Audio channel "Stadtstimmen"

[Intro music] Tobias: Hello dear listeners of Archivwürdig! After a long break, I'm back today with some good news about the upcoming driseason of our podcast. First things first: The new season starts next week on Thursday, November 28th. And, exceptionally, new episodes will be released on a weekly basis. What can you expect in the dritten season of Archivwürdig? As you, dear listeners, may have gathered from the media, there was an international competition for a contemporary memorial site in Reichenau. We have taken the upcoming redesign as an opportunity to talk about the former Reichenau labor education camp. On the other hand, we also want to address the related topic of the culture of remembrance and places of remembrance. Finally, I would like to point out that the majority of the episodes were recorded during the ongoing competition for the memorial site. If you have any questions, requests or suggestions regarding the individual episodes, please contact us by email at podcast@innsbruck.gv.at. As I said, we'll be starting next week and, as always, we'd be delighted if you listened to the episodes. [Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. #00:02:04-8#

[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the first episode of our dritten season of Archivwürdig,

[00:00:06] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archives.

[00:00:10] At the beginning of our season I invited Sabine Pitscheider to talk to us.

[00:00:15] Sabine has been researching the Nazi era in Tyrol for many years and was part of the expert commission

[00:00:21] for the new memorial site and co-authored a study on the Reichenau labor education camp.

[00:00:28] Together we talk mainly about the Reichenau labor education camp,

[00:00:31] but also about camp and camp work in Tyrol in general.

[00:00:36] [Intro music] Tobias: Dear Sabine, thank you for talking to me today about the Reichenau labor education camp.

[00:00:57] Which is also, let me say, the overarching theme of the season.

[00:01:01] And maybe let's just really start at the base with the Reichenau labor education camp.

[00:01:08] How long has the Reichenau labor education camp existed?

[00:01:11] Sabine: Since the winter of 1941/42.

[00:01:14] And originally the idea was to set up a reception camp for Italian workers.

[00:01:20] Because that was exactly the time when Italian workers wanted to return home en masse from the German Reich.

[00:01:26] And many were picked up at the Brenner Pass.

[00:01:28] And the German Reich didn't want to lose any workers.

[00:01:31] And so the idea was to collect them somewhere and distribute them further, after a punishment.

[00:01:36] Because that was labor flight and was forbidden.

[00:01:39] And when the Italian government found out about it, they weren't thrilled,

[00:01:43] because officially Italy was an ally of the German Reich

[00:01:46] and you don't normally treat friends like that.

[00:01:49] And then the instruction was, well, if it's not a reception camp,

[00:01:52] then we'll make a labor education camp

[00:01:54] and there were labor education camps all over the Reich, over 100.

[00:01:58] And they were intended for discipline.

[00:02:01] For every worker, regardless of citizenship.

[00:02:04] And there the people were to be disciplined and educated to work under quotation marks, please.

[00:02:11] Educated and after a certain period of extremely bad treatment, come back to their old job

[00:02:17] and continue to talk about how bad it was for them, so that the others don't get the idea of resisting.

[00:02:23] Tobias: The choice of location, that's not entirely arbitrary.

[00:02:27] Sabine: It wasn't arbitrary, as you say.

[00:02:29] The Nazi regime needed dringend camps to accommodate the many workers,

[00:02:32] whether prisoners of war, voluntary civilian workers or forced laborers.

[00:02:36] And they mostly tried to create this infrastructure on the outskirts of towns or villages.

[00:02:43] And the first camp in Reichenau in this area, where the AEL was located, was the prisoner of war camp of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:02:50] And right after that was a civilian labor camp of the city of Innsbruck, over the years

[00:02:54] There was also a Reichspost camp and a Reichsbahn camp.

[00:02:57] And the location was favorably chosen from the Nazi point of view

[00:03:01] With the north bridge you could get to the other side of the Inn

[00:03:05] and there was a streetcar stop there.

[00:03:07] And at the same time, these camps were within walking distance of the large construction sites of the city of Innsbruck in Pradl.

[00:03:14] And therefore also accessible on foot.

[00:03:17] Tobias: You've already mentioned the other camps, which were still in urban areas.

[00:03:22] How should the labor education camp be classified in terms of size on Innsbruck soil or the importance of the camp?

[00:03:31] In contrast perhaps to the Innsbruck camps or other camps.

[00:03:35] And perhaps also, if we look a little, in relation to Tyrol, so to speak.

[00:03:41] Sabine: Innsbruck itself had, well, normally every larger municipality had its own camp.

[00:03:46] The local businesses usually rented their staff and paid for it.

[00:03:52] In other words, it was basically like a commercial enterprise.

[00:03:54] It was the same for the city of Innsbruck.

[00:03:56] And in theory, 750 people were accommodated in the camps of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:04:01] So there were 750 sleeping places.

[00:04:03] In emergencies there were often more.

[00:04:06] And then there were the company camps.

[00:04:10] That means that some companies, especially construction companies, had their own company camps.

[00:04:14] They were usually small, 100/150 men, and were then moved again when the construction site was finished.

[00:04:20] In other words, they were really traveling camps.

[00:04:23] And that means in Innsbruck itself we have the camps of the city of Innsbruck with about 750 people.

[00:04:31] The smaller company camps or larger ones.

[00:04:34] And the AEL, with 800 possible accommodation places, was one of the large camps in Innsbruck.

[00:04:43] But the largest camps in Tyrol were the power plant construction camps.

[00:04:47] So TIWAG in the Lower Inn Valley and the West Tyrolean power plants in West Tyrol.

[00:04:53] And these were, excuse me, very briefly, these were camps of 1,000, 1,500, 2,000.

[00:04:58] Tobias: As stupid as it sounds now, they were also prisoners or detainees from the camps,

[00:05:05] so they were also exchanged across Tyrol, so they came to the Lower Inn Valley for work assignments, for example.

[00:05:13] They stayed there for a while and then returned to the labor camp?

[00:05:17] Sabine: That was quite common.

[00:05:18] That is, normally a worker, whether civilian, prisoner of war or conscripted,

[00:05:24] could not choose the job.

[00:05:26] The employment office assigned them according to economic considerations.

[00:05:30] In other words, it was quite common for someone who was perhaps first at the Retter construction company's warehouse on the Ulfiswiese,

[00:05:37] then came to the Ötztal or then to the Illwerke and maybe back to the city in winter.

[00:05:42] In other words, we were always dealing with a lot of people at the same time, but they weren't always the same people.

[00:05:48] Tobias: Because we've already briefly touched on the subject.

[00:05:52] Work assignments have come to a building site, to a building project.

[00:05:58] What is the formal procedure, for example, how a company can obtain a worker?

[00:06:05] call them workers now, they're conscripted workers,

[00:06:08] is it a formal act, a letter that you send and then you get the person?

[00:06:15] Sabine: It was more complicated. [both laugh]

[00:06:18] Sabine: So it was only the employment office that was responsible.

[00:06:21] That means, if a company needed a worker, male, female, old, young, it didn't matter,

[00:06:25] an application had to be submitted to the employment office.

[00:06:28] And then you had to prove that you could accommodate the worker.

[00:06:32] That's why there were so many company camps and community camps.

[00:06:35] And only when that was secured did the employment office start looking for such a person.

[00:06:40] The Nazi regime had recruitment agreements with friendly countries,

[00:06:44] with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and so on.

[00:06:47] And that means that there were recruitment offices in these countries where people could apply,

[00:06:52] for a job in the German Reich, if they were healthy and able to work

[00:06:55] and not hostile, they came to work in the German Reich.

[00:06:58] Those were the volunteers.

[00:07:00] Whereby voluntariness is very relative, because if they were in the German Reich,

[00:07:03] if they didn't like the work and wanted to leave, they couldn't.

[00:07:06] And from then on it was more like forced labor.

[00:07:10] And the employment office then asked at these recruitment offices

[00:07:14] and they kept coming... either the people came to the Reich individually or on transports.

[00:07:19] And they mainly came on transports from the occupied western territories of the Soviet Union,

[00:07:26] today Ukraine and Belarus, which were subject to particularly strict regulations.

[00:07:32] They had to carry their own license plate so that everyone knew immediately,

[00:07:35] that they were dealing with "subhumans" under quotation marks.

[00:07:39] And with these deportation trains they came into the Reich all together

[00:07:43] and were then distributed to the employment offices and the employment offices then distributed them again to the individual companies.

[00:07:48] When the labor arrived, no one could say, neither the employment office nor anyone else,

[00:07:53] that means in principle the companies that really needed workers,

[00:07:57] needed an enormous amount of perseverance until they got anyone at all.

[00:08:02] They were not allowed to hire someone who had applied to them freely, that was not possible.

[00:08:06] It did happen, but theoretically it wasn't possible.

[00:08:09] The only responsible body was the employment office.

[00:08:11] Tobias: It would also have been possible for the worker simply not to have been found at all

[00:08:15] and then it never came to the transfer of a worker, so to speak?

[00:08:20] Sabine: Yes, that is quite possible.

[00:08:22] The employment office, the message was simply terse, currently not possible.

[00:08:26] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Maybe we should just go back to the labor education camp in Reichenau.

[00:08:34] You've already said that they are registered, in and of themselves,

[00:08:38] come in, they come from the East now, different locations,

[00:08:42] they arrive at the camp,

[00:08:44] Are they then... or how meticulously are they registered, the arrivals?

[00:08:50] Sabine: That depended on whether they were prisoners of war or civilian workers.

[00:08:54] Prisoners of war were registered in the prisoner of war camps,

[00:08:58] Most of those who came to Tyrol came from Markt Pongau, today St. Johann im Pongau.

[00:09:03] They had a number and all the correspondence was between the management of the main camp and the labor office.

[00:09:10] The company itself had nothing to do with it.

[00:09:12] It only rented the labor of these men.

[00:09:15] And every week the POW camp had to report to the mayor of the town where the camp was located,

[00:09:20] report who was currently interned in this camp, who was imprisoned

[00:09:26] and which company these people were assigned to.

[00:09:29] Most of these lists no longer exist.

[00:09:31] That was the case with civilian workers, it was under the Aliens Employment Act,

[00:09:35] just like today. There was a foreigners authority at every district administration,

[00:09:39] There was a temporary residence permit, the people were socially insured,

[00:09:44] and were given their own ID card as a foreign worker, as we know it today.

[00:09:50] Tobias: How do you see the difference now between a labor education camp and a concentration camp?

[00:09:56] Sabine: The main difference lies in the purpose of the camp.

[00:10:02] To say that now... Tobias: In general terms. It's difficult to... Sabine: It's very difficult, but normally, you have to say, in an AEL the aim was not the death of the person,

[00:10:13] because they were supposed to return to a work process.

[00:10:16] And since there was a shortage of workers, the goal was basically to maintain the workforce.

[00:10:22] That had very little to do with the practice in the labor education camp.

[00:10:30] But that's also because the Innsbruck labor education camp took on all kinds of other functions.

[00:10:37] For example, it was a transit camp for deported Jews from Italy on their way to Auschwitz.

[00:10:43] And while they were interned here, of course they also had to do work and were treated extremely badly,

[00:10:50] because, as "subhumans" in quotation marks, they had no value in life at all.

[00:10:54] Or workers who became Italians after Italy fell, from the summer of 1943,

[00:11:04] who went on strike were deported to the German Reich via the Reichenau camp.

[00:11:09] They were treated extremely badly.

[00:11:11] They got some dead bodies out of these deported Italian workers.

[00:11:15] And then the camp also had the function of, let's call it, a depot for politically unpopular people.

[00:11:25] For example, when the assassination attempt on Hitler failed in the summer of 1944,

[00:11:29] there were arrests all over the Reich.

[00:11:31] And also in Tyrol, where those who were considered political enemies were interned in the Reichenau labor education camp.

[00:11:38] That was the case again in April 1945.

[00:11:42] Or we have this action in the spring of 1943, that the Gauleiter Hofer wanted to get Tyrol free of Jews at all costs

[00:11:50] and simply had the Jewish spouses of Aryans in Aryan marriages arrested

[00:11:56] and deposited them in the Reichenau labor education camp on their way to Auschwitz.

[00:12:02] These people were treated differently again.

[00:12:04] That means, on the one hand, we have this labor education, where the goal was not to kill,

[00:12:09] because the labor force should be preserved and then we had people imprisoned there again,

[00:12:14] where it didn't matter whether they lived or died.

[00:12:17] And that simply has to do with the change in function of the camp, that it's very difficult to say,

[00:12:22] where the difference to a concentration camp should actually be.

[00:12:26] Tobiaa: I understand, because the, the, the groups of people in the camp are already different.

[00:12:32] Sabine: It simply depended on how the Nazi regime categorized a person in terms of their "value".

[00:12:38] And there were worthless people and people who were more valuable.

[00:12:42] So the regulations actually said that someone should stay there for a maximum of 56 days for labor training.

[00:12:48] And work education meant forced labor, usually for the city of Innsbruck.

[00:12:52] Tobias: You said normally, that is, that is never the ... so ...

[00:12:56] Sabine: Over time, the longer the war lasted, the more likely it was that regulations were simply ignored.

[00:13:02] And, for example, this limit of 56 days did not apply to the so-called Eastern workers and to these deportees from the Western Soviet Union.

[00:13:09] They were allowed to be exploited indefinitely, because they were at the very, very bottom of the hierarchy of human value anyway.

[00:13:18] And that's why ... so it's very difficult to say.

[00:13:22] Tobias: It's not easy.

[00:13:23] And that's why I thought I'd ask anyway, because it's for the people there draoutside,

[00:13:29] because you always hear about the Reichenau labor education camp but ...

[00:13:32] Sabine: What is that?

[00:13:33] Tobias: What is that and why are there concentration camps, why are there reception camps, this camp, there ...?

[00:13:39] Sabine: Yes. The German camp system was very difficult with the different functions that were written into it.

[00:13:45] Because now, for example, a normal..., so in a prisoner of war camp the aim was not to kill.

[00:13:50] Tobias: Yes. Sabine: The goal was to exploit labor.

[00:13:52] So in a labor prisoner of war camp.

[00:13:55] In the main camps, for example, the more westernized you were, the more likely you were to survive.

[00:14:02] So a Soviet prisoner of war, the probability of survival of a Soviet prisoner of war was low,

[00:14:07] because they were simply treated worse.

[00:14:09] Because depending on where someone came from, you got the food... the amount of food... or not.

[00:14:17] Tobias: The same will apply to prisoners of war.

[00:14:19] Sabine: Also. Even though the Stalagleitung usually made the regulations for prisoners of war.

[00:14:26] The regime itself could not intervene in that way.

[00:14:29] And the Stalag really had to act in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

[00:14:34] The Nazi regime could not intervene as radically as it does now in a civilian labor camp.

[00:14:40] The situation was different in a civilian labor camp.

[00:14:43] There was no Red Cross and no Geneva Convention.

[00:14:46] Normal human rights would have sufficed, but human rights simply didn't exist under the Nazi regime.

[00:14:50] At least not for these people.

[00:14:52] Tobias: Subtle difference.

[00:14:53] Sabine: There is a difference.

[00:14:54] Tobias: But the one that makes a lot of difference.

[00:14:56] Sabine: It makes a lot of difference.

[00:14:57] For example, from the time that... let's say the spring of 1942,

[00:15:02] the Nazi regime had begun to deport millions of people from the western territories,

[00:15:05] the Soviet Union.

[00:15:07] And from then on, the number of prisoner of war camps tended to decrease.

[00:15:12] And more Eastern labor camps were set up.

[00:15:15] Because they were simply... were worse to treat without being harmed.

[00:15:20] Because if you look at discipline, for example, if a prisoner of war tried to escape,

[00:15:25] tried to escape, which happened very often, because the borders were close and very tempting.

[00:15:30] Then the Wehrmacht was responsible.

[00:15:32] In other words, they were picked up again.

[00:15:34] Wehrmacht officers were informed, they were picked up and taken back to the main camp.

[00:15:39] If a civilian worker tried to escape, the Gestapo was responsible.

[00:15:42] That means it was simply much easier.

[00:15:44] Less need for coordination, close chain of command.

[00:15:48] And civilian workers, especially the so-called Eastern workers, earned extremely little money.

[00:15:54] It wasn't a wage, it was a kind of expense allowance.

[00:15:57] And they got less food than others.

[00:16:00] So you couldn't fob off an Italian worker with the food that Eastern workers got.

[00:16:06] Tobias: You just mentioned that the escape attempts, especially by prisoners of war, are in your research,

[00:16:13] Did you find out that there were also escape attempts from the labor education camp?

[00:16:17] Successful or unsuccessful?

[00:16:20] Sabine: None.

[00:16:21] Tobias: None, right?

[00:16:22] Sabine: No, so not according to the files.

[00:16:25] And the problem with the files is that the Gestapo burned their files in April 1945.

[00:16:32] That means we often only know about the labor education camp from court cases,

[00:16:38] from death certificates, from eyewitness testimony, but not really from our own files.

[00:16:45] Tobias: That would be the next question anyway, how difficult it is,

[00:16:49] to somehow trace a camp of that size, where a lot of the files have been destroyed.

[00:16:57] Sabine: Interestingly, there are relatively many files hidden in municipal archives,

[00:17:00] many documents. That would have to be examined more closely, the community chroniclers would have to,

[00:17:04] local chroniclers would have to look into this matter, because municipal archives often contain real treasures,

[00:17:09] that no longer appear anywhere else. You can get a lot of information from court records,

[00:17:16] after 1945, the trials before the People's Court, which not only punished high treason,

[00:17:22] but also war crimes. That's when you get a trial against someone,

[00:17:29] who mistreated prisoners of war or civilian workers, you get information about how the individual

[00:17:34] camp functioned. You actually get information from many different sources,

[00:17:40] State building authorities, when it comes to finding a suitable location for a camp. Or when

[00:17:45] a company wants to build a warehouse and turns to the Innsbruck city building authority and the

[00:17:50] city planning office says, no, we don't want a warehouse to be immediately visible at the entrance to the town,

[00:17:54] because it really deters tourism. And that's why, for example, this camp in the

[00:18:00] Reichenau, they were all relatively close together, simply because the Gauleiter said,

[00:18:05] I don't want the camps to be spread all over the city, it's not safe

[00:18:08] simply an absurdity. The companies wanted, it was a bit of a clash, the companies wanted the

[00:18:12] camps as close as possible to their own premises and the Gauleiter wanted them as close as possible to

[00:18:16] concentrated in two places so that not everyone would notice it right away. Tobias: That's a good point anyway

[00:18:22] point you're making, that not everyone notices them. I only know it from some

[00:18:27] or at least from an interview I did with a contemporary witness who said,

[00:18:31] she never saw them marching through, the forced laborers. How do you see that? It must have been

[00:18:39] the people, especially if they were used by companies for work assignments, they had to be

[00:18:45] actually know where the people are from or where they are, not where their original home is,

[00:18:51] but where they are at the moment. Sabine: Mhm. Yes. Tobias: So the statement, so to speak, however you have it, you didn't know anything.

[00:18:58] Sabine: No, that's not credible. Forced laborers were in every community, even in the smallest one, and if they were

[00:19:04] only with one farmer, they were everywhere. And in the city they didn't hide at all

[00:19:11] concealment at all, because the prisoners of the AEL, for example, had to wear their own clothes and were made of

[00:19:15] lack of resources, they no longer had their own clothes, so the Gestapo simply used the

[00:19:18] the prisoners' civilian clothes with oil paint. So that you could recognize that they were prisoners.

[00:19:23] And normally people wore civilian clothes. That means,

[00:19:28] Civilian workers arrived in civilian clothes and prisoners of war wore uniforms,

[00:19:34] which made their escape more difficult. Because it allowed the prisoner of war to escape successfully,

[00:19:39] he needed civilian clothes and what was also very difficult is that prisoners of war were given

[00:19:44] money for their work, but not in Reichsmarks, but in camp money. These were vouchers,

[00:19:49] that could only be exchanged in the camp canteen. In other words, if someone wanted to successfully

[00:19:53] wanted to escape, they firstly needed a good knowledge of geography and secondly, if possible, a little knowledge of the language,

[00:19:59] drittens civilian clothes and fourthly real money. Tobias: Mhm. Not so easy to get. Sabine: Difficult.

[00:20:06] Tobias: And especially without the help of a local population. Sabine: That has the help of the

[00:20:11] local population. Tobias: Right.

[00:20:13] [Drehgeräusch] We've talked a lot about the forced laborers, prisoners of war. Were there any

[00:20:23] female prisoners in Reichenau or in the whole of Tyrol?

[00:20:28] Sabine: So prisoners of war are male per se. That is clear. Among the civilian labor force

[00:20:34] you have to differentiate between those who came from allied countries,

[00:20:37] who were theoretically volunteers. Then those who come from neutral states, in Vorarlberg

[00:20:43] it mainly concerns citizens from Switzerland. Or where citizenship is unclear.

[00:20:49] But if you look, if you look, there are different statistics for different

[00:20:52] points in time, in December 1943 almost drei quarter of all those employed in Tyrol were

[00:20:59] civilian workers from occupied countries, who were probably not there voluntarily. And if you look at these

[00:21:06] these almost drei quarters again, then you have to say that the overwhelming majority

[00:21:12] of them came either from Poland or from the occupied western territories of the Soviet Union and here

[00:21:17] especially from Ukraine. And what you see again is, if you look at it by gender

[00:21:22] that the vast majority of these forced laborers were women. That means,

[00:21:29] from the spring of 1942, forced labor not only tended to become more female, but and

[00:21:34] very importantly, tended to be younger. These people were deported from the age of 14,

[00:21:39] but younger ones were also possible. That means that in most of the camps, which were mainly

[00:21:44] work with Easter workers are young people. Tobias: But they weren't mainly in Reichenau

reichenau [00:21:51]. Sabine: No, they were mainly in agriculture, in the so-called development cooperatives.

[00:21:56] Every year the Gau appointed Aufbaugemeinden and they were especially subsidized with money,

[00:22:02] Construction of goods roads, cable cars, etc. And each of these development communities had

[00:22:08] its own, a so-called Russian or Eastern workers' camp. And the majority of them were female.

[00:22:13] Tobias: Hard to imagine actually. Sabine: Hard to imagine. On the other hand, the Nazi regime

[00:22:18] people from the East a low human value. What these women

[00:22:22] happened to these women was that they were not only extremely exploited. Textile industry, textile industry,

[00:22:27] agriculture, sometimes also in construction. They also had to suffer, for example,

[00:22:31] when they became pregnant, they were subjected to forced abortions.

[00:22:34] Tobias. I could also imagine... Sabine: And of course there were also rapes.

[00:22:38] Tobias: I was just going to... Sabine: Right. Tobias: That... Sabine: Yes, that's a side effect of coercion.

[00:22:44] Tobias: That means they were in their own camps in the places, in the areas of operation.

[00:22:49] Or is there another camp that is of interest or importance to women in that respect?

[00:22:54] importance for women? Sabine: Yes, the Gestapo AEL in Reichenau was only for men,

[00:23:00] theoretically. There were also women there, but only for a short time. And that means female

[00:23:05] Labor education prisoners were sent to the Heinkel company camp in Jenbach,

[00:23:09] today the Jenbach factory. Tobias: And do you know what happened to the women after that, so to speak, either with

[00:23:15] end of the regime, did they all return to their countries of origin?

[00:23:21] Did some of them stay there? Is that hard to grasp, probably, isn't it? Sabine: It's hard to believe.

[00:23:26] That's an empty field of research as far as Tyrol is concerned. It's important to differentiate,

[00:23:32] which country they came from. So French women, of course they went back, Dutch women

[00:23:36] and so on. But with the deportees from the East, it depends on which country they came from

[00:23:41] did they come from and do they still have family ties? Because, for example, as it is in

[00:23:45] Ukraine, Ukraine was largely destroyed. Many families simply no longer existed.

[00:23:51] The women were young, 15, 16 years old, many stayed here, some got married here

[00:23:56] and had children, quite normal. They became a Tyrolean family. Others went back and

[00:24:01] It was especially difficult to return to countries that were occupied by the Soviet army,

[00:24:07] because many were suspected of having been involved with the enemy, regardless of whether they were now

[00:24:12] deported or not. And they were considered traitors to the people and traitors to the country.

[00:24:18] It was very, very difficult. And what else there was, we have some large camps in Tyrol

[00:24:23] camps. The largest camp for former forced laborers was the one in Kufstein on the barracks grounds.

[00:24:29] And from 1945/46, the UN refugee aid organization at the time made an effort,

[00:24:36] to find host countries for them. So emigration to South America, USA, France,

[00:24:43] Away from Europe.Dre[Tobias: And let's jump back in time a little bit. We're going to the end

[00:24:54] of the war. The camp has been liberated. Are there any reports like the liberation of the

[00:25:01] camp or memories of the liberation of the camp? Sabine: There are initial investigations,

[00:25:06] because the Americans arrived with their own war crimes unit. There are

[00:25:12] first reports from this war crimes unit, which tried to take witness statements,

[00:25:17] also with perpetrators. But there was an exchange of zones at the beginning of July 1945. And then came the

[00:25:23] French military government and they had to start all over again. And that means,

[00:25:28] we actually had to wait until the big trial against the Gestapo chief Hilliges and some

[00:25:33] perpetrators of the AEL, there were rumors and there were always smaller trials, but this

[00:25:39] big, concentrated information we actually only got with the investigations against these

[00:25:45] persons. Tobias: And are documents from the investigations probably still kept in Paris? Or

[00:25:51] are there also local ones? Sabine: They are partly in Paris because the trial against Hilliges and the

[00:25:57] others did not take place before an Austrian court, but before a [00:26:00] French court

[00:26:00] French court in Innsbruck. Tobias: Im... what's it called... In? Sabine: In the Landhaus. Yes, because as soon as one of the abused or

[00:26:10] dead were members of the Allies, so US-Americans, British and so on, the

[00:26:16] French military justice took over. And that was a high court in Innsbruck.

[00:26:21] And that means that in the Reichenauprozess we have documents from Paris on the one hand,

[00:26:26] but also a lot of investigation documents from Innsbruck itself. Tobias: Are there also figures,

[00:26:31] how many have been charged? Well, I don't want to go into the persons in [00:26:36] detail

[00:26:36] in detail, but basically how many indictments there are, how many

[00:26:39] I don't know how many acquittals, if any, and so on. Sabine: At the trial of

[00:26:45] Hilliges, five men were still on trial. All five were perpetrators of the labor education camp.

[00:26:51] The problem was that when the Nazi regime collapsed in the summer of 1945, there was chaos,

[00:26:59] and many of the perpetrators of the labor education camp were Reich Germans. And in the summer of 1945

[00:27:07] the wish of the Tyrolean provincial government and also the French military government in the country,

[00:27:13] to deport as many people as possible so that fewer people needed food. And the

[00:27:18] Germans were seen as a security risk and as carriers of National Socialism, which allowed

[00:27:23] to pretend that Tyroleans had always been well-behaved and democratic. All right, in any case

[00:27:29] it means that many of the perpetrators of the AEL were interrogated, some were also interned,

[00:27:36] but were then expelled as Reich Germans. And we have some trials in Germany in part

[00:27:44] only in the 70s against these perpetrators. They were deported and then they were gone. There were

[00:27:49] there were always requests, when the French military went, yes, we need him for questioning,

[00:27:52] Yes, we're sorry, he's gone. That is, but you can't do that to the Tyrolean authorities

[00:27:59] because they didn't know that at the time. Tobias: That means, actually, they went to

[00:28:04] Germany, then somehow the thread broke, so to speak. Sabine: Exactly, that is, and then

[00:28:10] they could no longer be tried in Austria. There were always investigations

[00:28:15] against these people, but the Federal Republic did not extradite them for political offenses.

[00:28:18] Gauleiter Hofer, for example. Tobias: I was just going to say, Gauleiter Hofer the most prominent example? Sabine: Most prominent example, the act is

[00:28:24] several tens of centimeters thick and those were always extradition requests, but the Federal Republic of Germany has

[00:28:30] not extradited and many of these perpetrators of the AEL, they were quite normal, they were normal

[00:28:37] people, they went back to their civilian jobs, lived quite happily and often only decades

[00:28:42] later, it came up and then it needed dedicated courts and that was in the

[00:28:48] Federal Republic of Germany was no different to ours. It takes dedicated courts to bring perpetrators to justice.

[00:28:52] [Drehgeräusch] Now the labor education camp has been liberated. But the camps will not be destroyed, they will remain

[00:29:01] preserved, I think they will remain in municipal ownership. The subsequent use is also...is also

[00:29:06] an explosive time, you have to say. Shall we briefly look at the individual case of the labor education camp?

[00:29:13] Reichenau and then perhaps in a second step, what it was like in Tyrol.

[00:29:19] Sabine: Yes, the labor education camp did not belong to the city of Innsbruck, it belonged to the regional labor office

[00:29:24] and therefore the state building authority and the state building administration was responsible, where, by the way

[00:29:29] the files are located. A camp per se, these were barrack settlements and depending on the type of construction, that is, depending on the

[00:29:37] earlier the camp was built, the better it was structurally because it was built on a concrete foundation

[00:29:42] foundation. The later it was built, the worse the structure was, because then

[00:29:47] at most there was a pile grid foundation and they were verydroaffected by decay. But in view

[00:29:52] housing shortage, the camps simply remained until well into the 1960s and sometimes into the early 1970s

[00:29:59] were used as emergency housing. The Reichenau camp complex, including prisoners of war,

[00:30:05] Civilian workers' camp of the city, railroad and post office, AEL, were used as an army discharge point,

[00:30:11] because every Wehrmacht soldier who came back to Innsbruck needed a discharge paper,

[00:30:16] that was done there draoutside, both the Americans and then the French

[00:30:20] military government used the camp as an internment camp for Nazis before it was decided

[00:30:25] what happened to them was court, deportation etc. And the city of Innsbruck always

[00:30:29] tried, as soon as a barrack became free, they tried to set up emergency apartments there.

[00:30:33] In principle, a poor settlement was created and that happened in many camps in Tyrol,

[00:30:38] For example, the camp of the cutlery factory in Schwaz was later rebuilt after

[00:30:42] internment camp also became a poor settlement. Barracks were a coveted commodity. And in view of

[00:30:50] the many bombing raids in the city of Innsbruck, the housing shortage was simply so great that one had to

[00:30:53] really every room that was somehow suitable as a place to sleep. Tobias: In the

[00:30:59] Ideally, only temporarily. Sabine: Ideally temporarily, some people are,

[00:31:03] have been there for many, many years because they were simply too poor and earned too little,

[00:31:07] to afford decent housing. That was a slum. Tobias: As far as I know, there was also one in Wörgl

[00:31:11] there was one in Kufstein... Sabine: Many, in every municipality where there was a camp,

[00:31:16] they were emergency housing afterwards. Unless the barracks were in such a miserable state,

[00:31:20] that nothing really worked anymore. Tobias: It's really tough when you think about it. Sabine: It's tough. Because the

[00:31:26] barracks that were built later, because the Nazi regime also made

[00:31:30] made distinctions as to who lived there drin. That is to say, if they tended to use Reich German

[00:31:35] workers, then the barracks were usually double-walled,

[00:31:39] with a layer of insulation in between or with double-glazed windows. Was it just a barrack for

[00:31:44] Russians, it was a windowless thing. So they also attached great importance to that,

[00:31:50] that you could tell from the type of accommodation what value the people had.

[00:31:53] Tobias: Again, a very stupid question on my part, but did it then come to sarnation work on these

[00:32:00] yes, bad barracks, be it in Reichenau or whatever else in Tyrol,

[00:32:07] that the windows were changed... Sabine: Yes.

[00:32:11] Tobias: That was already, wasn't it? Sabine: Mhm. Well, the city, the municipal building authority of Innsbruck has been very

[00:32:16] to keep these emergency barracks in Reichenau up to standard,

[00:32:20] where they say, yes, it's just about suitable for people.

[00:32:25] Tobias: And then I think until the 60s? Sabine: Until the 60s, until the construction of the municipal building yard there draußen.

[00:32:32] Tobias: And that's when the entire camp complex, so to speak, was...

[00:32:38] Sabine: Yes, then all the barracks were torn down, the last remaining barracks were torn down.

[00:32:42] A new road network was laid out, Rossaugasse, Trientlgasse and so on,

[00:32:46] None of that had existed before. And businesses were established.

[00:32:50] In other words, we see exactly nothing in Reichenau today.

[00:32:54] Tobias: Except for the memorial stone and hopefully a memorial site. Sabine: Exactly.

[00:32:59] Tobias: Finally, a question on my part, do you think it would be very useful to talk about the camp

[00:33:08] more research time in the whole of Tyrol?

[00:33:13] Sabine: Yes, it would make a lot of sense. What I have worked on are the files of the Office of the Tyrolean Provincial Government,

[00:33:19] State Building Authority and Water Management Authority etc. Files of the district administration, which is just largely

[00:33:24] still missing, because the effort would also be very great, are files in municipal archives.

[00:33:29] But the municipal chroniclers [outro music starts in the background] would simply be called upon to take up the subject.

[00:33:33] [Outro music] Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the second episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,

[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive.

[00:00:08] After talking about the creation of the labor education camp in Reichenau in the first episode,

[00:00:14] in this episode, we look at the study that was carried out on the camp.

[00:00:19] I have invited the co-author of the study, Horst Schreiber, to join us.

[00:00:24] Horst Schreiber conducts intensive research on contemporary historical topics in Tyrol

[00:00:29] and is, among other things, director of the Michael Gaismair Society and of erinnern.at

[00:00:34] and, like Sabine Pitscheider, was a member of the expert commission for the Reichenau.

[00:00:40] In our conversation, we talk about the genesis of the study,

[00:00:44] what difficulties arose during the research and also go into details of the study.

[00:00:50] [Intro music]

[00:01:05] Tobias: Dear Horst, thank you for your time.

[00:01:08] We mainly talk about the Reichenau labor education camp in our season.

[00:01:14] You are very much involved from the research side, working on the Reichenau camp.

[00:01:23] I've already spoken to Sabine about the camp situation in Tyrol in general,

[00:01:28] but then also specifically about the Reichenau labor education camp, how it started, the changes.

[00:01:36] And today I would like to talk to you about a study commissioned by the city of Innsbruck,

[00:01:45] to the Science Office, in which you are involved, and the study was then carried out by yourself

[00:01:52] and also at this point mentioned Sabine Pitscheider, who also took part in the study.

[00:01:56] Can you perhaps tell us a little bit about how the study came about, how you were commissioned?

[00:02:03] why this study is being carried out?

[00:02:05] Horst: Well, the fact is that the city of Innsbruck set up a working group drei years ago,

[00:02:14] to think about how a dignified commemoration could be in the Reichenau,

[00:02:22] to also make a new memorial sign, new forms of memorial signs and a call for tenders

[00:02:31] which is currently underway, because this memorial stone was there in 1972,

[00:02:41] where the camp was located in Reichenau.

[00:02:46] That was very, very early by the standards of the time, because that was actually the memorial landscape in Tyrol,

[00:02:54] In the 80s, memorials began to be made more strongly, but not really,

[00:02:58] only in the 90s and 00s.

[00:03:00] But the memorial sign is, of course, something that today, both in terms of the inscription and the aesthetics

[00:03:10] is of course no longer so contemporary half a century later and because, especially in Reichenau

[00:03:18] a lot has happened with new buildings, conversions etc., so the location is also very unfavorable.

[00:03:27] That was the background.

[00:03:29] And Sabine Pitscheider and I were on this commission and in the course of this it was also clear from our side,

[00:03:40] that there must also be a certain form of personalization, whatever a memorial sign will look like,

[00:03:49] but that is a prerequisite and that it is also necessary to at least take an approach,

[00:03:57] how many people died there in the first place and what can be determined.

[00:04:04] As I said, very, very late.

[00:04:07] We put forward that it was necessary and then the commission or the city of Innsbruck quickly decided,

[00:04:15] that we would pursue it more professionally.

[00:04:18] And as I said, the documentation level is the file situation is very difficult

[00:04:27] and so on the one hand there are the investigations that the Austrian side, i.e. the Tyrolean courts, have carried out,

[00:04:35] about individual perpetrators or people who were suspected of having committed crimes

[00:04:41] and on the other hand, of course, the very broad surveys that the French authorities carried out after 1945,

[00:04:51] which ultimately resulted in a major process that was organized by the now military government,

[00:05:01] i.e. by appropriately professionally trained judges etc.

[00:05:05] And that used to be such a large inventory to look through

[00:05:11] and on the other hand it was clear that people died in the camp,

[00:05:16] But the people also died in the hospital in Innsbruck or in the hospital, that is, in blocks of the hospital,

[00:05:24] Hall died.

[00:05:26] On the one hand, you had to look at the autopsy findings, which still exist,

[00:05:31] just look through the city archives, a bit about Hall as well

[00:05:35] and I just found a collection in the archives in Paris,

[00:05:42] where these reports contained the coroner's findings from Innsbruck and Hall.

[00:05:49] In other words, that was practically the fund that we worked with

[00:05:54] and then came up with this total of 112 people.

[00:06:01] In the meantime, we're already at 114 or 116 people,

[00:06:05] because of course the whole thing is never completely finished

[00:06:08] and on the other hand there is a problem, namely there are many, many people from the camp,

[00:06:20] where it was practically a transit camp, came to Dachau.

[00:06:25] Also in other concentration camps Auschwitz etc. but to Dachau.

[00:06:28] And then it's very difficult for you to distinguish

[00:06:32] and of course there were some who were already so physically exhausted,

[00:06:41] so shortly before their death, be it, the one problem is the food, so malnutrition

[00:06:48] and the other difficulty is that excessive violence was practiced.

[00:06:54] And we can clearly assume that in many cases, I think, we could say on the basis of the files.

[00:07:03] So they still came to Dachau, but they were practically already [short laugh] dead beforehand.

[00:07:08] And those who were already close to death so that they wouldn't die in the camp, who were quickly transferred,

[00:07:14] So we can't find out that number.

[00:07:19] Tobias: You said that there were many of the at least 114 dead in the Reichenau camp.

[00:07:26] How can you read that from the sources, is it clearer for the listeners?

[00:07:32] is it written like this drinnen, died in the Reichenau camp, what causes of death were recorded there?

[00:07:39] was it made so obvious?

[00:07:42] Horst: Well, one thing is clear, it's a procedure, as it is in peacetime.

[00:07:49] It needs a coroner's report and a statement of the reason why someone died.

[00:07:57] That's also the case in the extermination centers, be it for people with mental illnesses in Hartheim,

[00:08:05] the case or in the concentration camps.

[00:08:07] The problem is, as you ask the question, which of these is true?

[00:08:13] Now it's the case that most of them were made by the camp doctor, Alois Pizzinini,

[00:08:21] who came maybe twice a week.

[00:08:24] On the one hand, you have to say that in a number of cases you can prove that it's "fake" [forged].

[00:08:31] Where he also says at the trial, the camp manager told me exactly

[00:08:35] I have to write in a medical cause.

[00:08:38] Otherwise, there are certainly causes of death that we can explain very well.

[00:08:46] So, simply put, the one that's so common is pneumonia.

[00:08:52] Why is that?

[00:08:54] Well, one of the perverse forms of punishment was the so-called cold bath.

[00:09:02] So, especially in winter or in fall, late fall at low temperatures.

[00:09:09] And then the corresponding prisoner in the so-called bunker.

[00:09:14] That was a tiny holding cell

[00:09:17] which was freezing cold, not heated, cold concrete floor in there.

[00:09:23] And a whole series of prisoners died there.

[00:09:27] Whereby it was always the full intention that they should die.

[00:09:32] And apart from that, it was only under the guiding signs of the punishment from which they died.

[00:09:39] The other are then various causes of death, where it becomes quite clear to us,

[00:09:45] These are causes of death that arise due to malnutrition.

[00:09:51] So, the body is weakened, it is weakened for infectious diseases etc.

[00:09:58] So, that's how you can imagine it.

[00:10:00] And you always have to take a very, very critical look at what is listed here as the cause of death drin.

[00:10:08] As I said, we can link the storage conditions to a number of causes of death.

[00:10:13] And with others, well, things that have something to do with the heart are always very common.

[00:10:21] Now it can often be true in that sense.

[00:10:25] I'm not a doctor, but most of the time, you don't die from one cause.

[00:10:31] But this last cause can be true, but it doesn't explain why it happens.

[00:10:37] At some point the heart stops.

[00:10:39] So, as I said, we can explain a lot and some things are highly questionable.

[00:10:45] Tobias: And if I have it right in my head, many people have also been mistreated with punishments,

[00:10:50] and then also with beatings, which is also reflected in the mortuary reports.

[00:10:56] Where it's then about a large or death by sepsis, because the wounds and the people,

[00:11:03] who were of course punished were not treated by a doctor.

[00:11:06] Horst: Yes, that's a very big, important topic and a very exciting topic that I would like to discuss in more detail.

[00:11:15] Based on these two people, Alois Pizzinini and Matthias Köllemann, one is the camp doctor,

[00:11:20] and the other is the so-called medical officer.

[00:11:23] With Pizzinini, that's interesting, to say what is a porter, who is a porter,

[00:11:29] who has what responsibility, he goes in at most twice a week, he's very willing,

[00:11:37] then always presents himself as someone who couldn't have done anything at all.

[00:11:41] And Matthias Köllemann, he's much stronger than the perpetrators, he refuses the prisoners en masse,

[00:11:50] who would have been dependent on care.

[00:11:55] And after the inmates are maltreated to an extremely high degree,

[00:12:01] beaten green and blue, from wooden sticks to billets, whips, fists, kicks etc.,

[00:12:11] it is clear that wounds are wounds, these wounds do not heal because the appropriate care is lacking,

[00:12:19] they become inflamed, and if the body gets too little to eat at the same time, it is more susceptible.

[00:12:26] And beyond that is one of the essential levels of the Gestapo camp, the labor education camp,

[00:12:32] Reception camp, transit camp, transit camp, camp for political prisoners,

[00:12:38] yes, something where forced labor is performed.

[00:12:41] In the camp, but above all in the various field detachments and also when the prisoners

[00:12:49] is in a very bad physical condition or has just been severely beaten,

[00:12:56] over time, only a very, very small proportion of prisoners are allowed to walk or if they are almost unable to walk at all,

[00:13:04] that they are taken to the infirmary in the sanitary barracks.

[00:13:09] That means they have to continue working in such catastrophic physical conditions.

[00:13:16] And this whole complex of working and living conditions, like in this case wounds, wounds do not heal,

[00:13:25] there's gangrene etc., that's another reason, because you're very, very right,

[00:13:31] why so many have died.

