“The influence of the pheasants” – Antje Rávik Strubel: When the cutlery slips

These magnificent animals are generally considered a symbol of happiness: pheasants. In Antje Rávik Strubel’s satire of “The influence of the pheasants”, they flutter through the undergrowth here and there mysteriously emblematic, but bring little luck overall.

The unstoppable falling of the feuilleton boss Hella Karl begins with a message in the newspaper for which she works: “In distant Australia, the husband of a famous German opera singer takes life against the wonderful backdrop of the Sydney Opera.” Unfortunately, the Berlin journalist had recently made public that the theater director, which is now known for his excitement has been divorced, an actress had pushed for abortion. The public Hella is very quick to blame for the suicide of the artistic director Kai Hochwerth. On social media, the “evening post” is called to the boycott.

Hella herself, who secretly wished this theater prince, who despised the press, have secretly wished to death. And then the journalist, who should actually know better, reacts very clumsy in a rapidly scheduled TV interview: Hella replies that she was the first to formulate the stressful headline over Hochwerth that “the best example” is “what I have repeatedly warned in the past few months”, namely “a headless press.” forced to leave your newspaper.

Hella comes from a simple background, has worked hard and always tried to hide this. Their fears of being exposed to socially exposed to this multi -layered, but sometimes also a little undecided novel. Hella always talks about herself in the third person as if she wanted to keep distance at all costs. There are her “manageable knowledge of English or her wording of phrases” that she tries to cover up: “At the moment of the crisis, she slips the cutlery that she has acquired. Unlike your environment. “

This is an interesting parallel to the vulgar despot Hochwerth, which also comes from the lower class. He deliberately provokes a woman at the premiere celebration: “You look as if you were blessed with a beautiful cunt.” This figure is no coincidence that this figure awakens memories of former director of the Volksbühne, the Berlin festival or the Maxim Gorki Theater, who were also accused of abuse of power and toxic behavior.

However, as things are going on every day in our medial outrage circus, it is not about sexist artistic director Hochwerth and his female victims, but from the beginning to get Hella Karl socially cold. She is increasingly losing support from her colleagues, with whom she likes to meet in the “Borchardt”, which is popular with media people. Hellas also goes down the Bach with an attractive architect with an attractive architect with whom she lives at the Potsdam Wannseeufer.

The hypothermic relationship between Hella and her husband, which she always calls T., because she then finds herself “a bit mysterious”, offer enough material for her own novel. The well -off couple uses each other because they don’t know better. T. Hella is hardly involved in the call murder campaign, and the self -centered Hella does not notice that her husband, who works on the explosive restoration of the Potsdam garrison church, is in a crisis.

But even on this strangely distant -looking relationship, only a highlight is thrown in the only 240 -page novel, so that one is always a little disappointed that this and other motifs are not deeper. What story does Strubel, who won the German Book Prize in 2021 in 2021, actually want to tell Strubel? Is it about abuse of power in the cultural scene? The problems of the newspaper industry that has to fight for click numbers? To the call murder campaign on a journalist? Or essentially about classicism and vanities in the cultural industry?

And the male pheasants? So much is certain: in these excited times, like scary chickens, they are very fateful in the way.

Antje Rávik Strubel: The influence of the pheasants. S. Fischer, 240 pages born, 24 €.