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Elke Heidenreich, author and book critic
Dagmar Leupold has written a wonderful book.
I got my hands on it by accident and couldn't stop reading.
"On the other hand, the elephants," they say.
It was published by Jung und Jung Verlag, and the title is a bit strange.
But the book also tells about a very strange person - Mr. Harald.
Herr Harald is the man who takes the coat check in the opera, from the balcony at the top left.
And he's been doing that all his life.
And when he's not at the opera, he's also exchanged for the Philharmonic or a concert hall and accepts the coats there.
He takes it and he smells drippings or perfume.
He sees worn hems, missing buttons.
He looks at the people and then he sits down on his stool and learns Italian from an Italian book.
The book ended up being left in the cloakroom.
Mr. Harald is always dressed like a charm.
He's wearing a white, ironed shirt, although he's wearing a smock over it and you can only see the collar.
He wears white gloves, partly so he doesn't have to touch all the coats, partly because he has eczema on his hands.
He lives alone and we now experience his everyday life.
An everyday life characterized by rituals.
Very specific steps, very specific projects.
Today launderette, today shopping.
And little by little we realize how lonely Mr. Harald is.
Once he sees an animal film about the life of elephants and then he thinks: »Well, on the other hand, the elephants, they have a big social life.
I don't actually.« And in the evening he's happy when he finds his pajamas under the covers.
So there is someone waiting for him.
Sometimes flashes through
And I love the eccentrics in literature, the Oblomovs, the good-for-nothings.
I really like reading stuff like that.
And as Dagmar Leupold describes it, so lovingly, so thoroughly, so precisely, down to the finest ramifications, how Mr. Harald survives a subway ride with too many people and how he tries to frame his life so that he can endure it, by having all these rituals.
And now two very unusual things are happening in Mr. Harald's life.
The first is that he kind of falls in love with turning the pages on the podium when there's a pianist.
There sits a girl with foal-colored hair.
He thinks to himself that her name could be Marie or Johanna.
And she gets just as little attention as he does.
She's the woman who just sits there, in flat shoes in a black dress, and who carefully turns the page when the pianist has come to the page below.
She never gets noticed, she never gets applause, just like him with his coats.
And the second thing that happens: One day a coat gets stuck and Mr Harald thinks for a long time and waits a long time.
Who does this coat belong to?
Did he remember who had it on and let it hang down, a trench coat.
This person doesn't answer, he takes the coat off the hook at the end.
And he realizes the bag is heavy and he puts his hands in it and there's a revolver in it.
And now something is being spun out of love for this turning page, out of this revolver.
What does he do with it, he takes it home.
It's just a blank gun and his whole life gets a bit uneasy with that stuff.
I don't want to reveal how it ends either, unless it doesn't end well.
And I loved reading this book so much because it's the opposite of me.
It's slow, it's thorough, it's very attentive, it's very loving and I was deeply touched by how Dagmar Leupold described this poor person to whom a door closer said: »There is life with a waltz, and there is life without a waltz.« His life is a life without a waltz, but he tries to make the best of it.
»On the other hand, the elephants« by Dagmar Leupold.
And while I was reading that, I remembered another book that came out three years ago, by the Swiss writer Alain Claude Sulzer, who is also a dear friend of mine.
But that's not why I'm presenting the book, it also describes an oddball.
"Unacceptable conditions" are those in which Mr. Stettler... Now I have to check, is his real name Stettler?
At that moment, I'm afraid that I'll call him the name... but his name is Stettler, in other words, where Herr Stadler finds himself, the "untenable circumstances."
Stettler has been decorating the large windows with mannequins for a department store for years.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter look different.
Easter comes with bunnies, Christmas comes with angels.
But times are changing.
The circumstances have become unbearable.
Suddenly the Viet Cong flag flies over the church.
The year is 1968 and bunnies and strikes against the Vietnam War no longer go together and his world is also gradually crumbling.
And this lonely Stettler has a love too.
He falls in love with a radio pianist and he writes her letters and that's how it comes out.
And that doesn't end well either.
You have to be able to describe the oddballs in literature without getting boring, because they are the people we never notice.
And that's exactly what literature is there for, to tell us about these people so impressively and lovingly, as these two authors have done here.
Dagmar Leupold, »Against the Elephants«, Young and Young.
And Alain Claude Sulzer, »Unsustainable Conditions«, published by Galiani.
And now let's see what's floating around on the bestseller list:
This week, Sibylle Berg's novel "RCE" - short for #RemoteCodeExecution - lands on number ten.
In it, five hackers program to save the world – it is the literary continuation of their dystopia »GRM - Brainfuck«.
We stick to the hyper-nervous feeling of the present and stick to the blueprint for the world revolution – Sibylle Berg doesn't do it below that.
In ninth place, it's all about the little things in life that bring joy in an analog way.
This time, prolific writer Carsten Henn delights his fans with the feel-good book »The Story Baker«.
And indeed, the author dedicates himself to the art of baking bread.
Another feel-good book drops two places to eight: The Roman in Lavender Colors, which is also called »Lonely Heart« in the German edition.
Mona Kasten is the author of the »Scarlet Luck« series.
In the first part we experience the love story of Rosie and Adam.
She web radio host, he drummer and there should be a happy ending.
Also tumbled down two places.
The successful author duo Micky Beisenherz and Sebastian Fitzek.
Your thriller comedy, as the genre is apparently called, is »write or die«.
This week on the seven.
A new entry directly in sixth place: Renate Bergmann, her online grandmother, is actually known as the Twitter account @renatebergmann.
In "Then we'll just leave off the electric blanket," the fictional character gives tips on how to save money and lots of other wisdom - also successfully in book form.
This week, the Scotsman Martin Walker falls from the three to the five with his 14th case for the French commissioner Bruno: »Tête-à-Tête« is the name of the novel.
This time it's about an unsolved murder case in which archaeological reconstructions play a major role.
The bestselling author Ildikó von Kürthy remains on the list very consistently.
»Tomorrow can come«, the so-called women's novel about the courage to change, comes in pink.
It is about new beginnings and new beginnings and how to master them.
Also this week on the four.
The second new entry of the week comes from Uwe Tellkamp, who caused a sensation in 2008 with his novel »Der Turm«.
At 900 pages, his follow-up novel »The Sleep in Your Ears« is just as massive as its predecessor and, for some reviewers, simply unreadable.
Every reader has to decide for themselves whether this is actually the case.
The three of the week.
And Wacker auf der Zwei remains the celebrated Elke Heidenreich novel »A Question of Chemistry« this week.
The debut novel by the American Bonnie Garmus tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, who creatively asserts herself in the male world in the sixties.
And also unchanged in first place of the week: monkey heat.
By the author duo Klüpfel and Kobr.
After the last case involving the quirky Allgäu inspector Kluftinger was on the bestseller list for what felt like a whole year, the new thriller once again grabs a comfortable place on the list.
In the new case, Kluftinger meets the primeval monkey Udo.
