DIE ANOTHER DAY!
Every year the Festival of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt is the subject of great excitement and controversy. German novelist and Klagenfurt jury member Burkhard Spinnen explains why the Festival should continue.
The annual chorus of complaints about Klagenfurt has fallen silent until next year's festival. Perhaps now would be the time to set the record straight and prove Klagenfurt's validity once and for all? But no: I don't want to be presumptuous. It's in the nature of this competition to raise more questions than it answers. People will never run out of things to say about Klagenfurt. Like football, eating and sex, it isn't something that can simply happen. You always have to explain (or try to explain) what this 'Festival of German-Language Literature' is all about and whether you are for or against its continuation.
But why does it have to be like this? Because, or so I'd like to suggest, Klagenfurt requires us to be something that we'd really rather not: it requires us to be humble!
No matter how much you love a text, in Klagenfurt your opinion can flounder and run aground on the judgement of your colleagues, whom you usually respect. Accepting this requires humility. Authors, jury members, critics, editors and readers; we are all in the same small boat of literature, and we agree on so many things, uniting in the fight against ignorance, banality and consumer culture. But just imagine! When faced with a text by a thirty-year-old writer, our shared convictions disperse like frightened rabbits. Just when you think you've discovered a masterpiece, it gets poo-pooed by the rest of the jury. After three days in Klagenfurt, it's a miracle if you've still got any friends.
But sometimes, when things go wrong it's all part of the plan. Our permanent and outrageous inability to agree about literature is one example of this, and in Klagenfurt it is taken to extremes. For it is too late now to change the fact that Klagenfurt is about the next generation of writers. Most of the nominees haven't yet been canonized in any shape or form. Discussing them and their texts is pioneering work, but alas!, too many pioneers spend their time telling new explorers where not to go.
Hence the need to be humble. You can depend on a pig to sniff out a truffle, but our instinct for good literature is more fallible. You can have good taste and be well read, and still make mistakes about literature and culture. 'Only one text met with the approval of all the jury members.' There was something damning about this comment on this year's contest. But my God! If the words are true, we should be shouting them from the rooftops! In the shifting sands of contemporary literature, anything approximating a general consensus must be a kind of profane inspiration.
Klagenfurt requires us to be humble, and it helps us to learn how. The fact that the competition is limited to candidates invited by the jury is a much criticized but essential part of this. It forces me, the critic, to present in writing my praise and support for a work -- I cannot escape the vicissitudes of criticism by opting for the solid ground of all-round cynicism. The authors that I nominate become heroes - or maybe martyrs - to my aesthetic concerns. And speaking of martyrs: one of the habitual criticisms of Klagenfurt is that it is not so much about reading books as about show-casing authors - as about presenting them to the media before subjecting them to a sadistic process of destruction, all designed to promote capitalist consumption. There is something about this criticism that appeals to me, for it expresses the wonderful ideal of a pure encounter between consciousness and text. (Goethe once said that if authors were forced to read in public, they should at least stand behind a screen.) But the accusation also worries me, and not only because I have never, to my knowledge, been involved in a literary bloodbath. It worries me because it fails to acknowledge all kinds of existential things - like the fact that literature is created by people, and that readers have the right to be curious about the origin of the books that they're perusing.
And it is curiosity that leads them to switch on the TV and join us in Klagenfurt, where texts and authors can be seen and heard - for better or worse, in failure or in triumph. When authors read from their work, they are not simply reading out loud: like composers playing their own music, they interpret their texts. Listening to the pitch of their voice, the emphasis of their words and the places in which they falter gives you vague but legitimate information about how to judge the texts. The same is true for the critics. When you watch the jury members, you see their thoughts taking shape. And this is all incredibly thrilling! With every new reading and with each new debate, there is the promise that the secret of literary production and critical reading will finally be revealed.
But all too often it is no more than that - a promise. You sweep aside the final veil to find… banality, profanity, or your own reflection in a slightly distorted mirror. And that, unfortunately, is the norm. Once again, it is a question of humility. Do you demand the best like a consumer, or ask yourself what you are entitled to hope for, like a philosopher? In reality there is an annual hail of complaints, indignant rebukes, dissatisfied grumbles, quibbles and worse.
But I'm happy to put up with it, for the 'better' Klagenfurt that people eloquently plead for is a naïve dream. At the ideal Klagenfurt, the authors would be newly discovered, perfectly formed genii; the texts would be highly complex, as assured as they are daring, and in any case entertaining; the jury would be efficient and animated, its discussions both spontaneous and considered, its decisions incontestable but controversial; the atmosphere would be relaxed yet charged; and the food would be plentiful but fat-free…
No, this kind of Klagenfurt might be a TV producer's dream, but it wouldn't have anything to do with literature. Anyone who has ever stared for just a moment too long at a blank piece of paper will know (will they not?) that the literature that remains grows out of a humus of failure. Klagenfurt demonstrates this every year. And it is within our power to accept this. In fact, we might even welcome it -- if we can manage to be humble.
Burkhard Spinnen was born in 1956, and lives in Münster, Germany. He is a freelance writer and the author of novels, stories and essays. His most recent novel, Der schwarze Grat, was published earlier this year by Schöffling. A translation of an extract from his children's book Belgische Riesen is available online.
He has received numerous awards including the prestigious Adenauer Literary Prize. He is the only member of the Klagenfurt jury to have read in Klagenfurt as an author.
The above article first appeared in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 06/07/03. It was translated by Sally Ann Spencer.
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