Christian Fries (G)

The afternoon continued with author Christian Fries, who was proposed by Paul Jandl. His text “Hutmacher, privat” [hatter, private] made the audience laugh – some of the jury members, however, didn’t find it funny at all.

A drama student and the divorce of the parents

Fries’ text tells the story of a drama student, a “psychosomatic existence” (Paul Jandl), who is being derailed emotionally by the late divorce of his parents, while his career is booming as a result of a role in a TV series. Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche also play “their” part in this text, which despite its humour is nonetheless philosophical.

Author portrait
Reading
Discussion

Winkels acts as a party pooper

Hubert Winkels was the first to act as a self-appointed “party pooper”, in the knowledge that this will disgruntle the audience: he nevertheless understood the text, as he explained, where one corny joke follows another, to be an “unsuccessful attempt” at drumming some humour into him. Although the text makes use of philosophical elements and various milieus, there is no “reference point” at all, no direction.

“After two pages I am no longer prepared to laugh”, and in the end he, Winkels, just feels “moody”.

Christian Fries (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Feßmann: “Teased out laughter”

“You can tell that the author is an actor”, said Meike Feßmann about the presentation, which was read from a music stand. It didn’t do the text any “damage”, in her view, and the laughter was practically “teased out” of the audience. When she read the text silently to herself she was “slightly astonished” given its “tone”: “namely how strangely things can unfold” – the serious undertone disappeared when the text was read out.

Jury (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Fleischanderl: “Jokes about sex”

“Superficially funny”, that’s what Karin Fleischanderl called the text. She herself didn’t see the “funny side” – and anyway, it’s easy to make jokes about sex in an “uptight world”. This “Wuchteldruckerei” was “too flippant” for her – and of course the Austrian juror had to translate the expression for her German colleagues: “punch line mongering”.

Sulzer: “No feel for characters”

Alain Claude Sulzer also had “a problem” with the text: “And that concerns the fact that the text has no feel for the characters.” The author evidently takes no “interest” in his characters, in any case, Sulzer doesn’t feel like they are being conveyed properly. He can’t help but feel that the author has collected various scenes from a large novel for Klagenfurt. 

Keller: “The presentation made the text more vivid”

For juror Keller, the text was made “much more vivid” by Fries’ presentation of it: you deal with a “wild first-person narrator” here, who lends focus to many different social phenomena  – current ones as well as non-current ones.

Burkhard Spinnen (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Jandl: “Reminiscent of grotesque Russian literature”

Paul Jandl thought he detected in his colleagues’ criticisms the well-known “fear of the critics” to be “entertained on too low a level”. The text reminded him of the grotesque Russian literature of the past century.

The first-person narrator, a “very naive and dazzling character” combines naivety and intellectualism. “An easy text that accommodates a lot”, said Jandl, and it should not be reproached for “making you laugh every so often”.

Spinnen: “Highlights put together for Klagenfurt“

Burkhard Spinnen made the serious accusation that the author put together “highlights” for Klagenfurt. “It reminds me a little of a cold platter with all the favourite canapés on it”, said Spinnen, who despite a degree of “partiality” also felt “deprived of a genuine excerpt” because of this.

What’s more, as a professional speaker, the author could present “twice as much text”.

Then author Christian Fries took the floor: by selecting the chapters he had merely tried to convey the “atmosphere” of the overall text.

Barbara Johanna Frank

TDDl 2010