the same old TV nuisances Sold to us as “literary critics” or “literary experts,” they are reliably labeled “stunning,” “authentic,” and “impressive.”

I’m not sure whether other novels shouldn’t be published and read in a better future. In any case, one thing is certain: I advise against purchasing Caroline Wahl’s novels.