Daniel Wisser (A) jury discussion

Daniel Wisser from Kärnten read his text "Standby" as the third author on the first day of reading. In terms of "taste" the jury could not reach agreement here.

Daniel Wisser (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Video portrait
Reading
Discussion

Winkels: "inconsistent text"

"The exaggerated portrait of a petty bourgeois individual," Hubert Winkels described Wisser's story. The passive form chosen for the text is played out "quite consistentlyquence", but is interrupted in a pattern that puzzled him. Therefore this text can also be called "inconsistent".   Here the author wants to illustrate the "standby existence" of his protagonists with the chosen "monotone" style.

Hubert Winkels (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Strigl: "sinister protagonist"

Daniela Strigl was of a very different opinion. The protagonists have something sinister about them, fantically orderly are secretly aggressive, which she found disturbing reading. His apparent "animistic " skills, with which he could wish for the death of other people, reminded her of the character "Adrian Monk". She feels Wisser's text is reiminiscent of Wilhelm Genazino or Michel Houellebecq.

Daniela Striegl (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Keller: "Immanent sinister dimension"

Hildegard E. Keller also noted the sinister dimension inherent in the text as a positive aspect.  This shows more of the reality  of the here and now, "than we could possibly wish", as clearly shown by the successful presentation of the author, who had the text repeatedly interrupted by short pauses and sometimes recited from memory, said Keller. At the same time the great effort of the text; its artificiality should be noted.  

Spinnen: wrong conjunctive

Burkhard Spinnen could not and would not agree: the text added nothing to its chosen genre, "apart from the call centre".  OK, the use of the passive tense here makes it clear that the subject has slipped into passivity.  The "wrong conjunctive" has however in part thrown the text out of the pattern.

"This text has only one exit", said Spinnen, later describing its sentences as "wooden, mechanical". One easily noticea the text's transposition into passive and just like in school is therefore tempted to say: "Do it properly once". You almost want to think that the "bad atmosphere" also follows from the "bad form".

Comparison far-fetched 

All comparisons with Genazino or Houellebecq were indeed "far-fetched," Meike Feßmann said of Strigl's comparison. This "passive" is nothing but an excuse for a style of "shocking simplicity"  "A conglomeration of misantrhopy and the simplest of ideas", the passive holding the whole thing as a "roof" together, and nothing more, said Feßmann.

Strigl: "language in no way simple" 

Strigl intervened again to defend her approach: The language was in no way "simple", its passive construction would "extend" the things "affected" in the text.  This is about a "machine-like existence". "It deserves the language that it gets", said Strigl. Her only small objections were to the exaggeration of this "eccentricity". Overall, however, one must recognize the power of the text.

Paul Jandl (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Jandl: "Not a seminar for clinical psychologists"

"This is not a seminar for clinical psychologists," judge Paul Jandl countered to the objections made by his colleagues.  It is clear from Wisser's text that it has more to do with an aesthetic experiment than a psychological one. The subject is brought to become an object through the passive tense, "precisely" executed with its own "very distinctive grammar". Under the machine-like existence  "the heart still throbs"  - that is "designed very cleverly".

Spinnen: "Fighting talk"

"A fight back to back," Spinnen finally  described the discussion, where the jury did not quite agree about the quality of the text - though probably that it was a "matter of taste" whether one liked Wissers text, or not.

Barbara Johanna Frank

TDDL 2011