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German Lit Month: my entry for crime fiction week
Die Therapie by Sebastian Fitzek, 2006 – Der Detektiv-Roman by Siegfried Kracauer. 1925
I didn’t know any German crime fiction writer and I had difficulties to choose a book for week two. So I used a basic method: go to a bookshop, browse the crime fiction shelves from A to Z and picking any book whose author had a Germanish name. I only found a novel by Sebastian Fitzek, Die Therapie and a non-fiction book by Siegfried Kracauer, Der Detektiv-Roman (1925). I bought both. A double disaster.
Fitzek is the German Patterson, the book is so bad it doesn’t deserve a review. End of story. The Kracauer’s cover is totally misleading. I expected an essay on the origins of crime fiction. I read the intro, I was fine. First page of first chapter, he was already referring to Kierkegaard. I tried to read further but I didn’t understand a word about what he was saying. I have to admit I’m a total zero when it comes to metaphysics. I’ve never been good at understanding philosophy, especially when it deals with time, metaphysics and theology. End of story. (bis)
That must be the shortest entry I’ve ever written about books. So it goes as Vonnegut would say. That leaves me with lots of questions: how is it possible that I couldn’t find any German crime fiction writer on the shelves when books in translations are so widely sold in France? How is it possible that I didn’t know any author? Why don’t they make it on the French market? Are French readers so put off by Derrick and Tatort that they wouldn’t buy German crime fiction books?
What’s your opinion?
Book Around the Corner 