[00:13:34] Tobias: You have now collected a lot of data, a lot of biographical data as well.

[00:13:40] Based on that, you can also make larger statistics of the camp and in this case, of course, of the dead in the camp.

[00:13:50] Can we perhaps also go into this very briefly, on the one hand, where did they come from, or

[00:13:56] In this case, only the dead of many of them, we don't know where they came from or where they went.

[00:14:01] Just look at the nationalities and maybe the age a little bit,

[00:14:07] How old were they on average, which age groups were more present, which less.

[00:14:12] Horst: Well, in any case, a typical feature of the camp is that it was initially intended as a reception camp for Italians,

[00:14:22] who initially came here in friendly status under Mussolini as normal civilian workers,

[00:14:30] but who then wanted to return home because the conditions, pay, work, leisure time, bombs in Germany were so bad,

[00:14:43] that they wanted to go back and then they were caught and re-educated through work.

[00:14:50] That means that among the dead we have one, the strongest group, practically the Italians.

[00:14:58] But here you have to say that this large number of deaths is due to this,

[00:15:04] in the case of Italian nationals, that they first appear on a massive scale,

[00:15:09] when Mussolini was overthrown in 1943 and Italy changed fronts.

[00:15:16] The Italians were given a new status from a friendly state to military internees

[00:15:22] and here we also have Italians everywhere outside the Reichenau camp,

[00:15:29] initially fought as friends with the other German soldiers, whether it was in Greece or here with us,

[00:15:38] They are now treated the worst alongside Jews, Jews and the so-called Eastern workers, i.e. the Soviet states and Poland.

[00:15:48] What's very interesting here, beyond the Reichenau camp, is that Tyroleans and South Tyroleans also treated Italians very badly,

[00:15:56] because here this story of the Walschen, the South Tyrolean question, again they are cowards and change fronts.

[00:16:05] So the Italians are now being attacked with tremendous brutality.

[00:16:09] In Greece, for example, they're being shot by the hundreds.

[00:16:14] That is also reflected in Tyrol.

[00:16:18] The Italians didn't necessarily only come from Tyrol, they also came from Germany or other areas of present-day Austria

[00:16:25] and in the last two years of the war they were treated incredibly brutally, which is why so many people died.

[00:16:31] The other thing that is quite typical are the two nationalities that are at the very, very bottom of the Nazi racial hierarchy.

[00:16:41] Besides Jews and Jews, there are the Poles on the one hand and, as I mentioned before, the Easter workers on the other.

[00:16:50] Simply put, Soviet nationals and here very, very strongly from Ukraine,

[00:16:58] because the Ukrainians coming to Tyrol are an extremely large proportion of people who were deported here.

[00:17:09] And the age structure of these people is very, very young and that also reflects the fact that you have quite a lot of youthfulness among the murdered,

[00:17:20] is only the apparent contradiction that young people are capable of resistance, but on the one hand it has to do with the fact that they are especially

[00:17:29] are used for forced labor under the most brutal conditions. In the over 50s or

[00:17:34] old people are relatively few in number. Of the dead, as I said, Ukrainians,

[00:17:43] Soviet citizens in general and Poles are the strongest group. Together they are even more

[00:17:51] than the Italians. But otherwise number one would be Italy, Poland, Soviet Union including Ukraine,

[00:18:01] which you don't particularly say today because of this conflict, the war that's going on now. And

[00:18:07] then there are locals, Austrians, they are about 13 people and then there are a few,

[00:18:14] different countries, yes. Tobias: In the comments, in this study, it becomes a list,

[00:18:24] the victims, so to speak. Every now and then there is also a place of deployment in the notes. Where do they come from?

[00:18:33] or how do you get this information, that you can really use it selectively for companies or for

[00:18:40] locations, i.e. where they were used locally, where do you get such information? Horst: One is like this,

[00:18:46] in the coroner's report, the location must also be specified. The location is something that

[00:18:53] rule is correct, if it is stated, in the camp or somewhere outside. So you don't have to

[00:19:00] imagine, as far as the field detachments are concerned, the Reichenau camp, as well as the other camps,

[00:19:09] that were not labor camps, labor education camps Reichenau, that is also still from

[00:19:13] the Reichspost, the Reichsbahn had its own camp, two camps of the city of Innsbruck, prisoner-of-war camps [00:19:18] and the Reichsbahn

[00:19:18] camps, civilian labor camps. But all of these prisoners were sent to the external detachments of companies

[00:19:25] and one particularly inglorious company was Stippler. So a very large part

[00:19:32] of course concerns construction work or, where they are even further away, clean-up work after

[00:19:41] bombing raids, i.e. rubble plus removal of unexploded ordnance. And that was very dangerous, of course. And the

[00:19:48] Unexploded ordnance disposal was now not only in Innsbruck, but also far beyond,

[00:19:55] for example in Brixlegg. And that's where things happened with fatal consequences.

[00:20:03] Tobias: We can't name and mention all the victims in our conversation now, but that's why

[00:20:12] nevertheless, perhaps we'll look at individual fates as examples. There is one

[00:20:18] right and from my point of view it also reflects very well this vastness of where people came from

[00:20:25] to this camp in Reichenau and you've already researched drüabout that. Horst: Yes, so something,

[00:20:31] what you wouldn't expect now are Jews and Jews from Libya, who specifically had a

[00:20:40] had British citizenship. During the war, Italy was the quasi colonial ruler in

[00:20:49] Libya. And from 1942, when the war became more dynamic, dynamic in the negative sense for the

[00:20:58] German Reich and for Italy, which were allies, the anti-Jewish

[00:21:03] measures also took effect in Italy. And from 1942, the Italian authorities deported them,

[00:21:11] Libyan Jews and Jewesses to a separate concentration camp on the Tunisian border and other parts

[00:21:19] take them to Italy, to various places in Italy and then some to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

[00:21:27] And there are 62 Libyan nationals, of Jewish-British origin, who are then sent to

[00:21:37] Innsbruck, to the Reichenau camp in the fall of 1943. And that's actually

[00:21:46] less individual people than family groups. And here we have a very interesting

[00:21:54] report from survivors, which was written soon after the liberation from National Socialism

[00:22:00] they were interviewed and that's why we have a whole range of information here,

[00:22:06] how they fared. And with this group, as I said, they were from

[00:22:14] fall 1943 to mid-April 1944 and two of them died. One

[00:22:23] young one at the age of 27, Shalom Reginiano, and on the other side a really old

[00:22:32] man, old man, where there are different dates of his birth between 70 and

[00:22:38] 85, whose grave is just at the cemetery, at the military cemetery. I came across it by chance and

[00:22:47] That was the beginning again, coincidence. What is that, what kind of name is that?

[00:22:53] and the grave has the corresponding Jewish sign. I couldn't explain it to myself

[00:23:00] and the Italian Briton, that was completely unclear and then I followed it up

[00:23:05] and then came to the conclusion that he belonged to this group. With him we know the

[00:23:09] cause of death. We do with Reginiano, which is exactly what we talked about before

[00:23:16] talked about before. A strong young man who is constantly committed to very hard work

[00:23:22] with a poor diet, who also falls ill as a result, who doesn't receive this care

[00:23:30] and who is then practically admitted to the sanitary barracks at the very end, where there are

[00:23:35] but it's too late and he dies there too. We learn from these reports of the arrival,

[00:23:46] where you are already beaten or where everyone has to strip naked. Among them are,

[00:23:51] it was actually a men's camp, but especially in this group we can see that

[00:23:55] there were always women, although, as I said, it was not intended for women

[00:24:00] that it was more the Jenbach camp, about which we know nothing, hardly anything, and there are

[00:24:08] these humiliation rituals too. The women have to strip naked under the mocking laughter

[00:24:13] of the guards. The women work in the men's camp on the outskirts, they have to go to the makeshift

[00:24:19] airport in winter, poorly clad in clogs, rags around their feet,

[00:24:27] Snow, trudging and alone people from Libya who come here with the climate,

[00:24:33] There were also a relatively large number of elderly people who suffered as a result,

[00:24:38] severe frostbite was also typical of the camp. The happiness in misfortune consisted of this,

[00:24:44] that there was a deal between the British and the Germans about the prisoner exchange,

[00:24:50] so that then the Red Cross was these 60, but 61, with 61 I say something else,

[00:25:01] they were then released in April 1944 and were able to go to Switzerland, France

[00:25:08] and they survived. There is something special, the 61st person, a woman was pregnant and

[00:25:16] she gave birth to her child in the hospital in Innsbruck, they survived and the interesting thing

[00:25:25] is that in the early noughties, when Austria first had to get comfortable under international Druck

[00:25:33] to address the issue of forced labor and also to make compensation payments,

[00:25:40] I mean compensation payments, that was 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 euros, but still, and that's where

[00:25:47] from the group of Libyan Jews, where most of them were already

[00:25:51] were already dead, two came forward and one of them was the woman, the baby at the time, who survived

[00:26:03] and who came forward when she was older and who was living in Israel at the time

[00:26:10] was living in Israel. Tobias: Of course, we've now spoken up to the time of 1945, but the study also deals with

[00:26:18] also deals with the time after that, which is also clearly stated in the preface to the study atdrÃ

[00:26:23] because there is also a research desideratum there. Let's perhaps conclude with

[00:26:29] briefly return to this period, the subsequent use, which many Innsbruck residents probably also

[00:26:35] or Innsbruck residents have also experienced, those who are still alive. Horst: Yes, so at first the camp was very

[00:26:42] was used in a multifunctional way. That means on the one hand and the photos we have of the

[00:26:49] camp are actually from the time when it was no longer a Nazi camp and there... the

[00:26:59] survivors then become refugees or "displaced persons" [person who is not resident in this place]. Then you have to

[00:27:05] you have to imagine it like this, tens of thousands of "displaced persons" from the various parts where the Nazis had

[00:27:13] occupied the various states, were also streaming through Tyrol, through Innsbruck, because many

[00:27:22] then move on or are accommodated here in various refugee camps or

[00:27:27] also Italians who want to go home via the Brenner Pass. That means we have a lot here,

[00:27:32] a lot of refugees, people who are interested can go over when they go to YouTube or Reichenau

[00:27:37] and so on, they come to a clip of a few minutes where you can see people at the

[00:27:44] train station in Innsbruck these people and also in the camp and it's primarily these

[00:27:51] people who had fled or survivors. Then the camp is also used as a kind of

[00:27:59] "Army discharge point". That means that there are masses of people who come or are released

[00:28:05] are released as prisoners of war and the French authorities first assign

[00:28:12] the people so that they, because you have to look, is this an SS man, from that area, is something

[00:28:19] investigated and then they are released and can then return to their home areas or to

[00:28:24] different areas to Tyrol. Another large group that is then created here is that the

[00:28:31] French authorities then also use the camp as a denazification camp. That means,

[00:28:37] that a lot of National Socialists are there for a certain time and we have several camps,

[00:28:44] where ex-Nazis are housed. One is this Oradour in Schwaz, the other is for example

[00:28:51] For example, Reichenau, Oradour in Schwaz and the Kufstein fortress are the biggest ones anyway. There are quite

[00:28:59] huge exchange between them. Prisoners, Nazis, wherever there's anything that needs medical attention,

[00:29:06] bigger, they come to the Reichenau because it's easier to take them to the hospital in Innsbruck

[00:29:12] or take them somewhere else. Then some took the chance to escape. Yes, and then, and that's

[00:29:19] very, very interesting. That's also a similar story to the one we have in Schwaz, like me

[00:29:25] recently investigated in Schwaz. The last stage, which is the longest, that is

[00:29:33] the accommodation of the poor. So Reichenau is a settlement for the poor. That means we have in

[00:29:41] Austria also had an incredible housing shortage in Tyrol after the war due to bombing

[00:29:49] etc. And the barrack camp existence is something that lasted well into the 1960s, even in Reichenau,

[00:29:58] until the early 1970s, dominated the cityscape, both in Innsbruck and in Schwaz,

[00:30:05] in Kufstein, in Wörgl and so on and so forth. And of course it's typical that on the one hand

[00:30:14] National Socialism in Tyrol was only researched very late, that certain topics, such as the

[00:30:21] we're talking about right now, were excessively late, too late for a lot of things, and that this was accompanied by

[00:30:29] to another topic that was and is extremely neglected, that is the history

[00:30:35] of poverty, the history of the poor. And especially in this Reichenau camp, where the marginalized

[00:30:45] people are "ghettoized", who then not only live down there as homeless people, but who

[00:30:54] are very, very quickly, badly, slandered, slandered, but who thus become such a

[00:31:02] sense of belonging to each other against mainstream society. And you have to

[00:31:08] imagine one thing, today Reichenau is clearly Innsbruck, I don't just mean as a geographical

[00:31:15] affiliation, but yes, you're there by bike, by bus and so on, but back then it was

[00:31:22] the outside, that was also one of the reasons why the Nazis used this reason,

[00:31:28] to set up the camps there. And that means that the ones in Innsbruck, they were the

[00:31:34] better ones and the ones in Reichenau, those are the abandoned ones, you could also

[00:31:40] a few areas in Innsbruck from the slaughterhouse, PremstraÃe, Stalingrad etc.,

[00:31:46] That is, that is, where are these children being educated? So this poverty that is inherited

[00:31:53] then practically continues and that goes on practically until the Olympics, where a lot of

[00:32:02] new living space is created and then the number of barracks that become more and more run-down and

[00:32:10] more and more dilapidated, they will be gradually dismantled and you can't imagine that

[00:32:19] then the poor hip-hip-hurra will all end up in the high-rise buildings. That means that there are

[00:32:26] investigations in the city of Innsbruck and a whole series of these people are considered not to be

[00:32:31] unfit to live in, so that they end up in the hotspots I just mentioned,

[00:32:39] like in Stalingrad, the slaughterhouse and so on, they were moved there or given a whole row of

[00:32:46] apartments then later in the high-rise buildings, where quite a few were no longer in the best

[00:32:53] condition. So as I said, quite a few families can move, but a lot of them are leaving

[00:33:00] from a place with a bad reputation for marginalized people to the next place with a bad reputation

[00:33:06] place. And this practically closes the circle to my other field of research, which always turns out like this

[00:33:14] overlapped, namely children and young people in out-of-home care and such barracks

[00:33:22] camps, be it Reichenau or other barracks that existed in Innsbruck. There are also

[00:33:29] very, very many so-called Yenish, who were labeled as Karner, Tyrolean gypsies, etc.

[00:33:35] An extremely large proportion of children and young people are recruited from these areas,

[00:33:41] who are placed in residential care, where the correspondingly very high proportion of the next

[00:33:48] excesses of violence then await them. As I said, the story of Amut, that's something else,

[00:33:54] where further research needs to be done. But at least some exciting things have already appeared,

[00:34:00] or also the Bocksiedlung, which is also practically a part of the Reichenau, which is also the city archive in

[00:34:06] published by Ms. Hollaus, where there are some very exciting stories. You can see,

[00:34:13] that this Nazi era reaches directly and indirectly far into the present, that it blows in and

[00:34:22] affects subject areas, geographies and other topics where we would not think,

[00:34:30] that this still has anything to do with National Socialism. [Outro music]

[00:34:33] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Innsbruck City Archive and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:34:53] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the dritten episode of our dritten season of Archivwürdig,

[00:00:05] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive.

[00:00:08] In this episode, we take a look at the former Reichenau labor education camp from an archaeological perspective.

[00:00:14] I have invited the archaeologist Barbara Hausmair to talk about this topic.

[00:00:19] Together with her team, Barbara Hausmair was commissioned by the city of Innsbruck to carry out archaeological investigations

[00:00:25] at the site of the former camp.

[00:00:29] Together we talk about this research process, among other things.

[00:00:33] What insights were gained from the work and we also think about

[00:00:38] about further archaeological excavations in Tyrol during the Nazi era.

[00:00:56] [Intro music] Tobias: Dear Barbara, thank you for your time for being with us today.

[00:01:00] Archaeology is something you associate with when you go out into the population,

[00:01:05] mainly with, to put it bluntly, with old stuff, in other words everything that concerns quasi ancient things.

[00:01:10] In Innsbruck in particular, many people probably think of the Veldidena excavations, the Roman remains.

[00:01:17] Can you perhaps explain to us briefly, just briefly, when they started digging not even 100 years ago?

[00:01:24] Barbara: That's a very good question. In fact, the archaeology of the recent past

[00:01:28] is also a very young archaeology as a scientific discipline.

[00:01:31] In Austria, about 30 years old, if you want to look at it.

[00:01:35] And I think it's a very late development within archaeological research,

[00:01:39] because archaeology, as you say, was originally mainly concerned with older eras.

[00:01:43] That is constantly changing, because archaeology today is no longer so much about

[00:01:48] the question of the past in the sense of distance, but is actually defined by its sources.

[00:01:53] So we're actually trying to gain access to history through material remains.

[00:01:58] And it doesn't really matter what time they are from.

[00:02:01] And in recent years or decades this has also led to the development of an archaeology of the recent past,

[00:02:07] in which we are able to access this more recent past through archaeological traces.

[00:02:12] Tobias: From your point of view, is it easier to dig for more recent times than for the more distant past?

[00:02:20] Barbara: Yes and no. So I think on the one hand, if you want to look at it methodically,

[00:02:24] it is of course very exciting to research the more recent past,

[00:02:27] because we have a very dense parallel tradition through writing, images or oral sources, of course.

[00:02:32] And this creates a much denser picture and also makes the interpretation of archaeological finds

[00:02:38] much richer than is sometimes possible in prehistory, for example.

[00:02:42] On the other hand, it's also very difficult archaeology,

[00:02:45] because this past is of course very close to us dran.

[00:02:47] It's something where we still have some people who lived through the times we're researching,

[00:02:51] where family histories are shaped.

[00:02:53] And accordingly, this is very important to me, archaeology is not just a look into the past,

[00:02:58] but it is also very much about how we deal with this past today.

[00:03:02] And of course the archaeology of the Nazi era is also important here

[00:03:04] is certainly a more difficult archaeology in this respect, because we are also involved somewhere in these discourses,

[00:03:09] how do we deal with this past?

[00:03:13] And that makes it a big challenge, of course.

[00:03:16] Tobias: I've invited you now of course, maybe I haven't even mentioned it yet,

[00:03:20] but you were also involved or commissioned, I think, by the commission or by the city,

[00:03:26] in the area of the former Reichenau labor education camp

[00:03:32] So not you alone, of course, that's clear, but you and your team,

[00:03:37] excavations to find traces of the camp,

[00:03:45] can you perhaps also briefly explain to us how this assignment came about

[00:03:49] and what the process was like and maybe just who was involved.

[00:03:56] Barbara: The city of Innsbruck has been trying for some time now to create a new memorial site in Reichenau

[00:04:01] for the victims of National Socialism who were imprisoned there in the labor education camp,

[00:04:06] but also in the neighboring camp complexes, and in the run-up to this project planning, the city decided

[00:04:12] that it is certainly also essential to carry out further intensive research into the history of these camps,

[00:04:17] but also of the people who were imprisoned or died there

[00:04:23] and that has on the one hand led to very intensive research from the historical side.

[00:04:27] I believe Sabine Pitscheider will also be speaking here in this podcast.

[00:04:31] And on the other hand, this research has of course also raised the question of the exact historical location.

[00:04:38] How big was this camp complex? How was it structured?

[00:04:42] Can we actually find any information in the spatial structure about the history of these camps there in Reichenau?

[00:04:50] But of course the question also arose for the creation of the memorial site, which was certainly also in the interests of the city,

[00:04:55] are there really any material remains in the sense of buildings?

[00:04:59] that are perhaps still hidden somewhere in the industrial estate today

[00:05:04] and it was with this in mind that they approached me and my colleague Barbara Pöll from

[00:05:08] monumentGUT with the request to see if we could do something about it from an archaeological point of view.

[00:05:14] And the whole thing actually started in such a way that we initially, well, everyone who knows the Reichenau,

[00:05:18] knows that today it is a very heavily built-up commercial area, asked us the question

[00:05:23] and how can we first find out if there is anything left above ground?

[00:05:26] and how can we then assess whether there is perhaps at least archaeologically, i.e. in the soil, in the soil findings,

[00:05:31] is still preserved. And we did that initially by evaluating historical plans

[00:05:36] and also written sources and oral tradition relating to the spatial structure of the camp,

[00:05:42] but above all using aerial photographs from the time of the Second World War,

[00:05:46] which were actually taken by the Allies at the time as part of their air raids or air wars

[00:05:51] and first of all simply tried to show the entire spatial situation and the development of the camps,

[00:05:55] between 1940/41 and 1945 and beyond, of course, until the demolition of the last barracks in the 1960s.

[00:06:05] And on the basis of this aerial photo analysis, we then tried to see if there were still individual buildings somewhere,

[00:06:10] That didn't turn out to be the case, so today there are really no buildings left above ground,

[00:06:15] that would somehow still be directly connected to the camp.

[00:06:19] But we also managed to compare these historical aerial photographs with the modern aerial photographs and satellite images

[00:06:26] to identify areas that have not yet been built on deeply, i.e. that do not have basements

[00:06:32] and where there is potentially the possibility that there are still archaeological traces in the ground.

[00:06:38] Tobias: That means you've done the theoretical or partly practical work in advance.

[00:06:44] How did the excavations come about, is it very difficult with such a heavily built-up and, yes, used, I mean

[00:06:55] The building yard is still there and of course still in operation and the only one in the city, i.e. where everyone goes.

[00:07:04] Is it..., does it make the work for excavations very difficult or is it always the case or mostly the case anyway?

[00:07:15] Barbara: Of course, in urban areas, no matter what kind of archaeology you do, it's always problematic,

[00:07:20] because we simply have a very strong modern imprint.

[00:07:23] In the case of Reichenau, it was clear to us right from the start that the possibility of actually doing archaeology in the ground,

[00:07:29] would be very limited, simply because the development there is really massive,

[00:07:34] the demolition was very massive and, of course, because the area is used intensively today.

[00:07:38] All Innsbruck residents are probably familiar with the recycling center, they know how much traffic there is, even on weekends

[00:07:43] and of course the municipal building yard.

[00:07:45] But what we tried to do, actually through our aerial photo analysis, was first of all to clarify whether the potential was there at all.

[00:07:52] And when we saw that there were still very, very small residual areas in the southern area,

[00:07:56] of today's building yard, which was part of the camp area during the Nazi era, which has not yet been built on.

[00:08:01] That was of course an important indication for us that there was still some preservation in the ground,

[00:08:06] but also in the traffic areas, which are not underground.

[00:08:10] And the next step was to carry out a geophysical prospection,

[00:08:14] so a non-destructive archaeology and actually tried to find out via measurements of physical properties in the ground,

[00:08:22] whether it might still be possible to recognize lines or structures that we could connect with the camp complex.

[00:08:28] Tobias: Do you have these geophysical measurements or can you perhaps explain them a little bit more,

[00:08:33] Is that also about archaeology or do you also refer to the, stupidly said, external or from the university?

[00:08:40] parallel knowledge from other institutions that are there to support you, or is it already very much anchored in archaeology?

[00:08:48] Barbara: Here in Innsbruck, we really have the advantage that we have expertise at our institute,

[00:08:54] with Professor Grabherr, who has also been practicing geophysics, i.e. archaeological prospecting methods, for many years,

[00:09:00] and we received support from his team, with David Imre, to carry out the measurements on site.

[00:09:06] I don't want to get into the physics right now, but maybe to put it a bit bluntly,

[00:09:10] you drive over the areas of interest with measuring devices, so to speak, and then by measuring the physical properties

[00:09:16] actually creates a depth image of the ground. It's not an X-ray, but I think in layman's terms you can imagine,

[00:09:21] that it's a bit like x-raying the soil. And then you can see the structures in the soil, so to speak,

[00:09:27] that can be pipe trenches, but also, for example, the remains of foundations or something similar.

[00:09:32] And this virtual image gives you an initial insightdruinto whether there are potentially still structures there,

[00:09:38] that are actually still connected to the labor education camp, for example.

[00:09:43] Perhaps one more sentence about the fact that it was certainly particularly challenging to work on these very heavily built-up areas

[00:09:50] to do geophysics. On the one hand, there are technical measurement problems, but the big challenge is actually also,

[00:09:56] that the buildings, as they are today, essentially have exactly the same orientation,

[00:10:02] like the buildings in the labor education camp back then. And that's always one of those things,

[00:10:06] What I might recognize as lines on the aerial photographs is difficult to really determine from the virtual image, so to speak,

[00:10:14] Is this what really belongs to the warehouse or are these perhaps older line installations that no longer exist on the plans?

[00:10:20] Of course, we also need expertise from somewhere else, in this case of course from the city,

[00:10:25] which has tried to support us as much as possible with pipe plans so that we can rule out a few things in advance,

[00:10:31] what are structures that really belong to the building yard and what are potentially really structures that are still from the Nazi era?

[00:10:38] could be present in the ground.

[00:10:40] Tobias: Did the geophysical data also give rise to a suspicion that there are still remains here and there,

[00:10:49] or did you just, to put it stupidly, blindly drago for it?

[00:10:53] Barbara: No, we didn't go blindly drauf, that's why [laughs] we did it for geophysics.

[00:10:57] What we did was that we tried to see what anomalies we could see on the measurement images.

[00:11:02] And then we basically carried out a process of elimination.

[00:11:05] On the one hand, we looked to see if they matched modern pipeline plans,

[00:11:09] and then you can more or less rule out the possibility that these are historical structures.

[00:11:13] And in the second step, where we saw that we had no information that these were modern canal structures or similar,

[00:11:18] we then looked to see whether they corresponded with the infrastructure that we recognized on the aerial photographs, on the historical ones.

[00:11:24] And so it was then possible to narrow down certain areas where there was a high potential.

[00:11:30] But I would still like to point this out again [laughs] because it's important that there is of course a source of error here too.

[00:11:35] In the excavations, we actually had the case that one of these linear structures that we had in the measurement image,

[00:11:41] turned out to be a water pipe that was still in use, but simply wasn't on any pipe plan,

[00:11:46] but which would actually have fitted in well with the area of this accommodation barrack 1,

[00:11:51] which we then tried to locate and identify in the archaeology.

[00:11:56] And that's always the challenge.

[00:11:58] So geophysics is a very, very important element or a very important method for preliminary exploration.

[00:12:04] But in the end, we can only really know what we have in the ground when we actually start digging.

[00:12:13] [Drenoise] Tobias: Let's take the next step. You're really moving on to digging now, how much time has been allowed,

[00:12:23] how do you estimate how much time is used for excavation or even gets,

[00:12:30] so time, how much time you are allowed to dig at all.

[00:12:33] It's probably not just your own estimate that counts.

[00:12:37] Barbara: It's always a very nasty question when you ask archaeologists how much time they would like to have to dig.

[00:12:42] We are a very slow business [both laugh].

[00:12:44] No, we tried in this case, on the one hand because it was clear, of course,

[00:12:47] that even if we find something, it will probably only be to a very fragmented degree

[00:12:52] and actually the primary question was, are there any substantial traces left?

[00:12:56] So we agreed with the city that we would actually do a kind of small test excavation.

[00:13:01] This is basically only possible on very, very few areas on the site of the current building yard,

[00:13:06] because most of it is covered in concrete and we then decided,

[00:13:08] that we would actually make a very small cut, so to speak, in the area,

[00:13:12] which we then really excavate, in the south on this last remaining green strip,

[00:13:17] that we're going to open up at the gardening office and have scheduled a 2- to 3-week excavation for it.

[00:13:23] Really, but also with the aim of not doing anything in the end, depending on what comes out,

[00:13:28] to dig up everything completely, but simply to get a first look at the ground.

[00:13:31] Of course, we also clarified this in advance with the Federal Monuments Office,

[00:13:34] who are also responsible for this as an authority.

[00:13:37] And everyone involved actually agreed to that, so to speak,

[00:13:40] that this is basically a kind of first attempt,

[00:13:43] simply to be able to weigh up how much substance is really still there.

[00:13:48] Tobias; So what was the first onedruck [laughs] so to speak?

[00:13:51] Barbara: At the beginning, we actually had to realize that the area had been over-imprinted,

[00:13:55] namely also in the sense of the overlapping of the leveling layers,

[00:13:58] is much more massive than we had hoped.

[00:14:01] In the end, we really had to go down to 1.70 m

[00:14:04] to actually get down to the National Socialist, the Nazi layers.

[00:14:09] In other words, we can also see that the building yard area here was not only demolished,

[00:14:13] but also massive restructuring and leveling since the 1960s,

[00:14:17] but probably even later, in the 70s and 80s,

[00:14:20] we can see that in the material found in the leveling layers.

[00:14:23] And we then reached this depth partly by manual excavation,

[00:14:27] but also partly by using a mini excavator,

[00:14:30] and then actually reached a depth of 1.70 meters,

[00:14:33] then really hit the last remains of this accommodation barrack 1.

[00:14:37] Tobias: Because you already mentioned the finds briefly, what were there?

[00:14:42] or maybe just as an example, all the additional material,

[00:14:48] in addition to the remains of the foundations or the remains that came to light?

[00:14:53] Barbara: The majority of the finds, I have to be honest,

[00:14:56] is basically garbage from the time since the building yard was built,

[00:14:59] that it's what we find in the leveling layers.

[00:15:02] But we have the last few centimeters, so to speak,

[00:15:05] before these barrack remains in the form of pile foundations,

[00:15:08] concrete foundations came out, relatively very little,

[00:15:12] but finds were made, but probably from the time of the emergency housing estate,

[00:15:16] which existed in these barracks until the 1960s.

[00:15:21] And it's partly about everyday crockery and flower pots, but above all about

[00:15:26] simple packaging material that really dates back to the 50s and 60s.

[00:15:30] That was actually more from the everyday life of the people who lived there in the post-war period

[00:15:35] who moved there because of the housing shortage and then lived there until the 60s

[00:15:41] lived there.

[00:15:42] From the time of the camp itself, we actually have almost only the few findings of the

[00:15:48] building structures that have been preserved, which is hardly surprising when you look at

[00:15:52] when you consider that the AEL [labor education camp] itself basically only existed for a few years, so actually

[00:15:57] only a good four years and then really several years, so almost 20 years through

[00:16:04] this use as an emergency housing estate actually gave it a completely different function, it was

[00:16:08] originally this detention context.

[00:16:10] Tobias: And especially the barracks, they weren't built to a high standard.

[00:16:15] Barbara: Yes, so what was built down there, we actually know that from the construction documents

[00:16:20] in advance, they were so-called RAD barracks, that is, barracks that were originally built for the

[00:16:24] Reich Labor Service, but which were then actually converted into barracks during the Nazi era

[00:16:29] were used on a large scale, especially in the regime's various forced labor camps

[00:16:34] in concentration camps, in forced labor camps, but also in labor education camps

[00:16:39] in the Reichenau.

[00:16:40] These are basically makeshift buildings, which are mainly made of wood and then, however

[00:16:46] so depending on how long you actually want to use these barracks then a different

[00:16:50] substructure can have.

[00:16:51] So it can be concreted, it can be laid with strip foundations or like us

[00:16:56] the Reichenau could prove archaeologically, through actually a

[00:17:00] very simple pile foundation.

[00:17:02] And I think the essential thing dran is that you simply have to realize that the

[00:17:07] is of course not the most productive excavation from an archaeological point of view that we have

[00:17:11] at the sites of Nazi crimes, precisely because of the degree of overbuilding.

[00:17:17] But I think we're also learning a lot about the subsequent use of these areas

[00:17:20] and how quickly such crime sites can be erased from public memory by

[00:17:24] reuse, but then also through such radical demolition, as happened in the 60s

[00:17:28] could also disappear.

[00:17:30] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Let's perhaps move away from the Reichenau labor education camp for a moment.

[00:17:39] You've already spoken, it would be nice if there were more excavations, more archaeological ones too

[00:17:48] Excavations on buildings from the Nazi era or camps from the Nazi era, where would it be from your

[00:17:54] point of view or would there be other meaningful places where it would also, as I said, be

[00:18:00] would be good to excavate archaeologically or at least to carry out surveys, geophysical

[00:18:10] inspections, can you think of anything off the top of your head?

[00:18:14] Barbara: Yes, so if we look specifically at Tyrol, of course, we now have a

[00:18:17] quite a good overview of where there were at least storage locations, because in the last few years they have also been

[00:18:21] the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments has carried out extensive surveys of sites and

[00:18:27] not only from this survey, but partly because the foundations of the barracks are still

[00:18:30] are still visible above ground, we know of many camp sites where we have not yet found such massive

[00:18:34] overbuilding.

[00:18:35] That's the case in Haiming, for example, or in areas near Schwaz and Kematen,

[00:18:40] where forced labor camps were built, especially for the war industry.

[00:18:44] But I'm also thinking of Vorarlberg, for example, along the Illwerke route in Montafon,

[00:18:48] that was a few years ago, which means we also surveyed [investigated] areas where we simply

[00:18:52] where there was actually no subsequent development and where some of the

[00:18:56] structure is still superficially recognizable, precisely because of the foundations that have been laid through the

[00:19:00] turf or through the forest floor.

[00:19:03] And of course these are all areas where we could potentially achieve better archaeological

[00:19:08] preservation, simply because the overprinting is not so high.

[00:19:11] But I actually think that we shouldn't restrict it just because of this overdevelopment

[00:19:15] should.

[00:19:16] I think archaeology always has two functions.

[00:19:18] One is really from a scientific perspective, that of course we try to

[00:19:22] want to find out as much as possible about a historical site and what happened there.

[00:19:26] So, of course, extensive preservation is always an advantage.

[00:19:29] But archaeology is actually, I would say, more of an intervention mode

[00:19:34] or a way of simply re-engaging with the past and its history again and again

[00:19:38] its significance for the present.

[00:19:40] And accordingly, I believe that with the many camps that have existed throughout Austria

[00:19:44] that have existed throughout Austria during this time, there is always the possibility of using archaeology as a kind of

[00:19:49] as a practice, so to speak, in order to engage with different interest groups on site

[00:19:55] to deal with these places in a new way.

[00:19:57] What then comes out, in the end, some things we can estimate quite well in advance, some things

[00:20:00] perhaps less so, and of course it needs to be scientifically processed afterwards.

[00:20:04] But I think archaeology is always a good way of interacting,

[00:20:09] to simply contribute to a visualization of these situations in the past

[00:20:13] and thus also motivate and promote a new confrontation.

[00:20:17] And we actually see that in a lot of projects.

[00:20:19] That is actually, I would like to say, the origin of archaeology, of the recent

[00:20:25] past, which actually began in the 1980s, for example in Germany

[00:20:28] started in Germany, for example, which was often really "grassroots initiatives", we would say today.

[00:20:34] So people from the local environment actually started to search for clues

[00:20:38] to confront themselves directly with the history of National Socialism on the ground.

[00:20:42] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Your results, now I'll jump back to the Reichenau labor camp, the results

[00:20:53] of the excavation work, your findings, will they or are they also available to the general public?

[00:21:02] public, are there, have they been published, except of course,

[00:21:08] I know there are newspaper articles, I think in the regional papers, but also in

[00:21:13] the TT, probably still available online anyway, but is there also a, I'll say now,

[00:21:17] more comprehensive report that will appear?

[00:21:20] Barbara: That's in the making right now, so to speak, also or almost in the Druck, it will on the one hand

[00:21:25] of course there will be publications where we will also present the results in depth

[00:21:30] to a scientific audience on the one hand, but also to a broader public.

[00:21:34] Here in Innsbruck, for example, we have also worked together with AFIN, the

[00:21:40] archaeological research network Innsbruck, we also take part there, which is more of a broad

[00:21:44] effective newsletter, they have also published shorter reports there.

[00:21:48] But I think that, especially when the new concept for the memorial site is actually implemented

[00:21:54] that will also include didactic materials for programs for schoolgirls, so to speak

[00:21:59] and schoolchildren or other interested population groups, so that we can of course

[00:22:04] also like to incorporate the results of archaeological research and, of course

[00:22:09] also make it available.

[00:22:11] And I believe that aerial photo analysis in particular plays a very important role here

[00:22:15] part, because it simply gives you the opportunity to see these spatial dimensions again,

[00:22:19] which are really difficult to comprehend today because of the degree of overbuilding

[00:22:24] to visualize them better and to give people a really spatial

[00:22:29] access to these places and these storage areas.

[00:22:33] Tobias: Is there anything else we should mention about your work in the Reichenau labor education camp?

[00:22:41] that we have forgotten in our conversation?

[00:22:44] Barbara: Well, I think that you can perhaps break it down a bit if you look at

[00:22:48] these different steps of archaeological research, is that we have to deal with different things,

[00:22:53] which methods we use or whether we look at it from a bird's eye view, so to speak

[00:22:57] or whether we really go into the ground, we simply have very different standards in the

[00:23:01] basically, looking at it and of course getting different information out of it.

[00:23:05] Which is a really exciting aspect for me and that's not specifically for

[00:23:10] surprising for Reichenau, but that's what we see in many other projects as well

[00:23:13] is, of course, that through this view from or from this aerial view

[00:23:18] actually quite a lot about the spatial development and the planning system during

[00:23:23] the Nazi era.

[00:23:25] On the one hand, there is, so to speak, what you intend, what you plan, what you estimate

[00:23:28] and what you actually implement.

[00:23:30] And that's something that we can actually break down quite well using various aerial images

[00:23:34] can do.

[00:23:35] On the one hand, how these areas are actually spatially structured and divided up.

[00:23:39] What was really exciting to see, for example, is that we, so

[00:23:44] we have the labor education camp in Reichenau on the one hand and north of it

[00:23:47] towards the Inn there was actually a, I always say it's a multifunctional complex,

[00:23:53] so a camp that was run by the city of Innsbruck, by the Reichspost

[00:23:56] and the Reichsbahn, where forced laborers and prisoners of war were imprisoned

[00:24:00] were then also exploited in Innsbruck.

[00:24:02] And we can actually understand quite well from the aerial photographs how these on the one hand

[00:24:07] administrative structure, but also these different groups

[00:24:11] of detainees are reflected in the spatial planning.

[00:24:14] In that there were always additional buildings, but also always

[00:24:18] the fence demarcations within the camp to separate these groups and areas actually

[00:24:22] reflected.

[00:24:23] And that is also a very important aspect in order to understand how to actually

[00:24:29] this discrimination against different groups, but also administrative management then

[00:24:33] in reality.

[00:24:34] And that works very strongly, for example, through the structuring of space.

[00:24:38] Excitingly, we see this dynamic that we actually have in this northern camp

[00:24:42] are not in the labor education camp.

[00:24:44] There we can actually say that pretty much from the beginning the entire complex was built as a building stock

[00:24:49] was built, actually, at least as it was originally planned and

[00:24:54] then relatively little actually changed in terms of the internal structure.

[00:24:57] And of course that also speaks for a certain continuity of the purpose of this

[00:25:01] camp, that it was really administered by the Gestapo, a high degree of discipline from the beginning

[00:25:07] from the beginning.

[00:25:08] And on the other hand, we can also see in the interface with other historical

[00:25:13] sources such as oral tradition through the aerial photographs,

[00:25:17] certain events that, for example, survivors report more concretely.

[00:25:22] Tobias: Because you just mentioned it, the thing I completely forgot,

[00:25:26] Of course there are oral sources, oral traditions, contemporary witnesses,

[00:25:32] etc.

[00:25:33] How, because there's always the saying that the contemporary witness is the historian's greatest enemy,

[00:25:40] Of course, that's also an exaggeration.

[00:25:44] But how do you take that to heart?

[00:25:49] Do you take it to heart?

[00:25:51] But of course you have to examine it critically?

[00:25:53] Barbara: Well, I don't think you can give a general answer as to what's really important here,

[00:25:57] that we first of all simply approach these different strands of tradition as sources

[00:26:01] which all have their justification, which all need their criticism, of course.

[00:26:05] And that we then, depending on what we're researching, really try to find out,

[00:26:09] compare these different strands of tradition with each other and find out,

[00:26:12] where they confirm each other.

[00:26:13] Where are perhaps blind spots in one tradition that we can feel through the other

[00:26:17] and where do they contradict each other.

[00:26:19] I would argue that this is not only challenging with testimonies,

[00:26:23] because, of course, testimonies, I think, have long been so important in historiography

[00:26:27] a bit disreputable because people say, yes, this is memory and this is of course

[00:26:30] overprinted.

[00:26:31] That's true, of course.

[00:26:32] On the other hand, of course, it's a very central source, because it's basically

[00:26:35] experience values and how they are processed.

[00:26:38] But of course you shouldn't confuse that with a documentary or a factual report.

[00:26:43] But that doesn't mean that contemporary witness reports don't contain information

[00:26:47] that simply reflect a historical reality.

[00:26:50] I think you just have to take that into account in the reappraisal and for that

[00:26:55] it is, of course, also necessary from an archaeological point of view that we work closely

[00:26:58] work closely with historians who can also help us to apply the necessary criticism

[00:27:02] to apply the necessary criticism.

[00:27:03] That worked really fantastically in the project.

[00:27:06] But it was similar with the written sources.

[00:27:09] I know there's always such a tendency to assume that as soon as we have administrative

[00:27:13] written material, to use that as a fact check.

[00:27:16] And that mag can sometimes be justified, but again, we always have to keep that in mind,

[00:27:21] Written material is also something that is created, produced by certain groups in the population,

[00:27:26] with intentions.

[00:27:28] Some things are well documented, some are omitted, some are perhaps even

[00:27:31] even falsified.

[00:27:32] So here, too, source criticism is important.

[00:27:33] And what we see very often in archaeology, especially with camp buildings, is that it,

[00:27:38] there is a planning phase and what you imagine, so to speak, and then there is

[00:27:41] a dynamic in the realization, which also changes in part with the war,

[00:27:46] where we see that in the buildings and also in the use that we can make of them through the

[00:27:49] archaeology, there are changes that we cannot find in the written sources

[00:27:53] not found in the written sources.

[00:27:54] There's also an example from the labor education camp.

[00:27:56] A very important element, actually, which apparently played a major role in the planning for a long time

[00:28:00] role in the planning of the AEL was that it was planned to build a prisoner barrack somewhere for political prisoners

[00:28:06] prisoners, which was not originally intended as a detention group for the

[00:28:09] focus.

[00:28:10] There are planning documents for this, which are also very advanced, including an extensive

[00:28:14] correspondence to the point that you can even see where it should be set up and we can

[00:28:19] actually refer to the aerial photographs in this case and say that this is

[00:28:22] has not been implemented.

