Nina Bußmann (G) Jury discussion

As the first author of the second afternoon of reading, the German Nina Bußmann read the text "Große Ferien". She was invited to Klagenfurt by Paul Jandl. The jury praised her text.

Nina Bußmann (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Video portrait
Reading
Discussion

Intimacy becomes the teacher's undoing

Nina Bußmann's text "Große Ferien" tells of the intellectual intimacy between two "separate lives": The teacher"Schramm"  and his highly gifted pupil "Waidschmidt". An intimacy which for the teacher is eventually fatal. Schramm loses his job and has to look forward lies what always seemed to be inevitable: life as a lonely eccentric.

Feßmann: "well worked, thought through"

Meike Feßmann began by praising the young author for "writing and thinking" in relation to the world around her. This is "well worked, thought through". Behind it all is the basic philosophical idea that truth is never accessible to man.

Winkels: What is happening between them?

Hubert Winkels also liked it. The Text, which starts with the theme of weed destruction - which in principle appears to be about the re-establishment of order - has "great clarity", even though what happens between teacher and student is never explicitly stated.  Only the projections of the teacher are shown - he was very favourably impressed by the consistency of the text in this.

Alain Claude Sulzer (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Sulzer: Pornography in the text too literary

"It is clear", said Alain Claude Sulzer: The student will be picked up and taken to a hospital - that there had been an incident between the two could also be of the homoerotic nature.  He does have "a few problems" with the text, on the one hand the mother-son-relationship is a cliche ("as in Psycho"), and on the other hand it is disposed of in the text with rather "negligent" haste.  The attempt to portray pornography seemed to him "too literary".

Paul Jandl (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Spinnen: "Characters as abstract as mathematical figures"

Bernhard Spinnen also said that he is afraid that the teacher-pupil relationship is handled with a series of clichés. The people in the story could not develop freely. The characters seemed to him to be "abstract, like the teacher's mathematical figures". The text, an "experiment", reminded him of a scientist standing peacefully and with great control over his work. However, the text redeems its "enormous aspirations" "brilliantly". "The novel will be read", said Spinnen.

Burkhard Spinnen (Bild: Johannes Puch)

Jandl: "Extremely clever text"

Paul Jandl noted that there was an "erotic relationship" between the text and its language, from which he could quote page by page.  Everything has been constructed from the largest to the smallest elements. An "extremely clever text", rich in humanity down to the smallest detail. The teacher tries to "shape" his life and expects the same of everyone else - which is where the conflict begins. "The text sets the nuances is all the right places to stimulate the imagination of the reader", said Jandl, impressed.

Strigl: "Designs of the outsider"

Daniela Strigl noted that victim and perpetrator in the story were one, because it is the student who who almost sets it up.. The two were "mirror image" designs of an "outsider" Concluding, Strigl reminded the audience that the "game of clichés" has risks. The story of the teacher-pupil is one "often told", you can feel the danger which echoes here.

Barbara Johanna Frank

TDDL 2011