Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Translations
- Introduction to the Contemporary Short Story in German
- 1 Berlin Shorts: The German Capital in the Short Story of the Twenty-First Century
- 2 The German Crime Story in the Twenty-First Century
- 3 Performance, Performativity, and the Contemporary German Kurzgeschichte
- 4 Cramped Spaces, Creative Bottlenecks: Sudabeh Mohafez’s Das Zehn-Zeilen-Buch and the Short-Short
- 5 Bodo Kirchhoff’s Widerfahrnis: A Novelle for Our Time?
- 6 The Liminal Space of the Short Story: Clemens Meyer’s Die Nacht, die Lichter and Die stillen Trabanten
- 7 Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann’s Lettipark
- 8 Of Unhomed Subjects and Unsettled Voices: Alois Hotschnig’s Die Kinder Beruhigte Das Nicht
- 9 Authorial Development and Fluid Spaces in the “Complete Stories”: Peter Stamm’s Der Lauf Der Dinge
- 10 On Disappearing: Reading Ulrike Almut Sandig with Sylvia Bovenschen
- 11 Metamorphic Becomings: Yoko Tawada’s Opium Für Ovid: Ein Kopfkissenbuch Von 22 Frauen
- 12 Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry
- 13 Rhizomatic Wanderings: The Writings of Gabriele Petricek
- 14 Trends and Issues in the Contemporary German-Language Short Story
- Appendix: Contemporary German-Language Short Stories in Translation
- Bibliography of Primary Texts
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
7 - Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann’s Lettipark
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Translations
- Introduction to the Contemporary Short Story in German
- 1 Berlin Shorts: The German Capital in the Short Story of the Twenty-First Century
- 2 The German Crime Story in the Twenty-First Century
- 3 Performance, Performativity, and the Contemporary German Kurzgeschichte
- 4 Cramped Spaces, Creative Bottlenecks: Sudabeh Mohafez’s Das Zehn-Zeilen-Buch and the Short-Short
- 5 Bodo Kirchhoff’s Widerfahrnis: A Novelle for Our Time?
- 6 The Liminal Space of the Short Story: Clemens Meyer’s Die Nacht, die Lichter and Die stillen Trabanten
- 7 Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann’s Lettipark
- 8 Of Unhomed Subjects and Unsettled Voices: Alois Hotschnig’s Die Kinder Beruhigte Das Nicht
- 9 Authorial Development and Fluid Spaces in the “Complete Stories”: Peter Stamm’s Der Lauf Der Dinge
- 10 On Disappearing: Reading Ulrike Almut Sandig with Sylvia Bovenschen
- 11 Metamorphic Becomings: Yoko Tawada’s Opium Für Ovid: Ein Kopfkissenbuch Von 22 Frauen
- 12 Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry
- 13 Rhizomatic Wanderings: The Writings of Gabriele Petricek
- 14 Trends and Issues in the Contemporary German-Language Short Story
- Appendix: Contemporary German-Language Short Stories in Translation
- Bibliography of Primary Texts
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
JUDITH HERMANN'S Sommerhaus, später (1998; The Summer House, Later, 2001) was a major event on the German literary scene of the late 1990s. This volume collected short stories representing the alternative, neo-bohemian lifestyle through which twenty-somethings revitalized Berlin's empty center after the fall of the Wall. Hermann's minimalistic, laconic narration, her settings, seemingly familiar from the reader's own experience, and the ensemble of characters that might live next door in the real world had a pleasing effect on readers taxed by previous developments in German writing. Despite intensive discussion in the arts pages of newspapers, the self-reflexive, hyper-complex, and often theory-driven writings of Peter Handke or Botho Strauß (among others) did not attract the attention of a larger public. In view of this alienation between writers and (potential) readers, Hermann's short stories were perceived as a revitalizing contrast. In the TV show “Literarisches Quartett” (Literary Quartet)—then more influential for the German literary scene than any other media production—Hellmuth Karasek singled out Hermann's book as the “sound of a new generation,” praise that Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who was known for his rigorous judgments, echoed.
Hermann's subsequent collections struggled to meet the expectations raised by Sommerhaus, später. Nichts als Gespenster (2003; Nothing but Ghosts, 2005) seemed to start from a comparable point by assembling short stories presenting everyday people in everyday situations in a slow, unpretentious language recalling the spoken word. Some critics were still positive, but no response was as euphoric as in the case of Sommerhaus später. With the publication of Alice (2008), a collection of five stories each confronting a female protagonist with the death of a male character, critics increasingly expressed boredom with Hermann's “sound,” a trend that continued with the publication of her first novel, Aller Liebe Anfang (2014; Where Love Begins, 2016).
This increasingly skeptical reception culminated in the reception of Hermann's most recent collection, Lettipark (2016; Letti Park, 2018). The book seemed to apply exactly the same narrative strategy as Sommerhaus, später almost two decades previously: seventeen only loosely connected, very short stories (six to twelve pages each) allude to the reader's real world, encapsulating the emptiness, isolation, and loneliness experienced by mainly female characters.
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- The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century , pp. 137 - 155Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020