[00:28:23] Whatever, there may be a paper trail, but it's not yet localized in the

[00:28:27] Archives.

[00:28:28] We can definitely tell what's really becoming actual inventory, so to speak.

[00:28:31] These are small things now, where it's really only about historically small specifics

[00:28:35] but of course that can also grow.

[00:28:38] We have examples from archaeological research in Germany, for example, from forced labor camps,

[00:28:42] In Brandenburg, for example, there are a lot of projects where we are using archaeology, for example

[00:28:47] really deep insight into the living conditions of different groups of prisoners,

[00:28:51] which we don't find at all in the paper trail.

[00:28:53] Kleinmachnow is such an example, that was also a camp where on the one hand really

[00:28:58] employees of the companies working there were housed, but also forced laborers, forced civilian laborers,

[00:29:03] prisoners of war and even concentration camp prisoners.

[00:29:06] And we see that apparently the companies that ran these camps were then quite

[00:29:10] systematically, depending on which category of people they imprisoned there,

[00:29:14] saved on building materials or infrastructure.

[00:29:18] So for the free laboring population, so to speak, there are well-heated

[00:29:22] Barracks with washing facilities and sanitary facilities.

[00:29:24] For the civilian forced laborers, this is already downgraded, where there are actually only so

[00:29:29] smaller furnaces and no permanently installed sanitary facilities in the barracks until then actually

[00:29:35] to the barracks for Soviet prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates, which no longer even had a

[00:29:40] heating actually.

[00:29:41] And that's what I mean, with archaeology, we actually see things on a human level

[00:29:46] level quite often

[00:29:47] what does it actually mean to be imprisoned there in certain conditions and to be able to drinnen

[00:29:51] to have to live there?

[00:29:52] On the one hand, it's the ideology, the persecution and the categorization that takes place institutionally

[00:29:57] takes place through violence against people, but then also in the implementation of course

[00:30:01] of the respective life situation.

[00:30:03] And that is the access that we have above all through archaeology, in which we can really

[00:30:06] can look at this material component. [Outro music]

[00:30:08] Tobias: Archivwürdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the

[00:30:31] audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Tobias: Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of our dritten season of Archivwörtig,

[00:00:07] the podcast of the Innsbruck City Archive. Today we are talking about the culture of remembrance and

[00:00:13] places of remembrance in general. For this, I have university help with Ingrid Böhler

[00:00:18] for this. Ingrid Böhler is a senior scientist at the University of Innsbruck and head of the

[00:00:24] of the Institute for Contemporary History there. Together we approach the big topic of

[00:00:30] culture of remembrance and talk about definitions of the term and its connection

[00:00:35] with places of remembrance, how the culture of remembrance has developed in Austria and look with

[00:00:41] the points in time, a local example in Innsbruck.

[00:00:44] [Intro-Musi] Tobias: Dear Ingrid, thank you for finding the time to talk to me today. Our superordinate

[00:01:05] The topic of the drith season is the Reichenau labor education camp and the associated

[00:01:11] Redesign of a contemporary memorial site. With this memorial site, of course, the

[00:01:18] big word remembrance culture and place of remembrance. For this reason

[00:01:24] I invited your expertise to simply talk more generally about the term and perhaps

[00:01:32] let's just start like this and see if you can give us a, let's say, university definition

[00:01:38] in the academic circles of remembrance culture.

[00:01:42] Ingrid: Yes, hello Tobias, thank you for the invitation and for your first question, it's a dangerous one,

[00:01:50] because if you ask about the university definition, there is of course a great risk that

[00:01:55] it gets complicated. And the word "culture of remembrance" has actually become so popular

[00:02:02] in historical studies, but also among everyone who somehow has something to do with institutionalized

[00:02:08] memory that you can already complain that it is inflationary and

[00:02:13] it appears in very different contexts and what exactly does it mean now?

[00:02:18] I'm picking up a bit on this advance or the advancedriof this term in, so to speak

[00:02:28] the everyday language of historical studies can be dated back to the 90s, to

[00:02:37] the beginning of the 90s perhaps, and there are various processes behind it.

[00:02:45] So I would just put it very crisply and simply, we all know,

[00:02:50] when we think about Austria and especially about contemporary history related to Austria, that

[00:02:56] there is a censorship, that is the Waldheim years. Waldheim was elected Federal President in 1986

[00:03:04] and we all know what happened in connection with this election campaign

[00:03:09] issues relevant to the politics of the past and history were on the table. There

[00:03:15] we also learned to recognize that up to that point, there was a chapter that was burdensome

[00:03:20] and burdensome, of our own recent history and tried todrängt,

[00:03:26] to forget it. And as is so often the case in history, as Marx also said, so

[00:03:33] history develops, that is, through thesis and antithesis, the pendulum

[00:03:38] swings once in one direction and then again in the other and so to the

[00:03:42] ForgettingdrÃand forgetting, then today the most intense remembrance and remembering and commemorating.

[00:03:48] And accompanying this, of course, there is also a focus here on different levels and in different ways

[00:03:55] Before and through talking about remembrance and its meaning in contemporary society

[00:04:01] and yes, and that brings us to the culture of remembrance. The culture of remembrance, if you want to

[00:04:07] in a general sense, that means the use of history in the present

[00:04:11] public for a specific purpose. And that purpose is to create collective

[00:04:19] identity with it or to secure it. And that is of course also something

[00:04:24] very contemporary. Tobias: A question about that. Especially in the German-speaking

[00:04:29] area, of course, remembrance culture or is very strongly connected with the Holocaust,

[00:04:35] with the Nazi era, although the term itself does not presuppose that. Is it

[00:04:41] it was only through the Waldheim Affair that the term became so strong in our country?

[00:04:48] emerged, so strongly linked to the Nazi era, or is it difficult

[00:04:53] to grasp at all? Ingrid: To be honest, I'm not sure about that. Of course

[00:04:58] the memory of National Socialism or of the Second World War in general

[00:05:05] received an enormous boost in the 1990s. That had to do with the fact that a generational change

[00:05:13] had already taken place before that. So the generation of veterans, the war veterans

[00:05:21] gradually retired and therefore lost influence, public influence

[00:05:29] lost. That's one storyline that triggered these dynamics. Another one that

[00:05:36] just as important, has to do with the fact that the Cold War came to an end in 1989/91.

[00:05:43] And before that, the Cold War, which ended very soon, an incredibly short time after the Second World War

[00:05:51] World War II and defined a completely new international situation, so to speak, [00:05:58

[00:05:58] led to the fact that, for reasons of expediency, the issue of the Second World War

[00:06:04] was somehow pushed aside. For example, they had to somehow bring the Federal Republic into the

[00:06:09] integrate it into the Western camp. And if you are constantly reminded that you are the Nazi successor country,

[00:06:16] then perhaps it's not necessarily good for the climate within the alliance. Or I mean,

[00:06:24] how are Germany and France supposed to get along with each other again if you're constantly

[00:06:29] reminded of what happened in the decades before, in other words the Franco-German relationship

[00:06:35] is a good example. It's not just about National Socialism and the Second

[00:06:39] World War II, but now we are together in an economic alliance, so the

[00:06:45] beginning European integration, the Marshall Plan, then the beginnings of the European Economic Community

[00:06:55] etc. and on the other side NATO. So in short, there were many good reasons why the

[00:07:01] issue was simply pushed aside. These considerations, which were necessary for decades

[00:07:06] were no longer there after the end of the Cold War.

[00:07:13] On the one hand, the Iron Curtain fell. Many of those affected by the crimes against humanity of the

[00:07:20] National Socialism lived behind the Iron Curtain or the crimes

[00:07:25] happened there and now these memories were suddenly accessible in a different way

[00:07:31] accessible. So that was another very important reason why you were suddenly confronted with a

[00:07:40] new intensity towards this time and also the significance of what happened during this time,

[00:07:49] that happened before 1945, what it means for the present and what is derived from it,

[00:07:56] in terms of necessary actions. On the one hand, practically speaking, for the former Tatar societies

[00:08:03] the division of Europe and the world during the Cold War meant that, after all, with justified

[00:08:10] claims for compensation were not confronted. That, too, has gone beyond the Iron Curtain

[00:08:15] did not work across the Iron Curtain. And there was a catch-up process and yes, that also affected these

[00:08:23] societies or the governments were forced to deal with it. So it's

[00:08:29] one thing led to another. Tobias: And I think, playing right into that, there was also talk of

[00:08:35] Vranitzky. That was, I have to be careful not to say something wrong. But I think,

[00:08:40] we started in the mid-90s... Ingrid: 1991. Tobias: 1991... Ingrid: Yes, summer 91. Tobias: Where we then also for the first time the guilt or the

[00:08:50] Austria's perpetration of the crimes was declared for the first time. Before that there was always only

[00:08:55] only ever talked about the role of the victim. Ingrid: Exactly. So Chancellor Franz Vranitzky apologizes in the context of

[00:09:02] a parliamentary speech, but it was not announced that he would address this topic.

[00:09:08] That was also surprising for the Austrian National Council at the time. But he comes up with

[00:09:13] this topic and formulated something like an admission of guilt. So a responsibility for

[00:09:20] complicity in the major crimes of National Socialism and he also apologizes.

[00:09:24] And that was a historical-political censure for Austria. So a central one

[00:09:32] stage in the official, i.e. also state-supported, turning away from the

[00:09:39] the lifelong lie of the Second Republic, namely the victim thesis. That you yourself were the first victim of the

[00:09:45] Nazi aggression and therefore cannot be held responsible for what happened afterwards

[00:09:52] can be held responsible. But this process shows two things very clearly, that this

[00:10:00] historical-political and thus also memory-cultural corrections did not simply fall from the

[00:10:06] fall from the sky, the result of a higher insight or morality or ethos, so to speak,

[00:10:16] but that they are always somehow embedded in political processes. And in this case,

[00:10:21] so in terms of domestic policy, there was a very clear hanger for Vranitzky and that was shortly before a

[00:10:28] saying of Jörg Haider, then party chairman of the FPÖ, who spoke of the proper employment policy

[00:10:42] of the National Socialists. There's no need to go into detail, but that is of course

[00:10:49] was a statement that could not be allowed to stand. And so that was the domestic political

[00:10:58] context. At the same time, in terms of foreign policy, you were under Druck at the time, because you had

[00:11:03] had applied to join Brussels Europe and the EC in 1989, and of course that was about

[00:11:14] also about what kind of adruck you leave behind or make with the negotiating partners

[00:11:20] and, of course, taking a clear position with regard to historical policy.

[00:11:29] That was also part of the entry ticket to Brussels Europe. And so this

[00:11:37] signal Vranitzky also wanted to send. So there was simply an international or

[00:11:44] foreign policy Druck that was at play here as an amplifier. Tobias: That means you could also say that,

[00:11:52] if we want to summarize this again very briefly, that there are internal insights,

[00:11:58] but there is also a very strong Druinfluence on our own culture of remembrance or do you see

[00:12:04] not see it that way? Ingrid: Well, in the case of Austria's handling of National Socialism, it was clearly the case,

[00:12:11] that Austria was able to duck away for so long had to do with Austria's specific situation

[00:12:19] after 1945. Austria was a small country, but it belonged to the Western camp. It

[00:12:28] somehow found it easy to somehow also position itself in the international political arena

[00:12:34] irrelevance to be able to afford these lifelong lies. And then over time, especially through a

[00:12:45] different situation, it was then necessary step by step to come up with something.

[00:12:51] Waldheim was also something or the attitude that Waldheim represented in the election campaign, yes,

[00:12:59] in relation to his own past as a Wehrmacht officer in the Balkans, which was so typical

[00:13:06] for this generation of Austrian participants in the war. Of course, that has something to say about his

[00:13:12] character, yes, this deflecting and mendacious behavior that he simply displayed

[00:13:19] has put on. So this obdurate lack of understanding. Tobias: And the stories with the he was never with the party,

[00:13:27] but his horse was, or these things, where there's this Waldheim horse, which one,

[00:13:32] I think you can still see in the House of History. Ingrid: It's no longer there

[00:13:35] in the House of Austrian History, but has moved to the Vienna Museum, that's another story.

[00:13:40] But yes, of course that has provoked a lot of controversy, yes, but this lack of insight,

[00:13:48] that Kurt Waldheim displayed and, after all, he was also a former

[00:13:55] UN Secretary General, who simply made sure that this was observed internationally

[00:14:00] was observed internationally and commented on internationally and then Waldheim also comes one year

[00:14:05] later, after he is elected, on the watch list, so he can no longer travel to the US.

[00:14:10] All this has simply forced the official Austria and the political parties in Austria

[00:14:17] forced them to take a stand. Of course, as I said, this generational change that

[00:14:24] was already noticeable in the 80s and the public too

[00:14:29] in Austria has become more critical. But, as I said, the older Druck always plays a role

[00:14:35] plays a role and what happens afterwards, for example that it then leads to the appointment

[00:14:42] a historical commission around the 00s, for example, where too little has been

[00:14:48] researched chapters of Austria's involvement in National Socialism, so with really

[00:14:56] a lot of money and a very large team. That, too, has to do with this

[00:15:06] consequence of the changed circumstances and the need to work with, for example

[00:15:15] these restitution claims that suddenly came up.

[00:15:20] So maybe we can all remember, maybe you can't, but I can still remember. So

[00:15:25] Suddenly Klimt or Schiele paintings that were lent abroad for exhibition,

[00:15:32] were no longer returned because it suddenly became clear that they were aryanized art

[00:15:42] art objects were involved. So various things were at play here and the result

[00:15:49] was a corresponding dynamic. Tobias: I can also imagine, because I just realized that during

[00:15:55] your explanations, it was also pretty much at the time when there was an exhibition

[00:16:01] about the members of the Wehrmacht, where a documentary film was then made

[00:16:08] was made of the, unfortunately I can't remember the name, where then really

[00:16:15] the exhibition was on its way and people went in and looked at the exhibition

[00:16:18] and then discussed it, some of them were still relatives, where it was then

[00:16:24] was about the clean image of the Wehrmacht, what they did under the pretext of

[00:16:30] were normal soldiers, were not involved in war crimes and so on, where there was a long

[00:16:35] time also with the white vest of the Wehrmacht and so on, which is completely absurd and

[00:16:41] then there are really sometimes heated discussions between former members of the

[00:16:46] Wehrmacht at these exhibitions. I think this documentation,

[00:16:51] because this one, what's it called, is definitely, I think, also on YouTube

[00:16:57] is also quite interesting to look up. Ingrid: The Wehrmacht exhibition, which was organized by Germany

[00:17:04] then also came to Austria, was certainly also an important step in the culture of remembrance

[00:17:13] step, a stage in terms of correcting our view of National Socialism and the Nazis

[00:17:23] Second World War. And the Wehrmacht exhibition,

[00:17:28] really made waves and once again it became clearer than ever that

[00:17:38] there is such a thing as collective memories and they are not always compatible with each other. So

[00:17:46] this generation of war veterans has created its own narrative. Like

[00:17:53] do we remember National Socialism? Yes, preferably in the form that we did in Russia

[00:18:00] defended the fatherland. So how is that supposed to work in a war of aggression against the Soviet Union?

[00:18:08] so far away from Austria, yes, that's not entirely logical and not entirely rational, but it worked

[00:18:16] worked. And part of this narrative was, of course, that you yourself also somehow

[00:18:24] suffered somehow. So you had to endure the hardships of war... Tobias: You also had to cope yourself, didn't you? Ingrid: Exactly,

[00:18:33] endure the many war invalids, the traumatized, the family, the people at home,

[00:18:40] yes, who suffered from the stress of the war. That was sort of the dominant

[00:18:46] narrative. And a later generation, who then also went to this Wehrmacht exhibition,

[00:18:55] no longer found it so convincing. And they were able to deal with what was shown there,

[00:19:00] that the Wehrmacht was indeed involved in war crimes. And where they

[00:19:05] perhaps didn't help directly, but in any case witnessed, yes, they could do with what

[00:19:11] do with it. She got involved. And when they were in the exhibition together,

[00:19:17] then that sometimes led to such heated discussions. But I mean, especially Waldheim,

[00:19:25] the Wehrmacht officer Waldheim, the war participant Waldheim and how he himself

[00:19:33] or the Wehrmacht exhibition and the controversies that happened there

[00:19:41] are quite typical of the fact that there really is something like a generational memory

[00:19:46] and that there is not always compatibility between the generations. So,

[00:19:54] that can also happen with other topics that are perhaps less stressful now and less

[00:20:02] associated with necessary self-criticism. Tobias: Because you mentioned the generational change,

[00:20:11] is it also helpful from your point of view that, in the case of the NS period, a great many

[00:20:17] documents, records and even photographs are still available, which can be used in that sense

[00:20:23] sense, be it the critical examination, is that helpful or is it not absolutely

[00:20:32] necessary in order to then approach the topic of the culture of remembrance and perhaps also

[00:20:37] criticize or question earlier collective memory? Ingrid: What you're talking about,

[00:20:45] is of course also something that has to do with historical research. When new sources emerge,

[00:20:52] new evidence, so to speak, of Nazi crimes or of the involvement of certain groups of individual

[00:21:04] personalities etc., yes, that just leads to a necessary revision and what

[00:21:11] really surprising, even though we've been dealing with contemporary history for many decades now

[00:21:18] reappraisal of the Nazi era, something new keeps popping up, yes, and we then have to

[00:21:26] learn ourselves again and again, okay, there was a blind spot, on the one hand because we still have the material

[00:21:33] and on the other hand, because of course the present is also changing somehow and

[00:21:38] for a long time, certain groups of victims who were persecuted under National Socialism,

[00:21:47] simply received too little public recognition. This includes the group of Wehrmacht desserts,

[00:21:52] if we're back on the subject of the Veteran's Society of the Second Republic, the Wehrmacht desserts

[00:22:00] were for this narrative, we heroically defended the fatherland, of course very disturbing and

[00:22:08] That's why they weren't given the necessary recognition for the longest time. it was only in 2009,

[00:22:15] that this group was rehabilitated, other victim groups, homosexuals for example,

[00:22:22] were also ignored for a long time because they also lived through the longest period in the Second Republic

[00:22:27] were also criminalized, there are continuities between the time before National Socialism,

[00:22:34] for the Nazi era and afterwards, yes, and these blind spots, they crop up from time to time,

[00:22:41] because our present is also changing and these questions are then asked in the present

[00:22:46] and then there's also material, ideally or often, when you have a question,

[00:22:51] then you can also find the source material. That's how images of history change and that's also how they change

[00:23:02] the culture of remembrance. Tobias: The culture of remembrance is also very strongly linked to places of remembrance.

[00:23:08] Do you see places of remembrance as part of the culture of remembrance or should they be separated from each other...

[00:23:17] So, what do you mean by separate from each other? It's difficult, of course. But are they still there specifically?

[00:23:22] how they are to be interpreted or would you say that they are always linked to the culture of remembrance?

[00:23:28] Let's maybe take an example, I don't know.

[00:23:31] Ingrid: The Bergisel. Tobias: The Bergisel, for example [both laugh]. Of course, it's clearly connected to 1809. If it stands alone, maybe it's not,

[00:23:45] Is it already? It's difficult, I think.

[00:23:48] Ingrid: So in any case, there is a conceptual proximity between the word "culture of remembrance" and the term "place of remembrance".

[00:23:57] Looking at it again from an academic perspective. Now I'll repeat myself again.

[00:24:07] By culture of remembrance we mean all activities and phenomena that somehow take place in the public sphere

[00:24:18] and the public can also be a partial public. But in any case, they relate to history for the purpose

[00:24:25] the creation of a collective identity. So it's always a kind of social self-insurance.

[00:24:33] So the self-insurance of a group, that's us. That's where we come from.

[00:24:39] But the message can also be, that's not us, yes. Tobias: Yes [both laugh]. Ingrid: But in any case, it's a necessary understanding of that,

[00:24:49] what you refer to as a collective and thus also guarantee your own cohesion.

[00:24:59] And groups want to be long-lasting, they want to endure. So there's a connection between your own past,

[00:25:08] their own present and their own future. And that's why you have to try to consolidate these memories

[00:25:16] and somehow organize it, institutionalize it. We set up memorials for this. We invent rituals for that.

[00:25:26] That's what the Bergisel stands for [both laugh]. And the Bergisel offers many points of connection.

[00:25:35] How one remembers the figure of Andreas Hofer in 1809. Much of this is, of course, highly contrived.

[00:25:45] A certain image is created. And with this image you create your own idea of Tyrolean history

[00:25:53] and therefore also of what the Tyroleans are like. And that brings us to a place of remembrance.

[00:26:05] A place of memory as a concept in what is called memory studies in history or cultural studies,

[00:26:16] is a concept that goes back to Pierre Nora. Pierre Nora was a French historian.

[00:26:22] And he invented this concept of the "lieu de mémoire" [French for: place of memory] and by that he meant central points of reference in French national history,

[00:26:38] that endow the collective of the French nation with an identity.

[00:26:45] In part, he imagined this in very concrete spatial terms, applied to Tyrol, the Bergisel, which is actually a place.

[00:26:56] But he was more open about it. They are crystallization points, they are central points of reference.

[00:27:06] And in the case of France, that can also be the Marseillaise, for example, the French national anthem.

[00:27:13] Or a ritual, a specific custom can also be something like a place of remembrance.

[00:27:21] So that's somehow more diverse to think of.

[00:27:26] A certain song can be a place of remembrance.

[00:27:30] A certain image that everyone knows, that has to do with history.

[00:27:35] Now I'm back to Austria. I'm jumping a bit associatively.

[00:27:38] Tobias: If I may jump in there, especially in Innsbruck it would of course be the picture of the Virgin Mary, which is depicted on all house walls, or on very many house walls, for example.

[00:27:48] Ingrid: That's not necessarily something historical.

[00:27:50] Tobias: That's not something historical.

[00:27:52] Ingrid: That's an interesting question. You could think about that in more detail.

[00:27:58] But the giant circular monument at Bergisel is of course a place of remembrance.

[00:28:05] That's exactly what Pierre Nora had in mind, or another image central to the Austrian identity of the Second Republic would of course be the photo of the signing of the State Treaty at the Belvedere.

[00:28:24] But places of remembrance, as Pierre Nora meant them, naturally have the aim of consolidating one's own identity.

[00:28:34] In this context, of course, events with such a positive connotation are more likely to die, even if they partly see the Bergisel battle, i.e. the fight.

[00:28:44] That's not something that's only positive per se, but you can still turn it into a positive story.

[00:28:51] And that's exactly what happened with Andreas Hofer, 1809 and all these things.

[00:28:56] We remember it as a glorious victory, but those who take a closer look at this era put it into perspective,

[00:29:05] just as people have now learned to view the personality and work of Andreas Hofer a little more critically.

[00:29:12] But the Bergisel is a wonderful example for Tyrol of how the use of history is put to use to create identity.

[00:29:27] Political rituals continue to take place at Bergisel, commemorations for Andreas Hofer.

[00:29:34] Yes, they take place there. That's where the provincial governors from both sides of the Brenner get together.

[00:29:42] And they remember it as something that is constitutive for the lasting common connection between the two parts of the country.

[00:29:59] And that also has something very contemporary as its goal. The aim is to create a common identity.

[00:30:08] [Drehgeräusch] Tobias: Let's perhaps take the leap away from Andreas Hofer and perhaps also your opinion or how you feel about the solution.

[00:30:23] As I said, at the time of our recording, the project for the new Reichenau labor education camp memorial site has not yet been completed.

[00:30:31] But what has been completed, and we both attended the opening, is the timing, i.e. the Innsbruck alternative to the stumbling stones.

[00:30:39] How do you see the implementation of such, in this case, very small places of remembrance that catch your eye when you walk through the city?

[00:30:52] Are you personally satisfied or enthusiastic about this solution, what has been done in Innsbruck?

[00:31:02] Or what is your opinion at this point? It might also be interesting to see.

[00:31:07] Ingrid: Now I'll ask you again about the place of remembrance. The way you've formulated your question, you can show very nicely,

[00:31:16] that place of remembrance has now also become a term that is used in different contexts.

[00:31:24] So, on the one hand, it still stands for Pierre Nora's concept, and place of remembrance is something,

[00:31:33] that has the quality for a group to pass on the shared identity derived from the past to subsequent generations.

[00:31:50] At the times we're talking about here, they're something completely new, we don't yet know whether they can develop this quality,

[00:32:00] whether they can create a sustainable identity for a group in the long term.

[00:32:10] That doesn't have to be for the whole of Innsbruck, but it does have to be for a significant part of it, which is then somehow reflected politically in the local council, etc., etc.

[00:32:21] Tobias: Or in the population. Ingrid: Where there are also groups in the population who say, yes, someone lived in our street who was a victim of National Socialism, a victim of Nazi persecution policies

[00:32:37] and we would like to remember this person or revive their memory.

[00:32:43] And this person is part of our former neighborhood, yes, so we're back with this group.

[00:32:52] And we as the current neighborhood have an interest in not forgetting those who lived here back then.

[00:32:59] If that works, then the points in time will also become places of remembrance in the sense of Pierre Nora, yes.

[00:33:07] I think the nice thing about the points in time is that they have the quality of emerging from civil society.

[00:33:20] So groups from the population can get in touch with you at the city archive and apply.

[00:33:28] A date is to be set here and we as a group will then somehow take care of this date.

[00:33:43] And these are small interventions. They are very individual.

[00:33:49] They relate to one person or perhaps a family.

[00:33:54] They don't take up much space. They are primarily visible to those who live in the vicinity of that moment.

[00:34:05] But of course they're always there somehow in everyday life. You just have to see them.

[00:34:12] So these small, decentralized forms of remembrance are, I think, a very important and also worthy addition to a cautionary remembrance and commemoration of the National Socialist era.

[00:34:33] [Outro music]

[00:34:48] Tobias: Archivwürrdig is a production of the Stadtarchiv Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [Voice modulates]

[00:00:07] Jaci: Christmas edition, take one.

[00:00:10] [sings] ~ We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. ~

[00:00:19] Shelly: Beautiful. Jaci: Thank you. Shelly: Christina can use that as an intro.

[00:00:22] Jaci: [laughs] Welcome to our episode, which is entirely in my singing.

[00:00:26] Shelly: Yes, absolutely. [laughter]

[00:00:28] [Intro music] Shelly: Hello and welcome to the preface, the Innsbruck City Library podcast.

[00:00:48] My name is Shelly and across from me is Jaci and today it's going to be Christmas.

[00:00:55] Let's take this as an opportunity to talk about literature and movies about Christmas.

[00:01:04] So how has this traditional festival always been dealt with in literature and film?

[00:01:13] It has become a trope, so to speak, and has it changed anything?

[00:01:18] If so, what has changed in this time and what has remained the same in essence?

[00:01:24] Jaci: Exactly. Shelly: And then let's just go inside. [Jaci laughs]

[00:01:27] We thought about what's the first thing that comes to mind when we think about Christmas literature.

[00:01:35] And we both came to the conclusion that it was actually "A Christmas Story" by Charles Dickens.

[00:01:42] Everyone knows it and it was first published on December 19, 1843.

[00:01:50] Jaci: Perfect marketing team that it came out at Christmas time.

[00:01:55] Shelly: Yeah.

[00:01:56] Jaci: Even back then.

[00:01:57] Shelly: Always knew how to sell it well. [Laughs]

[00:01:59] And it was published under the original title "A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas".

[00:02:06] Jaci: That's a long title.

[00:02:08] You know what it's about right away. [laughs]

[00:02:10] Shelly: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:02:14] Jaci: And I mainly came up with this story, not from the original book, I've actually never read that.

[00:02:23] Shelly: You haven't?

[00:02:24] Jaci: No.

[00:02:25] Sorry, maybe I will, because we definitely have it in stock.

[00:02:29] Shelly: I have it in my private library.

[00:02:30] Jaci: On my library gnome. [both speaking in unison]

[00:02:34] I don't have a copy at home, so that would be a Secret Santa idea. [laughs]

[00:02:37] Little side info, there's another Christmas Secret Santa among the staff, and whoever drew Jaci,

[00:02:45] she would like to have the "Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. [both laugh]

[00:02:48] Jaci: Exactly.

[00:02:49] But now, all joking aside.

[00:02:52] I know the story of the "Christmas Carol" from a Barbie movie.

[00:02:57] And it's actually the same principle, only with women.

[00:03:01] So Barbie is Ebenezer Scrooge and is haunted by drei ghosts and then comes draup with the idea that Christmas is really great and so on.

[00:03:09] And that's how I know the story. [laughs]

[00:03:11] And then a few years ago I actually watched the original or the first film version and it's really scary.

[00:03:17] So I don't find it very Christmassy, [laughs] I was very scared.

[00:03:21] But I understand the meaning of the story and Barbie did a great job.

[00:03:27] Shelly: Yeah, I totally agree. [Jaci laughs]

[00:03:29] There are countless adaptations of this story.

[00:03:34] So it's kind of the ground base for everything Christmas that has followed in the years since.

[00:03:43] I think there's even a Mickey Mouse movie.

[00:03:46] Jaci: Yeah, that's right.

[00:03:48] Isn't Donald [Duck] even a ghost?

[00:03:51] I don't know.

[00:03:52] Shelly: I don't know. I don't know at all anymore,

[00:03:53] who is being "redempted" ... [pause]

[00:03:56] Jaci: We'll have to google that, I can't let that sit on me right now.

[00:04:00] Okay, there actually is, that wasn't just a figment of Shelly's imagination, there is "Mickey's Christmas Carol",

[00:04:07] where the Scrooge McDuck is Ebeneza Scrooge or the,

[00:04:12] ma, now I've lost the name again - Scrooge McDuck -

[00:04:15] and then the story remains the same and he is then also accompanied by drei Christmas spirits

[00:04:22] in the form of Jimmy Cricket, Willy the Giant and the Weasels.

[00:04:31] Well, that sounds very entertaining, it only lasts 26 minutes. [laughs]

[00:04:35] Shelly: Ah, these are those typical Disney short stories.

[00:04:40] Jaci: Very nice, good.

[00:04:41] I'm glad you learned that now too.

[00:04:43] Shelly: You can watch that this year.

[00:04:45] Jaci: Right, that will be my new "Christmas Carol" experience.

[00:04:48] Hopefully it's not as scary [laughs] as the original.

[00:04:51] Exactly, another story that I always find very Christmassy, which I also know from Barbie,

[00:04:57] is "The Nutcracker".

[00:04:58] It's the original novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which I've never read either,

[00:05:06] Shame on me again.

[00:05:07] Shelly: I don't think I've ever read it either.

[00:05:08] Jaci: Then I don't feel quite so bad.

[00:05:10] There are also numerous movie adaptations of Barbie.

[00:05:15] And the famous ballet, I think most people know it from ballet.

[00:05:22] Shelly: Yeah, so I would have thought of ballet first.

[00:05:27] Jaci: Not Barbie? Shelly: No. [both laugh]

[00:05:29] But I looked at it.

[00:05:31] Jaci: Thank God, otherwise I would have had to lend it to you.

[00:05:34] It's in my home library.

[00:05:37] Shelly: And what are the go-to Christmas novels and movies that you have to watch every year without fail?

[00:05:49] Jaci: Well, I actually have very few novels.

[00:05:52] In my research, I've now found out that "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott,

[00:05:58] "Little Women" is seen as a Christmas novella, so to speak.

[00:06:02] There's also a Christmas scene, but for me it doesn't make up the whole novel,

[00:06:07] but it's a great novel, you can always read it.

[00:06:10] And then of course there are lots of contemporary novels that simply take Christmas as their theme,

[00:06:21] mainly romantic, so romantic comedies as books.

[00:06:27] So there are an extremely large number.

[00:06:29] So if you google it, there are hundreds of thousands of titles, none of which I've read yet, I don't think.

[00:06:37] But then there are "snowflake dreams".

[00:06:40] Shelly: Is that Karen Swan?

[00:06:42] Jaci: Yeah, like you know it.

[00:06:44] Shelly: Yeah, I read them all the time! [both laugh]

[00:06:46] Jaci: How cool.

[00:06:48] There's "No Winter Without You" by Emily Stone or "Snow Glittering in Love" by Karin Lindberg,

[00:06:57] "Sparkling and Christmas Magic", anthology 4 in 1.

[00:07:02] Shelly: Do you know how many there are?

[00:07:04] Jaci: [laughs] No. Shelly: [amused] Are you looking on Google and not in the Littera catalog? Jaci: Yes!

[00:07:09] "I didn't have you on my wish list."

[00:07:11] My personal favorite, that sounds wonderful. Shelly: Great.

[00:07:14] Jaci: Right, now there are many, many novels.

[00:07:17] And the funny thing about these novels, even though we haven't read most of them,

[00:07:22] we dare to say that they mostly follow the same principle.

[00:07:29] Shelly: What's that?

[00:07:32] That there's usually one Christmas grouch who doesn't believe in the magic of Christmas.

[00:07:41] Shelly: So OG Ebenezer Scrooge?

[00:07:43] Jaci: Exactly, exactly.

[00:07:45] And then these characters meet a Christmas lover.

[00:07:50] Who then teaches them the magic of Christmas, so to speak, and shows them how wonderful it actually is.

[00:07:58] And in this process, these two people, who are usually enemies or don't like each other,

[00:08:04] so we have Enemies-to-Lovers again, [laughs] if anyone knows our old podcast episodes.

[00:08:11] Moments where then just, but then they fall in love in the process of the Christmas magic.

[00:08:18] That's my thesis, that it's actually always the same.

[00:08:23] Shelly: Yes, Christmas is the best love potion, so to speak.

[00:08:28] Jaci: Exactly. So it's snowing, bonfires, wine, reindeer, there's always kids somewhere who are excited about Christmas.

[00:08:41] Shelly: Then when they transfer the magic that the boys have lost a magic of Christmas.

[00:08:46] Jaci: Nice, nice, nice. Homey feelings come up.

[00:08:50] Most novels follow this principle.

[00:08:56] And in connection with these novels there is also the well-known phenomenon,

[00:09:01] that I think everyone who has Netflix knows, and that is the Hallmark Movies.

[00:09:07] Shelly: I don't think they're that present on Netflix. Jaci: Yes, they are.

[00:09:10] Shelly: Already? Because I always watch them on Amazon.

[00:09:13] Jaci: Well, I only have Netflix and at Christmas time there are a hundred thousand movies with the same cover. [laughs]

[00:09:20] And a personal anecdote, my mom and I always have a day at Christmas time,

[00:09:26] where we just bake cookies all day and we just watch movies like that all day.

[00:09:32] And there's nothing more entertaining because at the end of the day you don't know,

[00:09:36] which movie was which because the same thing happens in all of them.

[00:09:39] Shelly: Yeah, that's right.

[00:09:40] Jaci: That's wonderful.

[00:09:41] For those who don't know Hallmark Movies or aren't familiar with this phenomenon,

[00:09:47] I've picked out a definition.

[00:09:49] [clears throat] "The Hallmark movie is a genre of romantic comedy produced for television,

[00:09:56] that has become so ubiquitous that the term Hallmark movie has been expanded

[00:10:02] and now encompasses any television movie with a similar tone or aesthetic,

[00:10:08] regardless of whether it was produced by the Hallmark Channel or not."

[00:10:13] So it really all started at the Hallmark Channel, an American TV network,

[00:10:19] that produced these movies.

[00:10:21] Because now, because all the movies happen on these movies and have the same plot,

[00:10:26] all the Christmas movies that happen are called "Hallmark Movies".

[00:10:30] Shelly: That means they've coined a whole new genre.

[00:10:33] Jaci: Exactly.

[00:10:34] Shelly: Wow, zach.

[00:10:35] Jaci: And I'm glad drum. I look forward to the new movies every year.

[00:10:38] Shelly: Uh! Jaci: Uh?

[00:10:40] Shelly: I heard something.

[00:10:41] I don't know if that's true.

[00:10:42] Now it may be fake news, but I've read on social media.

[00:10:46] Jaci: [both laugh] Reliable sources.

[00:10:48] Shelly: That a Hallmark movie is about to be produced,

[00:10:51] based on the love story of Taylor Swift

[00:10:55] and her current partner, what's his name ...

[00:10:57] Jaci: No, Travis Kelce ... Shelly: Exactly, Travis Kelce to be produced.

[00:10:59] So, pop star constantly on tour, biggest pop star ever,

[00:11:05] falls in love with ... Jaci: With the football player. -shelly: Exactly.

[00:11:07] [Jaci sighs]

[00:11:08] Shelly: Trouble, trouble, trouble,

[00:11:11] Finally, happy ending under the Christmas tree.

[00:11:13] Jaci: [gushes] Ah, how great!

[00:11:15] Yeah, okay, then I'm back.

[00:11:17] That sounds perfect, I was there again.

[00:11:19] They got me again with Taylor Swift

[00:11:22] and Christmas thing.

[00:11:24] Shelly: I find that interesting too,

[00:11:26] that current topics are included in the genre.

[00:11:29] Jaci: Current topics, yes.

[00:11:31] I just think it's a shame,

[00:11:33] I haven't seen a queer Hallmark movie yet.

[00:11:36] Shelly: Right. - Jaci: So it's always very heteronormative.

[00:11:38] It's always ... - Shelly: It's always very traditional.

[00:11:40] Maybe because it's a traditional Christian festival and stuff.

[00:11:44] Jaci: Yes, but ...

[00:11:45] We're in the 21st century.

[00:11:47] Shelly: Yeah, I'm right there with you. - Jaci: So ...

[00:11:49] Hallmark, if you're listening:

[00:11:52] We want a queer Hallmark movie.

[00:11:54] [Jaci laughs]

[00:11:55] Um...

[00:11:56] And how do these movies work?

[00:11:58] Just like I mentioned before with the novels.

[00:12:01] Only there are usually more specific processes

[00:12:05] than with the novels.

[00:12:07] And it's mostly ...

[00:12:09] I'm telling this from the perspective of most movies.

[00:12:13] It also exists with "gender reversed".

[00:12:15] So I'm telling it now from the perspective of a woman making a career in a big city

[00:12:18] and makes it big.

[00:12:20] And then her company sends her to a small village, so to speak.

[00:12:26] To somehow boost the economy there

[00:12:28] or to carry out a project.

[00:12:30] And that's very often ...

[00:12:32] Um ... also the home village of this person. [laughs]

[00:12:35] Um... and then they return home.

[00:12:37] And either find their high school sweetheart again.

[00:12:41] Or a widower with a daughter.

[00:12:45] With whom they then fall in love.

[00:12:47] The problem is that the project that the businesswoman has,

[00:12:50] is usually the ruin of the person's business,

[00:12:55] that she falls in love with.

[00:12:57] So it's usually like, "We're building a new shopping center.

[00:13:00] And it's stupidly right where the handsome widower

[00:13:04] has his Christmas tree farm." [Shelly chuckles]

[00:13:06] And then just put that down.

[00:13:09] But then after she falls in love and talks about this widower

[00:13:13] or high school sweetheart again,

[00:13:16] how wonderful Christmas is.

[00:13:17] So, again, this Christmas grouch meets Christmas lover.

[00:13:21] Um... she comes drauf that the Christmas tree farm

[00:13:26] much better than her big corporate company.

[00:13:29] Shelly: And that family and love are much more important than a career.

[00:13:32] Jaci: Exactly, exactly.

[00:13:34] And then she mostly stays in the village

[00:13:36] and leaves her career behind.

[00:13:38] Over.

[00:13:40] Shelly: A bit anti-feminist, isn't it?

[00:13:43] Jaci: Quite problematic these movies on so many levels. [both laugh]

[00:13:48] But that's how most movies go, I have to say.

[00:13:52] Sometimes a prince is thrown in,

[00:13:55] so that it's kind of a royal Christmas ...

[00:13:58] Exactly, a royal Christmas or something.

[00:14:01] But it usually takes place in a small village

[00:14:03] and women from the big city come to the small village

[00:14:06] and fall in love with Christmas.

[00:14:08] So, that's ... - Yeah, that's the gist. That's the gist.

[00:14:10] That's all there is. That's all. [laughs]

[00:14:13] Shelly: You know exactly what you're getting into, that you call yourself.

[00:14:16] That's just great, I love that. - Jaci: Great.

[00:14:18] It makes you feel like you're watching the same movie four times,

[00:14:21] but it doesn't matter. That's nice.

[00:14:24] So it's called Comfort Movies, right? - Shelly: Yes, exactly.

[00:14:26] And I think that's what's changed

[00:14:29] in that time period from "Christmas Carol" to Hallmark movies.

[00:14:34] It's just become very predictable.

[00:14:36] Jaci: Yeah, and very romanticized.

[00:14:39] Ebeneza Scrooge is all about family and stuff.

[00:14:42] And so.

[00:14:44] And with the newer ones, it's more this "The Great Love".

[00:14:48] And it's all very romantic.

[00:14:50] Nobody's cold, it's beautiful.

[00:14:52] Shelly: Yeah, that would have been kind of very unsexy too,

[00:14:55] Ebeneza Scrooge would have had a love interest like that. [Jaci laughs]

[00:14:57] I wouldn't have bought that. [both laugh]

[00:14:59] Jaci: Dickens would be "outraged".

[00:15:01] [laughter]

[00:15:04] Exactly.

[00:15:05] But ...

[00:15:07] You can tell we like watching the movies,

[00:15:09] but we know they're not the best quality movies.

[00:15:13] Shelly: It's not about that. It's about the feeling. [Laughs]

[00:15:15] Jaci: But there are other movies for that,

[00:15:17] that are always good to watch at Christmas.

[00:15:20] And on the one hand, there are the classic Christmas movies,

[00:15:23] like "The Grinch".

[00:15:25] Shelly: Also originally a story, by the way.

[00:15:28] Jaci: Yeah. I didn't know that either.

[00:15:30] [both speaking in confusion]

[00:15:33] Shelly: ... as a PDF.

[00:15:35] Jaci: [sighs] I have so much reading to do before Christmas.

[00:15:38] Um...

[00:15:40] Or "The Holiday" with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet.

[00:15:43] Shelly: That's my favorite movie. Jude Law!

[00:15:45] Jaci: Or ... what's the one with ...

[00:15:48] Shelly: Love Actually? - Jaci: Love Actually, exactly.

[00:15:51] Or "Kevin Alone at Home" or "Kevin Alone in New York."

[00:15:54] Ultimate Christmas movies for me.

[00:15:57] Shelly: "Santa Claus" 1,2,3,4.

[00:15:59] "Santa Claus and Co. KG."

[00:16:01] [Jaci sighs]

[00:16:02] The OG series.

