7 - Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann’s Lettipark

Summary

JUDITH HERMANN'S Sommerhaus, später (1998; The Summer House, Later, 2001) was a major event on the German literary scene of the late 1990s. This volume collected short stories representing the alternative, neo-bohemian lifestyle through which twenty-somethings revitalized Berlin's empty center after the fall of the Wall. Hermann's minimalistic, laconic narration, her settings, seemingly familiar from the reader's own experience, and the ensemble of characters that might live next door in the real world had a pleasing effect on readers taxed by previous developments in German writing. Despite intensive discussion in the arts pages of newspapers, the self-reflexive, hyper-complex, and often theory-driven writings of Peter Handke or Botho Strauß (among others) did not attract the attention of a larger public. In view of this alienation between writers and (potential) readers, Hermann's short stories were perceived as a revitalizing contrast. In the TV show “Literarisches Quartett” (Literary Quartet)—then more influential for the German literary scene than any other media production—Hellmuth Karasek singled out Hermann's book as the “sound of a new generation,” praise that Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who was known for his rigorous judgments, echoed.

Hermann's subsequent collections struggled to meet the expectations raised by Sommerhaus, später. Nichts als Gespenster (2003; Nothing but Ghosts, 2005) seemed to start from a comparable point by assembling short stories presenting everyday people in everyday situations in a slow, unpretentious language recalling the spoken word. Some critics were still positive, but no response was as euphoric as in the case of Sommerhaus später. With the publication of Alice (2008), a collection of five stories each confronting a female protagonist with the death of a male character, critics increasingly expressed boredom with Hermann's “sound,” a trend that continued with the publication of her first novel, Aller Liebe Anfang (2014; Where Love Begins, 2016).

This increasingly skeptical reception culminated in the reception of Hermann's most recent collection, Lettipark (2016; Letti Park, 2018). The book seemed to apply exactly the same narrative strategy as Sommerhaus, später almost two decades previously: seventeen only loosely connected, very short stories (six to twelve pages each) allude to the reader's real world, encapsulating the emptiness, isolation, and loneliness experienced by mainly female characters.