“Odenwald” by Thomas Meinecke: In the field of criticism

„Thomas Meinecke’s next novel begins in front of the Hotel zur Post in Amorbach, Odenwald“, heißt es in Thomas Meineckes neuem Roman „Odenwald“. Im englischen Originallaut wird hier die Ankündigung einer Lesung des Autors in den USA zitiert, und damit ist über die Machart dieses Buches schon einiges gesagt.

Die vorbereitenden Reisen durch das titelgebende Mittelgebirge und durch die Archive, auf den Spuren Adornos, Siegfrieds oder der Grafen zu Leiningen sowie durch Texas zu den Nachkommen der im 19. Jahrhundert ausgewanderten Odenwälder, vor allem aber Meineckes wuchernde Sammlung von Texten über alle möglichen Formen von Gender-Trouble (von Achilles in Frauenkleidern bis zur feministischen Transphobie), aber auch über Jazz und Neue Musik, dazu Gespräche und Mails mit Freundinnen und Experten, Forschungsarbeiten bis hin zu eigenen Texten des Autors – all dieses Material geht nicht bloß in den Roman ein, es ergibt, sorgfältig zerschnitten, montiert und arrangiert, den Roman selbst.

Wer Meinecke liest, kennt das alles gut. Sowohl das Verfahren der Zitatmontage als auch die thematischen Schwerpunkte hat der Autor in seinem Gesamtwerk seit den Neunzigerjahren konsequent entwickelt. „Frauen, Körper, Phallus, die ganze speziell daran drangehängte Theorie“, wie Rainald Goetz das etwas skeptisch nannte (natürlich im Roman zitiert), dazu Transatlantisches und Musik, das sind die vielbegangenen Orte, die Topoi von Meineckes diskursivem Schreiben.

With the return to the Odenwald, “Tomboy” in particular will be “revisited”, the novel with which Meinecke became a leading representative of so-called Suhrkamp pop in the late 1990s (alongside Goetz and Andreas Neumeister). “Odenwald” is therefore part of a highly interesting series of contemporary novels with Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s “Panikherz” and Christian Kracht’s “Eurotrash”, which examines the pop of the early years (“Soloalbum”, 1998, and “Faserland”, 1995) under the conditions of post-postmodernism – Stuckrad-Barre in the sense of a new seriousness, noise in search of a complex, post-ironic form of autofiction. And Thomas Meinecke?

Right at the beginning, the novel quotes in detail a relevant passage from “Tomboy,” in which two protagonists have dildo sex in the “real Jewish forest,” and then comments: “Really too much, Thomas thinks today.” In fact, Meinecke was already quick back then recognized that the complex gender complications of his characters sometimes seemed unintentionally funny, while his aim was to reflect Judith Butler's theories.

As a result, his follow-up novels to “Light Blue” (2001) took the consequence of trimming down the arsenal of characters and reducing the plot significantly in favor of quotation areas. It has remained that way: the few characters who appear alongside the author persona Thomas in “Odenwald” are couples whose ideal of loving togetherness seems to consist of leaning interestedly over his or related texts and occasionally using their smartphone to learn individual facts question how they embody the desired reception of the novel.

Otherwise, Meinecke seems to be just as happy with the method he developed, quoting without quotation marks and spreading his topics without hierarchy, as he was with Judith Butler's feminist postmodernism. The fact that both are appropriate for the queer cause can be confirmed from the secondary literature as well as from the tried and tested postmodern theorists and thinkers.

He even finds a new ally in Ursula K. Le Guin's feminist carrier bag theory of storytelling, which is currently very popular. Collecting what is usable into the bag of the text, instead of telling hunting stories focused on killer punchlines, is in fact in keeping with the basic principle of his literature. And you no longer need heroes, they look “like potatoes” in the carrier bag anyway.

Now Le Guin's program comes from the eighties, Meinecke's discursive pop prose from the nineties – and what you found on your intellectual path back then and put into your collection bag in terms of theory, literature and remote music (like this time Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell). was often truly individual and special; In pop contexts it served not least for distinction.

