DFor most authors, writing is closely linked to reading: certain works by other writers have shaped their lives and sometimes made their own work possible. This principle of mutual artistic inspiration is the intellectual foundation of the book series “Books of My Life”. As its editor, Volker Weidermann asks one writer for each volume to talk about books that changed their lives and significantly influenced their writing. Regarding the two opening titles, the literary scholar Friederike Reents aptly noted in her review (FAZ of November 5, 2022) that the topic of the series carries the risk of drifting into adulation. Reents judged Mithu Sanyal’s volume on Emily Brontë to be successful in this respect, while she liked Florian Illies’ treatise on Gottfried Benn less.
The latest title in the series, presented by Jenny Erpenbeck, can also be viewed in this area of tension between uncritical eulogy and reflective approach: her essay on Christine Lavant appears in the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the Austrian poet’s death. Although Erpenbeck’s adoration for Lavant shines through in every word, there is no lack of critical tones, especially with regard to Lavant’s relationship with Nazi Germany and its remnants. Erpenbeck reflects on the writer’s late friendship with the doctor Otto Scrinzi: “Doesn’t she know that he worked at the Innsbruck Institute for ‘Hereditary and Racial Biology’ during the Nazi era? Or does she ignore it, she, the lonely one, the one who is so much in need of human attention?” Erpenbeck was able to avoid the pitfall inherent in the theme of the series.
Central to her essay is the question of what writing and reading mean for one’s own life, in general, but also for Christine Lavant in particular. Erpenbeck ponders: “What is this: reading? How does it happen that when you read, you understand more than you know?” However, this experience is not seen as pleasant per se; in fact, reading can also be violent, the usual and familiar collapse and confront you with completely foreign, new thoughts (worlds). . This is how Erpenbeck describes her first life-changing encounter with Christine Lavant’s poetry, and this is also how Lavant herself feels about various readings throughout her life. For the writer, reading and writing became a means of processing and enduring pain: “The starting point of her writing is her suffering and the rebellion against it.”
How she was saved from euthanasia
In 1935, when he was only twenty years old, Lavant had already attempted suicide twice with an overdose of pills and checked himself into a mental institution in Klagenfurt. She processed the experiences of her six-week stay in writing in her “Notes from the Asylum”. Her marriage in 1939 to the painter Josef Habernig probably saved Lavant from the so-called euthanasia, which the National Socialists also carried out in Austria; However, the marriage is by no means a loving liaison, but rather a calculated community of convenience, with Habernig benefiting more from this than she did. Christine Lavant took care of the household and earned a living for both of them through her knitting, while he was able to meet his artist friends and paint. Writing is initially not possible for her in the first few years of marriage and later only secretly.
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