“Odenwald” by Thomas Meinecke and id politics | EUROtoday

„Thomas Meinecke’s next novel begins in front of the Hotel zur Post in Amorbach, Odenwald“, heißt es in Thomas Meineckes neuem Roman „Odenwald“. Im englischen Originallaut wird hier die Ankündigung einer Lesung des Autors in den USA zitiert, und damit ist über die Machart dieses Buches schon einiges gesagt.

Die vorbereitenden Reisen durch das titelgebende Mittelgebirge und durch die Archive, auf den Spuren Adornos, Siegfrieds oder der Grafen zu Leiningen sowie durch Texas zu den Nachkommen der im 19. Jahrhundert ausgewanderten Odenwälder, vor allem aber Meineckes wuchernde Sammlung von Texten über alle möglichen Formen von Gender-Trouble (von Achilles in Frauenkleidern bis zur feministischen Transphobie), aber auch über Jazz und Neue Musik, dazu Gespräche und Mails mit Freundinnen und Experten, Forschungsarbeiten bis hin zu eigenen Texten des Autors – all dieses Material geht nicht bloß in den Roman ein, es ergibt, sorgfältig zerschnitten, montiert und arrangiert, den Roman selbst.

Wer Meinecke liest, kennt das alles gut. Sowohl das Verfahren der Zitatmontage als auch die thematischen Schwerpunkte hat der Autor in seinem Gesamtwerk seit den Neunzigerjahren konsequent entwickelt. „Frauen, Körper, Phallus, die ganze speziell daran drangehängte Theorie“, wie Rainald Goetz das etwas skeptisch nannte (natürlich im Roman zitiert), dazu Transatlantisches und Musik, das sind die vielbegangenen Orte, die Topoi von Meineckes diskursivem Schreiben.

With the return to the Odenwald, “Tomboy” specifically will probably be “revisited”, the novel with which Meinecke turned a number one consultant of so-called Suhrkamp pop within the late Nineteen Nineties (alongside Goetz and Andreas Neumeister). “Odenwald” is due to this fact a part of a extremely attention-grabbing sequence of up to date novels with Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s “Panikherz” and Christian Kracht’s “Eurotrash”, which examines the pop of the early years (“Soloalbum”, 1998, and “Faserland”, 1995) underneath the circumstances of post-postmodernism – Stuckrad-Barre within the sense of a brand new seriousness, noise in quest of a posh, post-ironic type of autofiction. And Thomas Meinecke?

Right in the beginning, the novel quotes intimately a related passage from “Tomboy,” wherein two protagonists have dildo intercourse within the “real Jewish forest,” after which feedback: “Really too much, Thomas thinks today.” In reality, Meinecke was already fast again then acknowledged that the advanced gender issues of his characters generally appeared unintentionally humorous, whereas his goal was to replicate Judith Butler’s theories.

As a outcome, his follow-up novels to “Light Blue” (2001) took the consequence of trimming down the arsenal of characters and decreasing the plot considerably in favor of citation areas. It has remained that approach: the few characters who seem alongside the writer persona Thomas in “Odenwald” are {couples} whose very best of loving togetherness appears to encompass leaning interestedly over his or associated texts and sometimes utilizing their smartphone to be taught particular person information query how they embody the specified reception of the novel.

Otherwise, Meinecke appears to be simply as proud of the strategy he developed, quoting with out citation marks and spreading his matters with out hierarchy, as he was with Judith Butler’s feminist postmodernism. The proven fact that each are acceptable for the queer trigger might be confirmed from the secondary literature in addition to from the tried and examined postmodern theorists and thinkers.

He even finds a brand new ally in Ursula Ok. Le Guin’s feminist service bag principle of storytelling, which is at present very fashionable. Collecting what’s usable into the bag of the textual content, as an alternative of telling looking tales centered on killer punchlines, is the truth is in line with the essential precept of his literature. And you now not want heroes, they give the impression of being “like potatoes” within the service bag anyway.

Now Le Guin’s program comes from the eighties, Meinecke’s discursive pop prose from the nineties – and what you discovered in your mental path again then and put into your assortment bag by way of principle, literature and distant music (like this time Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell). was usually actually particular person and particular; In pop contexts it served not least for distinction.