[00:16:03] Jaci: Every Gen-Z member knows "Santa and Co. KG"

[00:16:06] Shelly: I think even the millennials. - Jaci: I hope so.

[00:16:08] And then there are movies that don't really have anything to do with Christmas.

[00:16:13] But that everyone watches at Christmas anyway.

[00:16:15] Shelly: Always on the program when you're skimming through.

[00:16:18] You always click on the same movies.

[00:16:20] Jaci: In December there's nothing but the Sissi movies.

[00:16:23] Austrian classic.

[00:16:25] Romi Schneider.

[00:16:27] Super.

[00:16:28] "Drei Haselnüsse ist für Aschenbrödel".

[00:16:30] Banger, really. So this song.

[00:16:33] Always follows me to sleep.

[00:16:35] And the Harry Potter films are also classics for many people

[00:16:39] at Christmas time.

[00:16:41] Shelly: Yes, because it's always a school year.

[00:16:44] And Christmas is always part of it.

[00:16:46] At least in the first parts.

[00:16:48] Jaci: The first five are still very Christmassy.

[00:16:50] I think it goes downhill from the sixth.

[00:16:53] But ... not downhill in the sense of the story.

[00:16:56] Great movies, but downhill in the sense of happiness.

[00:16:59] Exactly, but that's probably also part of the thing

[00:17:02] "Comfort Movie."

[00:17:04] That's something that's very important at Christmas.

[00:17:06] And what all the movies here and Ebeneza Scrooge

[00:17:09] also convey how important it is to feel good at Christmas time.

[00:17:13] That feeling of homeliness, warmth, family.

[00:17:17] Shelly: It can't be too mentally taxing.

[00:17:20] Jaci: Exactly, exactly.

[00:17:22] I'm stressed enough by the holiday season.

[00:17:24] So these movies and stories just help,

[00:17:27] to remember the magic of Christmas.

[00:17:30] Of the things that are important.

[00:17:32] Shelly: And it's also something intergenerational

[00:17:34] that connects because it's the same movies,

[00:17:37] that my mom watched when she was a kid.

[00:17:40] [speaking at the same time]

[00:17:42] So my mom and I always watch "The Grinch" too.

[00:17:44] That's our thing too.

[00:17:46] But everyone has it, or everyone usually watches it on the 25th

[00:17:50] "Kevin Alone at Home" or "Kevin Alone in New York",

[00:17:53] because it's just on ORF.

[00:17:55] Everyone knows that, right?

[00:17:58] That's also Tyrol and Lower Austria ... [both laugh]

[00:18:01] Childhood experiences.

[00:18:03] Shelly: So, now you know a lot about our Christmas favorites.

[00:18:07] And of course we'll also be interested,

[00:18:09] what your go-to Christmas movies and Christmas novels are

[00:18:15] ... Books ... heaven knows ... are.

[00:18:17] You're welcome to write to us.

[00:18:19] Either by e-mail to post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:18:22] or

[00:18:24] on Instagram, where we are called

[00:18:26] "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck".

[00:18:28] Jaci: Exactly.

[00:18:30] Shelly: If you need inspiration,

[00:18:33] if you want to try something new,

[00:18:35] you're welcome to check out our library.

[00:18:38] Especially during the Christmas season, I would keep my eye open

[00:18:41] at our exhibitions.

[00:18:43] We will certainly have one or two Christmas books on display.

[00:18:47] You can have a look at our DVDs,

[00:18:49] what Christmas movies there are.

[00:18:51] You can watch it on our streaming service,

[00:18:54] if there are any Christmas movies on Filmfriend,

[00:18:56] where I very much assume there are.

[00:18:58] Jaci: Yeah, there's a lot.

[00:19:00] My personal favorite: "Elmo Saves Christmas."

[00:19:02] Shelly: Elmo? From Sesame Street?

[00:19:04] Jaci: Yeah. Shelly: [laughs] Cute.

[00:19:06] Right.

[00:19:08] And who received our literary tips newsletter

[00:19:10] and read it,

[00:19:13] from November exactly, the last one,

[00:19:15] which has now gone out.

[00:19:17] We're recording the whole Entspur earlier,

[00:19:19] it's not that long ago for us. [both laugh]

[00:19:21] He's already seen,

[00:19:23] that our librarians

[00:19:25] they picked out one of our literature tips.

[00:19:28] It's called "Mrs. Helbing and the deadly Christmas cookies"

[00:19:32] by Eberhard Michaely.

[00:19:34] And there it goes, it's a kind of Miss Marple. [both laugh]

[00:19:37] A German Miss Marple.

[00:19:39] So a pensioner,

[00:19:41] who solves murder cases as a hobby

[00:19:43] but always gets into danger herself.

[00:19:45] And in this book,

[00:19:47] So in this book,

[00:19:50] so in this case,

[00:19:52] she plays a part in a play,

[00:19:54] which is to be performed at Christmas.

[00:19:56] And behind the scenes, there are always cookies during rehearsals,

[00:19:59] which the actors practically bring with them.

[00:20:02] Including Mrs. Helbing,

[00:20:04] who brings cookies.

[00:20:06] And then dies, but unfortunately,

[00:20:08] the director of the play.

[00:20:11] And then even Mrs. Helbing is suspected.

[00:20:13] And so they take the whole thing into their own hands and solve the case themselves.

[00:20:17] Jaci: That sounds good.

[00:20:19] I have to borrow it now before you all want to read it after our podcast episode.

[00:20:23] Shelly: I think I already borrowed it.

[00:20:25] Jaci: [sighs] Ah, I'll just reserve it. Shelly: I can reserve it for you.

[00:20:27] Jaci: Thank you, Shelly. Thank you.

[00:20:29] Right, on that note

[00:20:32] Have a peaceful pre-Christmas season.

[00:20:36] Good luck with the errands and the Christmas rush.

[00:20:39] Shelly: No stress.

[00:20:41] Jaci: Right, it's going to be okay.

[00:20:43] If you need to come down, the public library

[00:20:46] offers a lot in the stress-free

[00:20:48] alternatives.

[00:20:50] We look forward to the next episode.

[00:20:53] Wishing you a Merry Christmas.

[00:20:55] And we'll see you next year.

[00:20:58] Bye.

[00:21:00] [Jaci sings] ~ Jingle bells, jingle bells

[00:21:02] Jingle all the way

[00:21:04] [Outro music] [Pia speaks] S'foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library

[00:21:31] and part of the Stadtstimmen,

[00:21:33] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] [modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [modulated]

[00:00:06] [Intro music] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:27] My name is Christina.

[00:00:28] Pia: And I'm Pia.

[00:00:29] Christina: And also, welcome back one last time to the Fall Reading Festival.

[00:00:34] In five episodes we have dedicated ourselves entirely to reading, set ourselves and each other reading challenges and discussed them in the episodes for and with you.

[00:00:47] Pia, what is today's episode about, our grand finale, if I may say so?

[00:00:54] Pia: It's about the "Horror of Dunwich", "The Dunwich Horror".

[00:00:59] That's a short story by H.P. Lovecraft.

[00:01:03] And we read the illustrated version, by François Baranger.

[00:01:08] The original, i.e. the short story, was published in 1929 in Magazin Weird Tales, just for your information.

[00:01:14] Christina: And Pia, what did you think of the reading experience?

[00:01:18] With this illustrated edition, one would like to say.

[00:01:22] Pia: Well, I'm a bit conflicted about it.

[00:01:26] On the one hand, it's quite nice to have illustrations and it's a very nice edition.

[00:01:34] Well, it's a bit of a collector's item, you can tell.

[00:01:37] Well, there are several of this illustrated version by François Baranger.

[00:01:41] I can imagine having that on my shelf and it would look really nice.

[00:01:46] On the other hand, it wasn't very nice to read.

[00:01:49] Well, I don't know about you, but it was too big for me.

[00:01:54] Well, it's a very large format book.

[00:01:56] It's 26 x 35 cm.

[00:01:59] That means you can already imagine, okay, you've got a big ink pen in your hand. [laughs]

[00:02:03] Maybe you're more used to having a picture book in your hand from the children's library.

[00:02:09] And I'm just not used to that anymore, I have to say.

[00:02:12] I don't know how you felt about that.

[00:02:14] Christina: I felt the same way. I opened it,

[00:02:17] and because it's in such a large format, the illustration is very atmospheric.

[00:02:22] And it really immerses you drin.

[00:02:24] I found that to be an advantage.

[00:02:26] But exactly the same.

[00:02:28] I really felt like I had to learn to look at picture books again.

[00:02:32] Because you really, I've forgotten that too.

[00:02:34] And that got on my nerves more than it gave me anything.

[00:02:42] For the reason that I could never take it with me on the bus.

[00:02:46] I mean, it's not meant to be read on the go.

[00:02:49] It is, as you say, a collector's item.

[00:02:51] And maybe I couldn't appreciate it for what it was.

[00:02:56] And in the end, I have to admit that here too,

[00:03:00] I went back to my tried and tested method of the audio book

[00:03:04] and then listened to the - not particularly recommendable, in my opinion -

[00:03:08] English audiobook.

[00:03:11] Because there was simply no other way.

[00:03:13] The whole time I had the feeling I had to wash my hands.

[00:03:16] Pia: You're torturing yourself through this book now. [laughs]

[00:03:17] Christina: [laughs] No, I didn't want to attack it because it's so valuable.

[00:03:21] Pia: [laughs] I was scared too when I was turning the pages.

[00:03:23] I was like: Not that I'm tearing up the times.

[00:03:25] Christina: Yes, and that just takes practice.

[00:03:27] But I think it was just unfamiliar.

[00:03:31] That was it.

[00:03:32] Pia: Yes, I think we both felt the same.

[00:03:34] Christina: Funny.

[00:03:36] It's also in our comics.

[00:03:38] Because it's really so prominent in the illustrations.

[00:03:41] Pia: Yeah, it won't make sense with the novels.

[00:03:43] I don't think it would ever be lent out there.

[00:03:45] Christina: Yes, I don't think there would be room for it on the shelf.

[00:03:48] But I think it would be borrowed.

[00:03:51] I just think that it's from ... the illustrations play for the story,

[00:03:59] almost as important a role as the story itself.

[00:04:03] And I think that's a skill you have to learn.

[00:04:09] We were both curious to see how we would deal with the story in this caliber.

[00:04:14] And that was then, yes, I really believe,

[00:04:16] that we were at the beginning of a learning curve.

[00:04:18] We should also discuss "graphic novels" or something.

[00:04:20] Pia: Yeah, sure.

[00:04:22] Christina: And then we'll see if we can get into it differently ...

[00:04:24] Pia: [laughs] Moving on.

[00:04:26] Christina:And many of you are familiar with Lovecraft

[00:04:29] probably already know about Lovecraft. In English, for example, there is the termdruck "Lovecraftian Horror".

[00:04:36] In German, people also like to say "cosmic horror".

[00:04:40] Lovecraft created an entire subgenre in his work.

[00:04:46] And this work is characterized by an atmosphere of existential fear,

[00:04:52] ignorance and the immensity of the universe.

[00:04:56] The core characteristics of this style of horror are a certain cosmic indifference

[00:05:03] or perhaps a kind of nihilism.

[00:05:07] A madness that arises from "too much" knowledge, so to speak.

[00:05:13] Unreliable narrators are very common and frequent.

[00:05:17] The loss of humanity.

[00:05:20] It's often more about atmosphere than action or deeds.

[00:05:27] And another theme is the inexplicable and the unknown.

[00:05:35] So, who was Lovecraft exactly?

[00:05:39] Pia: H.P. Lovecraft, Howard Phillips Lovecraft is the exact name.

[00:05:44] That was an American writer and he created this Cthulhu myth.

[00:05:49] And it's always about beings called the Great Old Ones who come from distant galaxies.

[00:05:56] Christina: And that's one of these examples,

[00:06:01] how Lovecraft deals with this cosmic horror,

[00:06:04] namely with beings who don't care about humans.

[00:06:08] Pia: Exactly. And then that went further,

[00:06:11] because after him, other authors continued this myth in their own works.

[00:06:16] Examples of this are Andrzej Sapkowski, Wolfgang Hohlbein.

[00:06:20] Christina: And I have to say, I have Stephen King too, but that's not quite true.

[00:06:25] Stephen King was just extremely inspired by Lovecraft and you don't find the Cthulhu Mythos in King,

[00:06:33] but he draws a lot of inspiration from the works of Lovecraft.

[00:06:39] Pia: [laughs] We also have some of his works in the bib, so from Stephen King and from Lovecraft in that case.

[00:06:45] And there are a lot of illustrated versions.

[00:06:48] For example, some comic adaptations, such as "Echo of Madness".

[00:06:53] Various stories from Lovecraft's universe are adapted there,

[00:06:58] or "Providence" by Alan Moore, which you might know in general,

[00:07:02] because he's so well known in the comic field.

[00:07:04] He created a new interpretation of Lovecraft's works.

[00:07:08] Then we also have manga adaptations, several by Gou Tanabe,

[00:07:13] of, for example, "Mountains of Madness", "The Color from Space", "The Hound and Other Stories",

[00:07:19] "The Outsider and Other Stories" and many more.

[00:07:22] And I found it very interesting that Lovecraft in particular likes to be adapted in comic or manga form

[00:07:29] and then illustrated.

[00:07:32] Maybe it's also because people like to depict horror.

[00:07:36] Maybe that leads to an additional shock factor.

[00:07:39] Yes, I just find it interesting.

[00:07:41] Christina:But Pia, because do you think that the illustrations now on our,

[00:07:48] "The Horror of Dunwich", added value to our reading text?

[00:07:52] Because for me, they actually took a lot away.

[00:07:57] Because Lovecraft's style is also characterized by this inexplicable and unknown.

[00:08:04] And with something like that, I always have the impressiondruthat the depiction of the monster

[00:08:10] the monster itself loses its horror.

[00:08:13] Pia: I think so too. I wrote that down too.

[00:08:16] You have to give the illustration credit for the fact that it stays hidden for a very long time, the monster.

[00:08:23] So you only see hints, you don't always see everything.

[00:08:26] But the text only hints at it, for ages.

[00:08:29] And even at the end, where it's described, it's still very much open.

[00:08:36] And of course, the moment you draw it, it has a clear representation.

[00:08:41] And I would have imagined it, well, if you just read the words, I would have imagined it differently.

[00:08:46] Some of the things that occur.

[00:08:49] On the other hand, I can also imagine that it's an easy introduction.

[00:08:53] Because people who perhaps find reading more difficult,

[00:08:57] maybe it's better if you really have an illustration with it.

[00:09:01] Because maybe it also helps and maybe it loosens up the text, I can imagine.

[00:09:07] Christina: That could be.

[00:09:09] I mean, we are now totally influenced by this environment that ... We grow up with movies, right?

[00:09:20] And with pictures.

[00:09:23] And when Lovecraft wrote it, there certainly wasn't this level of images and movies and representation.

[00:09:34] But I think that as a perhaps inexperienced reader, you don't even realize that,

[00:09:41] how enriching it can be to see things not represented.

[00:09:45] And in my opinion, that's actually what Lovecraft is all about.

[00:09:52] That's why it's particularly ironic, of course.

[00:09:55] I think it's a Drang of us humans that we want to portray something.

[00:10:02] And that we then want to put it on paper.

[00:10:04] But one of the characteristics of Lovecraft is that ... Too much knowledge, that it's unbearable.

[00:10:11] So too much reality, so to speak, that it contains its own horrors, right?

[00:10:17] And then it takes the horror away, somewhere.

[00:10:19] Pia: Generally in the story, it also leaves a lot unanswered.

[00:10:22] And it generally leaves a lot of room for imagination.

[00:10:27] And that can also make it a lot more terrifying, the story or creepier.

[00:10:32] Christina: Okay, but what exactly is "The Horror of Dunwich" about?

[00:10:38] And just as a little hint, since this is a short story, we'll give away the ending this time.

[00:10:45] Pia: So in "The Horror of Dunwich," Lovecraft takes us to the mysterious, gloomy small town of Dunwich,

[00:10:52] as you might think, in New England.

[00:10:55] The Whateley family lives there, Whateley [various pronunciations] I was sure of mine, if you pronounce it.

[00:11:01] Christina: In the audiobook I think they have ... Whateley.

[00:11:03] Pia: Whateley. Yes.

[00:11:05] And there are a lot of rumors about this family.

[00:11:10] The strange one, the Wilbur Whateley, who was born under very strange circumstances

[00:11:17] and very quickly becomes a verydrohilarious young man, hides a terrible secret,

[00:11:24] which is connected to ancient cosmic powers.

[00:11:28] And then, of course, there are strange events and disturbing noises in the city

[00:11:33] and this sends Dunwich into a tailspin of horror and terror

[00:11:37] and a battle against the incomprehensible begins.

[00:11:40] Christina: And before we go into more detail about the plot and how we found it,

[00:11:47] could you, Pia, perhaps give our listeners an overview

[00:11:51] about the most important characters in the story so that we know who we're talking about?

[00:11:56] Pia: Sure, of course. There's the old Whateley.

[00:12:01] He's called a wizard and he's a complete loner in this town.

[00:12:06] Then there's his daughter Lavinia, who is also a loner and is described

[00:12:13] as unattractive and also constantly referred to as "albino" and this is repeated often.

[00:12:18] Christina:And we'd like to make a brief interjection here that ... I think,

[00:12:24] that a person with albinism is used as a stylistic device,

[00:12:29] because evoking horror in the reader is problematic for several reasons.

[00:12:35] For example, it suggests that people with albinism are in some way

[00:12:39] "different" or "worse" in quotation marks.

[00:12:42] That's complete rubbish, of course, but as with many older texts

[00:12:46] you have to situate them in their time.

[00:12:50] As a reminder, the text was published in 1929. But that doesn't mean,

[00:12:54] that you can't draw attention to the problematic elements, similar to the last

[00:13:01] episode when we talked about "The Dead Woman in the Library" by Agatha Christie and the topic of slutshaming

[00:13:06] have talked about. It should also be noted that Lavinia is the only woman in this entire cast,

[00:13:13] and basically only serves to get Wilbur born, to get the plot going

[00:13:20] and then she disappears "inexplicably" in the middle of the story. Well. Pia: Twenties. Right,

[00:13:29] That's Lavinia and she has, as you've already revealed, a child, Wilbur. He has

[00:13:36] an unknown father and is unusual in several ways. He has a goat-like

[00:13:43] appearance, he grows very, very fast for a normal child and dogs react strangely and

[00:13:49] negatively to him and then there's a bunch of other things. [both laugh] Christina: Every horror trope, you can guess.

[00:13:54] Pia: And then there's the Henry Armitage. He's separate from the family again, he has

[00:14:00] nothing to do with them, he's a librarian from a university library and he's fighting

[00:14:06] against this horror. Christina: What a surprise, I didn't know there was another librarian

[00:14:09] who saves the day in the end, I have to say. Pia: For me, personally, it was

[00:14:17] the first time I've read Lovecraft, I think you feel the same. And I have to

[00:14:21] but I have to say, I would have imagined Lovecraft the same way. For me, this course story

[00:14:26] kind of checked off several boxes. Christina: Yeah, I totally agree here exactly what I

[00:14:31] expected and also, I have to say, in a certain intermediality,

[00:14:37] which testifies to that, reminded me of a lot of horror games. So they're always very Lovecraftian ... (?)

[00:14:44] inspired by that, quite obviously. And that's, ah, okay, he's the founder

[00:14:51] And that's why it sounds so familiar to me. And when we talk about it being so familiar

[00:14:56] familiar, but what exactly makes a typical Lovecraft anyway? Pia: So things,

[00:15:02] that struck us were, on the one hand, the atmosphere, which is very oppressive and eerie

[00:15:07] and there's a dark mood in general. We've already mentioned the setting,

[00:15:11] that's in New England, Dunwich, that's a very desolate area, it's dilapidated, the place is

[00:15:17] isolated and very strange inhabitants. And that doesn't just refer to this family,

[00:15:23] but in general everyone is described as strange [laughs] and then this family as well

[00:15:27] times more. Christina: Anyone who has played Silent Hill knows what the atmosphere in "The Horror of Dunwich" is like.

[00:15:34] Pia:Then generally this fear of the unknown, we've already mentioned that. It becomes

[00:15:40] only hints are made for a very long time, the horror is described very late. And also at the

[00:15:46] end of the story, it's not entirely clear where these great old men come from, what kind of people they are,

[00:15:51] people, beings and what exactly created the horror. Yes. Christina: Pia, how exactly does it end?

[00:15:59] So this Wilbur is a, [sighs] I thought he was Satan or something because of the goat story,

[00:16:08] but then he dies. By the way, trying to break into the library,

[00:16:13] I think he gets torn by a guard dog, right? Pia: Exactly. Christina: I didn't know there were libraries

[00:16:18] with guard dogs, but okay. And then they find out a little bit that the so

[00:16:23] disfigured. But can you give us a very brief idea of how it ends so that we know,

[00:16:30] what we're talking about now? Pia: So Wilbur dies and the horror is basically trapped in his house.

[00:16:36] It's a weird creature that has a lot of arms and looks weird. It escapes

[00:16:42] and basically ravages the area. Christina: So it's like a real monster that's going to be on the loose

[00:16:50] plot and the arc of suspense breaks at the end and it becomes clear that it's about to break out

[00:16:56] out of this house and the family that tried to keep it a secret are all

[00:17:01] dead or gone, the Whateleys, and now this horror is free. And who is the one,

[00:17:06] who can vanquish it? Pia: The Librarian. [Christina: Yeah, I'm not surprised. Very good turn of phrase. Pia: Exactly and

[00:17:13] he can do it, he reads into Wilbur's diary, then realizes how to defeat him

[00:17:19] how to defeat him. Christina: Aha, that means the power of reading ... [laughs] How funny is

[00:17:27] how funny is that? The Lovecraft that transports, we really didn't choose that on purpose.

[00:17:31] But guys, it just goes to show again that reading ... Pia: [laughs] How important libraries are. It's just

[00:17:36] this, "the power of knowledge", which can then conquer the horror. Christina: [interjects] He's right. He's right. Pia: Our heroes

[00:17:42] are librarians and professors from the university, of course. [Christina laughs] It's just that

[00:17:48] you also have to say a clear focus on male heroes, male heroic deeds. Women,

[00:17:54] as you have already indicated with Lavinia, are only mentioned sparingly, they are secondary characters,

[00:17:59] victims, like Lavinia or eyewitnesses who simply see it. Christina: Also ironic, because the majority

[00:18:05] people working in libraries today are actually female, right? Pia: Yes. [Christina: Well, again

[00:18:13] unrealistic, Mr. Lovecraft. [Pia: Exactly, and in the end the horror is defeated, but like I said, we don't know

[00:18:18] don't know where it came from. Christina: Okay, and now, what did you think of the ending? Christina: I'll say right away,

[00:18:27] already how I found it, because it was too obvious and so confrontational.

[00:18:32] This good versus evil thing, I know that, for example, that's why I went to

[00:18:37] Stephen King, from Stephen King as well. And that's me, and I've always imagined,

[00:18:42] that Lovecraft is a bit different, because he's so much about the unknown and

[00:18:50] the intangible and the cosmic, the cosmic horror for me is that,

[00:18:55] that something cannot be conquered. But then, by the way, when it was published

[00:19:00] also criticized at the time of publication because it's supposed to be quite atypical for Lovecraft. As I said,

[00:19:05] we actually don't know because we haven't read much Lovecraft,

[00:19:08] is our first Lovecraft. Lovecraft himself is said to have said that whenever horror,

[00:19:14] as in the story of Dunwich is so all-encompassing, there has to be a confrontation as it were

[00:19:22] as an explanation as to why the horror doesn't spread across the whole world. And that's why he

[00:19:27] used that on this textual level. He himself was probably a big fan of this story

[00:19:33] and found it very, very, very horrible and horror-inducing for his readers. What's it like

[00:19:39] how did it go for you? Pia: I can understand his reasons. It's only a short story, after all

[00:19:45] you have to say now, it's not a novel where you could elaborate on it. But he did

[00:19:50] and you have to say, of course, I don't know how it will continue.

[00:19:54] Christina: What did he continue? Pia: This myth, that's several of his works. Christina: So this

[00:20:02] Monster, he has a name and whoever of you can pronounce this name gets a shoutout. christina: [both laugh]

[00:20:10] Pia: Right. Christina: Or he has a lot of names. So the "omniscient", or the "know-it-all" ... [laughs]

[00:20:17] ok, now I don't dare go any further ... [Pia laughs] but it has and it will be continued. That's what you get,

[00:20:22] this essence runs through many of the stories. That's the one through the

[00:20:28] Cthulhu mythos, right? Pia: Exactly, the Old Ones in general then come up again and again.

[00:20:32] Exactly. But I also have to say, it was too cliché for me... On the other hand, of course, it's also

[00:20:40] entertaining. It's a bit like we said last time with the Agatha Christie.

[00:20:44] When I read this mystery novel, I think to myself, okay, I know exactly what to expect

[00:20:47] can expect. And with a story like that, I also think to myself, okay, it's a scary story,

[00:20:51] that's exactly what I can expect. So on the one hand, it was entertaining,

[00:20:55] it was nice to read. A bit creepy. Christina: That was it "nice" to read? Pia: Yeah, a little creepy.

[00:21:00] That's nice sometimes. [Christina: That reminds me, Pia, that you don't actually have any

[00:21:04] Scary stories magst, right? Pia: Although I have to say, it wasn't that scary for me. So it

[00:21:10] has gone. It wasn't completely scary. Christina: I think we're also just

[00:21:15] jaded. So that we, that that legacy of him has certainly carried on, like I said,

[00:21:23] Intertextuality, intermediality. Pia: And it was the twenties, after all, that's when things changed a bit,

[00:21:29] since then. We're "Game of Thrones" and much, much worse things where the blood just flows.

[00:21:34] Christina: The atmosphere totallydruimpressed me. I found it extremely atmospheric and it's

[00:21:40] masterful at building it up. But what I was missing was a bit of psychological

[00:21:52] depth. Pia: I understand that. It bothered me that it was left so open. I understand, of course,

[00:22:00] why it was left open. It's just a short story. But I would have liked to know,

[00:22:04] what these old people are, where they come from, why this Wilbur was created in the first place.

[00:22:10] These are all things that are never answered. And that bothered me so much. I just wanted to know

[00:22:15] to know. And at the same time, I have to say, I was almost- Not that I was happy now,

[00:22:21] that they're taking over now, [laughs] the funny old monsters. But I was kind of curious,

[00:22:25] what would happen if. And that never happened. Christina: I understand. So this

[00:22:31] Un... I think he works by leaving questions unanswered. But that's what

[00:22:37] I also did at the beginning, where it became clear that we probably won't know

[00:22:41] not find out what happened to Lavinia. And on the one hand, I find that impressivedrucking.

[00:22:47] On the other hand, that you have to make it up yourself because it respects,

[00:22:53] the reader to a degree that is sometimes unusual for today's texts. On the

[00:23:00] other hand, it's also frustrating, of course, when you at least wish for certain answers.

[00:23:04] But I can also imagine that we would then have to delve deeper into the Cthulhu mythos

[00:23:09] would have to. Because the more information we have, no matter how vague it may be, the more

[00:23:17] we can let our own imagination run wild. And maybe that's exactly what it's all about. The Lovecraft is about.

[00:23:20] Yes, that, folks, is the end of the Fall Reading Festival today. We are proud,

[00:23:30] that we've read a text every two weeks in these five episodes. And by "we"

[00:23:35] we also mean Shelly and Jaci, of course, who have been very active, who have given us

[00:23:41] who set us challenges, who read things for us, challenges that we set them.

[00:23:48] And we would just like to thank you for your active participation

[00:23:53] for all your comments, for the opinions that you mostly wrote to us by e-mail

[00:24:00] have written to us. And it's great that we were able to invite you to read and inspire you. And

[00:24:06] we're sure that this won't be the last time that we'll send each other any comments

[00:24:11] reading challenges and invite you to read with us again. Because as we learned today

[00:24:17] today, librarians can do a lot of things, including mythical, cosmic monsters

[00:24:24] conquer them. [both laugh] That's why, exactly. Pia: Yes, thank you for listening. If you've read Lovecraft as well, you can

[00:24:34] feel free to send us your opinion. Or maybe you've never read that one and you want to

[00:24:39] just send us your opinion on the episode. We'd be delighted too. At post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:24:47] or on Instagram or Facebook. We are always happy to hear anything from you

[00:24:54] hear from you. And we'd also be delighted if you tuned in and listened again next time. Bye.

[00:24:59] Christina: Bye. Nice reading. [Outro music]

[00:25:01] [Pia speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the City Library

[00:25:31] Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [Voice modulates] [Intro music]

[00:00:07] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:27] I am Christina - Pia: and I am Pia - and welcome back to our next episode of the Autumn Reading Festival.

[00:00:34] What is the Autumn Reading Festival? The hosts from the foreword pose a reading challenge to each other and, if you want, to you listeners.

[00:00:43] We then have two weeks to read the book and discuss it with you.

[00:00:49] In the last episode, Shelly and Jaci talked about the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

[00:00:55] Fitting for "Halloween", by the way, because the episode went online on 10/31.

[00:01:00] And if you missed it, you can easily listen to it.

[00:01:03] Anyway, the two of them challenged us to read the novel "The Dead Woman in the Library" by the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie.

[00:01:13] It's a real classic, of course. It was published in a new edition in 2024 by Atlantikverlag.

[00:01:21] But in the translation from that year, I think 2002.

[00:01:27] And this new edition is also available to borrow from our library.

[00:01:32] By the way, this time it's also one of the tips in our brand new literature newsletter.

[00:01:38] So if you want to stay up to date with recommendations from us and our in-house librarians, just subscribe to it.

[00:01:49] Above all, we recommend literature outside of the well-known bestseller lists.

[00:01:54] Although, Pia, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed to learn that this dead person in the library, this library, is actually a private library and not a public one.

[00:02:08] And it was from this family of aristocratic files, the Bantrys. How did you feel about that?

[00:02:14] Pia: I was totally surprised, because when I read the title, I immediately thought of a large library.

[00:02:22] Especially because the cover of this book that we just got really shows a huge library with such long shelves.

[00:02:32] So it's like what you might imagine a public library to look like.

[00:02:36] Christina: It almost looks like a viaduct or something, like a dungeon, a cellar with very endlessly high shelves.

[00:02:43] Pia: Exactly, and I didn't, so I didn't think about it at all that it could be a private library in any way.

[00:02:50] Christina: Immediately, because I also had a library, it's like in our house, but in the past it was much more common for libraries to be privately owned, especially by the nobility or rich families.

[00:03:02] By the end of the 19th century, more and more libraries were becoming public, but somehow still,

[00:03:09] the idea of still having a private library on that scale today is almost absurd, isn't it?

[00:03:21] Pia: Yes, unless you're from the nobility, but we don't really have that anymore.

[00:03:26] Christina: Yes.

[00:03:27] Pia, magscan you summarize for our listeners what the book is all about?

[00:03:34] Pia: The book is called "Die Tote in Bibliothek", we've already mentioned that.

[00:03:38] The original title is "The Body in the Library".

[00:03:41] It's the 31st mystery novel by Agatha Christie, but only the second Miss Marple novel.

[00:03:47] So the Miss Marple in this book is still fairly new, and was published in 1942.

[00:03:53] But what's it about?

[00:03:55] That's the big question.

[00:03:57] In a quiet English country house, the morning seems to begin like any other.

[00:04:02] Until an unexpected discovery by the housemaid shatters the idyll.

[00:04:06] In the library of the prestigious Bantry family lies a corpse, a young woman,

[00:04:13] dressed strikingly, but a complete stranger.

[00:04:15] No one knows who she is or how she got there.

[00:04:18] For the lady of the house, Mrs. Bantry, it is a shock and at the same time a puzzle that will not let her rest.

[00:04:25] Who is this woman?

[00:04:27] Why is she lying in this library of all places?

[00:04:29] Luckily, Mrs. Bantry has a friend who is curious and perceptive.

[00:04:34] Miss Marple.

[00:04:36] When Miss Marple delves deep into the mysteries of the village, she quickly realizes that not all is as innocent as it seems.

[00:04:46] A fascinating and interwoven story full of unexpected twists and turns unfolds.

[00:04:51] And every page brings Miss Marple a little closer to the perpetrator.

[00:04:55] So that's our summary of the book.

[00:04:58] Christina: Yes, where did you get the summary, it sounds like a publisher's preview?

[00:05:01] Pia: [laughs] Yes, I used ChatGPT, I must confess.

[00:05:04] Christina: [laughs] Okay, because that sounds so dramatic.

[00:05:06] Pia: Yes.

[00:05:08] I didn't want to just copy down the normal one, so I thought I'd put it into ChatGPT and then something better would come out.

[00:05:14] Yes, so for those who have read it or maybe still want to read it, it's a classic "whodunnit" case.

[00:05:21] It's limited number of suspects and there are logical conclusions until we can solve the case.

[00:05:27] And the suspense clearly lies in guessing along with the police officers and Miss Marple and not necessarily in the action-packed plot.

[00:05:36] Christina: Because there's no action-packed plot.

[00:05:38] Pia: Exactly.

[00:05:39] Christina: The funniest thing, so a lot is, a lot is the humor and the pointed observations and remarks that go along with it, right?

[00:05:48] Pia: Exactly.

[00:05:49] Christina: For example Miss Bantry, who is Miss Marple's friend and who is actually really happy about the corpse because "finally something is happening".

[00:05:59] But at the same time, it's kind of so ruthless, isn't it? [laughs]

[00:06:02] Because it's obviously so bored with her life that a corpse like that somehow gives a bit of a boost ...

[00:06:09] Christina: And that's the whole village, so it's all kind of, "ah, it's shocking and it's murder, but at the same time, ah, it's gossip."

[00:06:16] Christina: Yeah, totally.

[00:06:17] The whole interesting thing.

[00:06:19] Christina: That means it's definitely something for all fans of the classic thriller.

[00:06:25] I think you can also say that the novel, with its 200 pages, is also very suitable for someone who doesn't have that much crime fiction experience but would like to get a taste of it.

[00:06:37] So classic British crime fiction.

[00:06:41] It went down in two days.

[00:06:43] It's not that demanding, but it's very, well, I found it very pleasant to read it down like that.

[00:06:51] But did you guess who it was?

[00:06:54] By the way, we won't reveal it, we won't reveal the ending, but Pia, did you guess who it was?

[00:07:00] Pia: No, so I have to say, everyone is made suspicious by the story.

[00:07:07] And in the end it could have been almost anyone.

[00:07:11] So I didn't guess - I knew that these people or the person was suspicious, that something couldn't be quite right.

[00:07:19] But it could have turned out differently for me.

[00:07:22] Christina: I think I just forgot who it was again.

[00:07:25] A lot of people read these books just to guess. But that's never been the case with me, so I do read a crime novel every now and then.

[00:07:35] But I wonder - it's always far too exhausting for me to guess.

[00:07:38] I never think drÃabout it, I always find the meta elements much more interesting, because a crime novel is a literary construct and gives - which of course every novel is -

[00:07:52] but the crime novel in particular is naturally recognizable because it always plays with the same formula.

[00:07:58] And we've already done a podcast episode here about the classic British crime novel.

[00:08:03] Pia: Our best episode. One of our best episodes, by the way.

[00:08:06] Christina: Yes, that was their favorite. That's right.

[00:08:08] It was the best received and we discussed the ten rules of this Knox person, this British - [Pia interjects]: Theorist - discussed all the things a crime novel should have.

[00:08:21] And Agatha Christie regularly breaks many of these rules.

[00:08:26] But somehow it's always a formula.

[00:08:29] And I'm always interested in the way the authors play with this formula.

[00:08:34] And I'm reading one right now that is still, well, the modern British crime novels that are being published today,

[00:08:43] that are really dedicated to this classic genre, they play with this meta-formula to an extreme.

[00:08:49] And I'm currently reading one that's like that. And I like to write like show notes, like it's called, "West Heart Kill."

[00:08:55] Exactly, "West Heart Kill" it is. And I add the author to the show notes.

[00:08:59] But then I was really surprised to see that Christie also included so many meta elements.

[00:09:09] Pia: Yeah, but totally. So she's somehow so extremely aware of her own genre.

[00:09:13] It starts with the title, because that's the cliché, "The Dead Woman in the Library".

[00:09:19] How is that ... Please explain to our listeners why that's a cliché?

[00:09:23] I don't think it's quite like that...

[00:09:25] It wasn't a cliché for me.

[00:09:27] Pia: I didn't know it was a cliché either. I only knew it because it was in the foreword.

[00:09:31] I don't know if you also read a version with a foreword? Christina: Yes.

[00:09:34] Pia: Agatha Christie explains in the foreword, she always wanted to write a book

[00:09:41] with a corpse in a library, because that's the classic detective story cliché.

[00:09:47] Then I looked for it too, apparently it really does exist, that the corpse is often found in the library in crime novels.

[00:09:53] And she wanted to change it a bitdre. She said she wanted to make the library classic.

[00:09:58] Which is interesting because it's a private library and for us it's probably no longer a classic library.

[00:10:03] But she wants to make the corpse exciting and sensational.

[00:10:07] So she thought about this literary device for a long time before she put it into practice.

[00:10:16] Because she then wrote in a foreword that the library had to be a strictly conventional one.

[00:10:21] The corpse, the one against a very unusual, sensational corpse.

[00:10:24] Those were the guidelines, but it stayed that way for a few years and the project didn't get beyond a few lines in a school exercise book.

[00:10:31] So it took her a few years to get to where she wanted to be.

[00:10:36] And then she just wrote that.

[00:10:38] Christina: But what I also wonder, for example, in that context, the mag, today I would say it might have been a trope

[00:10:45] been once in the literature that the bodies are always found in the library.

[00:10:50] But why libraries?

[00:10:54] Pia: That's, so there are various reasons for that.

[00:10:58] But otherwise, of course, it could be that it's a contrast.

[00:11:01] On the one hand, you have the library, this place of peace, the order of intellectual retreat.

[00:11:07] And then as a contrast the murder.

[00:11:10] The corpse, the noise, the confusion, something you can't explain.

[00:11:17] In contrast to this strict, logical library.

[00:11:20] Christina: Which also draws this parallel to the crime novel itself, where the chaos breaks out through the murder

[00:11:26] and then the detective brings order back into the chaos.

[00:11:30] That's one of the theories about crime fiction.

[00:11:33] Why we enjoy reading it so much.

[00:11:36] Because we always have a protagonist who brings order back into chaos and enforces rules.

[00:11:42] Pia: And it all makes sense in the end.

[00:11:44] That's somehow also a bit parallel to the library.

[00:11:47] Yes, and then you have a really exciting question for us.

[00:11:50] That was, was the corpse really as sensational as Agatha Christie made it out to be and declared it to be in the foreword.

[00:12:01] I'll read out the part where the body is found.

[00:12:06] "But on the bearskin in front of the fireplace lay something new and lurid,

[00:12:11] Melodramatic.

[00:12:13] A brightly dressed, young girl.

[00:12:17] With unnaturally blonde hair pinned up in elaborate curls and ringlets.

[00:12:23] The slender body clasped a backless evening dress made of white, sequined satin.

[00:12:30] The face was heavily made up.

[00:12:33] The powder stood out grotesquely against the blue puffiness.

[00:12:37] The mascara was thick on the distorted cheeks.

[00:12:40] The scarlet of the lips resembled a gaping wound.

[00:12:45] The fingernails were painted blood red.

[00:12:48] So were the toenails in the cheap silver strappy shoes.

[00:12:53] A vulgar, pompous appearance highly incongruous amidst the solid, old-fashioned coziness of Colonel Bantry's library."

[00:13:05] Yeah, so I don't know how you found that description.

[00:13:11] But the way you're talking about the body is, I'll put it bluntly, really questionable.

[00:13:22] Pia: Yes ... it was also the - Well, because at first the body is not described.

[00:13:26] It's like the maid then runs up, informs everyone.

[00:13:31] And then Mrs. Bantry basically says to Miss Marple, "Yes, you'll see why she's so strange or why she's so special.

[00:13:39] this body and then you'll see that" and that's the description. And I have

[00:13:42] expected something completely different, what was so sensational about this corpse.

[00:13:46] Christina: At least once a pantomime or a clown or something.

[00:13:49] Pia: Costume or something else.

[00:13:52] Christina: A Dinosauros Rex costume.

[00:13:54] Pia: [laughs] Something like that.

[00:13:56] Christina: But basically, what it boils down to is that they're obviously

[00:14:02] obscenely dressed for the comprehension of the rulers there.

[00:14:08] Too much make-up, hair unnatural and obviously a bit implied

[00:14:17] Also too little on.

[00:14:19] I read a bit out of it, with the dress and so on, "backless dress".

[00:14:25] Yes, so that somehow goes ... so much the story is pleasant

[00:14:34] pleasant to read, and many elements reflect a classic detective story and one

[00:14:39] that you can actually read quite well despite these elements, I really wasn't enthusiastic about it

[00:14:45] about the way it was carried through as a theme. I have to say, when I read it,

[00:14:52] I thought to myself, okay, maybe it will be presented in a more differentiated way,

[00:14:58] but it got worse and worse.

[00:15:00] Pia: Yes, I also thought that she'd take it here now and maybe drösimulate it again

[00:15:06] and actually shows, okay, but the woman isn't like that and it's not so bad

[00:15:12] and that's not at all and that's just a prejudice in that direction.

[00:15:15] Christina: Exactly. Pia: That's what I expected to come up.

[00:15:17] Christina: As modern readers, we believed that the detective character would do this expected work for us

[00:15:22] to say slutshaming is not okay.

[00:15:25] Pia: Yes!

[00:15:26] Christina: [laughs] But that didn't happen.

[00:15:27] Pia: The opposite happened, especially too, because in the beginning they were really

[00:15:32] for a very long time, you have to say, it was only the police officers and the bantrys who were talking so drüabout

[00:15:36] but then at some point Miss Marple comes along and continues in exactly the same way. [laughs]

[00:15:40] So even the one person who believed in this young woman and saw her as something positive

[00:15:47] ends up basically changing her mind.

[00:15:51] And that was kind of depressing, you have to say. [laughs]

[00:15:54] Christina: And you can also say, well, let me tell you this much, a second murder happens.

[00:16:00] If someone doesn't want to hear that now, they have to fast-forward for two minutes, on a

[00:16:07] young girl.

[00:16:08] I don't even know how old she is.

[00:16:09] My onedruck was between 14 and 16.

