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Disturbing insights into the everyday lives of others: »Everything that has ever mattered to her exists in digital form«
Photo: Luis Julien/EyeEm/Getty Images
Two monitors light up before Fanni's eyes. Ecstatically she observes a burglary and shares her excitement when the masked perpetrator strikes his victim for the first time. On another screen, she watches a family having dinner. It is this addiction to crossing borders that Philipp Winkler explores in his new novel »Creep«. He contrasts it with the deep-rooted desire for control in a hypermodern world – and exposes it as illusory.
This isn't the first time the Lower Saxon has written about outsiders. Already in his successful debut »Hool«, his characters, who belonged to the violent football scene, were angry and felt left out. Winkler once again proves his penchant for extreme literary situations. In his new book, he paints a picture of a digital future with apocalyptic features: people there are under constant observation, data protection no longer exists. »Creep« has two protagonists who never meet in the course of the story: Fanni in Germany and Junya in Japan. Both are at odds with reality - and are looking for salvation in the dark web.
"Everything that has ever meant anything to her exists in digital form," the readers learn about Fanni, who, as an employee of the security company "BELL", evaluates intimate video material from customers every day.
They traded their privacy for a sense of security and had surveillance cameras installed in their homes.
Fanni sees everything in these shots: “Customers squeezing a pimple in front of the hallway mirror and trying the spray […], customers masturbating, customers cheating, customers generally having sex.”
Stalking at the dinner table
However, she develops a secret obsession with a very specific family.
When the Naumann family gathers around the dinner table, they are used to keeping them digitally company.
"Now we're going to feast," she whispers as soon as she sits alone in front of her computer on the company premises and can watch her favorite family undisturbed.
Even as a child, she consumed disturbing videos on the Internet and is now consumed by a thirst for sensations, which she quenches with the help of other people's recordings: »Whenever she sees open lines in a construction site, she thinks of charred corpses.
Her thoughts are always on the Internet.«
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Winkler, Philip
Creep: Roman
Publisher: construction
Number of pages: 342
Publisher: construction
Number of pages: 342
Buy for €22.00
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Meanwhile, in Japan, Junya harbors revenge.
Flashbacks to his school days reveal old pains that he hopes to alleviate through physical violence.
His dearest wish is not to be a victim anymore.
In order to fulfill it, every means is right for him.
Junya gives the title of the book its meaning: He is a real "creep" who climbs into strangers' houses and watches people as they sleep.
People he thinks deserve pain too.
Throughout his school years, Junya suffered bullying from classmates, leaving him with a "treasure chest of humiliating memories."
The only remedy is burglary - when he unlocks a door lock he feels »satisfied«.
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It is a life story that is above all sad, riddled with depression and fear: "She called me a sticking out nail and that you had to hammer me in to fit," Junya once recalled his mother's words.
The fates of Fanni and Junya are so similar that while reading the book one might expect their paths to cross - but until the end they only run parallel to each other.
Into the unbearable
Winkler manages again to shake with his words. Despite all the brutality that emanates from his two characters, he focuses on their tragic experiences of humiliation so skillfully that there is almost empathy for their atrocities. The entertaining book also surprises with ironic passages: for example, when Fanni meets her former school friend again and describes her as "borderline mute" because of something trivial. While the excessive use of Anglicisms can still contribute to the credibility of a hypermodern age, reading without an affinity for computer technology or IT jargon can sometimes stumble over language barriers.
Nevertheless, the book develops a pull effect.
The perfidious stalking scenes are almost unbearable.
However, Winkler describes the desperate life of his protagonists so vividly that one is happy to expose oneself to them.
His talent for letting the reader see into the heart of his characters is apparent on every page.
Not least in sentences like this: Junya "crept back to his room, slipped under the covers and continued to hate himself."