Antonia Baum (G) Jury discussion

As the last author of the first days reading Antonia Baum (G) read the text "Perfectly lifeless, at best dead”.

Antonia Baum (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Video portrait
Reading
Discussion

Narrator feels lifeless

"Constantly hit" Antonia Baum's characters move through the text "perfectly lifeless, at best dead”. The feelings of the narrator, whose parents she was “never" had "allowed to get to know", who also barely tolerates the hypocritical family idyll with her stepmother and father. The text which is an escape from this disastrous family constellation has an equally unhappy ending.

Strigl: "Hopefully, no Bernhard parody"

"I hope this will not be a Thomas Bernhard parody", began Daniela Strigl, "if it is not then the text must have been so named by accident". The imitation of Thomas Bernhard 's style structures the text, which it is not missing "satirical verve" in places, which is why in some places it is liked exceptionally well.  However, in others it was lost ("His teeth were like a house"), another problem is the predictability of the punch lines (Hitler).  Good ideas would be wasted, the story suffering on the indecision.

Alain Claude Sulzer drew parallels to the previously read text, it is good to maintain here that the "irritability of the person" is also transferred into the language and the development of the character is thus more interesting.

Keller: Stream of consciousness from handkerchief pile"

Hildegard E. Keller contradicted, that the "leap" in the story was incomprehensible. The first part the story is highly charged and puts a lot of energy on the day, which they have actually discussed considerably. However, the character fights the urge to get out of the home and out into the world, in the second part.

Hildegard E. Keller (Bild: Johannes Puch)

"An underpowered something", a "stream of consciousness from the handkerchief-pile", says Keller.

For Meike Feßmann the text is about that "little bit angry teenage girl" who has not yet found the "way from the belly" and also it is "totally unaware" in terms of its "literary means".

Meike Feßmann (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Strigl defends author

Daniela Strigl grabbed the defensive here: It is insulting to the author if you assume that she is not aware of her means.

But also Jandl said to have recognized only "bloopers," "rolled-out " and "broken" images as well as "convoluted metaphors".

Winkels: "Late adolescent perspective"

It is almost "over precise" to mention at all the linguistic proximity to Thomas Bernhard, began Hubert Winkels in his submissions to the text. Everything betraying the late adolescent perspective, the fundamental world-rejection of the character of the reader.

It is legitimate not to like this style principle, claiming it to happen "unconsciously", one should however not. The idea that love can work in general, is the starting point of female anger. It is "A compact aesthetic unity", whose means were recognized - proximity to Thomas Bernhard should not always be negative.

"Had Thomas Bernhard been a woman and 18, he would have written a text so", said Paul Jandl, Sulzer added that the text when read by the author gained in importance for him. "It sounds better recited, otherwise I may as well read Thomas Bernhard".

Burkhard Spinnen (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Spinnen: "seriously in need of repair"

Finally Burkhard Spinnen was happy to have held his message back up to this time. Falling in love with a text or a human, are not completely explainable: "Do we have to continually psychologize?" He had read the text several times in view of the "younger generation" which to some extent are "no longer compatible" at seeing the present.

The text was in places "seriously in need of repair", the literary work and the atmosphere eventually went into self-sufficiency. "That overflowed", said Spinnen.

Barbara Johanna Frank

TDDL 2011