[00:16:12] Pia: School girl in any case.

[00:16:13] Christina: Yes, exactly.

[00:16:14] And the policeman then says, quite clearly, well, he has to take the messages,

[00:16:20] the parents, including how she was found.

[00:16:22] That's very telling and I also found it very explicit for a novel like this

[00:16:30] time.

[00:16:31] We're talking about the 40s, aren't we?

[00:16:33] But then he says he has to deliver it and then he thinks to himself, well, this girl,

[00:16:40] that he just sees in the photo, she had nothing to do with it at all and

[00:16:43] is innocent.

[00:16:44] But the body that was found in the library, it was actually only

[00:16:51] it was her own fault or she pulled it herself and I-.

[00:16:55] Pia: She "deserved" it under leadership marks, because she challenged it.

[00:16:59] Christina: Yes.

[00:17:00] And in fact, it's quite a lot, I found that totally blatant.

[00:17:03] Pia: So that sentence took me out like that because I was like, it was just the whole time,

[00:17:08] as you say, it was comments from all kinds of characters all the time, that was

[00:17:12] that was going on.

[00:17:13] But I always thought to myself, well, okay, I have to ignore other times a bit, that's

[00:17:17] just like that.

[00:17:18] And when the sentence came, I was like, you can't be serious, that's a policeman.

[00:17:23] Christina: And that was, so then it was clear that this whole story was built around that.

[00:17:28] In the end, that's not a resolution, that's the justification.

[00:17:34] And we just have to stay a bit vague so that we don't give away the ending.

[00:17:39] But that's something, so I didn't like it.

[00:17:43] And I was also disappointed by the story.

[00:17:46] And I just, well, I've always searched like this and there are always counterparts.

[00:17:50] Pia: With a lot of people, you stick with the prejudices.

[00:17:55] And that doesn't just apply to women, doesn't just stick to women, but

[00:18:01] also this difference between the upper class and the lower class.

[00:18:04] Because that's basically what happens to them, so in the library of them, those are the bantries

[00:18:09] and that's just, they have this mansion, which means they also have money, they are

[00:18:14] part of the gentry, the neverdrinobility.

[00:18:16] And the other figures, some of whom are in the working class,

[00:18:24] like the dancer or the filmmaker, for example, they are looked down on.

[00:18:31] So these prejudices are not only limited to women, but also to other classes,

[00:18:37] Let's put it this way.

[00:18:38] And that really bothered me, for example, when more and more people came together

[00:18:41] was felt.

[00:18:42] Christina: And the whole plot and the whole resolution, as I said, is structured around the miss

[00:18:51] Marple then ultimately puts two and two together and is able to say, okay, but this

[00:18:57] Ruby Keen, who is the dancer in this hotel, that's the murdered woman, the body that was

[00:19:02] was found in the library, she doesn't know how to dress.

[00:19:07] Pia: And "she's from the lower class and they know, they've never been educated" im

[00:19:12] Basically.

[00:19:13] Christina: The conclusions that she draws from the case are actually the same in the end

[00:19:17] irrelevant, but they all hang on to this idea of upper and lower class.

[00:19:23] And that's what we mean by "the novel is constructed around it".

[00:19:27] And then of course, as easygoing as this reading experience is,

[00:19:32] - and you can also read over it, it's not -

[00:19:38] but that's where it gets really, actually now that you take a closer look, I have to say

[00:19:41] I have to say, it's actually quite zach.

[00:19:43] Pia: You get frustrated.

[00:19:44] Christina: I would say, I wouldn't recommend it. [Pia laughs]

[00:19:46] Yes, quite honestly.

[00:19:47] Pia: It's still a thriller, like you said, easy to read.

[00:19:50] The structure helps extremely.

[00:19:52] Christina: Yeah, you read through it.

[00:19:53] Pia: You know it.

[00:19:54] Ah yes, we have a "Closet Mystery", so it's in this library that's closed

[00:19:59] is closed.

[00:20:00] We don't know how that happened.

[00:20:01] We have our cast of characters with all kinds of potential motives.

[00:20:07] And now we can start guessing.

[00:20:09] And then we have Miss Marple, who deduces very quickly and very cleverly and

[00:20:13] who basically solves it in the end.

[00:20:14] Christina: And it's not too gory.

[00:20:16] It's also, you have to keep it too good, so the humor that's in there is already

[00:20:24] good too.

[00:20:25] And there's also the one or other point about these villagers,

[00:20:31] Miss Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead.

[00:20:35] And she's so good because, as an old maid, she's so integrated into village life

[00:20:42] is so integrated into village life.

[00:20:43] And I found that so surprisingly new-feminist, to give someone so much power

[00:20:49] for something that has such a feminine connotation.

[00:20:55] And she is so gifted for this feminine position by doing it

[00:21:00] and has the respect of this entire police force.

[00:21:03] And I thought that was good again.

[00:21:04] And that's also charming.

[00:21:06] Pia: So this village and the characters, they're also a bit funny. You can make fun of them a bit drü. [talking about each other]

[00:21:09] Christina: Absolutely a book of its time.

[00:21:12] It's just that in these things, you have to deal with the way they talk about them

[00:21:18] Ruby Keen, the dead woman in the library, that it's just and how the case unfolds,

[00:21:24] you can find a bit of impetus there.

[00:21:27] A pointed characterization, which I found very good again, is

[00:21:32] a neighbor of Miss Marpel and she is described: "She was a woman who

[00:21:38] cared tirelessly for the poor, however much they tried to evade her care

[00:21:43] tried to evade her care."

[00:21:44] Pia: Yeah, I read that too, that's when I thought to myself,

[00:21:46] that's entertaining. [both laugh]

[00:21:47] Christina: And that's another thing where I can recognize a certain reflectiveness

[00:21:53] which made me all the more surprised at the direction it took.

[00:21:57] But with Marpel herself, there was so much she could do, which to be honest wasn't so

[00:22:01] a lot, she was just a likeable character that everyone, she didn't have a Watson ...

[00:22:07] Pia: Did you find her likeable?

[00:22:08] I didn't find her so likeable.

[00:22:10] Christina: Well, sure ... [Pia laughs] She just, she doesn't have a Watson, but her Watson is

[00:22:16] practically everyone, both Mrs. Bantry and all these inspectors, except for the

[00:22:22] Slack, the Inspector Slack didn't think she was great, but all the others are singing their

[00:22:28] Hymns of praise.

[00:22:29] And that's just, that's actually the most you get from her.

[00:22:33] And then when she's there, where she gave birth to the child, and then I thought to myself

[00:22:38] Yeah, it's actually pretty tough.

[00:22:39] Pia: But that's more because of her comprehension skills.

[00:22:42] I think you can see how quickly she can deduce.

[00:22:45] But I don't think she was so charming as a character.

[00:22:47] Well, with her statements and so on.

[00:22:49] Christina: She's not charming, but I found her likeable because she's so - Pia: Because she was so quick and [incomprehensible].

[00:22:55] Yes, that's true.

[00:22:56] But I don't remember her like that, I don't remember Miss Marple like that.

[00:23:01] But that's probably also because I just remember Rutherford as nice and funny

[00:23:06] memory, because I know Rutherford from the movies.

[00:23:09] That's kind of the classic Miss Marple character for me.

[00:23:13] But apparently it's also the case, I then read, that in the books, in the later ones

[00:23:17] books, she becomes a lot more likeable and nicer.

[00:23:20] Christina: But I like the fact that she doesn't have this big-motherly quality.

[00:23:27] She doesn't have that.

[00:23:28] And I kind of liked that because she kind of, she also says how

[00:23:33] it is.

[00:23:34] So she, for example, when Mrs. Bantry then goes into some illusions and

[00:23:39] says how great she thinks it is, then Miss Marple sees through that as one of her coping strategies.

[00:23:44] And if that goes too far, then she tells her that too and so on.

[00:23:48] And that's why I found her likeable, because she tells it like it is, doesn't she?

[00:23:52] All in all, I don't know ...

[00:23:54] My conclusion entertaining book, you read through it quickly, it's a good ...

[00:23:58] ... you won't be taking it to the beach at the moment, but it's good for now

[00:24:04] maybe once, if you have to travel somewhere longer on the train or something, you can take it

[00:24:09] read very well. What did you think?

[00:24:10] Pia: It's also a quick read.

[00:24:12] And like you said, for me, I read it in drei hours or something.

[00:24:16] And that's really ...

[00:24:17] Christina: What?

[00:24:18] Yes, it went quite quickly, I think.

[00:24:20] Christina: What?

[00:24:21] That's not ...

[00:24:22] You didn't read it in drei hours, it took me at least six hours.

[00:24:24] Pia: Yes, I think, I think it was drei hours.

[00:24:26] I think so.

[00:24:27] So I read it in one day and it went really fast.

[00:24:30] Christina: How fast do you read? [both laugh]

[00:24:31] Pia: But I think that's just where that structure helped.

[00:24:35] You have to say that.

[00:24:36] What I didn't like so much was this looking down on other people.

[00:24:40] Christina: Would you recommend it?

[00:24:43] Pia: So for people who like crime thrillers and who like classic crime thrillers, definitely.

[00:24:47] Christina: Yes, definitely one of those typical books that you should definitely have read

[00:24:53] can read.

[00:24:54] Pia: Exactly.

[00:24:55] Christina: Yes.

[00:24:56] Pia, and now it's time to announce what?

[00:25:01] Pia: Yeah, and now we have to announce what we're going to read next time.

[00:25:05] Christina: We can announce it.

[00:25:07] Pia: We may announce what we're going to read next time.

[00:25:10] This time no one gives us a task, but we set ourselves the challenge.

[00:25:15] Yes, what are we going to read?

[00:25:18] Christina?

[00:25:19] Christina: Yes, and we have chosen a classic scary story, from the, that would probably be

[00:25:26] many would say, the founder of horror, namely H.P. Lovecraft's "The Horror of Dunwich".

[00:25:32] And we have the particularly great pleasure of reading the edition illustrated by François Baranger

[00:25:39] edition for reading.

[00:25:41] So this is really a picture book, for both of us, the introduction to Lovecraft and therefore

[00:25:48] we're particularly excited to see how this, together with these beautiful illustrations

[00:25:54] will have on us.

[00:25:56] As always, you are of course very welcome to read along with us.

[00:26:02] We have two weeks for the last part of our reading challenge and the last

[00:26:08] part of our fall reading festival.

[00:26:10] So you know exactly what's coming up:

[00:26:14] The book was published in 1928.

[00:26:16] This is part of the stories that are now known as - Pia help me -

[00:26:21] Pia: Cthulhu -

[00:26:22] Christina: Mythos are known. [both laugh]

[00:26:24] So, tell us how you found the dead woman in the library.

[00:26:29] As always, you can do so at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at or on Instagram (stadtbibliothek.innsbruck) or Facebook.

[00:26:37] Farewell for today and happy reading.

[00:26:43] Christina: Bye. [Outro music]

[00:26:44] [Pia speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of the

[00:27:14] Stadtsstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] [modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [modulated]

[00:00:06] [Intro music] Jaci: Hello and welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:26] My dear colleague Shelly is sitting next to me and I am Jaci.

[00:00:31] And today we're doing the dritte episode in the spirit of the fall reading festival at our city library.

[00:00:40] Last time, our colleagues Christina and Pia talked about the book "Pavillon 44" and Thomas Sautner.

[00:00:48] Shelly: The competition, as you just said, Christina and Pia read Thomas Sautner's book in the last episode.

[00:00:59] And we also gave that away. And until today it was possible to enter.

[00:01:06] And thank you for the numerous entries. We will now notify the winner in the next few days.

[00:01:14] Jaci: Exactly. And now we won't keep you in suspense any longer.

[00:01:20] And you already know, if you listened to the last episode, you know that today is about Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery".

[00:01:28] So we've hit the jackpot.

[00:01:32] Shelly: Badumm-tss.

[00:01:33] Thank you, thank you. I've been working on this joke all week.

[00:01:37] Shelly. So funny.

[00:01:38] Not at all rehearsed or anything. [Jaci laughs]

[00:01:40] But a quick fun fact that I noticed before I started reading is that Shirley Jackson, the author's name, could work as "Shelly" and "Jackie" (ed.: Jaci).

[00:01:55] So you can make "Shelly" out of Shirley and then if I borrow the y, you can make "Jackie" out of Jackson.

[00:02:01] And I think that's an Easter egg that Christina and Pia intended.

[00:02:05] Shelly: Definitely. Jaci: Exactly. And my conspiracy theories are starting to roll.

[00:02:10] Shelly: I'm absolutely thrilled with your creativity.

[00:02:13] Jaci: Thank you, thank you.

[00:02:14] So that concludes my creative justification that I spent all my gerhin cells on.

[00:02:20] And right, Shelly, why don't you tell us about Shirley Jackson.

[00:02:25] Shelly: I'd love to.

[00:02:26] So, as I said, the author in the short story is Shirley Jackson.

[00:02:30] Her full name is Shirley Hardie Jackson.

[00:02:34] She was born at the beginning of the 20th century, not really.

[00:02:39] Actually 1916, that's not that far in the beginning.

[00:02:42] But well, 1916. She died in 1965.

[00:02:47] And she was married to a literary critic and lecturer.

[00:02:53] His name was Stanley Edgar Hyman.

[00:02:55] And he also supported her a lot in her own studies, because despite being married and having four children, she still studied.

[00:03:03] And spent 50 percent of her life, that's a quote from her, on writing.

[00:03:09] But it was always clear to her that her role as a mother and her role as a wife came first.

[00:03:14] And she put the writing on the back burner.

[00:03:16] Exactly, but she wrote quite a lot and quite well for that.

[00:03:21] About the content of what we read, "The Lottery".

[00:03:25] As I said, it's a short story, about 20 pages long,

[00:03:28] You're through it in a minute.

[00:03:31] Jaci: Exactly, so I just read that [clears throat] yesterday.

[00:03:36] And I just finished it in half an hour, with deep reading in half an hour.

[00:03:43] And very briefly, what happens on these 20 pages?

[00:03:48] Shelly: Can I just very briefly -

[00:03:50] Jaci: Please. Shelly: Hit you in the pan.

[00:03:52] Jaci: Oh, God.

[00:03:53] Shelly: I would have loved to read that book too.

[00:03:56] I just unfortunately had it read to me as an audiobook.

[00:04:00] Because Mrs. Jaci took it with her on vacation.

[00:04:04] And we only had one copy in the library. [Shelly laughs]

[00:04:06] Jaci: No, no, no, no, no.

[00:04:08] Christina

[00:04:09] said to me, we have it in German and in English.

[00:04:11] And I took it in German.

[00:04:13] And apparently it's not in English, somehow. [both laugh]

[00:04:17] I take any blame from myself.

[00:04:21] I can't help it.

[00:04:23] Shelly: Okay.

[00:04:24] Jaci: Yeah, I'm still sorry about that. Shelly [laughs]: Thank you.

[00:04:26] Jaci: Okay, back to the content.

[00:04:29] It all starts in a quite harmonious, peaceful, even idyllic mood in a village square.

[00:04:37] In a village that we don't get any more information about.

[00:04:42] We also don't know where it's set, i.e. in which country.

[00:04:45] There are actually no attributions. Through research

[00:04:48] I found out that it's an American village.

[00:04:53] And everyone is actually very cheerful until a black box is brought to this village square.

[00:05:02] And you can already tell from the characters that an event is coming.

[00:05:08] And that everyone has gathered for this event.

[00:05:12] And then this black box was brought to the village square and everyone suddenly gets nervous.

[00:05:18] So this crate would cause disaster or be a bad omen, so to speak.

[00:05:25] The men and women are standing together on this village square with all their children.

[00:05:32] And then there is a man who leads this ceremony, so to speak.

[00:05:37] That's the Mr. Summers.

[00:05:40] Exactly. And this Mr. Summers brings them this box and starts this ceremony.

[00:05:46] Whereby the narrative voice repeatedly notes that the ceremony is very reduced,

[00:05:53] that no one actually knows exactly what sentences are said or what songs are sung.

[00:05:59] So it's been reduced a lot.

[00:06:01] And it's really only about this box, which on closer inspection is also very nice.

[00:06:06] And in my opinion, it puts the whole ritual under a bushel, so to speak.

[00:06:12] And then strips of paper are mentioned that are in this box, which are then mixed together.

[00:06:19] And then the men or the older sons in the family have to draw one of these pieces of paper.

[00:06:25] They are then all called up one after the other, go up, draw a piece of paper and are not allowed to look at it.

[00:06:31] They are only allowed to look at the piece of paper after everyone has drawn it.

[00:06:35] And then it turns out that Mr. Hutchinson drew the bad lot.

[00:06:42] Shelly: You just don't know that it's bad.

[00:06:44] We have no idea what this lottery is all about.

[00:06:46] Jaci: Exactly, you don't know.

[00:06:48] But he just has a lottery ticket, where everyone is immediately relieved.

[00:06:54] And his wife immediately panics and says that it wasn't fair,

[00:07:00] that her husband didn't have enough time to choose the lot.

[00:07:04] And who has been virtuallydrängt by these Mr. Summers.

[00:07:07] Mr. Hutchinson tells his wife to be quiet and says, "Don't pretend, it'll all work out," so to speak.

[00:07:14] And then the drei children are also taken out of the crowd by the couple, so to speak.

[00:07:20] And then all five of them have to draw lots again.

[00:07:23] So all the children, one of the children is so small that another citizen has to draw for the child.

[00:07:30] And in the end, Tessi Hutchinson, the lady of the gentleman who drew, has the bad lot.

[00:07:38] Gets extremely panicky and all the other villagers get stones,

[00:07:47] collected by the children at the beginning of the story, get stones and attack this woman.

[00:07:55] So the story ends with everyone pouncing on her, so to speak.

[00:07:59] And then they deduce that the lady is now being stoned to death.

[00:08:03] Shelly:Exactly. It's not said directly.

[00:08:07] Or is it? So you've heard it in English.

[00:08:10] Jaci: Yeah, so you've read the German version.

[00:08:12] And then there's the last sentence, wait a minute.

[00:08:16] "It's not fair, it's not right, yelled Mrs. Hutchinson and then they pounce on her."

[00:08:23] So that's how it is, that's how the story ends and just before that everybody picks up stones, that's how I figure she gets stoned.

[00:08:31] Shelly: Yeah, exactly. That's just the short summary of the content.

[00:08:37] And now I'm just going to tell you a little bit about the origin story.

[00:08:42] This short story was first published in 1948.

[00:08:49] In this cultmagamagazine "The New Yorker" and then later in an anthology,

[00:08:56] which in the original is called "The Lottery - Adventures of the Demon Lover".

[00:09:02] And that was then translated into German for the first time in 1989.

[00:09:07] And then it's called "The Devil's Bride - 25 Demonic Tales". [both laugh]

[00:09:12] I love German translations, really.

[00:09:17] Jaci: And very, may I just add: when the story was published, it also got a lot of negative feedback.

[00:09:26] So it wasn't well received by people.

[00:09:29] Shelly:They weren't thrilled at all, there were over 300 letters to the editor that went directly to Shirley Jackson.

[00:09:36] And only 13 of them were in a friendly tone. [Jaci laughs]

[00:09:41] Yeah, and mostly those letters to the editor were about people being totally, people being totally confused.

[00:09:49] Everyone wanted to know the meaning of the story.

[00:09:52] They were very agitated and very angry in their letters.

[00:09:57] And it even went so far that the Union on South Africa, the Union, the South African Union, even banned this story.

[00:10:07] So there's been strong censorship on this story.

[00:10:11] And Shirley Jackson has become an important representative of Slipstream Literature with this story.

[00:10:21] It's a literary current and works of this slipstream are on the border between realistic mainstream literature and science fiction or fantasy literature.

[00:10:37] I googled that.

[00:10:39] Jaci: Great research, Shelly. Thank you so much. [both laugh]

[00:10:42] Very interesting, we both just read or heard the story. What was your onedruck when you read it?

[00:10:52] Well, it somehow starts so innocently, almost idyllically or ... Jaci: Yes, so fairytale-like somehow.

[00:10:58] Shelly: Yeah, totally.

[00:10:59] And Shirley Jackson's style is actually quite interesting. She actually describes obvious or apparent abnormalities as something quite normal.

[00:11:11] And that's why you only realize in the course of the story drathat it's actually quite "eerie" and gloomy.

[00:11:19] Jaci: Exactly, so I was also very surprised by this twist in the story.

[00:11:25] I did think that something had to happen because Christina was very curious about our reaction to the challenge.

[00:11:36] And I thought the whole time what would happen, but because the lottery is somehow connoted with very positive words in my head.

[00:11:45] So it's more like winning and something good happens when you win a lottery.

[00:11:50] So I was very curious to see what would happen. I definitely wasn't expecting a stoning, I have to say.

[00:11:57] Mainly because the atmosphere was very modern, or at least more modern than I imagined it would be in the age of stoning.

[00:12:08] So it could be now, when was it written, 1948?

[00:12:13] It could be set in that time, but it could just as easily be set right now, so it's a rather timeless narrative.

[00:12:20] But still very disturbing because it could always be current and there would be people who would still be doing it now.

[00:12:30] Shelly:It's funny that you say that, because in the letters to the editor that she received, a lot of people asked where this place is now [Jaci laughs] and whether this is an experience report and where it is practiced now.

[00:12:42] So they really bought it.

[00:12:44] Jaci: Yes, so it's very realistic and I can also imagine that things were handled like that in the past, too.

[00:12:53] Shelly:Yes, but maybe as a punishment, but not as a lottery.

[00:12:56] Jaci: Exactly, that's right.

[00:12:57] And that's what confused me about the next one.

[00:13:01] This ceremony, which everyone performs with so much devotion, even though no one seems to know the origin or really the truth behind the ceremony or how the tradition should really take place, or the ritual should really take place, so what should be said, somehow no one knows that anymore.

[00:13:20] And for me, that's this carrying out of traditions, even though you don't know what it is, like when you go to church unenlightened and just repeat the prayers, but you don't know what you're actually saying.

[00:13:32] Well, that's just the way it is.

[00:13:33] You have to know and question things somehow so that you can think like that.

[00:13:38] And I mean, you also learn in history that other villages no longer perform this ritual.

[00:13:46] So they've done away with it and the oldest people in the village where we're hearing the story,

[00:13:53] are quite horrified that it has been abolished.

[00:13:56] And then one of them says, so to speak, yes, if you can abolish the ritual,

[00:14:00] we can go right back to living in caves, because then we won't look any better than barbarians,

[00:14:05] although what happens here in the ritual is barbaric.

[00:14:09] Shelly [snorts]: Yeah, actually it is. But it's just this mindless adherence to tradition.

[00:14:14] Jaci: Exactly, and then I just, I researched it and I tried,

[00:14:18] to find interpretations for this text or analyses,

[00:14:21] because I just couldn't come to terms with the fact that I was getting so little information,

[00:14:27] that we as readers don't know why the tradition exists,

[00:14:32] why do the citizens want to continue it, why do they cling to this barbaric ritual?

[00:14:40] even though you don't have to do it, as other villages have now abolished it.

[00:14:45] Shelly: That's really annoying, isn't it? Jaci: And that drives me crazy, I think it's totally insane,

[00:14:52] that I think to myself, I'm doing this and I don't know why I'm doing it,

[00:14:58] but I'm just going to stone a woman because that's what tradition demands of me.

[00:15:03] Shelly: "Because we've always done it that way". Jaci: Exactly! "And that's just the way it's always been and you don't question the traditions."

[00:15:08] but in other villages, where the young people are asserting themselves, it's been abolished,

[00:15:14] because the boys, they always want to change things and stuff, that's bad, [both laugh] Shelly: How can they.

[00:15:20] Jaci: In any case, I just found out during my research,

[00:15:25] that, of course, a lot of socially critical things should be shown.

[00:15:30] So of course Shirley Jackson had a deeper meaning behind this story, which she wanted to extract fromdrÃ.

[00:15:36] And she's mainly interested in showing what people are capable of inside themselves,

[00:15:43] in other words, the evil that lurks in every human being, combined with the power of tradition and rituals

[00:15:52] and also the power of the group, the anonymity that you have in the group and this community pressure.

[00:16:00] So that a whole village comes together and it doesn't really matter who throws the first stone,

[00:16:08] because everyone throws it anyway and then "it's not your fault", that's how it is, exactly.

[00:16:14] And I think that's also what upsets a lot of people because it's so realistic

[00:16:19] and it shows what a community is capable of.

[00:16:24] Shelly:Yeah, and then there's the element of chance with the lottery, with the tickets.

[00:16:32] Jaci: Exactly, that's where I was reading too because this Mrs. Hutchinson,

[00:16:36] I don't know if I'm pronouncing the name right, but that's how we read it - Shelly: Hutchinson, that's how I read it. - Jaci:Ok.

[00:16:41] She denies the outcome of this lottery and says it wasn't fair,

[00:16:50] she's not saying that the ritual is stupid and that it should be abolished

[00:16:56] or that it's generally unfair to stone someone, she's just against it happening to her family.

[00:17:02] Shelly: Yeah. Jaci: And that's kind of exciting that she accepts the lottery but not the outcome,

[00:17:09] because her life is worth more to her than this tradition, but she would sacrifice another life for this tradition.

[00:17:17] Shelly: Yeah. Jaci:And that's what got me so upset because I thought to myself, how can you think that's good,

[00:17:23] this tradition if you don't accept it yourself and don't... Shelly: right, how can you someone,

[00:17:29] how can you stone someone else when you wouldn't accept it yourself?

[00:17:34] Jaci: That was also one of those notes where you thought, I don't know, that's not a well-rounded thing ...

[00:17:41] I mean, it's also a great story, but the whole process in this village really gets me down,

[00:17:47] not the story itself, because the story is brilliant, but it's just the way these people think that makes me so crazy,

[00:17:53] I can't say it any other way, it just makes me foolish because you know exactly what's going on in these people's heads

[00:18:01] and how ill-considered that is.

[00:18:04] Shelly: Yeah full, it's really really realistic, so it's very socially critical,

[00:18:09] and it kind of holds up a mirror to all of us.

[00:18:13] Jaci: Exactly, yes. And I mean, it's also been compared to "The Hunger Games" in an analysis,

[00:18:21] because in "The Hunger Games", which is a series of books for young people by Suzanne Collins, the tributes are drawn from every district in the country,

[00:18:32] so they're also drawn by lot, it's not a lottery, and there it's a lot of what this dictatorial state

[00:18:41] on the people, that tributes are demanded, but they are then sent to their own arena,

[00:18:49] where these tributes have to kill each other and not the society in which they live.

[00:18:55] And I think that's also a point that was even more disturbing to me, that it was the neighbor and wife of many,

[00:19:03] and that the people who knew her killed her.

[00:19:06] And I don't think this comparison with "Tribute to Panem" is really appropriate because it's a completely different mentality.

[00:19:14] Shelly: That, and you already said it was a dictatorial state, and they made it up themselves in the village,

[00:19:23] that they would continue to run the lottery, so they were actually only forced by tradition, but not from above.

[00:19:31] Jaci: Precisely because you realize that it's not carried out in other villages and they don't face any consequences dro.

[00:19:38] So exactly, that's the comparison. My personal comparison was "Squid Game", the Netflix series, which was drei years ago, I think.

[00:19:48] Shelly: I think that was before corona, right?

[00:19:50] Jaci: During Corona, I think. Shelly: During Corona.

[00:19:52] Jaci: Yeah, time is a construct. [Shelly laughs] That was this successful Netflix series a few years ago where people, in a TV...

[00:20:03] So what's it called, they're put into a competition where they have to kill other people or just their opponents,

[00:20:11] to get rid of their debts in real life, so to speak.

[00:20:15] And that also shows what's inside people, what humanity is capable of.

[00:20:20] And it's not a draw, but simply the brutality of this series and the brutality of people's mentality

[00:20:29] In this scenario, I think the comparison is just a bit more appropriate because you get more of this harsh reality.

[00:20:38] Shelly: Yeah, but they're going to be in... So this is a year where the characters are actually from the people who invented the game, right?

[00:20:46] Jaci: Exactly, although again from the top...

[00:20:48] Shelly: Yeah, they're from the top again...

[00:20:49] ...steered down more or less.

[00:20:50] Jaci;It's not a perfect comparison, but to me it reflects more of this "kill your neighbor".

[00:20:56] Not like "Tribute to Panem", someone you don't even know, kind of thing.

[00:21:02] Exactly, because what was also stated in an analysis was that the principle of the scapegoat with this punishment, with this stoning,

[00:21:11] is somehow used in this lottery, but I just don't understand,

[00:21:16] and I think that also has to do with the fact that we as readers don't know where the ritual comes from, because maybe it also comes from these...

[00:21:23] "Someone has to be punished for our sins."

[00:21:28] Shelly: Yeah, but what kind of sins happened?

[00:21:30] Jaci: You don't know.

[00:21:32] And I don't understand that either, like the principle of the sin goat with the lottery in the point of view, where that's already in this narrative.

[00:21:41] You don't know how it was before, how it plays together.

[00:21:45] Shelly: Maybe it used to be more of a ritual sacrifice that you made, and because nobody wanted to be the one to choose someone, that there was then the lottery, but that background has somehow been lost.

[00:21:54] Jaci: Yes, you just don't know. Did it just come about socially, politically, religiously? You don't know.

[00:22:00] In any case, it's a crazy ritual, in my opinion ... [laughs] Shelly [sarcastically]:What, I think it's totally great.

[00:22:07] Jaci: It's so disturbing because even in "Squid Game" and in "Tribute to Panem" now, for example, because we just took the comparison here, there are no kids involved.

[00:22:18] And in Shirley Jackson's lottery - Shelly: Not in "Tribute to Panem" because her sister... sacrifice herself.

[00:22:24] Jaci: Yeah, but they're at least 15, I think. - Shelly: I see.

[00:22:27] Jaci: Well, they have to have reached a certain age, but this child in the lottery, she can't even draw a ticket herself.

[00:22:35] Well, that's maybe drei years old, two, drei years old.

[00:22:38] Shelly: But then there's who's going to fill in.

[00:22:40] Jaci: Yeah, just to draw the lot, not to take the punishment.

[00:22:43] Shelly [surprised]: Oh?

[00:22:44] Jaci: I don't think the man who drew for the child would be stoned to death.

[00:22:50] I believe that then the child...

[00:22:52] Shelly: Boah, zach.

[00:22:53] Jaci: Exactly!

[00:22:54] The drei children then pulled, and in the end they gave pebbles to this little child who couldn't even pull it himself.

[00:23:02] That's also thrown at his mother, so to speak.

[00:23:05] And it's all so barbaric.

[00:23:08] And on top of that, I think that's a whole separate podcast again, only the men are pulling.

[00:23:15] In other words, the men also pull over the lot of their wives.

[00:23:18] Not even the women themselves are allowed to pull to somehow ...

[00:23:22] It's, it's a matter of happiness.

[00:23:23] Shelly: It's the head of the family pulling. Jaci: Exactly!

[00:23:25] Shelly: It's either the father, and if he doesn't exist anymore, that's some reason, because he drew the last lot ... Jaci: And then he's the son.

[00:23:30] Shelly:Then the son, and the son, and when he's not, then the wife.

[00:23:34] Then the wife.

[00:23:35] That's also a woman pulling, and everyone's like, "Don't you have a son who can pull for you?"

[00:23:40] Shelly: Yes, that's right, that's also crass.

[00:23:41] That's when it got to me, that's when we thought, at least let the woman try her luck herself, so to speak.

[00:23:48] But maybe I'm too...

[00:23:52] Shelly:Emancipated.

[00:23:53] Jaci [laughs]: So, totally done with the story.

[00:23:56] Yeah.

[00:23:57] Shelly:Yeah.

[00:23:58] Jaci: You can tell I'm very... jaci: Upset.

[00:24:00] Shelly: Torn.

[00:24:02] I thought she was cool.

[00:24:03] I thought she was really cool because I don't know ...

[00:24:05] Because I don't know so much.

[00:24:07] Because I have to spin so much together myself in my head.

[00:24:09] Jaci: I mag things like that, I have to know exactly how things like that happen.

[00:24:12] Then I question it way too much, and then it won't let me go for days.

[00:24:16] So I'll be thinking about that story for longer now.

[00:24:19] Shelly: Yeah, but that's just Shirley Jackson.

[00:24:22] In our podcast, Christina and Pia already have something for a Shirley Jackson,

[00:24:26] the one in the last season, "The Haunting of Hill House",

[00:24:29] so "Haunting of Hill House", which was also made into a Netflix movie.

[00:24:33] And it's also the case that you don't know exactly, okay, what's happening right now.

[00:24:37] And that's a whole novel, that was really cool, I read it too.

[00:24:40] Jaci: Oh god, yeah okay, maybe I'll read that too.

[00:24:42] But okay, then it would upset me. [both laugh]

[00:24:44] Shelly: Yeah, maybe it's not for you.

[00:24:46] Jaci: Yeah.

[00:24:47] Okay, definitely, Christina and Pia, thank you for this challenge.

[00:24:51] It was really a challenge for me. [laughs]

[00:24:54] Mentally. [Shelly laughs]

[00:24:55] But a very good book.

[00:24:59] Shelly: And now, of course, you want to know what to read next.

[00:25:05] And since we just recorded the Halloween episode, - Jaci: Happy Halloween! -

[00:25:10] and it was very spooky - yeah, Happy Halloween, by the way [laughs] -

[00:25:14] or who celebrates the Night of a Thousand Lights,

[00:25:17] happy lights [unintelligible]

[00:25:20] Jaci: And also with the witches it's now - [unintelligible].

[00:25:22] Shelly: Anyhow, by all means, let's just keep it a little spooky like that.

[00:25:29] And so you're going to read a mystery.

[00:25:33] And it's by the quintessential mystery writer, - [Jaci drums on the table]

[00:25:39] Agatha Christie.

[00:25:42] And you'll read something very appropriate for our workplace, [Jaci laughs]

[00:25:49] "The Dead Woman in the Library". Jaci: Dum-dum-dum. [Shelly laughs]

[00:25:52] Jaci: And it's the new edition, which we also just druckfrisch,

[00:25:58] just got into the library, so to speak.

[00:26:01] 2024 now newly published, where the Miss Marple,

[00:26:05] one of the most famous detectives of Christie's time,

[00:26:09] and of our time, is probably also investigating a murder.

[00:26:13] Shelly: In a library.

[00:26:15] Jaci: We leave you with this joyful reading challenge,

[00:26:19] dear readers,

[00:26:21] and also Christina and Pia to start the Halloween evening.

[00:26:26] And we look forward to the next episode.

[00:26:29] Shelly: We are. Have fun reading.

[00:26:31] Jaci: Thank you for listening.

[00:26:33] [Outro music]

[00:26:57] [Pia speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library,

[00:27:01] and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:27:05]

[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [Voice modulates] [Intro music]

[00:00:06] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:27] I am Christina - Pia: and I am Pia - and a double welcome back to our first episode of the Autumn Reading Festival,

[00:00:35] firstly, and secondly to Pia, who is now back. Hi Pia. Pia: Yay! [laughs]

[00:00:39] Christina: It's nice to have you back.

[00:00:42] What is the Fall Reading Festival? The hosts from the foreword introduce themselves to each other and if you want, dear listeners,

[00:00:52] then there's a reading challenge for you too. We then have two weeks to read the book and discuss it with you.

[00:01:00] Two weeks ago, Shelly and Jacuqeline set us the challenge of reading Pavillon 44, the new novel by Thomas Sautner.

[00:01:10] But before we get to the review of Sautner's novel, I'd like to remind you of our prize draw.

[00:01:16] Because you can still win a signed copy of the new novel until October 28th.

[00:01:23] Just write us either your onedrü corner about the novel or why you would like to read it,

[00:01:29] perhaps on today's episode, at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:01:37] or on Instagram under the handle stadtbibliothek.innsbruck.

[00:01:42] The novel will then be raffled off among all entries and the person who won will be contacted by us.

[00:01:49] Participation is limited to 18 years. So that would be a nice gift for a Sautner fan, wouldn't it Pia?

[00:01:54] Pia: Definitely. [laughs] They'll be happy about that drÃfor sure.

[00:01:58] Yes exactly, we're talking about Pavilion 44 by Thomas Sautner. For all those who don't know him yet,

[00:02:04] Thomas Sautner is an Austrian writer from Lower Austria, specifically the Waldviertel.

[00:02:10] We have a few of his titles in the library. For example, we have "Fuchserde", which would be his first novel.

[00:02:15] It's about [unintelligible] in the Waldviertel or "Der Glücksmacher", "Das Maedchen an der Grenze", "Die Erfindung der Welt",

[00:02:22] "Only two old men" and many others.

[00:02:25] Among the non-fiction books, we have "Waldviertel steinweich", which is a literary travel guide for the,

[00:02:29] who would like to get to know the Waldviertel a little better.

[00:02:32] That's with the travel guides and, of course, we also have digital ebooks of many of his books in the Onleihe.

[00:02:39] "Pavillon 44" is his latest novel and that's what we're talking about today.

[00:02:44] So I've brought us a little summary.

[00:02:47] "Pavillon 44" is set in a psychiatric institution on the outskirts of Vienna.

[00:02:52] To be precise, in "Pavillon 44". [laughs]

[00:02:54] Christina: Mhm. Namesake.

[00:02:56] Pia: This institution just now, that's the title.

[00:02:58] The head doctor is Siegfried Lobel? Lobell?

[00:03:02] Christina: I always say "Lobell" [emphasizes 2nd syllable]. [both laugh]

[00:03:04] Pia: A bit of a French accent.

[00:03:06] Christina: "Lubbell." [both laugh]

[00:03:09] Pia: Through his patients, he wants to learn more about the world, life and himself.

[00:03:14] And at the same time, a writer also visits the pavilion,

[00:03:17] because she wants to write a book about him.

[00:03:19] But then, plot twist, two patients disappear.

[00:03:23] And Lobell sets off for the center of Vienna to search for them.

[00:03:30] He finds a lot of crazy people there, but not his patients.

[00:03:34] So that's just a brief summary.

[00:03:37] Just a teaser, we'll stay spoiler-free.

[00:03:39] Christina: That's important to mention.

[00:03:41] That is, for those of you who haven't had time yet

[00:03:46] or have not yet taken on this reading challenge,

[00:03:49] you can also listen to the episode with peace of mind and then start reading.

[00:03:53] Pia: Exactly.

[00:03:55] Christina: So, Pia, which of us has read the book for today?

[00:03:59] Pia: [laughs] Not me.

[00:04:01] But that's always Christina diligently.

[00:04:03] [both laugh] That's why I've brought questions for her now.

[00:04:05] The first question is, of course, how did you like it?

[00:04:07] Christina: Briefly summarized:

[00:04:09] Good.

[00:04:10] Next question. [both laugh]

[00:04:12] So, as you said, it's about the psychiatric ward at Baumgartener Höhe in Vienna.

[00:04:17] And there's this special wing there, Pavilion 44, where the head physician Siegfried Lobell,

[00:04:23] this so-called expert in his field -

[00:04:26] - this is the kind of expert who also gives TV interviews

[00:04:30] or is quoted by major Austrian daily newspapers as an expert. -

[00:04:34] Pia: Ah, he ends up on ORF. [laughs]

[00:04:36] Christina: [laughs] Exactly.

[00:04:38] It doesn't just deal with some crazy people,

[00:04:41] but extraordinary betrayals.

[00:04:43] He collects them a bit like little trophies.

[00:04:46] They always have to have something special about them,

[00:04:49] so that he wants to treat them in his wing.

[00:04:52] At the end of the novel, one wonders, as you have already indicated,

[00:04:56] that the synopsis "Who is actually still normal?"

[00:05:00] I have to say, the whole book is written at a very brisk pace

[00:05:04] and it's dremore and more, so to speak.

[00:05:07] So it's also funny, I think it's also situation-comic

[00:05:10] and it has such a mischievous undertone, such a Viennese smirk, I would have said.

[00:05:15] In addition to the main character of Primar Lobell, it's also about the writer Aliza Berg.

[00:05:22] She comes to Pavilion 44 to write a book about Lobell

[00:05:27] and then there's a real collection of funny-tragic characters,

[00:05:32] they're all drawn quite lovingly, I found.

[00:05:37] Among others, there's Mr. Dimsch, for example,

[00:05:39] who can be found naked on the roof of a mausoleum right at the beginning of the novel,

[00:05:46] where, after toasting the corpse of his dead childhood friend,

[00:05:52] where he has to be rescued by the fire department.

[00:05:55] There's Cecilie Weisz, who is his 80-something wife, who throws guinea pigs out of the window.

[00:06:00] And there's a man about dreiyyear-old called Jesus

[00:06:05] and he also considers himself to be the said one.

[00:06:07] And so it goes with the ensemble of characters.

[00:06:10] Something like that is still very dear to me.

[00:06:13] Pia: That sounds like a fun troupe.

[00:06:15] Christina: Exactly, so, funny-tragic, you have to say,

[00:06:18] but it's something that, if you also like this kind of absurd humor mag,

[00:06:27] very much.

[00:06:29] Pia: So I did, where I read the synopsis,

[00:06:32] I immediately thought of "Alice in Wonderland"

[00:06:35] and the saying "We're all mad here".

[00:06:37] So "We're all mad here" from the Cheshire Cat.

[00:06:40] Am I right in assuming that the main motif is,

[00:06:46] that we're all kind of crazy under quotation marks.

[00:06:49] And that has a bit to do with it,

[00:06:53] the portrayal of the patients in "Pavilion 44", does that have your point of view

[00:06:57] influenced or changed your view of mental illness?

[00:07:00] Christina: So first to the first question, you recognized that correctly.

[00:07:05] That's one of the motifs of the novel, I thought so too.

[00:07:10] Whereby "Pavillon 44" also plays with the idea on an almost meta-level,

[00:07:19] What actually is reality?

[00:07:21] Until you, we'll come back to that later,

[00:07:24] but until you're not quite sure yourself anymore,

[00:07:26] what is real now, both on this narrative level in the novel,

[00:07:32] so that's already being played with again and it almost goes a little deeper

[00:07:36] than this "We're actually all crazy" motif.

[00:07:39] But with that ... he's definitely working on that.

[00:07:42] In a very exciting, amusing way.

[00:07:45] And I think the second question was whether the novel is the representation

[00:07:52] of ... influenced my view of mental illness.

[00:07:56] A dear listener sent that to us by e-mail.

[00:08:00] So thank you very much for the question.

[00:08:02] I have to say, no, even before that I had a very differentiated view

[00:08:08] on mental illness even before that.

