Julia Schoch will present her novel "The Lovers of the Century" on March 1, 2023 in Munich's Seidlvilla.
A magical book about love.
Three words at the beginning.
I love you.
Three words at the end.
I leave you.
"As it stands, the most important thing in life can be said in very few words." What lies in between, all this bittersweet insanity of couple relationships, Julia Schoch thinks about thoroughly in her new novel "The Lovers of the Century".
Shortly before the beginning of spring: the big inventory of their relationship.
It's not just fidgeting, it's swept through, every feeling, every memory dusted off individually.
No corner of her heart is spared.
Julia Schoch asks the crucial question: stay or go?
And so Schoch does not spare her readers, who immediately apply the thoughts of love, devotion, loyalty, family and freedom to their own lives.
Because even the title "The Lovers of the Century" throws all the sugar-sweet, newly in love us-versus-the-rest-of-the-world-bunnies back to the biggest mistake of all us-versus-the-rest-of-the-world-bunnies: So Extraordinary, as every couple imagines at the beginning, it is in truth not.
Every being together is a path that billions have traveled before, billions will continue to travel: initially dancing tightly embraced, then holding hands next to each other, over time with plenty of distance, each for himself - how does it manage not to lose each other?
If the rose-colored glasses have become dull, no optician can help.
Then the only thing that helps is to be honest and ask the crucial questions: stay or go?
And if you stay, what next?
And if go: where?
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Bestselling author Julia Schoch wonders about love.
© Bogenberger author photos, 2022
Schoch poses these questions consistently, in clear language rich in images.
The woman who writes a farewell letter to her equally nameless husband is nameless.
The names of the two children (“the younger one”, “the older one”), whether they are boys or girls, are also irrelevant.
Precisely because it is about love itself, this almost incomprehensible thing - feeling, condition, construct.
What Influences Who We Love?
No cupid shooting arrows.
But also the environment in which we grew up.
Schoch sets her protagonists in the former GDR, and so this is also a German-German story.
The 48-year-old intelligently analyzes the contradiction that modern Westerners are struggling with, especially those who have suddenly tumbled to freedom from a dictatorial state.
Wouldn't it be easier to love(i)live in a time of external constraints?
"At such a time you know that someone else is responsible for your own unhappiness.
Well, in the world of total freedom, it was just a private matter, and that was mine.” Had she, who fell almost obsessively in love with her present husband during her student years, perhaps all her life confused the longing for a collective with love?
"In any case, I've never heard of anyone saying on their deathbed:
"The Lovers of the Century" is part two of Julia Schoch's trilogy
But their chronological processing of the shared memories never turns into a prosperity lament.
She laconically lists them, all the evolutionary stages of a relationship.
Like the mattress thing.
At the beginning bed width 1.20 meters.
Then 1.40, 1.60, finally: 1.80.
Sometimes a lifetime lies between 1.20 meters and 1.80 meters.
But the narrator finds her way back to herself through the simmering of her hot love.
"One thing is certain: I was closer to myself.
But that also meant: I was further away from you.
As it stands, emancipation is the death of love.” Extremely exciting: Is this loss or liberation?
And who even talks about “shared” memories?
How, this thought goes through the sender of this farewell letter and the reader at the same time - how would the addressee tell about all this?
"Even though men and women sleep on the same pillow, they have different dreams," wrote Genghis Khan.
The broad topic of communication is also dealt with in detail in this second part of Schoch's trilogy on marriage and family.
Book one, The Incident, is alluded to, but you don't need to know it to follow this woman's heart and mind.
With a smile of understanding, one remembers loved ones who have been loved.
And if you are in the middle of a relationship that somehow no longer feels like the love of the century, you will finally find in the astute text: confidence.
As in real life, it is worth
Julia Schoch: "The lovers of the century".
dtv, Munich, 192 p.;
22 euros.
Reading: Julia Schoch will present her book on March 1, 2023, 7.30 p.m. in Munich's Seidlvilla, Nikolaiplatz 1B;
Tickets on phone 089/1290 677.
