Christoph Ransmayr (67), born in Wels, is one of the most important authors of German-language literature. In his most recent novel “Der Fallmeister” (S. Fischer) he casts a gloomy look into the future: Europe has disintegrated, the water is precious and Ransmayr is murdering with enormous poetic force.
Christoph Ransmayr’s latest novel “Der Fallmeister. A Brief History of Killing ”is set in the Alpine region. Obviously he was inspired by his homeland Upper Austria. The canal system on which the fall master guards the sluice on the “white river” is to be exposed as a Traunfall by local people. Ransmayr puts this scene in a placeless future, which he depicts in literary terms like an archaic and difficult past. Father and Son The film in the background of the plot is also weighed down: in the roaring white water, a longboat plunges down the dreaded cascades of the river. Five people drown. The fall master could have prevented this disaster. Then his son, a hydrotechnician, turns away from him. This pulls through the dams of the world to serve elites. And he meets his sister, who suffers from the insidious glass bone disease … Manifesto against insanity In his dystopia, Ransmayr designs a society of absolute mistrust. Everyone is the enemy of the other. Europe is a totally monitored patchwork quilt between the North Sea and the Adriatic. The signs of the present may be clever or exaggerated, the novel is an angry, pathetic manifesto against the madness of humanity. The narrator not only travels through broken lands, but also into the darkness of his soul.
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