Daniel Mezger (CH)

The title of the novel excerpt “Bleib am Leben” [stay alive] by Daniel Mezger says it all. The jury did not agree about this story of the plea of a man who is leaving his wife and his subsequent begging her not to take her own life, “to stay alive”.

“Depressive mood”

Daniel Mezger’s oral presentation (the author is also an actor), was universally praised by the jury, but Alain Claude Sulzer also felt that it had put him in a “depressive mood”. The fact that the text was in the form of a monologue is an advantage, because with just one voice it can focus on what’s essential. “Very interesting and beautiful”, says Sulzer. But, so goes Sulzer’s not insignificant objection to the text: “It is too redundant, after three pages I know what it’s about. Stylistically there is nothing wrong with it, but I would have liked the text to be a little shorter.”

Author portrait
Reading
Discussion

Daniel Mezger (Bild: Johannes Puch)

“Topic not plausible”

According to Meike Feßmann, the topic, although interesting in itself (a couple separates and one of them threatens to kill herself) is “not plausible” in the form chosen by Mezger.

Feßmann: “A man does not keep begging a woman that he has left not to kill herself. It keeps creating a link to the one he wants to leave. What would be more plausible, would be a monologue of the woman begging him: don’t leave me. It failed, it doesn’t work that way”, Feßmann believes. Despite many counterarguments, she held on to her opinion until the end of the discussion. Finally, however, the audience voiced a feeling of unease at such pertinacity.

Cliché about living with depressives

Karin Fleischanderl initially also didn’t see anything positive about the text: “Harmless and inconsequential”, that’s what she called the text that was proposed by Burkhard Spinnen. The text “confirms every cliché there is about living with a depressive” and stylistically it is also “not perfect”.

Hubert Winkels (Bild: Johannes Puch)

“Catholic exorcism, analytically”

For Hubert Winkels, the urgent question was who the text was addressed to and whether it has “enough substance”. “It doesn’t work, neither with regard to content nor grammatically”, says Winkels. The monologue situation in particular is an essential problem of this literary “invocation”. His verdict: “Catholic exorcism, analytically”.

“Absurd descriptions”

Hildegard Elisabeth Keller pflichtete den Einwänden des Kollegen bei: Deshalb müsse der Text auch ständig Informationen für den Leser einbauen, was zu absurden Beschreibungen führe.

“Less theory, more practice”

“Less theory, more practice” was juror Paul Jandl’s defence: this is an artful and successful text, the tremolo of despair knows (almost) no kitsch. It is already extant, he believes, as an artificiality immanent in the text. To Meike Feßmann by way of explanation: “He can’t leave her or she will leave him – and forever.”

Meike Feßmann, Alain Claude Sulzer (Bild: Johannes Puch)

“A horrific trap”

Until then, Burkhard Spinnen, who had invited the author to Klagenfurt, listened to the discussion without getting much involved. Then: “The man is in a trap that he cannot escape from. A horrific, a ghastly matter – therefore my plea to all those present: never do such a thing!”

The position of the text is “quite clear”: “At the edge of the stage, someone is reciting a monologue”. Here and there, the text does fall into the “kitsch trap”, but it is nonetheless highly artificial and rhythmicised through and through, in order to give expression to the emotional trap.

Barbara Johanna Frank

TDDl 2010