[00:08:10] I also had a very differentiated view [00:08:08] of mental illness before that

[00:08:17] in the psychiatric institution, especially at the beginning it seemed that way to me,

[00:08:20] was portrayed very realistically, I think the game with the insanity

[00:08:29] and also always a literary one, because they are literary characters.

[00:08:33] The premise of the novel, which we've already said,

[00:08:37] calls this concept of normality into question.

[00:08:40] What does it mean to be normal?

[00:08:42] In his interview with Boris last episode, Thomas Sautner

[00:08:47] talked about the fact that "crazy" also means "torn out".

[00:08:51] And for me, I understood that to mean being pulled out,

[00:08:54] out of society in the novel, so looking in from outside somewhere.

[00:08:59] And that's something that I like very much.

[00:09:02] Because you can often best judge what's going on from the outside.

[00:09:06] There's always this tension between fitting in and being different,

[00:09:12] because the crazy ones wouldn't be at Baumgartner Höhe,

[00:09:15] if they weren't somehow maladjusted to a degree, like Mr. Dimsch, for example,

[00:09:22] that he's sitting on the mausoleum so naked [both laugh].

[00:09:26] That goes too far, of course.

[00:09:28] But the novel captures this challenge and this tension incredibly well

[00:09:35] and also incredibly amusing.

[00:09:37] And Thomas Sautner himself said -

[00:09:41] it's a paraphrase, but - that I can often and usefully work off literature on the outsider

[00:09:45] and it also seemed to me that this was what motivated him a little to write the novel.

[00:09:53] Pia: What kind of expectations did you have for the book? Did you know what to expect or were you surprised?

[00:09:58] Christina: Maybe it already came out in the podcast and that applies to you a bit too,

[00:10:05] We're not so localized in the Austrian literary landscape, we've already confessed that.

[00:10:11] I've now started reading Austrians and I've realized that I like the narrative voice,

[00:10:19] and I was talking about this languor earlier and I think that's Thomas Sautner now,

[00:10:26] who is also based in Vienna and the novel is also set in Vienna, but that also applies to other Austrians that I've read:

[00:10:32] There's always a mischievous undertone and when I pick up an Austrian now,

[00:10:38] a novel written by an Austrian, an Austrian woman, then I expect this, yes, almost this mischievousness,

[00:10:46] that somehow always resonated in each of these novels.

[00:10:50] Nincsdorf [red. note: "Nincshof"] is an example or I have now, that has now landed on the Spiegel bestseller,

[00:10:55] "Little Monsters" read by Jessica Lindt and it's so tough ...

[00:11:03] Pia: You can't take it too seriously, you have to take it so a little...

[00:11:06] Christina: Yes, so with "Little Monsters", it's actually tragic, it's just told very quickly,

[00:11:13] but there's maybe something else, but it's always, it's like that,

[00:11:18] maybe it's just the dialect that makes it so homely [Pia laughs], I don't know.

[00:11:22] It certainly fulfilled that and you could always hear that in the complete narrative voice of "Pavillon 44".

[00:11:32] And I also knew that it dealt with this question: "What does it mean to be crazy?",

[00:11:38] I have to say that it worked through that for me almost as expected.

[00:11:42] So I didn't know where the novel would go and how it would end, it ends very [laughs softly] unexpectedly

[00:11:49] and it really becomes a bit like "Alice in Wonderland", so it's also socially critical,

[00:11:56] which is actually what these novels often like to be and it also fulfilled this expectation for me.

[00:12:03] Pia: And what is the writing style? Did you like it?

[00:12:06] Because it was your first Thomas Sautner, wasn't it?

[00:12:09] Christina: So the writing style, and we had a listener who told us,

[00:12:14] how he ... what he particularly liked about Sautner and he wrote that it was very easy and pleasant to read.

[00:12:20] And I can only agree with that wholeheartedly.

[00:12:23] Personally, however, I didn't like the change of perspective that Thomas Sautner used,

[00:12:31] between Primar Lobell in the drithird person and Aliza Berg in the first person.

[00:12:39] And what I really liked [laughs softly] were these dialogs and then the situation comedy, which simply came from the absurdity

[00:12:46] of some situations, for example when they were all standing in front of the bed during the ward round

[00:12:51] and this moment then unfolded when Jesus started talking to the Lobell

[00:12:57] and all the nurses and so on and Aliza was standing there as a kind of writer and that was already,

[00:13:03] he captured that very nicely and aptly, because it's also realistic in a way

[00:13:11] and yes, the realistic things are often the funniest, because you see them portrayed once.

[00:13:16] Pia: And the most important thing or one of the most important things, the main character, and that's actually what a lot of the novel is about,

[00:13:24] what you've touched on now, what do you think of him?

[00:13:27] of the Primar Lobell? Is he likeable, is he more of a neutral figure or perhaps unsympathetic, you don't know?

[00:13:35] Christina: Yes, so the Primar Lobell. - Pia: Oh dear. - I found it difficult to like him.

[00:13:41] He's fascinating enough as a literary character and also exactly what he's supposed to be, especially what he stands for in the end.

[00:13:52] Pia: But you're not going to be best friends. - Christina: No. - And now let's talk about whether there was a certain scene or a moment,

[00:14:00] that particularly stuck in your memory and why?

[00:14:04] Christna: Well, that's Cecilie Weisz, I think she's also Lobell's favorite patient.

[00:14:10] That's this 84-year-old woman, but she firmly claims and is convinced that she's 16,212 years old,

[00:14:19] she suffers from bipolar disorder, that's her diagnosis, and also has epileptic seizures.

[00:14:27] But these epileptic seizures leave her brain in such a state that the neurons fire so quickly that she is particularly creative.

[00:14:34] And that's also what the Lobell appreciates about her.

[00:14:37] At that moment I realized, okay, that's like a lot of things in the novel,

[00:14:42] It's also this exaggeration of this literary figure and "What is creativity anyway?"

[00:14:48] But she's very poetically inclined, so to speak, was committed and that's my favorite moment.

[00:14:53] And that is: She was watching the news with her guinea pigs and then according to her,

[00:15:01] So according to her, the guinea pigs couldn't stand watching the news any more and then threw themselves out of the window one by one. [both laugh briefly]

[00:15:08] So she was committed because she threw guinea pigs out of the window.

[00:15:13] Yes, exactly, and I thought that was funny. [both laugh softly]

[00:15:16] Pia: The poor guinea pig.

[00:15:18] Christina: And but, the spoiler, in the end she lives on the first floor with new guinea pigs and they're all fine. [both laugh softly]

[00:15:26] Pia: Yeah, then, okay.

[00:15:27] Then she's all right.

[00:15:29] Pia: Speaking of the end of the novel.

[00:15:32] How did she like the ending and what kind ofdruck did it leave her with?

[00:15:37] We'll stay spoiler-free, but in general.

[00:15:40] Christina: So there's always a postscript after many chapters.

[00:15:44] That then leads more and more into a meta-level.

[00:15:49] I really like that in principle mag .

[00:15:53] The novel itself ends in a very surreal way, it almostdrehurts.

[00:16:01] I agree with that mag and the plot is just getting more and more absurd.

[00:16:06] At some point, you ask yourself at the end, and I'll give this away, what is actually still real?

[00:16:12] Even you as the reader.

[00:16:15] But then it's also nice to ground yourself again with a less scrutinizing text.

[00:16:22] Because it's certainly a text that questions it - a bit pointedly:

[00:16:27] What is being crazy and all that.

[00:16:29] Pia: Sounds very exciting.

[00:16:31] Now I have the desire drato read the book.

[00:16:33] Christina: Well, I have to say, the book was great.

[00:16:35] Thank you, Shelly and Jacqueline for "Pavilion 44" and the challenge to read it in two weeks.

[00:16:40] Thank you, dear listeners, to everyone who sent questions or comments and for reading along so diligently.

[00:16:48] And now we can announce with a drum roll, Shelly, Jacqueline, prick up your ears:

[00:16:54] You're reading for 10/31. ... Pia, what are you reading?

[00:16:57] Pia: You're reading "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

[00:17:00] Christina: It's a short story from the 60s. Shirley Jackson was an American pacer,

[00:17:06] who, one might say, wrote such lunar horror or a lot out of lunar life.

[00:17:14] Pia: Yeah, you know her from "Hounting of Hill House."

[00:17:18] We've discussed that before.

[00:17:21] You know that from Netflix.

[00:17:24] And now, this time it's just a short story.

[00:17:27] Of course, we also have them in the library.

[00:17:30] As an anthology with other dark stories [laughs], you can also borrow them.

[00:17:37] Christina: And once again, you are cordially invited to read along.

[00:17:42] Send us your comments, questions and opinions before the next episode.

[00:17:48] As always, you can do this at post.stabbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at or on Instagram under the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck".

[00:17:59] And if you don't get to read, that's no problem at all.

[00:18:03] You know, as always, the reviews are spoiler-free.

[00:18:08] And then you can just let Shelly and Jaci inspire you to read "The Lottery".

[00:18:13] Either ... Borrow it from our library, for example.

[00:18:17] And think dran, you can write to us until 28.10. telling us why you would like to read "Pavilion 44"

[00:18:25] or what you liked about it. And then you can win a signed copy of the novel.

[00:18:32] Pia: Thank you for listening, thank you for reading along, thank you for all the comments.

[00:18:37] We look forward to the next time or [laughs] Shelly and Jaci look forward to the next time with you. Bye bye!

[00:18:45] Christina: Nice reading!

[00:18:47] [Outro music]

[00:19:10] [Pia speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [Voice modulates]

[00:00:06] [Intro music] Boris: Welcome, Thomas Sautner.

[00:00:23] Thomas, I'm delighted that you've come to Innsbruck.

[00:00:26] And as I learned earlier, you'll be reading in Innsbruck for the very first time.

[00:00:32] Thomas Sautner: Thank you Boris, you've broken the spell. I'm looking forward to being there. Thank you for the invitation.

[00:00:36] Boris: Yes, maybe you will become a regular guest in Innsbruck in the future. Thomas Sautner: I would be delighted.

[00:00:40] Boris: Me too. Maybe first of all for those of our listeners who don't know you yet.

[00:00:47] Magst you briefly tell us something about yourself?

[00:00:49] Thomas Sautner: No. Boris: No?

[00:00:50] Thomas Sautner: Well, there are authors who like to talk about themselves. I don't even like to talk about books, to be honest.

[00:00:56] I'd prefer readers to just read and not have to talk about anything else.

[00:01:01] Boris: That means you're looking forward to tonight's read-aloud.

[00:01:05] Thomas Sautner: Great for the podcast, ge? [both laugh]

[00:01:06] Boris: Then I'll do it the other way around and introduce you very briefly.

[00:01:15] So, Thomas Sautner comes from the Waldviertel, but you also live in Vienna.

[00:01:19] Have you written your ninth novel now, I think?

[00:01:22] Thomas Saunter: The tenth.

[00:01:23] Boris: It's the tenth. So that's the one you arrived with today.

[00:01:26] Pavilion, 44. Exactly.

[00:01:29] And it's set in a psychiatric facility.

[00:01:33] But I don't want to go into that any further now.

[00:01:35] You can read it yourself, the book, I would suggest.

[00:01:38] Or if this podcast is broadcast in the future,

[00:01:42] maybe you've already been to the event that's happening tonight.

[00:01:47] Now my very first question, which is now quite, just to give a certain plasticity

[00:01:53] maybe bring some plasticity into it:

[00:01:55] What do you drink when you write?

[00:01:57] Thomas Sautner: Coffee.

[00:01:59] I've tried everything, of course.

[00:02:02] All means.

[00:02:04] Coffee is still the best.

[00:02:06] I also take notes with all other drinks.

[00:02:11] But really writing, concentrated writing,

[00:02:14] the old coffee is still the best.

[00:02:17] Boris: And that's the French press, filter or portafilter?

[00:02:21] Thomas Sautner: It's terribly black and terribly much. [both laugh]

[00:02:24] Boris: Sounds like a stable Magen.

[00:02:29] Thomas Sautner: Yes, it's still working.

[00:02:31] Boris: Very good.

[00:02:33] Thomas Sautner: It's like this with me: I keep waking up at night

[00:02:36] and I used to be annoyed that I couldn't go back to sleep.

[00:02:39] In the meantime, I've recognized it as a great advantage.

[00:02:42] So I wake up at two o'clock in the morning and get up straight away,

[00:02:47] the light comes on, my laptop is next to me and then it starts.

[00:02:51] And then the mind is wonderfully fresh.

[00:02:53] I don't even need coffee.

[00:02:55] And then it goes really well, the writing, and after an hour or two,

[00:02:58] you get tired again.

[00:03:00] And after drei, four hours you wake up again

[00:03:02] and then the second morning begins, so to speak,

[00:03:05] at six, seven, eight.

[00:03:07] Great.

[00:03:09] A double beginning.

[00:03:11] Boris: Of course, then I think that's also an advantage of being a writer,

[00:03:14] that you can, of course, organize your time as freely as possible.

[00:03:17] Thomas Sautner: Of course, the partner next to me was a bit annoyed again.

[00:03:21] Boris: [laughs] It reminds me of those scenes from older movies,

[00:03:27] where some commissioners are lying in bed

[00:03:29] and then there's always this landline phone next to them in bed,

[00:03:32] that rings at night.

[00:03:34] Thomas Sautner:The heavy kilos back then.

[00:03:36] Boris:I have a question now, I'll be honest,

[00:03:39] my colleague wrote it down for me,

[00:03:41] because she was so interested in it.

[00:03:43] And since it's a topic that is currently

[00:03:45] is marching through all the creative professions.

[00:03:48] Are you worried that artificial intelligence

[00:03:52] make you obsolete as a writer at some point?

[00:03:56] Thomas Sautner: [laughs softly] No, maybe that's one reason,

[00:04:00] to worry more, that I'm not worried at all. [Boris laughs]

[00:04:04] If it were really the case that the AI could do better

[00:04:07] novels, yes, then it doesn't need me anyway.

[00:04:09] Then so be it.

[00:04:13] I don't know. Maybe I'm too naive, but I can't imagine,

[00:04:16] that AI writes more exciting novels,

[00:04:19] than humans. We discussed this today, in a slightly different way:

[00:04:23] You would have to program AI in such a way,

[00:04:25] so that it doesn't follow human programming,

[00:04:29] but is invited to think freely.

[00:04:32] That would be exciting,

[00:04:34] but whether that would be possible.

[00:04:37] And then there's the philosophical question,

[00:04:40] There are serious people who themselves say,

[00:04:45] we ourselves are AI, a Musk or something.

[00:04:50] And there is also the wonderful study,

[00:04:55] that our decisions are made in hundredths of a second,

[00:04:58] before we make them.

[00:05:00] But I'll just leave it at that

[00:05:03] to your question about whether the AI will write better in novels. If so, then I will

[00:05:07] read them if they really are better. Boris: The question I just asked myself now is then,

[00:05:11] what it will be like when I pick up the AI from the hotel on a rainy day in Innsbruck

[00:05:16] to accompany her to the evening event. Thomas Sautner: She'll demand it if she ticks like we do.

[00:05:21] Boris: Now a question that is still somewhat related to the theme of your current novel.

[00:05:29] Do you have the feeling that you often have to deal with crazy people? Thomas Sautner:Yes, of course, as soon as you

[00:05:37] look in the mirror, that's when it starts. You'll experience it today, I won't tell you now.

[00:05:44] You'll experience it today at the reading, a little action. Yeah, we're all crazy,

[00:05:49] right? And that's a good thing, if we've come out with it, are "crazy",

[00:05:55] because if we always stay where we are, we won't learn anything. And especially in the

[00:06:00] literature, it's the outsiders, those who have moved out of the scene, who are the

[00:06:06] scene, only because they've moved out - they're "crazy". Boris: Yes, yes, that's right,

[00:06:14] that's an exciting task too, although as an organizer I myself might also be

[00:06:18] a bit crazy, because otherwise I wouldn't have the selective perception,

[00:06:23] that I have. Thomas Sautner: Well, it's not crazy either. That's perhaps also what distinguishes us from

[00:06:26] AI. If the AI is programmed, as far as I understand it, then

[00:06:32] it does exactly what it's programmed to do. Of course, we as humans are also programmed,

[00:06:37] through genetics, through upbringing, but then we always surprise ourselves. That becomes

[00:06:45] not happen to AI. First of all, it won't deliver any surprises and it certainly won't

[00:06:50] it will realize that it surprises itself. Only then will it write better novels.

[00:06:54] Boris: Yeah- Thomas Sautner: Sorry, because, especially when I'm writing, I surprise myself. If I only wrote that

[00:07:01] what I had in mind, it would be a terribly boring book, then it would be a non-fiction book,

[00:07:06] at best. But it's always a surprise, writing. I can recommend it to anyone,

[00:07:12] doesn't necessarily have to publish, writing in itself is a wonderful tool to express yourself

[00:07:17] to discover yourself, to rediscover the world and only through the process of writing do

[00:07:22] thoughts, feelings arise that would not arise without this process of writing.

[00:07:27] It's like a magic trick that magicians, in this case we writers, use,

[00:07:32] themselves don't know how it works, but it works. Boris: It's also when I'm there

[00:07:36] may I add a thought of mine now, it's also the case that if you can't get anywhere yourself

[00:07:40] and talk to someone about it - monologically - suddenly solutions come up.

[00:07:45] Thomas Sautner: Or, just before, we have micro-problems, micro-stand problems, you have your

[00:07:50] dear colleague if she could help us, she came here and during the

[00:07:55] coming here it already worked. Boris: Now if you're surprised when you're writing yourself,

[00:08:00] by yourself, when do you have the feeling or does it happen again and again that you write something and then

[00:08:06] you read it and think: Wow, that was a great sentence, or ... ? Thomas Sautner: Of course that happens and

[00:08:11] you just can't make the mistake of letting minutes pass and then reading it again

[00:08:15] read it again. [both laugh] Every writer is always manic and depressed, of course, manic when you're writing

[00:08:24] when you think you've written something brilliant for a moment and depressed when you, when you've written something great

[00:08:28] read it the next day and drum it's always working and revising and again and again and again

[00:08:34] revising again, but actually the passages, the sentences, the aphorisms are the best,

[00:08:41] where you have done the least, where this surprise effect, this second I writes,

[00:08:47] then it's good and then it stays good even after repeated checking and reading.

[00:08:51] Boris: We're almost at the end of our "short and sweet" period, you can also call it "short and sweet"

[00:08:58] Concise". The last question I have now is, can you give our listeners

[00:09:05] recommend a book to our listeners? Thomas Sautner: Well, I can actually recommend anything by Richard Powers, but in particular

[00:09:11] perhaps the novel "Astonishment". Very touching, philosophically great, I read it with pleasure

[00:09:17] and goosebumps and great humility and joy, very good. Boris: Thank you very much, Thomas, for the interview and

[00:09:23] I'm looking forward to tonight. Thomas Sautner: Me too, and to many readers

[00:09:28] hopefully. Boris: Thank you. Thomas Sautner: All the best. [Outro music]

[00:09:31] [Boris speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:09:59] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Boris speaks]

[00:00:00] [modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [modulated]

[00:00:07] [Intro music] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:28] My name is Christina and unfortunately Pia can't be here today.

[00:00:34] Pia, if you're listening to this, best wishes to you.

[00:00:37] But my dear listeners, while Pia's absence is of course extremely unfortunate,

[00:00:43] we can now, just between us, bring some variety to the foreword.

[00:00:48] You already know Shelley and Jaci.

[00:00:52] They've already hosted a few episodes of the foreword

[00:00:55] and now they've set Pia and I a reading challenge and challenged us to do it.

[00:01:01] Of course we can't say no to that.

[00:01:03] We'll even go one better draand officially announce the first Podcast Autumn Reading Festival.

[00:01:10] Only here in the foreword.

[00:01:12] What does that mean exactly?

[00:01:14] October and November will be literary months for us.

[00:01:18] We set each other literary challenges and read for -

[00:01:23] and if you like with - you novels and then discuss them in the following episode.

[00:01:30] So, we'll announce a novel in the episode you're listening to

[00:01:36] and then you have two weeks to browse through it.

[00:01:40] We use the episode there drauf to discuss, talk about the novel,

[00:01:46] give background information and interesting facts

[00:01:49] and if you feel like it, just read along.

[00:01:53] And because it's so much more fun for us, the hosts of the podcast will set each other reading challenges.

[00:02:01] So we'll be surprised and won't even know until the recording of each episode,

[00:02:06] what we'll be reading with you next.

[00:02:10] Let's listen together to the voice message that Shelley and Jaci left us:

[00:02:16] [Beginning voice message] Jaci: Hello, dear Christina, hello, dear Pia. We're here from the off with your reading challenge.

[00:02:24] Shelly: And we thought that on October 3rd, that's Thursday at 7 pm in our event hall,

[00:02:33] the reading with Thomas Sautner and his new novel "Pavillion 44" is taking place,

[00:02:39] so that you can prepare for it in the best possible way and therefore read the book.

[00:02:44] Jaci: Exactly. [laughs] So we hope you enjoy reading it and we'll see you in two weeks. Shelly: Right, have fun. [End voicemail]

[00:02:51] Of course, that's a very good idea for an event that's happening in the house today.

[00:02:57] That means today is the day the podcast goes online, which is October 3rd.

[00:03:02] Means for all the last-minute protesters.

[00:03:07] So that you can assess whether you want to read the book with us,

[00:03:11] just have a look at the show notes, there you will find all the interesting facts about the book,

[00:03:16] with details of the contents and what it's about.

[00:03:19] I'm very happy, thank you Shelly and Jacqueline for the great challenge.

[00:03:23] If you feel like it now, why don't you read the novel with us?

[00:03:27] We'll meet again in two weeks and discuss the book, what we liked, what we didn't like,

[00:03:33] what the title is all about and lots of other fun facts about the book.

[00:03:37] You don't get to read? That doesn't matter.

[00:03:40] You can still enjoy the episode and be inspired.

[00:03:43] And then maybe for the book we're going to read together next

[00:03:47] and then announce at the end of the next episode.

[00:03:50] Have you read the book or are you even reading it with us? Let us know what you think

[00:03:56] and we have a great prize for everyone who enters,

[00:04:00] We are giving away a signed copy of "Pavillon 44".

[00:04:04] Just write to us on Instagram

[00:04:07] under the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck"

[00:04:11] or at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at.

[00:04:16] So, let us know what you think.

[00:04:19] We'll include them in the podcast and in our discussion about the book

[00:04:23] and you have the chance to win a signed copy of "Pavillon 44".

[00:04:28] And, a little birdie whispered to me that the Thomas Sautner

[00:04:33] will be on the podcast for a short interview.

[00:04:36] Of course, we are particularly excited about that.

[00:04:38] So all that remains is for me to wish you a good read.

[00:04:42] Don't forget to let us know how it goes.

[00:04:45] And we'll see you in the next episode, where we'll discuss "Pavilion 44" together with Pia.

[00:04:51] Bye and see you next time. Happy reading!

[00:04:54] [Outro music]

[00:05:16] [Boris speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:05:23] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Boris speaks]

[00:00:00] [voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to increased library visits. [modulated]

[00:00:07] [Intro music] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the foreword, the podcast of the city library

[00:00:25] Innsbruck. I am Christina and Pia is at this time, or the time of this

[00:00:32] recording at an important training course, namely on the new publications that are coming out around October

[00:00:38] coming out for the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. In the last episode

[00:00:45] Pia and I shared our language story with you and told you why we both

[00:00:49] speak English and hopefully gave one or the other of you some

[00:00:56] inspiration on how to get started in another language. In today's episode

[00:01:03] will once again deal with the topic of multilingualism, but this time not only from a personal

[00:01:10] point of view, but from a cultural-historical and, above all, library-educational perspective. As

[00:01:17] already announced, I have enlisted the help of an expert. Today is

[00:01:23] our dear colleague Veronika is with us. Veronika, welcome to the podcast. - Veronika: Yes,

[00:01:29] hello - Christina: Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners, like maybe tell us what

[00:01:35] what your role is in our house? - Veronika: Yes, I'm a librarian here in the building with a focus on

[00:01:42] target group work. That's a very common word for us. I'll perhaps say very briefly,

[00:01:47] what we mean by that. In the library, we don't just offer media for loan,

[00:01:54] we also offer all kinds of events and opportunities to take part, to be involved,

[00:02:02] to listen, to discuss, to learn, to philosophize for our audience,

[00:02:08] to be there for different target groups. On the one hand, children and young people,

[00:02:14] but also adults, people with specific needs, such as people

[00:02:19] with German as a second language, senior citizens. But basically everyone and

[00:02:26] everyone belongs to one of our target groups. And we develop specific offers for

[00:02:32] different levels. That's actually my main task here at the company. - Christina: Exactly, and you do

[00:02:40] all these nice things, for example, it has, of course with the help of other colleagues,

[00:02:47] who also diligently organized it - you already know Viktor, he was already on our podcast

[00:02:53] also - the "language café", for example. - Veronika: Yes, that's something that we started in

[00:03:02] our target group team, I think, yes, drei years ago, the so-called language aperitivo,

[00:03:10] where once a year, always in the fall, in September, we invite people to come and chat in a

[00:03:19] language, which is different every time. We've already hosted Italian. We had Italian last

[00:03:26] year we had an English tea time and this week we had Eric Ginestet with us,

[00:03:36] who explained to us in French exactly which wine to drink with which cheese [Christina laughs softly]

[00:03:45] should drink. And these are always very nice events, where it's simply about losing your shyness,

[00:03:52] speaking in a different language, just getting involved in a playful way. And that is

[00:03:58] always very well received. - Christina: Yes, for everyone who hasn't been there yet, it really is

[00:04:03] a very special event, which also takes place on the surface at our reading café. There

[00:04:10] there's always something good to eat, to try, to taste, because language also goes through

[00:04:15] the Magen or something similar. - Vero: [amused] Exactly. - And it's a wonderful atmosphere. So keep an eye out for the next one

[00:04:21] language aperitif and it's totally worth it. It's a whole cozy affair, yes, every time like this

[00:04:30] enchanting, even when we're on duty. We really, really like these days. Veronika,

[00:04:35] you have a special relationship with the French language. Is that right? - Veronika: Yes, too. I am myself

[00:04:44] grew up in a binational family. My mother is Belgian and my father was Austrian.

[00:04:54] We grew up here in Austria, in Innsbruck. But of course we also spent a lot of time in

[00:05:00] Belgium with my grandmother and several languages were always spoken there. On the one hand

[00:05:07] Flemish, of course. Flemish is the Belgian variant of Dutch and on the other hand

[00:05:13] also French and, of course, German. It is usually the case that Dutch-speaking

[00:05:19] people understand German very well. It's not quite the same the other way around. There's something about that

[00:05:23] to do with this sound shift. Linguists could now,

[00:05:27] could explain to us exactly why that is. And this diversity of languages,

[00:05:32] that was actually always normal for us children, me and my sisters.

[00:05:39] Also the situation of sitting at the dinner table with relatives and not understanding everything.

[00:05:44] So my mother and my aunts, they spoke Dutch at the table, that

[00:05:50] we understood half of it. And whenever it was about something that we children didn't

[00:05:56] were supposed to understand, which was only for adults, they suddenly switched to French

[00:06:01] switched to French. We couldn't do that back then as children. - Christina: Aha! -and whenever he suddenly spoke French

[00:06:06] was spoken, then we knew, okay, now it's about something really, really exciting, [Christina laughs]

[00:06:11] something really interesting that we weren't allowed to know. And in the course of time, you have one thing

[00:06:17] understood one thing or another. But this situation of several languages, the situation of understanding one part,

[00:06:27] not understanding one part, that's something I've been very familiar with since childhood. Yes. - Christina: And I

[00:06:33] I can imagine that this is also very useful knowledge, also for your work,

[00:06:39] also in terms of working on the language and the languages. Pia and I have been working together

[00:06:47] last episode about how this is a second language, we called it,

[00:06:51] to "adopt". And from the very privileged position of being able to do that through education

[00:06:56] voluntarily in the country where we actually speak our first language,

[00:07:03] where our first language is the official language and where we actually have to search,

[00:07:10] to have our "adopted second language", English, around us a bit. That's why,

[00:07:16] what you're describing is a completely different situation. We have a lot of

[00:07:21] people who also live in Austria who don't necessarily have that by choice,

[00:07:27] that they immerse themselves in German as a second language. Yes. - Veronika: Yes. So I think generally multilingual

[00:07:38] growing up multilingual or living with several languages in the course of your life also promotes

[00:07:47] language awareness very strongly. And I think you can also see that when you look at the current

[00:07:54] German-language literature, there are a lot of authors who use German

[00:08:01] as a second language and write excellently in German. So if you take, for example

[00:08:08] this year's Bachmann Prize winner, Tijan Sila, by the way, highly recommended reading.

[00:08:15] Tijan Sila grew up in Bosnia and then moved with her family as a result of the

[00:08:22] Bosnian war to Germany in his youth and now writes in

[00:08:30] German and in the German-speaking world there are a lot of cultural workers who have only just learned German

[00:08:37] secondarily, as a second language, and are now very productive with this language.

[00:08:45] So multilingualism can also be a kind of kick-start to creativity and a very

[00:08:54] conscious, very reflective use of language. - Christina: You said that it strengthens your understanding of language and

[00:09:02] I think it also strengthens empathy, because communication doesn't just rely on

[00:09:09] linguistic level, of course, and especially when you get into a situation where you're perhaps

[00:09:14] don't understand each other linguistically, you get to know other communication models all the better.

[00:09:20] Veronika: Absolutely, yes, and I would also just say that every language has a different one, brings a

[00:09:31] different culture of communication. You drÃexpress yourself differently. It's not just different

[00:09:38] words and a different grammar, it's a different kind of linguistic behavior. So for example

[00:09:46] For example, my mother always told me how she came to Austria in the 60s after

[00:09:52] Tyrol in a Tyrol that was still very traditional at the time. She was really exotic, so to speak

[00:09:58] as a foreigner here - she was amazed at how little people actually spoke to children. So

[00:10:05] as she was a much more linguisticdruck, a much stronger way of speaking to each other, a

[00:10:16] embedding in local words. So we were really wrapped up in a lot as children

[00:10:25] linguistic caresses. I'm trying to say that in Tyrol, people aren't affectionate with children!

[00:10:32] But it's a different kind. For example, in Fleming there are these very local forms of diminution

[00:10:40] of names. So every name is changed somehow. You're not "Veronika", you're

[00:10:49] "Veronika-ke", or "Veronique-kske" and so everyone is named like that with locality. And that has

[00:11:00] a completely different meaning. And for them, this rather harsh tone with us, which also had a

[00:11:06] certain aesthetics, I wouldn't deny that, but this rather rough tone was for

[00:11:13] very disconcerting for her at the beginning. And so every language brings its own culture of togetherness,

[00:11:19] and there's this wonderful quote from Walter Benjamin: "Every language communicates itself."

[00:11:27] So every language is not just a medium for conveying something, but every language also has

[00:11:33] its own message, its own content. And I believe that regardless of whether you're speaking in a language

[00:11:42] growing up in one language, growing up multilingual or acquiring language secondarily,

[00:11:47] simply getting involved in another language has the potential,

[00:11:55] that you broaden your own world view a little. And that's why it's definitely worth it,

[00:12:02] to deal with languages as well. - Christna: Do you think language has something to do with identity?

[00:12:09] Veronika: Absolutely. Absolutely. So it starts with the voice. You also modulate your voice differently,

[00:12:18] when you speak it in a different language. Language also comes, if you look at it in a very basic way

[00:12:26] from the body via our vocal apparatus. Language has a lot to do with who we are,

[00:12:34] who we want to be seen as and what defines us. And a lot of people who have migrated

[00:12:43] and now live in a different place, in a different language, also describe this

[00:12:48] point in time when they start living in another language after many years in a new, acquired

[00:12:55] language to dream. That's often the case - it shows a deeper immersion in a language.

[00:13:05] And a very nice example, also in literary terms, if you want to look at what language has to do with

[00:13:11] identity, for example Elias Canetti, who is a very important, great author of the

[00:13:20] 20th century, who wrote in German, who grew up speaking four languages. He was born in

[00:13:28] Rustchuk [red. note: today Ruse]. That's in what is now Bulgaria, in a Jewish family, a Sephardic-Jewish

[00:13:39] family. That means they spoke Ladino at home, the language of the Sephardic Jews

[00:13:45] and Jews, but were then also surrounded by Bulgarian, of course in the neighborhood, also by

[00:13:52] Turkish, because it was still so influenced by the Ottoman Empire. That was also the region,

[00:13:57] was also part of the Ottoman Empire for a long time. And his parents only lived together

[00:14:04] spoke German as a couple, very exclusively. The children weren't supposed to understand it. And he then

[00:14:12] only learned German from his mother or wrote in German when his father died.

[00:14:17] And then he later said that his Bulgarian nanny, for example,

[00:14:25] told him fairy tales in Bulgarian. And then later in life he said that he couldn't now

[00:14:30] no more sentences

[00:14:32] in Bulgarian anymore. He wouldn't be able to speak the language like that anymore, but that sound,

[00:14:37] of the Bulgarian fairy tales that his nanny told him, that sound, he still hears it and

[00:14:47] it also influences his literary work in German. So that's not how languages can be

[00:14:55] really separate like that. Every language that enters our lives also influences our sense of language,

[00:15:03] our sense of rhythm, of timbre, of linguistic melody. And yes, in literature

[00:15:11] you can understand that very well. But it's also for all of us, even for those who don't write,

[00:15:17] something that is very important in our lives and that we should also pay more attention to.

[00:15:23] Christina: Mhm. And above all, the positive attention that it actually deserves. In the interview or

[00:15:31] in the run-up to our recording, we've already discussed a few topics and there

[00:15:39] you also said that culturally and historically it was actually the norm to be multilingual. You have

[00:15:47] already mentioned several examples of - how many people, in this case writers, you yourself

[00:15:56] also grew up multilingual, so quite naturally multilingual. Can you tell us

[00:16:02] tell us something else from this cultural-historical aspect, because today you sometimes have the feeling

[00:16:08] in public discourse as if multilingualism is something new and possibly even something bad,

[00:16:16] which we, and I think you'll agree with me, don't see it that way at all. Don't you? - Veronika: Mhm, yes. - And maybe

[00:16:24] can you say something about that ... Veronika: Yes, well, if you take a closer look at the history of Europe now,

[00:16:30] the idea that a state has a language, that actually only came about with the emergence of the

[00:16:42] modern nation states, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. If we now take the

[00:16:49] take France as an example. There were many languages in France, many regional

[00:16:56] languages, Occitan, Breton, on the border in the border region with the Netherlands,

[00:17:04] Flemish, in the border region with Spain, Catalan. So there were many languages and it was also

[00:17:14] simply the political will at some point to have a uniform national language.

[00:17:20] And these small languages, the regional languages, the minority languages,

[00:17:25] were actually, in the broadest sense, a violent process, yes, they were

[00:17:34] simply no longer offered a place. And some of these languages were then also banned in

[00:17:40] this emergence of the modern nation states. And there were simply many regions that had

[00:17:47] history have always been bilingual, if you take Alsace, for example, where

[00:17:52] German and French have always been present, but also if you take Eastern Europe,

[00:17:58] where many regions had several languages. And of course there were always political issues as well

[00:18:03] and also the result of armed conflicts as to which language would prevail where.

[00:18:10] In Austria, too, we have minority languages like Croatian and Slovenian and

[00:18:17] I think modern democracies today can always be judged by that,

[00:18:24] how they deal with their minority languages. - Christina: Mhm. -it's also a yardstick for how they deal

[00:18:32] with diversity, how much diversity is allowed, is it allowed to be normal? And especially in

[00:18:40] Europe, many people have always been bilingual, for example Latin was used for a long time

[00:18:47] time Latin was the [emphasized] language not only of religion, but also of science. Until the 18th century

[00:18:54] universities Latin was simply spoken as a language, and later French as the language

[00:19:00] of the nobility or diplomats, then of course also the Jews and Jewesses, who usually also had a

[00:19:07] second language, be it Yiddish or Ladino, and cultivated it. So a lot,

[00:19:15] many more people were multilingual than we think today, that everything used to be so uniform

[00:19:23] would have been. - Christina: And our listeners may have already noticed that in the

[00:19:30] podcast we mainly use the terms "first and second language". But it's still called

[00:19:38] differently, especially in everyday life. What do you think about the terms "foreign language" and "mother tongue"?

[00:19:45] Or rather: Why do we choose to use these other terms in a library context?

[00:19:56] Yes, "foreign language" is of course somehow tainted with this word "foreign" with such an evaluation,

[00:20:06] that we don't like to use. That's why we tend to talk about "second language". The word

[00:20:14] "mother tongue", I think there are many different levels to it. On the one hand, of course, it has

[00:20:22] there's also something nice about it, most of us learn our first language in communication as well

[00:20:31] with their mother or with the person who plays this role of mother, whether it's a woman or a man

[00:20:39] takes on this role of mother. It also shows that language is embedded in a

[00:20:48] social relationship, in this case the first, most important childhood relationship. But of course the word

[00:20:56] "mother tongue" is also ideologically charged somewhere, just like the word "homeland" is ideologically charged

[00:21:05] is ideologically charged. I don't think we should completely ban any words from our vocabulary now

[00:21:13] have to. It's about how consciously we use them. - Christina: It's about mindful use of words. - Veronika: Exactly. - Christina: So

[00:21:20] we don't necessarily exclude them from our language use. We are concerned with that,

[00:21:26] being mindful of all our fellow human beings. And I agree with you on all of that, except perhaps

[00:21:32] in the term "mother tongue", because for me it is, but you've already said something about that,

[00:21:38] that "mother" as a word is ideologically charged, independent of "language". But I think,

[00:21:45] that would be another podcast in its own right. - Veronika: We could talk a lot about that. So the topic

[00:21:51] Mother is of course generally emotional, ideological, socially also of course in terms of gender

[00:22:01] is incredibly loaded with meanings. But that also shows the interesting thing again

[00:22:06] Language. No word stands alone, but always brings a lot of context with it. - Christina: You have

[00:22:15] earlier about what I think is a plea for an appreciative approach to different

[00:22:22] languages, be it the, I'll call them roughly "official languages" or the "main languages" in

[00:22:28] a country or the minority languages. And that's also something you have to take into account in the program design

[00:22:36] that you try to portray. And the first thing I think of is picture book cinema. Because that has

[00:22:43] a special feature. What is that? - Veronika: We've always organized a cinema for pre-school children with their

[00:22:52] accompanying adults, which are then called reading time or family matinees,

[00:23:00] often with a picture book movie. And we do them, not always, but at regular intervals

[00:23:08] intervals in several languages, bilingually, to also create the situation that on the stage

[00:23:16] a second language is spoken. And that creates another level, so to see,

[00:23:27] also for people who don't have German as their first language. "My language is not only accepted here",

[00:23:36] somehow, or respected, "it's also brought onto the stage." That creates an additional

[00:23:44] piece of appreciation for a language. At the same time, we always design it in such a way that in each,

[00:23:51] even for those who don't speak that language, so that everything is easy to understand in German

[00:23:58] and even if you don't speak the other language, you understand everything. But then you are

[00:24:05] in a situation where you don't understand every single sentence that is spoken on stage.

[00:24:09] And this situation of not understanding individual parts is also very important with regard to the

[00:24:20] language awareness. When I myself have been exposed to this situation, I understand

[00:24:26] something, as you often do when you're traveling. You might be surrounded by people and

[00:24:32] you just don't understand a word. That's also a situation of uncertainty. But to face it

[00:24:38] I think it's very important to expose yourself to that. Because then again, as you mentioned earlier,

[00:24:45] strengthens empathy for how others feel when they're here and don't understand a lot of things. And we

[00:24:52] also want to show that what our credo is in our target group work team is that we want to be a

[00:24:59] language-friendly environment. To show: "You who come to us in the library, you are with

[00:25:11] all your languages welcome here." - Christina: And in addition to the reading times for the children, we also have other

[00:25:21] offers, for example the "reading time in simple German", which is organized by a dear colleague

[00:25:28] is organized. This is open to anyone who wants to improve their German without having to register. You can

[00:25:34] just come along from level A2 up to, roughly, A2/B1. But if you're not sure,

[00:25:44] just drop by and let the whole thing sink in. Of course, we still have media

[00:25:51] on German as a second language in the building, from pre-school onwards, really across all age groups

[00:25:57] right through to adults. You can also just come by and get help from us

[00:26:06] or get advice or simply borrow something. And of course all the other

[00:26:12] services are also available in the city library. And we have, if you then maybe in a

[00:26:18] first language, we also have first language books in various languages, be it - we have

[00:26:25] now talked about French, I mean French, Spanish, English anyway, we did last

[00:26:30] week, but also Arabic, Turkish and Russian. - Veronika: Yes, what I would also like to emphasize

[00:26:40] is that in our team, we also do a lot of counseling for the people who come to us in the

[00:26:47] library and we make an effort - we can't cover all languages, of course, but we

[00:26:54] do have some colleagues in the team who can advise in different languages,

[00:27:00] in English of course, in French, in Spanish, we have a colleague who speaks Arabic.

[00:27:06] So we also make an effort there - Christina: Italian. - Veronika: Italian, we also have a colleague, of course, who speaks Italian

[00:27:13] as her first language. So we make an effort on many levels to accommodate people and also

[00:27:20] to show that we are open and that even if someone comes where we don't speak the language, i.e. where we now

[00:27:28] don't have anyone in the team who can cover it linguistically. Yes, we've still found ways,

[00:27:36] to support people so that they can find what they're looking for and what they need from us,

[00:27:43] even if there are language barriers, that we try to accommodate them. - Christina: And with this

[00:27:51] beautiful closing words, Veronika, I would like to thank you very much for your time, for your

[00:27:57] expertise and for this very pleasant and informative conversation. - Veronika: Thank you very much. - Christina: Then goodbye

[00:28:04] from the foreword today. You just tune in again next time. It continues excitingly

[00:28:10] in October. Write to us, tell us your first language, if it's not German.

[00:28:17] You can do this at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at or also on Instagram or on

[00:28:26] Facebook. Until then, all the best! [Outro music]

[00:28:29] [Pia speaks] The foreword is a production of the city library

[00:28:58] Innsbruck and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] [Voice modulated] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library. [Voice modulated]

[00:00:06] [Intro music] Christina: Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:27] My name is Christina - Pia: and I am Pia -

[00:00:30] Christina: And after a short break due to illness, we're back now

[00:00:35] with the next episode. This time we've put the next two episodes, both this one and the next one, under the motto "Languages". Right Pia?

