Elke Heidenreich
My top title of the week is »Eurotrash« by Christian Kracht. The book is through, so to speak. It appeared at the beginning of March and was discussed in all the major newspapers. But probably not everyone has read it yet, because Christian Kracht is considered a very eccentric author and you may be afraid. Do not be afraid! »Eurotrash«, the title means »trivial dirt«, in art and in life. So, at night with sunglasses in the disco, that’s »Eurotrash«. Or everything that the Geissens show us with their obscene money and their pompous, tasteless lifestyle on television, that is »Eurotrash«. Kracht is also about wealth, but in a completely different way. It’s about a very rich family. And we readers at least assume that this is his family. But be careful: Kracht is a world champion alternating between fiction and reality.
In any case, the reality in his case is the hatred of Switzerland, which he believes is a country that has been decrepit and neglected by money. Switzerland gets a lot of its weight in this book. It’s a bit like Thomas Bernhard’s with Austria. He always hit the jackpot in Austria. The author Christian Kracht became famous 25 years ago with a novel called Fiber Land. It was a kind of road movie from Sylt to Zurich. It started with the word “also”. And this book, too, begins with the word “also”. It starts in Zurich. “Well, I had to go to Zurich for a few days again.” That is the first sentence. So in a way we are dealing with the continuation of a road movie. And at that time “Fiberland” was pretty much panned. And now the last snooty feuilleton writer has understood that we are dealing with a great author at Christian Kracht.
The story: A young man, his name is Christian Kracht, visits his mother in Zurich. But at the moment she is in psychiatry in Winterthur. She is alcoholic, a bit demented, maybe sometimes because of loneliness, but more likely. And when she’s not in psychiatry, she lives in her luxurious but shabby apartment on Zurich’s Gold Coast and lives on vodka, cheap white wine, frozen food and sleeping pills. The son and mother decide to take a little trip through Switzerland. And maybe you also want to go to Munich. Maybe you also want to go to Africa. First they drive to the bank and withdraw 600,000 Swiss francs from the multi-million dollar account. They are put in a plastic bag and are now widely distributed in the area. The taxi driver gives you a couple of bills, of course a thousand bills. And then the mother says: “But there is no tip.” And the taxi driver notices that there is a lot to be picked up here and won’t leave them out during the whole trip. Wherever you are, it will be there when you leave. He stays on their heels, so to speak. The journey leads to the outside and inside, the outside of Switzerland and the inside of this broken family, destroyed by money and a Nazi past. The mother suddenly tells the son that she was molested as a child. The son says that he was also abused in boarding school. They come closer.
It is a form of closeness and love, but it is also very cold because one is already so destroyed. You can research that, that’s really true, the father was a top manager at Axel Springer and made an incredible amount of money, but he was a parvenu, had no taste or skill to do anything with this money. A bit like the Geissens. And all the time you think: is this all true? Is it not true But it does not matter. It’s about the feelings between son and mother and sometimes it gets really grotesque. For example, you take a cogwheel train to the “Col du Pillon” in French-speaking Switzerland and three Indian women are sitting up there and are making a snack. And the mother says: “Oh God, India, everyone is so poor there. They have some money here. ”And takes a few packages of bills out of her plastic bag. It puts 60,000, 80,000 Swiss francs in front of the completely perplexed Indian women. And then there is a gust of wind and all the money flies away into the valleys and over the mountains. Fiction? Reality? Go there yourself and see if you can find a few more bills. It’s not important. It is a novel with a completely enchanted mood, out of grief, attempted love, in a brave …, despite a life that has become so insane, meaningless because of money.
And for me it is the best, »Eurotrash« by Christian Kracht, that you can read in German literature at the moment. And that’s why, although already discussed everywhere, my top title this week.
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