Description
A complex firework of polyphonic narrative art: for friends of Pynchon, Wallace and Bolaño
Georg Fahlmann is under pressure. His studies, his marriage, the gruelling job in his uncle's funeral home and especially the women: It all becomes too much for him. He much prefers to write his historical crime novel about beetle researcher Carl Richard Bahlow on a paleontological expedition in German East Africa. But the longer Fahlmann works on his novel, the more fragile what he thought was reality until then becomes. Who actually invents Bahlow? And who invents Fahlmann? And anyway: who tells the whole book? And why does it seem that the entire staff of the novel has gathered in a run-down Parisian hotel whose rooms are constantly changing their position?
Entertaining, comical, allusive, multi-layered and cryptic - Christopher Ecker's novel about top poets in animal costumes, scandalous incidents in the funeral business, beetle-eating entomologists, omnipotent organ grinders, beauties becoming transparent and a botanist who thinks he has the fate of the planet in his hands, makes the world a great narrative once again.
Tags
More Information
Rights Information
Mitteldeutscher Verlag GmbH
Roman Pliske
Am Steintor 23
06112 Halle (Saale)
Tel.: (03 45) 2 33 22-0
E-Mail: info[at]mitteldeutscherverlag.de
Reviews
"Great books take time. Especially when they are as extensive as Christopher Ecker's wonderful novel Fahlmann. Although almost unnoticed, it is one of the best books of 2012".
Uwe Schütte: Personal tip for ORF's January 2014 best list
http://tv.orf.at/groups/kultur/pool/besten10_2014_01
"Fahlmann lives from the borrowings, or let's say: from the reference that he, the author, makes to the so-called realism that is simultaneously called into question. Ecker does this through a sensual-narrative plumpness that is unparalleled in our contemporary literature. The pictorial and linguistic ideas alone are simply brilliant; one can no longer shut one's mouth in amazement. This book is one of the most important German-language novels of recent years and is part of a broad, but at best secretly canonized tradition of the great human stories. And it is now up to you whether many people will read it already today or whether it will be passed on, silently and decade after decade, from only a few initiates hand in hand, generation after generation".
Alban Nikolai Herbst, full text, 4/2013
"Those who embark on this modern odyssey can expect lyrical excursions as well as comedies, a love story and an adventure novel. And walknastranzische excursion into the universe. Ecker writes humorously, ironically, sometimes harshly, sometimes melancholically, sometimes dramatically. He always writes well above all else. His narrative is so captivating that despite the novel's great scope and the multiple plots, he succeeds in staying with the story and allowing himself to drift, sometimes taking turns, sometimes diving under and swimming back into the pale man's universe, but never getting lost.
Viola Stocker, TITEL cultural magazine
http://www.titelblog.de/#post268, July 15, 2013
"If I now strongly recommend reading this book, I must do so with two warnings. First: The book can make you lose sleep. Second: This piece of literature is physically demanding. The thing has 1000 pages, so it weighs a lot and when you read it lying on your back, it is training for your arm muscles."
Saarbrücker Newspaper, March 16-17, 2013
"Magnificent in every fiber of meaning of the word and its linguistically sparkling jewels.
Hartmut Kasper, The Science Fiction Year 2012
"The further the reader delves into this novel, the more questions arise: Who is talking to whom? Who actually writes what? In addition, it teems with quotations, back and cross-references; with leaps through time and the world, and everything is told in a highly comical way, has nothing to do with the brittle narrative concepts of former postmodern high spirits.
Frank Keil, taz, August 28, 2012
"Sometimes the most spectacular literary miracles happen in secret - for example in the literary program of the Mitteldeutscher Verlag. 'My father died bending over for a pack of cigarettes.' Thus unpretentiously begins one of the great reading adventures of contemporary German literature. A discovery!"
Denis Scheck, literary critic (Deutschlandfunk and others)
Author Biography
Christopher Ecker, born 1967 in Saarbrücken, studied German language and literature and philosophy. He has received several prizes for his literary work, including the Friedrich Hebbel Prize in 2015. Most recently, Ecker received the Art Prize of the Saarland in 2018.
Since 2007 he has been the author of the Mitteldeutscher Verlag; here he has published several novels and poetry, most recently his volume of stories "Andere Häfen" (2017) and the posthumous volume "Endzone - Letzte Gedichte" (2018) by the poet Tom Disch, which he edited and translated from American English. Ecker lives and works in Kiel.
Mitteldeutscher Verlag
In our travel segment you will find city and travel guides, cycling and hiking guides as well as regional guides with a focus on "castles". New in our program is the series "The 99 special pages of the city/region ...", which supplements the classic guide. It is just the right thing for discoverers, flaneurs, hungry, thirsty and curious people! Our illustrated books on popular travel destinations enhance the bookcase of travel enthusiasts - and desk travelers.Our passion in the area of art are photo books, whose subjects range from nude photography to - gladly also somewhat offside - special topics. We have a special weakness for "Lost Places" and for photography that reflects life in the GDR. This segment is complemented by a new series of artist portraits and exhibition catalogs.Our fiction program includes sophisticated contemporary German prose as well as sophisticated light fiction. In our "Library of Discoveries", we dress translations of world literature treasures that have not yet been discovered in the German-speaking world in a bibliophile garment, thus giving them a chance to conquer the German-speaking readership for the first time. The fiction section also includes biographies and memories of exceptional personalities.In our non-fiction/specialist book segment you will find popular non-fiction books as well as the specialist book with the latest scientific research results. Our focus in this area is on contemporary German history (GDR) and the early modern period (Enlightenment). In addition to established scholarly series on the history of the country, region and city, as well as archive publications and source editions, we publish on socially relevant topics and on issues in the humanities.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Mitteldeutscher Verlag
- Publication Date January 2014
- Orginal LanguageGerman
- ISBN/Identifier 9783898128773
- Publication Country or regionGermany
- FormatHardback
- Primary Price 40 EUR
- Pages1028
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleFahlmann
- Original Language AuthorsGerman
- Edition2nd
- Copyright Year2014
- Page size 146 x 222 mm
- Illustrationnone
Thank you for proceeding with this offer.
Mitteldeutscher Verlag has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
Mitteldeutscher Verlag has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
Please wait while the payment is being prepared.
Do not close this window.
(c) Copyright 2024 - Frankfurt Rights. All Right Reserved