[00:00:46] Pia: Yes, exactly.

[00:00:47] Christina: Because September is all about "language" in the whole city library,

[00:00:53] we will now be dealing with it in the next two episodes. In today's episode, Pia and I introduce you to our own language history.

[00:01:03] And we would like to invite you to share your experiences with bilingualism or multilingualism with us.

[00:01:11] As always, you can write to us using the hashtag #GemeinsamBesser on Instagram under the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck"

[00:01:19] or you can also send an email to post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at.

[00:01:28] Tell us about your experiences and we will then share them with each other and with our other listeners in the podcast.

[00:01:37] In the next episode, our dear colleague Veronika will visit us.

[00:01:42] She will of course introduce herself, but this much can be revealed:

[00:01:47] She is responsible for many events and projects at our company, grew up bilingually herself

[00:01:54] and will then give us insights into the advantages of multilingualism from both a personal and a library pedagogical perspective.

[00:02:06] Because Pia, you're going on a training course next week, right? What are you doing there?

[00:02:12] Pia: Yes, I'm at the Wolfgangsee. It's about new publications, specifically about the Frankfurt Book Fair.

[00:02:21] What kind of new books are there, not just novels, but also non-fiction books and books for children and young people.

[00:02:27] I'm already very excited.

[00:02:29] Christina: I believe you.

[00:02:30] Yes, and now we don't want to keep you in suspense any longer and let's talk about today's topic, namely our language history.

[00:02:37] We believe that the history of language is a reflection of many people and, in particular, probably also of our generation.

[00:02:46] We've already come out at some point in the past. Pia, we're both millennials.

[00:02:51] Me in the middle, you at the bottom.

[00:02:54] And yes, of course there are certain globalization tendencies where you learn - I can spoil it, give it away - English.

[00:03:06] Pia: Yes, I think that's the same for everyone.

[00:03:09] Christina: Thank you very much.

[00:03:10] Pia: Yes, thank you.

[00:03:11] In Austria at least.

[00:03:14] Christina: And we know that very, very many of you, dear listeners there drauÃen, are also multilingual.

[00:03:21] And that probably has very different reasons:

[00:03:25] Several languages are spoken in your family or you had a language at school that you were particularly fond of.

[00:03:33] Or maybe you simply decided to take up a new hobby and enrolled on a language course,

[00:03:40] maybe on wifi or online via an app.

[00:03:43] For me, it was definitely a mixture of education and interest.

[00:03:50] My second language is English.

[00:03:55] So now I can also say that I speak, write and understand English fluently.

[00:04:02] Also - or [lapses into strong Tyrolean dialect] a if you notice the Tyrolean when you speak. [laughs]

[00:04:07] Especially when we're talking to international guests downstairs and you've just come from a German-speaking consultation,

[00:04:18] it's always a bit difficult to switch, isn't it?

[00:04:20] Pia: Yes, I also find, well I can actually speak English well, but then at that moment I'm always like,

[00:04:25] I'm not draready to speak English right now.

[00:04:27] Sometimes it's too fast, this switch.

[00:04:29] Christina: [smiling] And then I hear the flattest dialect in my English.

[00:04:33] So I studied "British English" especially for this,

[00:04:36] where there were extra courses and seminars and tests to see if you spoke "British English" enough.

[00:04:44] [sighs] But then you watch a season of Bridgerton and then you're fine. [both laugh]

[00:04:50] It's like that with me, I've learned a lot of other languages too,

[00:04:55] or started to learn them and am still learning them.

[00:04:59] But English is the language where I would say I'm pretty much at first language level by now.

[00:05:06] And like many others, and as I'm sure is the case with many of you, it's part of

[00:05:14] and regardless of the language level, it's a natural part of my everyday life.

[00:05:20] Pia, what's it like for you? What language do you speak as, what is your second language?

[00:05:29] Pia: Well, I grew up monolingual, like you.

[00:05:33] But reading in other languages was always part of the learning process for me too.

[00:05:38] I think that also helps you get more into the language, that it becomes normal.

[00:05:43] For me it was also English, like so many others have been and still are.

[00:05:49] And for me, especially at the beginning, it was children's books that helped me to get into it,

[00:05:54] Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, because the language is a bit, not simpler,

[00:06:02] but it's just a bit simpler, a bit more child-friendly and then you can get into the whole thing better.

[00:06:07] I also learned a bit of French and Italian, but that was over straight away.

[00:06:13] Then I also started reading a bit in the languages, The Little Prince in French, for example,

[00:06:18] but that was rather reserved, let's put it that way.

[00:06:23] And what I also wanted to say is that I didn't just read things to learn the language,

[00:06:29] but also looked at it. So for me, media in English was generally very important.

[00:06:34] For example, I also watched a lot of children's movies in English,

[00:06:38] because it's the same thing again, children's films are just easier than adult films.

[00:06:42] Especially the Disney films, it's all recorded in a studio and then it's just easier to consume.

[00:06:48] That really helped me, for example.

[00:06:50] Christina: That's interesting, that's actually true, the point about: Everything that is recorded in the studio is of course easier to understand.

[00:06:57] Pia: Exactly, and I wanted to point that out again, because we also have DVDs and films in the library,

[00:07:03] both on site as DVDs, but also digitally for streaming on Filmfriend.

[00:07:09] And Filmfriend has even put together a special collection that's all about original versions,

[00:07:17] which might also be quite interesting for our listeners.

[00:07:20] Christina: And with Filmfriend, Pia, I think you can also change the language, is that right?

[00:07:25] Christina: Exactly, so there are original versions, there are also original versions with subtitles,

[00:07:29] but you can also switch back and forth between the languages.

[00:07:32] Of course, that's also possible with DVDs on site.

[00:07:35] Christina: And it's great that we have a huge selection of films for different age groups.

[00:07:41] That means there are children's films, youth films and films for adults both at Filmfriend and on site.

[00:07:51] And that's actually great.

[00:07:55] So when someone asks me, "I'm just learning X/Y language, what should I do?"

[00:08:00] and then I always say media, so consumption of whatever in the target language.

[00:08:09] Pia: Yes, because that just helps, you just get more into the whole thing.

[00:08:13] And in English, I've got to the point where it's just part of my everyday life,

[00:08:17] and whether it's a YouTube video or a movie or a book, it doesn't matter,

[00:08:22] but you just get into it a lot more and it's just become normal,

[00:08:26] that I can simply listen, read and watch in English.

[00:08:29] Christina: And there are different forms of language acquisition and neither of us are experts on that,

[00:08:35] but I can say from my own experience that there is, of course, this very school-based language acquisition system,

[00:08:42] especially when it no longer plays such a big role in language learning in your free time.

[00:08:48] Of course, we also have language courses for different languages, so very different languages,

[00:08:54] you can also borrow and learn from us.

[00:08:57] It's still very classically structured didactically, with different books at different language levels

[00:09:03] and even with CDs.

[00:09:06] But we all know that those of us with an affinity for languages simply like it.

[00:09:12] There are also apps and that's what works a lot with so-called gamification.

[00:09:18] And then it's no longer so school-based, but works a lot via the reward system

[00:09:25] and staying on top of this fun dran, because the only thing you have to do is just practise, practise, practise.

[00:09:31] And what we've just described, the method, that also exists and that you simply surround yourself

[00:09:39] with the language as much as possible.

[00:09:42] That's why you learn, of course, if you go to another country without knowing the language and then you're there for six months,

[00:09:49] then at some point you can speak the language, provided you don't have anyone there to speak your first language with you.

[00:09:56] Pia: You can't get out of it, you have to get it again at some point a little bit, at least.

[00:10:00] Christina: Exactly, and then you kind of learn through it, sometimes it seems like osmosis to me. [laughs]

[00:10:06] For example, I sit there, I don't know about you, but I don't sit there and learn vocabulary one list at a time.

[00:10:13] That really gives me the shivers. Because I have a gamification app for that, so I play with it a bit and then it's fun.

[00:10:20] Pia: Yes, you just bring it into your everyday life, it's like Candy Crush [laughs] but for languages.

[00:10:26] Christina: Yes, exactly. [Laughs]

[00:10:28] Pia, what else I wanted to ask you, at what age did you start learning English?

[00:10:33] Pia: Good question, in elementary school I think we started with a very basic course, but that was really just the very simplest ...

[00:10:41] Christina: What was it like for you in the drithird grade?

[00:10:43] Pia: It could be, but I honestly find it very difficult to remember. [laughs]

[00:10:47] Christina: Because I'm a few years older than you, it was also in primary school for me.

[00:10:51] And I remember that there was a kind of "pilot project" in our school for children who were interested in it,

[00:10:58] that they started learning in the drith grade.

[00:11:00] I'm sure that's now standard or has always been normal at many schools,

[00:11:05] but I remember being asked if I would be interested.

[00:11:10] And I'll never forget how the teacher suddenly wrote "apple" drainstead of "Apfel".

[00:11:20] But the picture was the same, namely that of an apple.

[00:11:23] And then I have this idea that there is another term for one thing.

[00:11:30] Pia, at the same time: there is a term. [both laugh]

[00:11:31] Christina: Yes, and that's when the first spark was there, that I enjoy languages,

[00:11:36] because it was the first tiny little glimpse behind the curtain of another world, a little bit, wasn't it?

[00:11:43] Pia: Yes, I felt the same way. But I can't remember drin, not exactly dran when that was.

[00:11:50] I only know where I read Harry Potter in English for the first time,

[00:11:54] I had to google lots and lots of words.

[00:11:57] Or just not google it.

[00:11:59] Look it up on the Internet. [laughs]

[00:12:00] Christina: I was just going to say, I don't think there's ... Pia: ... or Duden ... [both laugh]

[00:12:03] Pia: But... and I made lists because I didn't know all the things.

[00:12:10] But I still sometimes just read or continued to read drÃbecause otherwise it gets frustrating at some point.

[00:12:14] Christina: I think I've read, like I said, everything for private use,

[00:12:19] but, at best, you understand, I think it was something between 80 and 90 percent of the vocabulary that's on a page.

[00:12:27] And then you can start reading the book.

[00:12:29] Incidentally, this is also advice that I completely disregard, but I also just start reading it and then hope for the best.

[00:12:36] Pia: [laughs] Exactly, I felt the same way. And that was fascinating, because then I read it,

[00:12:39] and I know that it was exhausting to read it, but it just interested me.

[00:12:42] The book and the topic and so I kept reading.

[00:12:46] And then, years later, I read it again and suddenly I realized how easy it is. - Christina: Yes, exactly.

[00:12:51] Pia: And that was the moment when I checked, oh, okay, it works too.

[00:12:55] I can read it in English without any problems.

[00:12:57] That's great. You really have your own... well, you realize how far you've come in the language.

[00:13:03] Christina: Yes, that's so, so, so great, because it takes what feels like forever.

[00:13:07] And especially when you're reading a book and then you understand very little and it's so exhausting, it can sometimes be frustrating.

[00:13:15] And then to see that it's really easy drato stick with it and it leads to interest that you can do it at some point.

[00:13:21] I don't know, was it like that for you?

[00:13:23] I did too, one reason why it was English for me, apart from the fact that I fell in love with the language quite early on in my life,

[00:13:31] for reasons I don't understand, to be honest, was that Harry Potter was still being written back then.

[00:13:40] And that meant that the next book I read, the fourth, came out in English first -

[00:13:48] - that's the fifth one, sorry -

[00:13:49] the fifth one came out in English first and I can't wait a Drequarter of a year now ...

[00:13:54] That was before it became such a worldwide hit that it - the last book was published worldwide at the same time and all these things...

[00:14:02] So I couldn't wait for that and there was no choice and that was one of the bigger books and exactly the same as you just described.

[00:14:10] Pia: I felt the exact same way there.

[00:14:12] That was also a reason why I liked reading the original version and eagerly awaited it, because I just didn't want to wait. [smiles]

[00:14:19] I think that's still the case today, because of course, unless you're a mega-bestseller, many media only come to the German-speaking world later, logically enough,

[00:14:30] because translators - Pia: Need time. - need time and it's also creative-literary demanding work, which then brings its own quality with it.

[00:14:42] But nevertheless, it's a great challenge to translate foreign-language texts and English in particular is - I think you can all understand this - a huge cultural area that is also so influential for us in Europe and also in Austria.

[00:15:02] Pia: And meanwhile also on the internet. The language of the internet is simply English, so at least [incomprehensible] ...

[00:15:07] in Europe, let's put it that way. Christina: From our Western point of view, it's, it's English.

[00:15:12] That's right, that was totally the advantage, because the borders are then of course, so there are no borders for the English-speaking Internet and I think that's why a lot of young people today simply know English,

[00:15:29] because otherwise they wouldn't have access to many areas of the internet. Although, of course, there are now all these translation tools and so on, but it's still somehow different.

[00:15:44] Pia: It's still something else. But you mentioned something interesting anyway, because börsenblatt.net just published an article last year,

[00:15:53] which says that English-language books are becoming increasingly popular in Germany, especially among younger generations.

[00:16:01] And it's mainly because the English skills of young people are getting better and better, especially because of these online platforms.

[00:16:08] TikTok, Booktok, we've talked about them before anyway. And these platforms are also promoting the trend.

[00:16:15] And that's why the demand for original English editions has always increased in recent years and it also leads, for example, to them ending up on the bestseller lists, [Christina, amazed: Ah!] so the English version also ends up on the German-language bestseller lists,

[00:16:29] For example Prince Harry, the biography or the books by Michelle Obama.

[00:16:33] Christina: Ah, that's interesting. So I also think that, well, now you can totally tell that the book trade is reacting to the market and that it - so the selection of English-language literature has exploded, in our example in Innsbruck.

[00:16:49] I remember, I know that you felt the same way, because we browse through the bookstores together from time to time,

[00:16:58] we always know exactly which corner the English-language books are in and before it was really the corners. And that's different now.

[00:17:04] Pia: It was at the very back of the bookstore where we used to go and it was just one shelf. [laughs]

[00:17:11] And I have to confess to my shame that for a very long time or simply out of a desire, also out of the need to read things relatively quickly, that with a large online mail order company -

[00:17:27] buuuuh - [Pia, laughing]: who shall remain nameless. - Christina: [laughs] Which should remain nameless because it doesn't need advertising - I ordered the books. But because there were simply no, well, I've never been able to spontaneously go in somewhere good and there was exactly the book I was in the mood for,

[00:17:41] If I wanted it quickly, then I just ordered it there because of the short delivery times.

[00:17:47] I felt the same way, in bookstores you only got the classics.

[00:17:51] Which is also interesting, but you don't always want to read that. [laughs]

[00:17:55] Christina: Yes, you just want to "be in the market", so to speak, and it's also something we definitely notice in the library that the demand is increasing or that people are taking it for granted that they're going to the English-language media.

[00:18:11] It's now, we've been talking about English, of course, because our two "chosen" acquired second language is simply English.

[00:18:21] There are many other second languages, Veronika, for example, who will be our guest next week, has French, so Billingual grew up with French as a second language.

[00:18:35] And of course we also have French books, for example, or Italian books, of course, so I would be missing something because we wouldn't have Italian.

[00:18:49] Pia: Or Spanish or Russian.

[00:18:51] Yes, we have all, we also have Turkish and Arabic books.

[00:18:57] But with some languages it's difficult to obtain them, so it's more difficult to actually get books in the language, whether it's booksellers or librarians or booksellers or librarians.

[00:19:13] And other languages are easy, you don't need so many, because English is the language.

[00:19:21] And then maybe it's interesting pub quiz info at the end.

[00:19:28] About 373 million people in the world speak English as their first language.

[00:19:33] English, the number increases to 1.5 billion people if you include second language.

[00:19:45] But as a first language, it's the dritt largest language in the world after Spanish, so after Mandarin and Spanish.

[00:19:53] Pia: So that says a lot, doesn't it? Those are massive numbers.

[00:19:57] And we've always gotten the English shows, not the Spanish shows.

[00:20:00] Pia: Yes.

[00:20:01] I think you can see the influence of the USA on our culture.

[00:20:08] Pia: Yes. Extremely.

[00:20:10] Christina: Pia, in conclusion, are there any disadvantages to language learning?

[00:20:18] Pia: You wrote down the same disadvantage, I know that [laughs], if you've already talked about it drü.

[00:20:23] Sometimes I can't think of words in my own language because then I think,

[00:20:27] "Ah, this English word is just perfect, I'd like to say that."

[00:20:30] And maybe there's not quite an equivalent in German.

[00:20:32] Or at the moment, German is just completely gone from my brain.

[00:20:35] I don't know what's happening, but it can happen quickly. [laughs]

[00:20:39] Christina: I have that too. And what bothers me the most is when I have some trains of thought or concepts,

[00:20:45] that I have, I also have that from my time at university.

[00:20:48] Everything I learned in English, I can discuss with you in English.

[00:20:53] But if I had to translate it into German, I completely lack the technical vocabulary and stories like that. [smiles]

[00:20:57] That's an absolute luxury problem, of course.

[00:21:00] Pia: [laughing] I can't think of many other negative things now, I have to say.

[00:21:03] Christina: [laughing] No, of course there aren't any.

[00:21:05] Language learning is, we think, wonderful.

[00:21:09] It's a great hobby, it trains the brain.

[00:21:12] And you can join in at any time.

[00:21:15] Personally, I've now rediscovered the idea of taking French a little further.

[00:21:19] I always leave it lying around, then I pick it up again.

[00:21:22] Have you just touched on any language that appeals to you from time to time?

[00:21:27] Apart from English, I have to say French and Italian, I went to school,

[00:21:31] but I neglected that extremely.

[00:21:33] So I think I would have to start from the beginning. [laughs]

[00:21:36] Christina: Exactly, but if you want to adopt English or another language as a second language,

[00:21:44] so to speak, then you can do that.

[00:21:46] There are tons of resources, even free resources that you can find online.

[00:21:51] Once you get into the subject, you'll know pretty quickly.

[00:21:56] If you need help, just drop by the library.

[00:22:00] We'll give you tips and tricks on how to do which courses well,

[00:22:04] which language courses to take, which books to start with,

[00:22:08] at which level you can read which books.

[00:22:11] We know that, we can help you with that.

[00:22:14] Pia, do you say goodbye to the podcast and ask, do you have any questions?

[00:22:20] Pia: [Laughs] Yeah, thanks for listening.

[00:22:22] It was a pleasure as always.

[00:22:24] We're looking forward to the next episode and to Veronika.

[00:22:28] If you want to tell us your opinion on languages and your own language story,

[00:22:36] then you are welcome to do so at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:22:42] or on Instagram and Facebook.

[00:22:44] Thanks for listening and see you next time. Bye.

[00:22:48] Bye.

[00:22:49] Or - ah - goodbye. [Laughs]

[00:22:51] [Outro music]

[00:23:16] [Pia speaks] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library

[00:23:20] and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck. [Pia speaks]

[00:00:00] Yes, hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:20] My name is Christina and today it's not Pia who's saying hello, but my dear colleague, Jaqueline

[00:00:26] Jaqueline, hello. Hi Jaqueline, nice to have you with us. Thank you for the invitation. We are very happy

[00:00:32] very much and the two of us are asking ourselves today, why do we actually like tropes but not

[00:00:39] just any tropes, but very particular or specific - which trope ... Which trope are we talking about?

[00:00:45] we, the listeners already know anyway - Enemies-to-Lovers. - Yes, so it's going to be a very exciting episode.

[00:00:52] And before we jump in, Jaqueline, I'd just like to take a moment for our listeners,

[00:01:00] who might be wondering, "trope", what is a "trope" now, what "enemies", what "lovers",

[00:01:04] explain what a trope is in general. The term originally comes from the

[00:01:12] rhetoric. There it is used as an umbrella term for certain classes of rhetorical figures

[00:01:18] used as an umbrella term. A rhetorical figure, for example, is known as a metaphor. In the

[00:01:24] modern literary studies, but also in literary criticism, as well as and above all

[00:01:31] in the English-speaking world, but also in other linguistic and cultural contexts

[00:01:36] a trope refers to recurring motifs, themes, plot patterns, character types or stylistic devices,

[00:01:44] which then occur in many literary works and have a certain meaning or

[00:01:50] association. A few common examples of tropes in literature include the

[00:01:57] Chosen One in English. This is a character who is chosen for a special task

[00:02:04] or destiny. Harry Potter would be one of these, for example. The old "white" mentor,

[00:02:10] the old WISE mentor - important distinction. I'm so used to this "old white men."

[00:02:17] But it's also true, so they're mostly white too. He, except Yoda, he's green. That would be

[00:02:26] a, right, an experienced, wise character or figure who offers the hero advice and support

[00:02:34] to the hero. We've already mentioned Yoda, Albus Dumbledore would also be one. The classic. Or

[00:02:42] an antagonist, for example Lord Voldemort. Exactly, it's not just limited to literature,

[00:02:47] it's also in movies, TV series, plays and many other narrative forms. What are tropes for?

[00:02:53] They're there to structure stories, also to facilitate the narrative flow. They use

[00:03:00] so they always use familiar patterns and expectations. That's why they're also quite popular in the

[00:03:04] children's and young adult literature. There is now also, perhaps a marketing term, that says

[00:03:12] you something Jacqueline, the new adult, where I think it's a bit blurred

[00:03:20] from young adult literature to adult literature and what an in-between stage it is or where

[00:03:26] it merges elements of young adult literature with adult literature. So New Adult

[00:03:33] is characterized by the fact that there are a lot of tropes. Do you find that too? Yes, well, I mainly read

[00:03:42] "Young Adult" myself, so that's my favorite genre to read because it's not quite this

[00:03:49] adult and mostly dry somehow for me. And I think that the, well, that's mainly

[00:03:56] especially a lot of tropes and that's also how the community communicates. So on

[00:04:02] Instagram you only read tropes. When someone writes or promotes or rates a book or a review,

[00:04:08] there are always tropes in the comment and it's always discussed. Yes, that is now

[00:04:14] more "Slow Burn", is it "Chosen Family" or whatever the trope is. So that comes

[00:04:19] occurs very frequently and has actually become part of the communication about the books

[00:04:25] and I don't know whether that's why it's become so topical and so popular

[00:04:30] mainly through social media. But I would definitely agree with you,

[00:04:34] that it's very widespread in "young adult". My theory is that it comes from the

[00:04:40] fanfiction culture, that, we've talked about fanfiction before and whoever

[00:04:49] interested in it in more detail can listen to the episode again. But that's

[00:04:58] so with the advent of fanfiction and that was before social media, I would guess,

[00:05:07] established itself before social media and then it spilled over into social media, right?

[00:05:14] Yes, definitely, I hadn't even thought about it, right, with the fanfictions, if you look at the

[00:05:20] google them or type them in or search on Archive of Our Own or something like that, then the keywords are always,

[00:05:26] which they are actually tropes, right, and I hadn't even thought of that.

[00:05:29] Yeah, I thought about Archive too, if you just go to the Archive of Our Own page

[00:05:34] is a fanfiction site, now the biggest fanfiction site on the internet, in English,

[00:05:41] in any case, I would even say at all and then you immediately have all the tags and the

[00:05:47] are just - they're always tropes and then you can sort of like a restaurant order

[00:05:53] put it together like this, what would I like now? I would like the "Enemies-to-Lovers" with a

[00:05:59] "Chosen One" as the protagonist, who gets together with this one and that one and so on and then

[00:06:05] you can read exactly, if that's what you want to read at that moment.

[00:06:11] Exactly, yes. And it's the same on social media, for example, I didn't know that.

[00:06:15] So I'm quite active on Booktok and there's always, well, I think you can almost

[00:06:22] you almost never come across a book review that doesn't speak in tropes and also, that always means,

[00:06:29] yes, I liked that so much, "Enemies-to-Lovers" and "Slowburn", that's really well done

[00:06:34] and excellent and that actually categorizes all the books. So then there are whole

[00:06:40] Bookstagram pages that specialize in "romance novels", for example, and then really

[00:06:45] also rate these tropes for books. So I know that mainly from social media

[00:06:50] and then everyone asks, okay, but does it also have this or that trope or something?

[00:06:55] So for many people, it's a prerequisite to know the tropes before they even read a

[00:07:00] start reading a book then. So you would say that young readers or those,

[00:07:05] who then also use Booktok and so on, so they're on these platforms,

[00:07:09] that they wouldn't read a book if it didn't fit their trope? So it's that,

[00:07:18] does it have to be that accurate? Well, I think so, I've noticed that myself. I am for example

[00:07:23] For example, I'm not a big fan of "enemies-to-lovers", spoiler. I think it's very often done very badly

[00:07:30] that I'm just not aware of the hate, why they're "enemies" now and I just

[00:07:35] think, guys, just talk it out, then everyone in 10 miles will realize that you should be "Lovers".

[00:07:39] That's often the case with me, for example, that I think to myself, I would avoid it now if someone says,

[00:07:45] oh, "Enemies-to-Lovers", and really, really great, I'm often skeptical about the book. So I

[00:07:50] think that a lot of people use the tropes for reader decisions and if the trope is,

[00:07:55] that they don't like, that has an effect on their reading behavior, quite clearly, yes.

[00:07:59] That's probably also a new one that's come out of internet culture

[00:08:09] way of reading. Because I believe that a lot of people, at least that's my

[00:08:18] experience that I often read books, I mean, sure, if you have an author that you want to read mag,

[00:08:24] Stephen King is the example for me, then you just read what's published there, I get exactly that -

[00:08:28] That's reliable. And I can imagine that it's similar there. But apart from

[00:08:33] genre literature, I often watch a movie and then I ask myself

[00:08:39] oh, it's based on a book or I ask, or then I'm suddenly in 20th century Paris

[00:08:45] or suddenly I'm interested in the authors of the beat generation and then I want to

[00:08:49] want to know that. So these are like "bubbles of interest" where I then read the literature there drin. And basically

[00:08:59] basically it's just a different kind of categorization. Before we now ... So to the

[00:09:05] tropes per se, there's still a lot to ask, uh to say, but what is "Enemies-

[00:09:12] to-Lovers" anyway? "Enemies-to-Lovers" describes, I'll just call it that now

[00:09:17] the process when two people get to know each other or already know each other and simply don't like each other.

[00:09:24] So they don't like each other, they're often, there's often in a high school context,

[00:09:28] that they are "enemies" because they both have good grades and both want to be the best,

[00:09:32] but that's just this "enemies" in the competition with each other, they like each other

[00:09:37] absolutely not and they hate each other and they can't be in the same room. And in the course of the book

[00:09:41] it then swings around into this "Lovers" perspective or, yes, storyline, that they're then on

[00:09:49] once they switch from this hatred to "Yes, actually I love you and that's why I hate you

[00:09:53] I hate you so much". And then all of a sudden they are a couple or at least have something in common

[00:09:58] or I don't know, what is the complete change from the initial behavior and

[00:10:04] often there's also this hatred that both of them somehow resist and

[00:10:09] then somehow a tension arises and I think that's what a lot of people like,

[00:10:13] this tension that arises, exactly, but it just changes in the novel or in the book

[00:10:19] then everything changes completely. So this is then applied accordingly to love stories. So I

[00:10:28] know it from many novels, but it's also very popular in fantasy. And also in the

[00:10:33] fan fiction area. Yeah, okay, I see, so an example of the enemies-to-lovers as a

[00:10:43] trope, would be the "Twisted" series by Ana Huang, we have that now, the Jacqueline looks at me

[00:10:50] looking at me questioningly, I just cataloged it, which means we just ... we have it

[00:10:54] in English there, we also have it in German now, the rest will follow, in the library.

[00:10:59] And what we've actually also done, because tropes in that sense, we also use

[00:11:04] the English-language term, when we used to talk about, I think,

[00:11:09] we would have talked about genre as librarians, we wouldn't have talked about it at all

[00:11:14] exactly subdivided. But of course that's useful for us as librarians, we have

[00:11:21] now also created the keyword because it's a noticeable shift, simply.

[00:11:31] Yes, very practical for us then. And you realize it, people are asking, so of course it's

[00:11:37] a certain generation first, who have simply grown up in the reading culture, who know that,

[00:11:45] they inherently know what tropes are. Yes, and that's why we did it, because if the

[00:11:51] reading habits have simply changed somewhere and then when people ask me at the

[00:11:56] information ask me, "Enemies-to-Lovers" then of course it's quite useful if you can just

[00:12:00] the keyword, then you know. Just like Archive of our Own. Yes, do you have

[00:12:09] one, you said you don't magst it like that, the trope? For me, it's just often bad

[00:12:17] that a lot of people, it seems to me that a lot of authors, somehow

[00:12:23] get into this trend and try to create "enemies-to-lovers", but for me

[00:12:29] the hate is often not justified enough to make you think they hate each other and

[00:12:35] suddenly love each other, this wonderment of what this trope actually needs. And

[00:12:40] this hatred is then sometimes just: "He didn't look in my direction once and

[00:12:43] now I hate him." And for me, that's often quite

[00:12:45] unfounded and that's why I often can't do anything with it. But then, so then I read

[00:12:51] I read the books there, either I haven't finished them or I have an example and that's a very

[00:12:56] hyped young adult book series is "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black and everyone loved that and

[00:13:02] - "oh, Enemies-to-Lovers" - and I read that and I thought to myself, well, I know, I see

[00:13:06] the hate. So I don't understand why they suddenly hate each other now, just because they're just

[00:13:09] are somehow a bit opposed, but that was completely unfounded for me and then

[00:13:15] even further in this tension, it wasn't tension for me, it was just bad for me

[00:13:18] Executed. Do you have one that you particularly like magst? Yes, it's actually my favorite book series.

[00:13:26] That's why it's so contradictory that I don't like the trope mag, but my favorite book series, "Das Reich

[00:13:33] of the Seven Courts" or "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas. Absolute favorite book series and

[00:13:38] there's even the "enemies-to-lovers" process drin twice in these novels and that's

[00:13:44] just really so well done, so they really want to kill each other at the beginning actually

[00:13:49] and it's really based on things and it just makes sense and that's where I got it,

[00:13:54] I think it's great, but the book is much more than that trope for me and I think,

[00:13:59] it's also a bit that, for me, there has to be a plot around it to make this

[00:14:05] "Enemies-to-Lovers" so that it's really a book that I want to read and not just focus on

[00:14:09] this enmity happened, sort of. Yeah, with pure romance novels like that or is it

[00:14:19] often navel-gazing and I can also imagine that it gets boring at some point.

[00:14:23] Exactly, yes. When it goes on like this for a whole novel, I'm like: here it comes. Can you see that?

[00:14:28] Yeah, exactly. When do they come together, every sitcome of all time.

[00:14:34] Everybody knows, but they don't know. Yeah, that's really an age-old trope actually,

[00:14:39] It's already on TV and stuff. I also think what you said,

[00:14:43] that the books that you don't like, you have the feeling that this leads the authors and

[00:14:47] female authors, to be honest, there are probably more female authors and the few male authors,

[00:14:53] do it somehow so that it's just drin. Why does it have to be drin? Well, so that people read it.

[00:15:06] Well, first of all, you need a publisher to bring it out and then promote it accordingly

[00:15:11] advertises it accordingly. And if it's in right now, for example the trope "Enemies-to-Lovers"

[00:15:15] is on the book market right now, the new hot "coffee", when it's in, then you have

[00:15:24] all of a sudden, if one thing works, then all of a sudden you have all these freeloaders,

[00:15:30] who just try to copy it like it's paint by numbers or something,

[00:15:34] whereas it's actually much more than that. So I think when you write from the "trope",

[00:15:41] I can't imagine that that can work and I think you can tell.

[00:15:46] Exactly, for me the motivation is just wrong. So when you start and you have no

[00:15:52] idea for a book, but you just want to write a "trope" and then I feel the same way,

[00:15:57] okay, they only had the idea of "Enemies-to-Lovers", but there was no story,

[00:16:01] there was no plot, there was no background to this story and then you just realize that.

[00:16:06] Yeah, I mean, it's not a new phenomenon, it started in 2008, the vampire heyday,

[00:16:12] that's when all the vampire novels suddenly came out, so that's always been the case

[00:16:17] but now it's not just ... Because I think vampire is another "trope" now,

[00:16:22] so you can build that up much further and make the worlds much wider and "Enemies-to-Lovers" is

[00:16:26] then I think the problem is that it's too narrow, so it's really just this one "trope"

[00:16:32] and you can't build a whole novel on that, or you shouldn't.

[00:16:35] So in any case, it's also an outdruck of today's book market that you also have to look at,

[00:16:41] They're also marketed in this way now, some of them are former stories of

[00:16:46] Wattpad are rewritten a little or novels are simply written with the

[00:16:55] ulterior motive, that will sell well on the market. But like you, what you said,

[00:17:02] with the "Enemies-to-Lovers" or "Tropes" is very, is so narrow and I feel that way and

dru[00:17:09] I often have the impression that in bubbles, as Booktok can be, algorithms can be

[00:17:17] that you often stay in a reading habit bubble, because if you only focus on

[00:17:26] these super small details of a book, because you say, that's it,

[00:17:34] what I liked last time, so I have to like it the next ten times,

[00:17:38] you take such a narrow view of your own reading world. Is that also your onedruck? Definitely.

[00:17:45] But I notice it in myself, too, when you realize, okay, I don't know ... "Chosen Families"

[00:17:51] I think it's really great, I think it's really nice, when that happens, I always support it, I think

[00:17:55] always well done and then when the book says, yes, when someone says something about a book,

[00:18:00] that this book has this "trope", then I'm much more willing to read it,

[00:18:05] then I'm okay, I liked it and I think that a lot of people are then more obsessive about it

[00:18:11] and then really only have their two, drei "tropes" and they always want to read them and then

[00:18:15] then devour everything in this "trope", in this bubble, as you said, somehow,

[00:18:21] which many books then suffer from, because at some point it just gets boring. And it's also like that

[00:18:27] a culture of convenience, I think, a feeding of material, I don't want to say literature,

[00:18:35] because somehow, that's what makes sense with fan fiction, because the pool is so big and because

[00:18:41] your time is so limited and because you mostly read it because you want something special, because something

[00:18:45] something in particular has bothered you about a series or a book or whatever, then you pick it up and

[00:18:51] then it makes sense. In literature, I often have the feeling that of course the book market needs

[00:18:58] divisions, but if ... and as a reader it's good to know what you mag, but the more compartmentalized

[00:19:06] the divisions, for example, it used to be, so you said, okay, there are these, there are

[00:19:12] broad genre of suspense literature, you know, you studied literature and then there are

[00:19:18] the smaller genres, that would be crime fiction and thrillers, for example, and I'm personally

[00:19:26] very attached to this genre and that's why, you know, and the smaller, the next smaller

[00:19:34] unit is then somehow Dark Academia and that's again, then I tried,

[00:19:39] read a few Dark Academia books and then I realized, actually,

[00:19:43] none of them grabbed me as much as the original book, "The Secret History", because the

[00:19:51] never really was genre. That was just what it was and it was done and if I want that again,

[00:19:58] then I just have to read it again and have other books that aren't Dark Academia at all

[00:20:03] but then unexpectedly create a completely similar vibe in me and then I thought to myself, oh, that's it,

[00:20:09] what I wanted from these books, but if I had just been looking all this time, I want

[00:20:14] read Dark Academia now, I would never have thought of that next. So I definitely think

[00:20:19] case, that it's a big problem that people focus too much on these tropes and

[00:20:23] generally on social media, people don't even read the book, the back of the book,

[00:20:29] What's that called? In English they say blurb. Yes, the blurbs or something. Yes, the blurbs,

[00:20:36] the problem is people, they don't read the blurbs anymore or something, they concentrate on

[00:20:42] the recommendations of people online or on the trupes, that they only hear, this and that title

[00:20:47] has this and that trope and then they read it and then they say, I didn't like that at all,

[00:20:51] because this and that, which is just badly done or something, because they don't even look for themselves anymore

[00:20:55] look, do I like it, am I interested in the story, I notice that very often with people

[00:21:00] online and I also think that sometimes you have to be a little bit without prejudice in

[00:21:06] a book without any preconceptions, because then it might surprise you and that's a trope for me

[00:21:11] often take away or bother me or why I don't like tropes mag, is because they're just

[00:21:17] anticipate so much, because if I know from the beginning, okay, the "Enemies" are going to be

[00:21:22] become "lovers", then you lose all the tension, so that's often what bothers me

[00:21:27] bothers me or in "Arranged Marriages" or something like that, it always ends the same way or something like that and that

[00:21:33] are often when I think that takes a lot away from my reading experience, because

[00:21:38] I can't imagine anything anymore, so there's no suspense, because I already know exactly,

[00:21:42] what happens through the tropes, so that was sometimes good, but often bad. You have the

[00:21:47] spoiler already in the marketing, as it often is with movie trailers, as long as people tune in

[00:21:53] on, but it's just attention economy, it's just difficult now, difficult now

[00:21:59] to get people to - Definitely. - To end on a positive note,

[00:22:06] because I think we've discussed a lot of facets of it now, which is something that needs to be said,

[00:22:13] and I notice that with the whole Booktok trend, people are reading a lot, they're consuming a lot

[00:22:20] a lot of books and are basically doing a refresh for the entire book market, you notice that

[00:22:29] simply and that's cool. I think the Booktok or Bookstagram community,

[00:22:34] depending on which platform it is, it's not really tight, so you just have to see for yourself,

[00:22:40] what is my bubble and where do I move, but you find, so if you spend half an hour

[00:22:45] sit down, you'll find like hundreds of thousands of different bookstagrammers and the other one,

[00:22:51] all offer different contexts and that's just so diverse, I think in part,

[00:22:56] and they now have like drei, four that I follow and they also read very broadly,

[00:23:01] which is also me, I actually read everything except thrillers and horror, I always get scared,

[00:23:07] but otherwise I read everything and if they read everything, that's, that's kind of a broad spectrum

[00:23:13] and I really like being in the community, I think there's a lot here and as you say,

[00:23:18] it just brings so many young people back to reading who otherwise have no contact with it

[00:23:23] and also, this is a bit selfish, but I also think it's great that the books are now

[00:23:28] prettier again because they're now being presented online, they're worth more and how,

[00:23:32] okay how do you market a book, how do you design the book and I think the community is actually great,

[00:23:39] but maybe I'm in my, I don't think so, in my bubble.

[00:23:46] I'm sure it's great too, so I think it is and it's inspiring

[00:23:50] Yeah, the people. It's also nice when you're with the same people that, the same people

[00:23:57] with whom you share hobbies, can also be in contact, inspire each other and that's

[00:24:02] actually what social media was once intended for, so it's actually really nice.

[00:24:06] So with the "Word for Sunday" I'd say we'll end the episode for today.

[00:24:10] Thank you very much for being here today.

[00:24:12] Yes, thank you too, it was very nice.

[00:24:14] Yes, I thought so too, very entertaining. There are still many, many tropes,

[00:24:18] so maybe we can do it again in the future if you like. - Yes, with pleasure. -

[00:24:22] Then, we'll say goodbye to you, but not without the question: What's your favorite book

[00:24:29] in the "Enemies-to-Lovers" trope?

[00:24:32] Why don't you write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:24:38] or on Instagram under the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck" or on Facebook,

[00:24:46] although I don't even dare mention the Tropes episode.

[00:24:51] But you can write to us on Facebook, really old school.

[00:24:54] Yeah, thanks for listening and we hope you have a great read.

[00:24:58] Bye.

[00:24:59] [Music]

[00:25:23] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:25:28] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

Christina: Yes, hello and welcome back to S'Vorwort, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library. My name is Christina - and I am Pia - and we would like to welcome you to this episode. Today we're starting the episode a little differently. I have to explain something, namely that you can get involved in everyday library life via the #gemeinsambesser on Instagram, for example under the handle "citylibrary.innsbruck". A little bit of "libraries", so to speak, so that we can shape the city library of your dreams together with you. We received a topic request at the beginning of the year. And that's exactly what today's episode is about. Namely: The topic was "fascinating or funny stories about the creation of books". Because before the actual book comes onto the market and then ends up on our shelves or on your shelves at home, there is often a years-long story behind it. And this can sometimes be bizarre, sometimes funny and sometimes perhaps just a little surprising. And in this episode, we would like to share two of these origin stories with each other and with you. And we have prepared, independently of each other, an origin story for a novel or a book or a work. We just don't know exactly and we will tell it to each other. We're very excited to see what each other has come up with. I have to say, I've been looking forward to the episode the whole time. I've written down something really schmaltzy: "Put on your flippers and let's dive into the literary world. (...) Okay, let's dive in. Dive in. Are you about swimming? - Not at all, actually. With you. - What a comparison. Okay, yes, we were really very secretive, weren't we? So, I think you know the gender of the author.

Pia: I made a mistake there. But otherwise you don't really know anything.

Christina: I can't say exactly what author. I don't know anything. And you? Did you find out anything?

Pia: No. Okay. Yes, Christina, let's get started then. Would you start with your story?

Christina: Okay, here we go. Okay, I've brought something. Drum roll. The story of William Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch". Do you know it? Do you know Burroughs? Ah, okay.

Pia: Then it gets interesting now.

Christina: That's a work of the so-called Beat Generation. Many people found this work unreadable or even obscene. And the story of how it came about is just as chaotic and fascinating as the novel itself. Um, before we get started. The Beat Generation is a literary and artistic movement in post-war America in the 1940s and 1950s. Alongside Burroughs, the most important representatives include Jack Kerouac, who is known for On the Road, which he published in 1957, and Allen Ginsberg with his epic poem Howl. He published that in 1956. These so-called âBeatsâ or âBeatniksâ rejected the conservative values and materialistic culture of post-war America. It was therefore a counter-movement, and they strove for an alternative lifestyle that emphasized freedom, personal authenticity and a departure from social norms. Other motifs in the works, which can also be found in 'Naked Lunch', include spirituality, especially Eastern religions. Buddhism played a major role, Drogen and the expansion of consciousness, which is one of the themes that plays a major role in the novel. Sexual freedom, travel and movement, urban but also rural America and the existential search and search for meaning. In other words, it is about a radical rejection of the mainstream and mainstream culture. Finding new ways for how drÃdo you express yourself and what experiences do you have in life? And our story begins in the 1950s at a time when Burroughs was experiencing a personal and creative crisis. In fact, after he had already become known as a writer and Droauthor, he decided to move to Tangier, Morocco. Tangier is known for its liberal Dropolitics and its exotic atmosphere and therefore became a haven for many artists and writers. Burroughs used or knew how to use this for himself and immersed himself deeply in the Droscene and then began working on his most ambitious work to date, namely 'Naked Lunch'. He was under the constant influence of heroin while he was writing the book.

