Heimito von Doderer I - Personal Intro

As you might have guessed already, I love to read. Fortunately there was a time in my life when I could do it a lot. Reading was an essential part of my youth when I was still a member of the proletariat and not yet had become a member of the precariate. In the German society of the 1970s, when the status of your father defined your cognitive abilities for your teachers, literature was the only voice that spoke to you freely and considered you reasonable and smart enough to connect you with ideas and ideals. 

No book ever said to me: "Oh, your father does read books? I thought he would be a worker ..." or "Ah, really? You passed this exam? Hm, well, maybe you are not as downright silly as we all have been thinking here." or "Your opinion can not be considered here, as you do not have the background and education that can confirm you would have anything valuable in your brain." Books just told me what they had to tell, and delighted me with opinions and insights, that allowed me to extend my personal horizon and asked me to think and develop. 

After working myself through the German and European classics - and of course through the Scripture - in my teenage years I discovered more contemporary writing. The start was  difficult for me, because at school we began with Walther von der Vogelweide, jumped directly to J.W. v. Goethe, scratched Th. Storm and then ended up with German WWII and post WWII writers, which occupied us for 6 of 8 years in secondary schools. I never developed the necessary insight to dwell on that for so long and it even annoyed me, that this was not only the favorite topic in literature lessons, but also in those of history, civics and religion. 

The constant recapitulation of cruel, inhuman and stupid actions of a whole folks that I had to consider my own and the even more constant efforts from teachers to make us feel guilty made me angry. Especially because descendants of former concentration camp prisoners were still considered suspects.

Despite all this it so happened that I had a long conversation with a very old lady about literature. She had a lot of knowledge (for German readers: and a family background, proper education, a university degree etc. etc.) and we felt very happy with each other, because we had a lot to share. She had shown me some books she possessed, with handwritten personal dedications from Thomas Mann, Johannes Bobrowski and others when she said suddenly: "Unquestionably you have read Heimito von Doderer." I confessed I had never heard of this author, which made her smile.

"You have to." she decided. "You will fall in love with his writing. Start with the "Strudlhofstiege" and you will want to read all of his books."

I put this name on the list of authors I wanted to read without doing further research. And on a stay in Vienna the book she had mentioned showed itself in a book-store right in front of me. I took it, paid for it, started to read the same evening, fell in love with the writing and immediately wanted to read everything this man had ever written.

There are not many German-writing authors that I count to my favorite ones. The Austrian Heimito von Doderer is on top of them. And in my next entry I will start to introduce him to you.

Novel

I love fairy tales and traditional tales from any cultural background. And now finally there is a space to publish my own fairy-tales.

The first is available from today on: http://www.xinxii.com/stonato-p-343076.html

It tells about the trials and tribulations of a couple who want to make their relationship work.

Prussian for Advanced Speakers

Sagen Se mal 'n Satz mit 'Feldmütze'!
"Herr Schmidt jeht mit seine Frau ins Theater, fällt mit se hin und hebt se wieda uff."


Sagen Se mal 'n Satz mit 'Kandelaba'!
"Kann de Labawurscht nich essn!"

and my absolute favorite:

Sagen Se mal 'n Satz mit 'Opfa'!

"Ob wa noch ein nehm wolln?"

With loving thoughts of my grandpa. Maybe I will remember more ...

Difficulties

Germans - not Germanics - love difficulties. I guess that is why they created such a difficult language to learn and use. While people who study German often complain about grammar, structure and word formation, Germans discuss on a different level. In newspapers, magazines, company sites and numerous social networks they get excited about the correct use of words and grammar and compete in doing it more perfectly than perfectly.

These days when large parts of the human society on this planet are talking about the new pope and what to expect from him, the Germans found an additional topic to worry about: How should he be called? It is not about whether he is Francesco I or simply Francesco, it is about how can one properly translate this name into German.

The German Francesco is a Franz. It was a very popular boy's name in the beginning of the last century and though it is no longer in the top lists, it is still common. Famous musicians and writers were named Franz and even emperors. There is no doubt its origins are in the Latin Franziskus - and that is what gave the Germans troublesome thoughts: Is it proper to call a pope Franz? Any smaller and bigger newspaper published at least one article about it during the last days - and the German discussion started. Specialists in German studies, linguists, wise men of the church and many other self-appointed German language specialists shared their opinion. In the end it seems they came to the conclusion, that in the case of "Franz" German is not good enough to address a pope; it has to be "Franziskus" - while his patron saint is still "Franz von Assisi". But the most important thing about this decision seems to be, that one can explain it in further newspaper and magazine entries to provide a basis for further discussions for the readers (who I guess, are often German experts, too). Or perhaps one can even renew the discussion and find another decision one can discuss ...

Then there was the fact that "we are no longer pope". Nevermind that the last pope was Bavarian and that Germans know very well, that Bavarians have no proper language, but only a dialect, and are culturally and socially quite backwards. What made the good man pope, made him German as well and made all the Germans become pope. It is to be doubted, that all the Germans were ready to resign. So maybe in due time Benedictus XVI will be remembered as a Bavarian pope after all. But now: What to do with falling back into the grey mist of being insignificant again?

This started a second linguistical discussion. The language approach is always good if nothing else can help. While neither Spanish nor Italian speaking people will develop any deeper reflections on the name "Bergoglio", for some of the experts it became the center point of a very profound meditation about name origins and their meanings which culminated in the hint that "Berg" means "mountain". In the Piemontese region where they located the origin of that family name are mountains and now - after many discussions about it - it seems pretty clear, that for some ethnological reason people there used a German word and ended it Piemontèisa. So "we are still a bit pope" - which will probably soothe the Germans, and if not they can always discuss it, which seems to be as comforting.