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Read more with Elke Heidenreich: Elias Hirschl's »Salonable« follows »American Psycho«

2022-01-23T16:38:44.926Z


A callous politician with perfect styling: while reading the satirical novel »Salon able«, Elke Heidenreich has Sebastian Kurz in mind. And the classic »American Psycho«.


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Elke Heidenreich

I always want to introduce you to an older book and a new one, so that you don't forget the older ones either. The older one, I'll start with it today, is 30 years old, was published in the USA in 1991, was immediately very controversial, then came to Germany in 1995 from Kiepenheuer & Witsch Verlag and was immediately on the index. It couldn't be sold. Kiepenheuer & Witsch complained, it took a long time, but in 2001 we were able to publish the book without any problems and it sparked huge controversy.

Namely, it is Bret Easton Ellis' »American Psycho«, now almost a classic. I only have the paperback edition. I loaned the other one out and, as always, didn't get it back, so I got the paperback edition. I couldn't continue reading at some points in this book at the time because it was so cruel. I had to skip a few scenes, it was so sadistic, it was murderous and cannibalistic and I kinda don't need to know how to chain saw a previously tormented woman into pieces in order to eat her.

The book was scary and still breathtaking, even though I couldn't really read all the pages. I'd never seen anything like it and I've defended it unflinchingly against vehement criticism because it's still a great book. It's about a brisk New York investment banker named Patrick Bateman, who also tells the story himself. And he juggles millions and billions every second on Wall Street every day. And that does something to him. His whole world consists only of externals. Expensive apartments, most expensive clothes, all branded goods, of course, the hippest clubs. Everything is on the surface and underneath it is the darkest emptiness, which he eventually fills with violence, sadistic excesses, with more and more drugs, even to the point of murder. It's called compensation, a nightmare. And yet,it all seemed possible and consistently thought through to me. These are the perversions of turbo-capitalism that do things like this to people, destroying all values ​​until only the surface remains.

And then I've now re-read Elias Hirschl >>Salonable<<. That was published by Zsolnay. Not nearly as brutal. No sadism, but the next generation, which is only the surface. I call them the slim fit generation. While reading, I only ever had Sebastian Kurz in front of me. In his skimpy suits. And that's exactly what seems to be meant. He is the protagonist of the Slim Fit generation. We are in Austria. We are dealing with an unnamed man from the entourage of the smart young, youngest Chancellor ever. He could be his double. Like his role model, he combs his hair back nicely and gels it. He wears the same suits, the same shirts, the same ties. In front of the mirror, he practices laughing and talking like Julius Varga, that's the name of the guy in the book, the leader of the Junge Mitte party.And he perfects his appearance beyond recognition, until everything is just a facade. And, says the author Elias Hirschl, one of these very young authors, who were all born in the nineties, in an interview, "the only thing missing is the sponsor's logo on the tie."

The first-person narrator has an important function in the party, very important, he sorts the mail for the Junge Mitte Ottakring, that's shit, and he waters the party leader's flowers in his huge, expensive apartment. And he's there so often that he's beginning to fantasize that it's his apartment, and he also has a rhetoric coach who advised him: "Look for your idol, find your idol, become your idol." Yes, and imitate then your idol until there is nothing left of you and you have copied his behavior perfectly. We experience here that it is not politically ambitious, interested and educated people who go into politics, but phrasemongers with art, meaningless rhetoric, perfect styling and practiced gestures. And again, as with Bret Easton Ellis, brands count. Wearing the wrong socksis out soon. And here, too, it is part of the excessive long-term coke. Reality is only rudimentary. There is no murder, but there is cheating, disregard and people talk about starving people or drowning refugees as if they were talking about their tax returns.

And the whole book makes you shudder at toxic masculinity, empty brains and rotten power structures. It's easier to read than Easton Elis because it's ultimately more satirical. A brilliant satire that shows what remains of political people when you peel the people out and only put the rhetorical and fashionable shell. No emotions, no humanity, incapable of empathy. With Bret Easton Ellis in the eighties. And here it is the millennials who deeply shock the reader, although our hero in Hirschl repeatedly resolves to see women first and foremost as people. Yes, thank you too.

This book is really worth checking out.

Maybe we should give it to a few politicians who look in the mirror while reading.

They like to do it anyway – career instead of biography.

And then Elias Hirschel would deserve to be on the bestseller list.

And who's on it, let's see now:

A new entry in 10th place: The bestselling author Hanya Yanagihara had landed a worldwide success with »A Little Life« six years ago.

Today she's going into the race with »Zum Paradies«.

On almost 1000 pages, she writes, so to speak, three novels for the price of one about the lost American dream.

The place of action always remains the same.

A house in Washington Square in New York connects all three parts.

This week »Stay away from Gretchen«, the novel by Susanne Abel about the news presenter Tom, who finds out about his mother's impossible love, has slipped to 9 and is still holding its place in the top ten.

And with this title, entertainer and media jack-of-all-trades Jürgen von der Lippe creates a direct entry to the 8: "Sex is like flour," the work is called, and the comedian reveals exactly what that means in, as it is called, stories and glosses.

The village and corona novel by Brandenburg resident Juli Zeh remains on the bestseller list.

»About People«, last year's best-selling novel, this week in the 7th edition.

Descending from the 3 to the 6 for »the granddaughter« by Bernhard Schlink: After he suddenly found his alcoholic, depressed wife dead in the bathtub, the bookseller Wettner went in search of clues in East Germany.

Here he meets a lot of Nazis and, as the book title suggests, his granddaughter.

The new case of Karl Mørck and the special department Q shows how difficult it is to investigate in times of the pandemic. The thriller "Natriumchlorid" by Jussi Adler Olsen is about a killer who has been murdering for 30 years without being discovered.

The Dane with the murky case this week at the 5.

Fourth place goes back to actor Edgar Selge: Auto-fiction is what Selge is doing with his debut »Have you finally found us«.

From the point of view of a twelve-year-old, he describes what it's like to grow up just a few meters from a prison with the prison warden as your father.

After the successful Christmas business, Sebastian Fitzek moves down another place to 3: his »playlist« remains accessible across media.

A thriller here, an online game or music album there.

There is a version for every buyer.

Literary-criminal it is in second place. Bestselling author Nele Neuhaus tells the tenth case of the investigator duo Sander and Bodenstein: This time it is about the murder of a publishing house employee, who was fired after 30 years.

»In eternal friendship<<, the 1 of the previous week, gives up the top spot to a new entry directly from Paris.

Michel Houellebecq, the enfant terrible of contemporary literature, catapults himself straight to number 1. »Annihilate« is the title of the new work in which Paul Raison, an employee at the Treasury Department, loses his wife to an esoteric movement while his boss is running for the 2027 presidential elections.

Houellebecq is once again concerned with the decline of France, but this time with an unusually large number of nuances.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-01-23

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