But what’s it like at present, when all the cultural holdings within the digital archives are at your fingertips on the push of a button and everybody can know every part in only a few minutes? Doesn’t our digital tote bag look extra just like the acquainted buying cart on the highest proper of the display (“Interested in queer phenomena? You may also like . . .”)? At least Le Guin’s principle and a literary program that depends on these present circumstances within the twenty first century could be re-reflected and presumably modified.

One would suppose. But precisely that, “the questioning of one position by another,” is expressly not what Thomas Meinecke imagines as criticism. On the opposite, his novel celebrates the perception that the “essence of critical thinking does not lie in the judgment,” however quite in its interruption, and thus goals at “changing the field” “on which the positings, the values ​​and judgments are recorded.” .

In conserving with the identify of Adorno’s childhood residence Amorbach, criticism ought to stay a observe of loving liquefaction; even within the (Oden) forest it stays “tired of the tree” and extra inclined in the direction of decentralized root networks. Even although the Hotel zur Post might have been fully renovated, postmodernism stays the mental roof.

“Writing is not arriving,” as Hélène Cixous is quoted approvingly. This is the strict formal consistency in addition to the enduring allure of Meinecke’s books. Whether Texas or Bavaria – you journey throughout the nation and to not arrive someplace. The collected finds are enthusiastically listed and mentioned; they enrich the discursive material of the novel, however they aren’t labored via in an argumentative method. On the one hand, because of this the texts stay pleasantly open and non-ideological. Even the place Meinecke quotes himself, for instance with feedback towards tendencies within the “newer identity discourses”, these are simply quotations amongst others, subjectively and traditionally located and due to this fact expressly launched for revision.

On the opposite hand, you additionally ask your self what it’s best to truly do with it now. Open your personal carrying bag and select what you take pleasure in from the 430 pages of “Odenwald”? There is certain to be one thing for everybody, such because the groundbreaking invention of the snow globe from the spirit of the oval rear window of a VW Beetle that obtained caught within the snow, the distinction between a romper and a jumpsuit or the musical play “The Treasure of Indian Joe”, written by the identical individual Adorno, who relentlessly rails towards jazz and is given quite a lot of area for it within the novel. You would not have to gather that for your self.

But is it meant that approach? Ultimately, Meinecke is anxious with the discourse. So when his novel, to present an instance, on the subject of trans women and men, which has been broadly and fairly excitedly mentioned for a while, presents various historic and present phenomena and cites varied, together with fairly vital, positions (Trans affirmiere truly the bipolar gender order, for instance): Should we then develop our personal place on this?

Or ought to we, within the sense of Meinecke’s idea of criticism, simply be aware of the entire thing neutrally as a modified discipline? What could be gained by that? And what about different doubtlessly controversial issues just like the quite a few compliments wherein characters within the novel, girls and female males, examine themselves with well-known folks in particular person physique components (“A bit like this French actress, but not quite as beautiful like you are.”)? Is this “uncharming, invasive, yes, invasive”? And then why in any respect?

Or the frequent use of the N-word, even the actually nasty one. This might be discovered, for instance, within the titles of the black, gay musician Eastman, and the continual citation nature permits Meinecke to incorporate it unchanged in his novel textual content – though he’s in fact conscious of the issue right here too. Does he wish to increase our discursive discipline with this choice? Should we chafe at it or loosen up? Or what else? In different phrases: Is this actual? an excessive amount of or maybe, quite the opposite, a bit too little?

Let me put it this fashion: In “Odenwald” Thomas Meinecke stays true to his themes, his literary method and postmodern principle. You nonetheless take pleasure in studying it and are available again from studying it enriched. And but one thing has modified: you possibly can say that the entire course of has come underneath uncommon strain because of the modified circumstances and you realize it, however you do not wish to defend your self.

The digital archives, the intensified discourses about id, gender and cultural appropriation, the menace to Western democracies, to not point out the local weather disaster (would not anybody discover this within the Odenwald but?): All of this appears to push for positioning, which Meinecke is conscious of refused.

Conversely, I’ve no intention of criticizing him from the angle of any present events within the discourse, to whose always-already-right nature his long-term literary-discursive undertaking provides a pleasing various. Perhaps what “Odenwald” says about relics finest applies to his novels: they’re “something like the messengers from a time in which everything, or at least something, could have ended differently.”