But what is it like today, when all of the cultural holdings in the digital archives are at your fingertips at the push of a button and everyone can know everything in just a few minutes? Doesn't our digital tote bag look more like the familiar shopping cart on the top right of the screen (“Interested in queer phenomena? You may also like . . .”)? At least Le Guin's theory and a literary program that relies on these current conditions in the 21st century would be re-reflected and possibly modified.

One would think so. But exactly that, “the questioning of one position by another,” is expressly not what Thomas Meinecke imagines as criticism. On the contrary, his novel celebrates the insight that the “essence of critical thinking does not lie in the judgment,” but rather in its interruption, and thus aims at “changing the field” “on which the positings, the values ​​and judgments are recorded.” .

In keeping with the name of Adorno's childhood home Amorbach, criticism should remain a practice of loving liquefaction; even in the (Oden) forest it remains “tired of the tree” and more inclined towards decentralized root networks. Even though the Hotel zur Post may have been completely renovated, postmodernism remains the intellectual roof.

“Writing is not arriving,” as Hélène Cixous is quoted approvingly. This is the strict formal consistency as well as the enduring charm of Meinecke's books. Whether Texas or Bavaria – you travel across the country and not to arrive somewhere. The collected finds are enthusiastically listed and discussed; they enrich the discursive fabric of the novel, but they are not worked through in an argumentative manner. On the one hand, this means that the texts remain pleasantly open and non-ideological. Even where Meinecke quotes himself, for example with comments against tendencies in the “newer identity discourses”, these are just quotations among others, subjectively and historically situated and therefore expressly released for revision.

On the other hand, you also ask yourself what you should actually do with it now. Open your own carrying bag and pick out what you enjoy from the 430 pages of “Odenwald”? There is sure to be something for everyone, such as the groundbreaking invention of the snow globe from the spirit of the oval rear window of a VW Beetle that got stuck in the snow, the difference between a romper and a jumpsuit or the musical play “The Treasure of Indian Joe”, written by the same person Adorno, who relentlessly rails against jazz and is given a lot of space for it in the novel. You wouldn't have to collect that for yourself.

But is it meant that way? Ultimately, Meinecke is concerned with the discourse. So when his novel, to give an example, on the topic of trans men and women, which has been widely and quite excitedly discussed for some time, presents a number of historical and current phenomena and cites various, including quite critical, positions (Trans affirmiere actually the bipolar gender order, for example): Should we then develop our own position on this?

Or should we, in the sense of Meinecke's concept of criticism, just take note of the whole thing neutrally as a changed field? What would be gained by that? And what about other potentially controversial things like the numerous compliments in which characters in the novel, women and feminine men, compare themselves with well-known people in individual body parts (“A bit like this French actress, but not quite as beautiful like you are.”)? Is this “uncharming, invasive, yes, invasive”? And then why at all?

Or the frequent use of the N-word, even the really nasty one. This can be found, for example, in the titles of the black, homosexual musician Eastman, and the continuous quotation nature allows Meinecke to include it unchanged in his novel text – although he is of course aware of the problem here too. Does he want to expand our discursive field with this decision? Should we chafe at it or relax? Or what else? In other words: Is this real? too much or perhaps, on the contrary, a little too little?

Let me put it this way: In “Odenwald” Thomas Meinecke remains true to his themes, his literary approach and postmodern theory. You still enjoy reading it and come back from reading it enriched. And yet something has changed: you could say that the whole process has come under unusual pressure due to the changed circumstances and you know it, but you don't want to defend yourself.

The digital archives, the intensified discourses about identity, gender and cultural appropriation, the threat to Western democracies, not to mention the climate catastrophe (doesn't anyone notice this in the Odenwald yet?): All of this seems to push for positioning, which Meinecke is aware of refused.

Conversely, I have no intention of criticizing him from the perspective of any current parties in the discourse, to whose always-already-right nature his long-term literary-discursive project offers a beneficial alternative. Perhaps what “Odenwald” says about relics best applies to his novels: they are “something like the messengers from a time in which everything, or at least something, could have ended differently.”