Pia: Okay.

Christina: His addiction and psychedelic experiences had a significant influence on the writing process. The novel was not meant to be linear, but to reflect the fragmented, fragmentary thoughts and visions of an Droaddict. And the novel succeeded in this very well. Burroughs experimented with the so-called cut-up method, in which he cut up texts and reassembled them. This technique, which he developed together with the artist Brion Geysen, gave 'Naked Lunch' this very unique and somewhat kaleidoscopic style. It's a book like a kaleidoscope. But it wasn't easy for him to work in that state. He was constantly on the run from the police in Tangier, and the reason was because he was always involved in Drocrimes. That's why he often had to hide in some seedy hotel room. And that's where he wrote in feverish, drointoxicated sessions. And you can tell that from the tone of the novel. It is very paranoid and often surreal. You look in vain for a plot. A decisive turning point in the story was when he moved to the "Beat Hotel" in Paris. This is a so-called âBeat Hotelâ, because this is where the greats of the beat generation met. So he met Allen Ginsberg there and Gregory Corso, who we haven't mentioned yet. And it was in this creative community that Burroughs found the support and inspiration he needed to complete his work. Ginsberg was the one who helped him to structure the very chaotic manuscript and prepare it for publication. It was finally published in 1959. We're talking post-war America. Nuclear family. Mom, dad, child, white picket fence. Golden retriever.

Pia: The cliché par excellence.

Christina: In the USA and the UK, the book was censored because of its explicit content and depiction of Drogene consumption. But despite, or perhaps because of, this whole scandal, ââNaked Lunchââ became a cult classic. When it says cult, you know it's somehow like that, something to do with Drogen and pornography and stuff. Like âThe Bloody Path of God 1 and 2â. Such a bad movie. It became a symbol for the non-conformist attitude of the beat generation and their radical rejection of social norms. For Burroughs himself, the book was like a kind of exorcism. It allowed him to wrestle a little with his demons. That's how he saw it, but he was also able to deal with the experiences of addiction and paranoia that he experienced - he ultimately had a very serious addiction, we don't want to romanticize that here - in a certain way. The novel also reflects how torn the author's psyche is and draws the reader - and this is fascinating - into a world in which the boundaries between reality and hallucination become blurred. Today, 'Naked Lunch' is considered a masterpiece of modern literature.

Pia: It's often the case that things that are forbidden become part of literature and that's what makes it so exciting when it's forbidden. I'm thinking of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', where the sex scenes were so unusual for the time and so forbidden and frowned upon. And then it became a bestseller.

Christina: So perhaps it was also a collective expression of what was not allowed to be said at the time.

Pia: Then you somehow get around this rule.

Christina: Yes, and that's interesting about literary history, that you can see what they're rebelling against.

Pia: Boundaries.

Christina: Exactly, and which boundaries are being crossed? And are they boundaries that we still share in 2024? Or because values are also shifting and changing and the social discourse is becoming different and so on? Yes, and that's why "Naked Lunch" is considered an ancestor or has contributed greatly to the development of postmodern literature. Especially this cut-up technique, but also the way in which he looked so unsparingly at human existence. And accordingly, despite its incredibly rocky history, 'Naked Lunch' became an indispensable part of literary history. I've been trying to read it, I think I'm on page 30 so far. I've already taken a 10-year break now.

Pia: What's it about? In terms of the story.

Christina: How good of you to ask.

Pia: I can't really imagine what drunter with kaleidoscope that you understand from the system, but I think okay, what exactly do I read when I read the book?

Christina: Well, the title doesn't really say anything.

Pia: Exactly.

Christina: The book follows the protagonist named William Lee. And in the end, he is nothing more than a fictional version of Burroughs and this William Lee is the protagonist. Traveling through various dystopian and surrealistic places, a junkie also reads and flees from the police and encounters a variety of bizarre characters and scenarios. So the novel begins in the streets of New York City, then leads into the fictional Interzone. This is a city that is somehow a mixture of Tangier, New York and other cities. The plot is also very episodic, very erratic because of this cut-up technique. Um, that conveys the insightdruck, or that reflects this chaotic and hallucinatory state of the protagonist and reflects that accordingly. The themes are Droaddiction, sexual perversion, control and freedom. As I said, there is nothing like a plot in this respect, but rather the themes and, as is so often typical in postmodern literature, the play with the literary form and ultimately with the reading experience, which is turned on its head. So it's not the zero-eight-fifteen genre literature.

Pia: Center, climax, end. Exactly.

Christina: It's also an experience to read and definitely worth reading if you're interested in literary genres. Although, as I said, I haven't actually read it, but I'm planning to, but I think it's very challenging, also in terms of the subject matter. Yes, and that was my story. What did you think of my story?

Pia: I found it interesting. It's certainly something different. Not the typical author's story that you're used to. You always think of J.K. Rowling, who described how she had the idea for Harry Potter on the train or something, it's kind of like, yes, something happens, you live something and then you think to yourself, I'll write something drÃabout it. That's certainly a different approach.

Christina: Yes, so that was also a very intentional artisticdruck. So they were looking for an outdruck, they wanted to.

Pia: Their experiences.

Christina: Exactly, to bring it into the world. By the way, before we move on to your part, I can highly recommend the movie "Kill Your Darlings". I haven't looked up when it's from, but it's a bit older now. It was shortly after Harry Potter was over. Daniel Radcliffe directed the moviedreh, I think. Around the Dreh. And it's about the beat generation. Daniel Radcliffe plays.

Pia: Ginsberg.

Christina: Yes, exactly. And William Burroughs is also in it. And the William Tell apple, to know what I mean by that: just have a look. And it's a very romanticized film. Of course it is. But it is, anyone who likes literary adaptations or literary films mag or films about literature will either already know or learn to love "Kill Your Darlings". Okay, Pia, now I'm really curious. What did you bring with you?

Pia: Well, I don't actually have a story about the creation of just one book, but basically a whole oeuvre, an entire body of work.

Christina: You've done the extra work again.

Pia: From one author and now I would be interested to know because you magst like crime and thrillers and horror.

Christina: Agatha Christie. Jane Austen.

Pia: Jane Austen? Christina: Exactly. No, I'd be interested to know if you know her? Anne Perry.

Christina: Yes, it's the one from the UK. Yes. I like the name.

Pia: What it says. A name. Pia: What? We have them in stock too. Well, I looked it up too. We have it in stock.

Christina: I don't think I've read anything about her yet. Now I'm curious.

Pia: Okay, so Anne Perry is an English writer, was an English writer, born in 1938, died last year in 2023. She is known for her crime series, as I said before, especially her historical crime novels set in Victorian England. - that's why I don't know her. - Not a fan of historical crime novels. She has written over 120 books, over 26 million copies have been sold worldwide, and her books regularly land on the New York Times bestseller list. So very successful, you could say. Most of her books deal with questions of morality, sin, remorse and forgiveness. And that also becomes important. That was actually mine.

Christina: Oh, did she kill someone?

Pia: Christina is already miles ahead of my story.

Christina: Was that the one with the childhood friend?

Pia: Yes, exactly.

Christina: No, that's a very cool story. Guys, you're in for a treat. This is one of my favorite true-crime literary stories ever. Pia, take it away!

Pia: Well, we don't know that yet. So that was all the public knew about her at the time. That all changed in 1994. That's when the movie "Heavenly Creatures" came out, which is what it's called in German, by the way, and is available on Filmfriend, I looked it up. So we have a streaming service, which means that if you are a member of our library, you can stream this movie online on our website. It was directed by Peter Jackson. And the movie is about an intense friendship between two teenage girls in New Zealand in the 1950s. The friendship ends in tragedy when they plan and carry out the murder of the mother of one of them. Now you're thinking okay, what does this have to do with our author? Well, the movie is based on true events. The two teenagers are real and subsequently had to serve a 5-year prison sentence, but nobody knew who they were. In the course of this movie where it came out, the press did some research and then found out that one of the two murderers, Anne Perry, is our author. That's really cool. At the age of 15, she and her best friend beat her friend's mother to death. The reason was allegedly that the friend had had to move away and they didn't want to be separated from each other. Back to the literature: Her focus on remorse and forgiveness in her crime novels makes sense now, of course. She also said herself that she struggled with it afterwards, after this murder. For the press, of course, that was a real feast. And she herself was of course not at all happy about her identity being published. She herself then said 'it seemed so unfair. Everything I had achieved as a decent member of society was beingdrohacked and once again my life was being interpreted by someone else. It had happened in court when I was a minor, not allowed to speak as a minor and heard all these lies. And now there was a movie, but no one had bothered to talk to me. I didn't know about it until the day before it was released. All I could think about was that my life would fall apart." But she continued to write afterwards and she published a lot of books, successfully published them and also gave several interviews about the murder and her literature. And she said in the Guardian, for example, about her literature: "It is crucial for me to continue exploring moral issues. I wanted to explore what people do when they are confronted with experiences and inner conflicts that push them to their limits." So for her, this was somehow her literature, a processing of what happened.

Christina: They were both convicted of this murder, both the childhood friend and the author? - Christina: Exactly. - Do I remember correctly that Anne Perry always denied that she committed the murder?

Pia: Well, she always said herself, in all the interviews I've seen and read, that she absolutely knew that she was guilty and that it served her right that she ended up in prison. And she said she was glad that this prison sentence was imposed on her and that she had to serve it. Mm.

Christina: Yes. Okay. Tough stuff.

Pia: But I found it kind of interesting. It's everywhere, of course, where she died last year. It was all over the headlines. "Crime writer who is actually a murderer

Christina: I remember that. Of course I do. Clickbait. Headline if you ever found one. That's another case of there's the reality. Uh, if you write that in the book, no one will believe it. Yeah, it reads like the plot of a novel

Pia: I didn't know her as an author either and then she passed away last year and that's when I found out who she actually was and this whole story. But I found it interesting because it's really bizarre.

Christina: So that raises a lot of questions, doesn't it, about morality and is someone - it's a murder, so that can't be out of time and at the same time they were minors. And what does that mean for the person when they are an adult? You know, there are still physiological changes in the brain and somehow that is then, do you have to let that rest or do people have a right to know and so on? And then also the way they experience it and how the media deal with it.

Pia: Because that was also the case in this movie. heavenly Creatures' also hinted a bit in the direction that it could have been a lesbian relationship and she always denied that, for example, that that was never the case. So, of course, that's also the question: what do I do with this person when I portray them like this, that's interesting. Um, yes, exactly. And we have crime novels by her in the library. We have a bunch of her eBooks to read digitally, but also two crime novels in print. "Those who seek revenge" and "The traitor's game", so if you're interested, you're welcome to read her crime novels.

Christina: Yes, and now it's up to you to vote on which of the origin stories you liked better. Which was more bizarre, which was more interesting? You can do this on Instagram at stadtbibliothek.innsbruck. Do you know a bizarre origin story of a novel, or are we also open to movies, right? We're even open to games, I would have said now, are there any games you'd like us to talk about in the podcast? Then write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at. And with that, we say goodbye to this episode today. Pia, I really enjoyed it.

Pia: It was interesting, exciting, yes.

Christina: Totally exciting and maybe we can do it again sometime.

Pia: I would be delighted.

Christina: So send us your topics and we'll say goodbye until then. Bye bye.

Person 3: (...) SâVorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:07] So hello and welcome back to the preface of the Innsbruck City Library podcast.

[00:00:28] I'm Christina and I'm Pia and we're back.

[00:00:33] We are very happy that after the last episode, where our dear colleagues,

[00:00:37] Shelly and Jacky took over for us and talked a bit about traveling and travel guides,

[00:00:43] that today we can ask ourselves the question, why do we actually like STEM literature?

[00:00:49] Let's start with a definition. What exactly is STEM literature now?

[00:00:56] Then we'll go into the history of STEM literature.

[00:01:01] Then we look at the so-called newer STEM literature.

[00:01:05] With mainly female main characters, small spoiler, Ali Haisalwood is also in it.

[00:01:12] Last but not least, we really ask ourselves the question, why do we actually like STEM literature?

[00:01:18] and give you our opinion on this phenomenon and this trend.

[00:01:24] And we start with STEM literature comes from English, which is almost books and texts,

[00:01:30] that are dedicated to and deal with science, technology, engineering and math.

[00:01:39] This literature aims to promote understanding and interest in these subject areas,

[00:01:45] by making complex concepts accessible and exciting.

[00:01:48] STEM in this case stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,

[00:01:55] i.e. science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

[00:02:00] Of course, it's not just in English.

[00:02:04] There is also a German equivalent, that would be MINT, which you may know,

[00:02:08] That would be mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology.

[00:02:12] Of course, it refers to school and university subjects, but also to professions in this field, for example.

[00:02:19] This is also often an area where you want to support children.

[00:04:36] Exactly. And before we get to the STEM literature that everyone is talking about now,

[00:04:44] namely that which is aimed primarily at girls and women,

[00:04:49] we'd like to tell you a bit about the history of STEM literature.

[00:04:53] Because in terms of fiction, this is a somewhat older genre.

[00:05:00] So stem literature specifically is simply novels and stories,

[00:05:06] that deal with the topics we just mentioned.

[00:05:10] This literature has a very long tradition that goes back to the 19th century.

[00:05:17] An early example of what you might call STEM literature today,

[00:05:24] would be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

[00:05:27] That came out in 1818, and in Frankenstein, science

[00:05:34] and also the consequences of technological progress.

[00:05:41] It's actually a highly topical book for us in terms of subject matter.

[00:05:48] Then of course there are greats like Jules Verne or H. G. Wells,

[00:05:54] who are sometimes the founders of science fiction

[00:05:59] and are considered the founders of science fiction

[00:06:02] and deal intensively with technological and scientific topics.

[00:06:08] In the 20th century, the science fiction genre received even more attention,

[00:06:14] especially through well-known authors such as Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke,

[00:06:20] who also explored scientific and technological concepts in their stories.

[00:06:26] However, the term STEM literature has only become widespread for works of fiction in recent decades,

[00:06:34] just as you described Pia, parallel to this growing importance of stem formation,

[00:06:42] i.e. the "mint fan" in German usage

[00:06:49] and especially the attention to the aspect,

[00:06:55] that girls and women also want and should be supported in this area.

[00:07:03] Exactly, I think you've summarized that quite well now, the history of the earlier works,

[00:07:07] of this STEM literature. But then in the last few years there has been a whole new trend in this direction.

[00:07:14] That started around 2017. The person who really kicked it off was Ali Hazelwood,

[00:07:21] but we'll get to her later. It was a trilogy that she started back then,

[00:07:26] a trilogy of romance novels. The first part is called "The Love Hypothesis",

[00:07:31] but we'll talk a bit more about that. She then wrote "steministic" literature for the first time.

[00:07:38] Wow, the neologism.

[00:07:40] Steminist or steminism refers to a specific strain of feminism.

[00:07:46] And it conflates STEM and feminism, I assume, right?

[00:07:50] Yes, of course. So that advocates for an increased presence of women in these ministries

[00:07:56] and in terms of fiction, that means fine literature, that means novels,

[00:08:02] that portray and celebrate heroes from this area. Although they are mostly romance novels.

[00:08:07] And a typical example of an author who works in this field is Mrs. Hazelwood.

[00:08:12] She is a US author and has a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

[00:08:16] So it kind of makes sense that she wants to write books about it,

[00:08:20] because of course she comes from that field.

[00:08:22] She herself started with fan fiction about Star Trek and Star Wars

[00:08:26] and then started writing herself, in larger publishing houses,

[00:08:31] and has celebrated an absolute success with this trilogy.

[00:08:35] And until 2023 she was a professor herself, worked as a professor

[00:08:39] and then took a break because she wanted to focus on her career as an author.

[00:08:46] Yes, exactly. And I think you brought a few examples, including her book.

[00:08:51] I have that exactly. We have a total of drei novels with us that we can recommend,

[00:09:00] that are fun to read. So "Ali Hazelwood" I think is so remarkable that she then stopped.

[00:09:06] Working in that field herself.

[00:09:08] Yes, exactly. But it's with "Ali Hazelwood", as you've already said,

[00:09:14] wrote The Love Hypothesis, which came out in 2021.

[00:09:18] If you don't know it yet, the main character is a PhD student in biology

[00:09:25] and she finds herself in a fake relationship with a professor,

[00:09:32] as she pursues her scientific career.

[00:09:36] So so classic is a literature, the character works in the field

[00:09:41] and the potential lover is also from that field.

[00:09:46] I also have another example, that would be "Honey Girl" by Morgan Rogers from 2022.

[00:09:53] The protagonist passed her astronomy degree with top marks

[00:09:58] and can't forget a one-night stand with another woman in Las Vegas.

[00:10:02] An LGBT novel, because it's two women who fall in love with each other.

[00:10:08] One of the few in the genre at the moment, right? Exactly. So it's preferably heterosexual

[00:10:15] relationships that are portrayed there. Another novel for the year 2022 is

[00:10:21] "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus. Is that how you pronounce it? Let me know at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:10:37] Bonnie Garmus or Bonnie Garmin. In the novel, the protagonist is a chemist in the 1960s

[00:10:46] years who has to assert herself in a male-dominated scientific world and unexpectedly

[00:10:52] becomes a television chef. And then she shares her scientific expertise with the audience.

[00:11:00] And I've only recently, I know the book is two years old, but I have

[00:11:05] recently seen a trailer for the movie, for the movie of the same name. No, there is a movie.

[00:11:08] I don't know 100% whether it came out in 23 or 24,

[00:11:15] I've seen the trailer. I'll definitely watch it, I think it's so funny and

[00:11:21] just the trailer or the short blurp with the summary of this commentary,

[00:11:27] that of course the woman has to cook and that he's also going to provide this meat. But then

[00:11:31] she kind of breaks the cliché there. That's so cool, I think that's a really good movie.

[00:11:36] It's just so funny. Yeah, it's very good. I think that's what these novels are in general. It's so much

[00:11:43] Summer novel that you can read so quickly on the side. But at the same time somehow so

[00:11:48] refreshingly exemplary character somewhere. I find it totally inspiring, this idea,

[00:11:54] that you as a woman are presented with the things that you may have somehow learned in the

[00:12:04] course of your life that you might not be good at. And even if you know theoretically,

[00:12:08] that this is not true mag, but these things are sometimes so deep.

[00:12:11] Intrinsically in you drinnen, I'm always closer. Exactly. And you can't get out.

[00:12:15] But we have another novel. We brought another novel with us. That would be the one by

[00:12:20] Alice Oseman. It came out in 2016 and it's called Radio Silence, it's a YA novel,

[00:12:29] a young adult novel or even more of a young adult novel. It's about the protagonist

[00:12:33] Frances, who is an achievement-oriented student and has a strong interest in science

[00:12:38] and also in math. She grapples with her identity and her goals.

[00:12:44] And then she discovers a popular podcast and its creator was. I'm assuming,

[00:12:48] that's such a... Point, point, point. Right. We have one or two more recommendations and

[00:12:57] will put them all in the show notes as usual. And when we have the books and a large part

[00:13:03] of them, I know that, so we have a large part of them in the public library. If we put the

[00:13:07] books in the city library, then it's always linked to our online catalog.

[00:13:13] Then you can have a look, see if they're currently available and then simply

[00:13:18] borrow them from us with your library card. So, but last but not least, let's ask ourselves the

[00:13:24] question, why do we actually like STEM literature? Pia and I went into ourselves a little bit

[00:13:30] and thought about what we like about it or what the disadvantages might be.

[00:13:35] Pia, would you like to start? Yes, I'm a bit ambivalent about it. On the one hand, I think it's

[00:13:42] great, as you say, that women can see themselves in these areas, especially,

[00:13:46] when that really isn't the case in real life to some extent, that you just can't yet

[00:13:50] so well represented and then it's great, especially in this literature, that you can see yourself there too

[00:13:55] can see yourself and have role models. At the same time, I'm like, I don't know, that's

[00:14:02] very cliché that it's always about love and marriage and relationships

[00:14:06] and, as we've already mentioned, they're mostly heterosexual

[00:14:11] relationships, which means you're a bit heteronormative along the way. So I'm a bit

[00:14:17] ambivalent about it. This mixing of genders, again, I think I understand that,

[00:14:23] it's very clichéd on the one hand and I can totally understand you there. But I think,

[00:14:30] so this combination of STEM subjects or STEM subjects with popular genres, like romance

[00:14:37] or even thrillers and science fiction, that basically makes these books more accessible and

[00:14:44] probably more attractive to a broad readership. And so in science fiction you already know that

[00:14:49] and it's usually not that clichéd, so I don't want you to misunderstand me

[00:14:56] and that only men read science fiction, but in the traditional gender roles.

[00:15:02] Did you mention Jules Verne and H. G. Well.

[00:15:06] Exactly, those are more the authors that are written by, so the heroes, those are male authors,

[00:15:12] but those are also the big exception, there was Mary Shelley, but she's so in the stereotype,

[00:15:18] that's what more men read and that's just the subject matter,

[00:15:23] often topics that don't deal with women or being a woman or the role of women in society

[00:15:30] but with the role of men in society. Or where the protagonists

[00:15:38] are always men and so on. And I believe that this genre of romance in particular and also

[00:15:46] of the female protagonist, so women are also simply picked up where they are interested and that is

[00:15:54] then yes, it also opens up a new perspective if you like reading romance novels anyway.

[00:16:02] And you also have to say that it's mostly women who write them, so basically

[00:16:07] a genre that women write for women, although of course...

[00:16:11] Well, it's always like this, we're always very careful when we talk about books for a

[00:16:18] target group, because when we say that, we do so out of the knowledge,

[00:16:24] that the publisher is marketing it that way. You can't let that dissuade you from selling the books

[00:16:28] from reading the books anyway, whether it's the Love Hypothesis and women can read it just as well as men

[00:16:37] just like any science fiction novel. That's not what we're saying, is it?

[00:16:42] But it is the case that the publishers are of course already marketing it that way. Yes, and also certain and

[00:16:51] that mag there are also socially trained areas of interest that are then or simply areas of interest

[00:17:01] that you might be more likely to pick up. But that's a bit difficult,

[00:17:07] the topic is simply gender and what is, what was there, the chicken or the egg and so on

[00:17:12] that. Exactly, but you have... And it's also what I absolutely positively dislike about the genre

[00:17:18] is that you can take this, because normally when you read novels about

[00:17:22] female scientists or something like that, they tend to be more serious and that's nice,

[00:17:27] when you read trivial literature under quotation marks, where this is also addressed, because I mean

[00:17:32] then you also break out of the cliché and say, okay, I don't want this typical

[00:17:36] romance novel where it's just about bookshops or the café in the Highlands or whatever

[00:17:41] but no, I'm breaking out and trying something different and it's set in Harvard or whatever.

[00:17:47] And then it's just a fresh thing, I remember with Gilmore Girls, that's such an

[00:17:51] intrinsically female show. But Rory is super ambitious and wants to be super successful

[00:18:00] and has been a role model for a generation of schoolgirls and that has already

[00:18:06] inspiring and yes, that's where the book goes, in the case of this new offer,

[00:18:14] just goes, it's also nice that the book market is reacting to the fact that there is a

[00:18:18] diverse literature, in the end you benefit from it somewhere.

[00:18:23] And the readers are enthusiastic, the readers are enthusiastic.

[00:18:28] There are more and more novels, you really have to say. That's always, I think that's really nice,

[00:18:35] just that it also has a role model effect and women see themselves in these professions.

[00:18:40] Maybe it also increases the self-confidence of certain women who read it and think,

[00:18:46] ah, I can't do that and then you read that and then you think to yourself maybe I can do it

[00:18:49] I can do it, maybe it's something for me after all. So it could really also encourage female readers

[00:18:54] encourage readers to go into these areas. So maybe it's not just negative.

[00:18:59] Yeah, with that nice conclusion, we want to ask you, why do you like stem literature?

[00:19:07] What draws you to this literature, last? And what is your favorite book. Let

[00:19:12] let us know at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at or on Instagram,

[00:19:20] under the handle stadtbibliothek.innsbruck or on Facebook and we say happy reading.

[00:19:28] Until the next episode. Bye!

[00:19:31] S'Vorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library

[00:20:00] and part of Stadt Stimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:06] Live.

[00:00:08] I think.

[00:00:09] Yeah, I think we're recording. Is it recording? It's glowing. Okay.

[00:00:12] How's that going? What do you say?

[00:00:15] What do you say?

[00:00:16] What do you say?

[00:00:17] Great, now we've looked at everything, but I don't want to start now.

[00:00:20] Wait, wait.

[00:00:21] Okay.

[00:00:22] Hello and welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:43] My name is not Christina and Pia is not sitting next to me.

[00:00:47] I'm Shelly and sitting opposite me is Jacky and we are the Gen-Z, colleagues who are taking over today.

[00:00:54] Exactly, we have a friendly takeover planned today.

[00:00:58] We're happy to be here.

[00:01:00] So let's see what happens.

[00:01:02] Why is it Jackie today?

[00:01:04] Exactly, so today is about traveling.

[00:01:06] So we're talking about travel habits, everything to do with traveling and also travel guides or where to get travel information.

[00:01:15] And that's my first question.

[00:01:18] Shelly, have you been on vacation this year?

[00:01:21] Yes, I've actually been on vacation twice this year.

[00:01:25] Once I flew and once I took the train.

[00:01:29] And in February I was in Valencia, which is in Spain.

[00:01:32] I visited a friend of mine there.

[00:01:34] And in, when was that? May, beginning of June, I think end of May, beginning of June.

[00:01:40] So long out again. Busy Schedule.

[00:01:42] Busy schedule.

[00:01:44] I was in Rome, the eternal city.

[00:01:47] So the south draws you in, you can tell. Yes, it was nice and warm

[00:01:51] And then I came home and there was snow on the mountains, that's a bit of a downer, but mei.

[00:01:55] But sometimes you can't expect anything else in Tyrol

[00:01:58] How did you prepare for these trips?

[00:02:01] So how did you find out what you could do in Valencia and Rome?

[00:02:05] Well, the thing was Valencia, I just visited my friend who is doing a semester abroad there.

[00:02:09] And she was my tour guide.

[00:02:12] I only had to take care of the flight and the hotel.

[00:02:16] She designed the program.

[00:02:18] And we were very well prepared in Rome.

[00:02:22] We booked everything in advance so that we didn't have to queue.

[00:02:27] Which can easily happen in Rome.

[00:02:30] And I actually prepared myself with travel guides.

[00:02:33] With tour guides?

[00:02:35] At our age, still travel guides?

[00:02:37] Yes, it's hard to believe mag .

[00:02:39] And where do you get these guides?

[00:02:43] I get them from the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:02:45] We have a huge travel section there, you should know.

[00:02:48] Yes, you always notice that in summer.

[00:02:51] So summer hardly ever comes.

[00:02:52] All the guidebook shelves are empty because everyone still rents guidebooks from us.

[00:02:57] Yes, exactly. So you notice that the shelves are empty.

[00:03:00] And the gathering is very relaxed.

[00:03:03] And literacy, especially in Italy and Croatia, I would have said, is very ... sober right now.

[00:03:10] But would you have bought the guidebooks before you started working in the library?

[00:03:18] Or was that even on your radar, so that there are guidebooks to prepare?

[00:03:23] Well, you know, of course, but it was always something that my parents used.

[00:03:27] So earlier, when there was no internet.

[00:03:30] They were always in New Zealand and bought drei travel guides so that they knew where they had to go, what was available and everything.

[00:03:37] But for me personally, that was never really an option, it was always too expensive,

[00:03:42] that I thought to myself, I'm not going to buy a guidebook for a week's vacation, am I?

[00:03:46] Especially then you have it in two years and then it's always up to date, that was always my thinking.

[00:03:51] Well, and maybe if you bought the guidebook separately,

[00:03:55] maybe you'll go again so that it pays off.

[00:03:57] Right, yes, maybe, yes. Although, no, not really, because you're not getting married twice,

[00:04:01] just because you bought a wedding dress once.

[00:04:04] Cool comparison. Well, since I work in the library, they have the guidebooks and I know that too,

[00:04:10] that in the summer I thought, yes, where am I going?

[00:04:13] And then, of course, I went to the shelves and thought, what appeals to me?

[00:04:16] What is there anyway? What's on display right now?

[00:04:18] So on display, a little background information, on display on the exhibitors between the shelves,

[00:04:24] are mostly the newer things, so they're maybe two years old at most,

[00:04:30] normally, sometimes there is something older, but we make sure that we keep it very up to date.

[00:04:35] Exactly, yes, and that's why I find the travel guides practical, because you don't have to buy them

[00:04:40] and you can have our travel guides for two months or drealmost i months

[00:04:45] and then you can also take them with you. So the basic lead time is four weeks, exactly,

[00:04:49] extend it twice, so then it's 12 weeks.

[00:04:52] Exactly, and then you can take them with you when you travel, of course you have to be careful,

[00:04:56] that you don't lose anything and don't damage the travel guides.

[00:04:58] And maybe don't go swimming with the tour guides, because we've just had a hearing

[00:05:02] of water damage to our media.

[00:05:04] Yes, that's right, please fall back on the air mattress, not on our travel guides.

[00:05:10] Exactly, but in principle it's very practical, but of course that might be an issue for many listeners now

[00:05:16] the question, what alternatives are there to the travel guide?

[00:05:19] So you have everything in one place, all the information at the same time

[00:05:23] and that's really cool, you can take it with you, it's handy

[00:05:27] and you also have a map drin, so it's great for getting around.

[00:05:30] Yes, but how handy is it really?

[00:05:32] Do you always carry drei, four books with you on vacation in your backpack, in your bag?

[00:05:38] Yes, but I study literature, so it's an occupational disease for me.

[00:05:42] So I can't travel without books.

[00:05:45] And now I can't travel without a travel guide because of my work here either, but what alternatives are there, Shelly?

[00:05:50] Where else can you get the information?

[00:05:53] Well, I personally like to look at social media.

[00:05:57] There are always hidden spots and hidden gems on Instagram with the reels or on TikTok.

[00:06:06] But then the question arises, so I was just in Rome.

[00:06:09] Then my travel companion told me how to get past his little food store,

[00:06:15] where you could buy something to eat, that was normal, certainly a queue of one kilometer back into the city.

[00:06:25] And he was like, that's probably some TikTok crap again.

[00:06:30] So how hidden are these gems then?

[00:06:34] Exactly, so of course you have the advantage of being able to see everything.

[00:06:38] So the things are often only described in the guidebook and then you really have to look at them

[00:06:42] or imagine what it's like.

[00:06:44] And on TikTok and Instagram, of course, you have the advantage that there's always the video

[00:06:49] and you know exactly where to go because people often show you how to get there.

[00:06:54] That's often very practical.

[00:06:55] And then you can see exactly what it looks like, what I'm getting myself into, what's really there.

[00:07:00] And the food is then really shown to you, so from that point of view it has many advantages, but as you say,

[00:07:05] it will be just as overcrowded as all the other tourist spots.

[00:07:09] And I think it takes a bit of the charm out of traveling, because when I read that in the travel guide,

[00:07:14] and it's described like this and then I imagine it like this and then I really want to see it.

[00:07:18] But if I have my TikTok open or my Reel, I don't know, then I can see exactly what it looks like.

[00:07:24] Then I don't have to go there anymore, so to speak.

[00:07:26] Yes, exactly, yes.

[00:07:27] Jacky, have you been on vacation this year?

[00:07:29] Exactly, I've already been on vacation this year, I was in London in March

[00:07:34] and it was the first time I really relied on these TikTok and Instagram spots when traveling,

[00:07:41] because I was traveling with two of my best friends and we have a group together on Instagram

[00:07:47] and we were always sending each other where we wanted to go.

[00:07:49] So we just saw these videos and we said, oh, that looks cool, I really want to go there

[00:07:52] to this museum and this restaurant and of course we didn't make it to half of it because we found so much.

[00:07:58] But it's cool to be able to share and to know, okay, where does the other person want to go, what are their interests?

[00:08:04] And then also in London, if we didn't know where we were going, we'd look in the group, we'd watch some video

[00:08:09] and were like, okay, cool, that would be nearby anyway, we can do that now.

[00:08:12] And that was very practical and so now we're in London because it's just such a hip, cool city,

[00:08:18] where there's so much on social media, so much reliance on social media.

[00:08:22] And I'm going to Naples in the summer, for example, and we've borrowed a travel guide in a funny way.

[00:08:30] So it was kind of like this for me, okay, Italy is kind of already, of course there's lots of stuff about Italy online,

[00:08:36] but we didn't get any suggestions for Naples on Instagram and that's why I had to look for it myself,

[00:08:41] because I don't get any suggestions and that's another disadvantage, because you can't influence what you get suggested on social media.

[00:08:46] That's true, you can't influence what's trending and you can't always follow the trends.

[00:08:51] In any case, otherwise we'd all be sitting in Bali right now.

[00:08:54] Yes, that's right.

[00:08:55] It's the same in Tokyo and Japan in general.

[00:08:58] Yes, that's right, yes.

[00:08:59] I was just on ZiB (Zeit im Bild), I just saw that there were more tourists than ever before Corona.

[00:09:04] Really?

[00:09:05] Contribution, yes.

[00:09:06] Boah zach.

[00:09:07] I was also impresseddruckt.

[00:09:08] Especially a friend of mine is also going to Japan.

[00:09:09] And I had so much fun with the other 7 million people who are in Japan now.

[00:09:12] Yeah, that's gonna be interesting, she'll have something to talk about.

[00:09:16] Yes, relaxed, yes.

[00:09:18] Yes, and do you notice a big difference now that you're traveling alone, because we young adults,

[00:09:27] we don't travel with our parents anymore, a difference to before, when we went on vacation with our parents?

[00:09:33] Yes, so you didn't have to worry about anything, that's fine of course.

[00:09:37] And it was also, I think it used to be much more relaxed, you had less Druck that you had to do everything,

[00:09:43] because you didn't always know what was available.

[00:09:46] And I felt that way when we were on vacation early and then we walked through the city

[00:09:50] and when we found a museum, we just went in.

[00:09:52] Or if it wasn't in the guidebook, we didn't find it otherwise.

[00:09:55] And then it was such a surprise and it was just much more relaxed traveling, I think, before.

[00:10:02] It was more of a discovery and not such a ticking off of...

[00:10:04] Exactly, exactly, yes.

[00:10:05] ...points and that you have on your list.

[00:10:07] You said that nicely, yes.

[00:10:08] Thank you.

[00:10:09] Because this discovery, this you don't actually know the place,

[00:10:13] and you just walk through the streets, stroll around and just see what you find,

[00:10:16] You don't really do that anymore.

[00:10:18] So you just have a lot of time in the place.

[00:10:20] But if I know okay, I only have four, five days, then I plan exactly, okay,

[00:10:24] there's the museum and then there's the café on the next street,

[00:10:28] which looked kind of cool and you kind of want to do a lot more on vacation now.

[00:10:32] And I do believe that social media has a lot to do with that.

[00:10:35] Yes, especially if you're also documenting and constantly posting stories and posts about where you are at the moment

[00:10:40] Exactly.

[00:10:41] And then you have to prove how great it is.

[00:10:44] Right, but it's actually totally stupid.

[00:10:47] So stupid, what does stupid mean?

[00:10:48] It kind of takes all the joy out of it, doesn't it?

[00:10:50] It's just like this... (gong rings in the background) the gong.

[00:10:54] Did you hear the gong now?

[00:10:56] It's eleven o'clock and everyone has to gather around, like not,

[00:10:59] because we're sitting in the chamber and recording.

[00:11:01] No, exactly, it was just earlier...

[00:11:05] I don't know if it used to be relaxed,

[00:11:07] just because the parents were there and you didn't have to worry about anything.

[00:11:09] That can also be the case, of course.

[00:11:11] But all the photo spots and everything that's available in the cities,

[00:11:14] You always want exactly the photo that everyone else has.

[00:11:17] That was really wild in London too.

[00:11:19] Big Ben and stuff like that.

[00:11:21] Just like that or London Bridge.

[00:11:23] Big Ben, everyone wanted the same photos.

[00:11:25] With these guards always in front of Buckingham Palace and stuff like that.

[00:11:27] I was also this Change of the Guards.

[00:11:29] And it was so crowded because everyone wanted to see the Guards.

[00:11:33] Which I understand in principle, but only because it's now huge on TikTok and so on...

[00:11:36] Yeah, it's just this mass tourism.

[00:11:38] And that was actually really frightening to see,

[00:11:41] that people are just so focused on this 'ticking off'.

[00:11:45] This "I have to prove that I've traveled well,

[00:11:48] that I have seen everything and that I have experienced a lotâ

[00:11:50] and no longer this "I'll stroll through a city and see what happens".

[00:11:54] That's already... that's pretty tough.

[00:11:57] And that's actually only done by the TikTokers, who then discover that

[00:12:00] and they stroll through the city for you.

[00:12:02] And then you have to follow them, so to speak.

[00:12:04] That's kind of the controversy dran.

[00:12:07] You actually get really brainwashed.

[00:12:09] So you're actually hardly able to travel on your own,

[00:12:12] without getting seven thousand onedrücke from another person,

[00:12:15] where you could go.

[00:12:17] So that's already...

[00:12:19] And you also go there with a certain bias.

[00:12:22] Exactly. And then if there's more going on that day and you don't see exactly that,

[00:12:25] what the person has seen on TikTok, then it's a wasted day.

[00:12:28] Exactly. Then you're a little disappointed.

[00:12:30] And maybe the weather wasn't so nice either, or they had some kind of filter draon.

[00:12:33] And then it was just extra nice or something.

[00:12:35] Yes, that's always a bit disappointing, of course.

[00:12:38] From that point of view, you're better off with the tour guides.

[00:12:41] Exactly. So I think there is a clear disadvantage with the tour guide,

[00:12:45] and that they simply have to be updated every few years.

[00:12:48] And it's difficult to just have the latest versions.

[00:12:53] Or just, financially or so as a private person

[00:12:56] I think it's extremely difficult to always have the latest travel guide for the country you want to go to.

[00:13:00] If you go to Italy every year or something like that,

[00:13:02] then you have to buy a new travel guide every drei, four years or something.

[00:13:06] Well, I think at some point you'll be the tour guide yourself,

[00:13:08] if you go to the same place every year.

[00:13:10] Well, not to the same place.

[00:13:12] Once northern Italy, southern Italy.

[00:13:14] Italy is, by the way, I think our biggest section of the guidebooks.

[00:13:20] So we have the most, I think, from Lake Garda.

[00:13:24] Garda, Garda, Garda.

[00:13:26] That's right, Lake Garda is always a big favorite with everyone.

[00:13:30] Exactly, so there are also a lot of disadvantages on both sides.

[00:13:34] So social media, as well as the travel guides, social media is always up to date,

[00:13:39] but because it's becoming more and more up-to-date, you have to travel with it more and more, so to speak.

[00:13:44] You have more leeway with the travel guides, I'd say.

[00:13:47] Maybe it's not quite as fast-moving.

[00:13:49] Well, yes, that's just it, you have to sit down, you have to take your time, you have to read through it,

[00:13:53] then you have to think about, okay, where is this, how do I get there?

[00:13:55] So that's kind of again, it's not quite that experience, like we said,

[00:13:59] strolling through the city, but more casual, kind of a little bit.

[00:14:02] Because I mean, they're maybe a bit clunky to carry around sometimes

[00:14:05] and a bit heavy and stuff like that, but you kind of put up with that,

[00:14:08] if you take a guidebook with you.

[00:14:10] Above all, you can, there are so many types of travel guides,

[00:14:13] We have a lot of different publishers, some are really thick,

[00:14:18] the others are very thin, City Trips, for example, are very thin,

[00:14:21] then the Dumont things are real gems, some of them.

[00:14:25] You can also prepare yourself for the trip, you can read the big ones and then take them with you

[00:14:30] Just the little ones, the thins.

[00:14:32] But what I still find funny is that there are still maps,

[00:14:35] really in the guidebooks. I think that's cool.

[00:14:37] I think that's so sweet.

[00:14:39] I've never really used a map in my life.

[00:14:41] No, I mean, I think it's totally retro.

[00:14:43] I grew up with Google Maps and you just type it in, but then you get the route with a map like that

[00:14:47] You really have to look at where I am and what street I'm on.

[00:14:50] I can't read maps,

[00:14:52] My mom can do that. My mom is also so proud of herself that she can.

[00:14:57] And that's why she always packs extra maps when we go somewhere.

[00:15:01] Because she says, well, I can do that with the maps and the signs.

[00:15:05] How do I hold the map, that's...

[00:15:09] Yes, Gen-Z problems.

[00:15:11] That's really crazy. So you don't relate to map reading at all anymore.

[00:15:15] So if I don't have Google Maps, then I'm actually completely lost when traveling.

[00:15:20] So I need help from my cell phone, despite the travel guide,

[00:15:24] because otherwise I would get lost.

[00:15:26] That's where the TikToks come in handy, where we're told where to go.

[00:15:30] But that's still, you just have to start right at that point,

[00:15:34] Eh, Eh.

[00:15:36] But it's usually like that when it's the hidden gems,

[00:15:38] It's usually like this when you start at the Trevi Fountain in Rome

in Rome,

[00:15:41] then they show exactly these alleys, you find the Trevi Fountain somehow, then they all run there.

[00:15:45] And then you just have to take these alleys where the TikTokers show it.

[00:15:48] And then you just follow them and you have advantages and disadvantages.

[00:15:53] But there's something about reading books in general,

[00:15:57] that you don't have to experience something yourself,

[00:15:59] but you experience it through another person.

[00:16:01] You just follow them through their journey.

[00:16:04] And if you don't have a lot of time or money right now and you think to yourself,

[00:16:07] "Barcelona would be cool", then you just watch all the TikToks about it.

[00:16:11] Can you still remember when YouTube was still a thing?

[00:16:15] Do you still watch YouTube?

[00:16:16] Yes, a few times yes.

[00:16:17] Yes, I do.

[00:16:18] I have two, dreI still watch yes

[00:16:19] Really, I don't.

[00:16:20] Anyway, you used to have your favorite YouTubers.

[00:16:24] And they used to go on these awesome vacations, like the Maldives and I don't know.

[00:16:28] Dubai, there were suddenly a lot of them.

[00:16:30] Yes, that was a big trend, twelve years ago or so.

[00:16:32] Yes, and she always gave these follow-me-arounds.

[00:16:35] Yeah, they were so cool.

[00:16:37] Those were usually always the longest videos.

[00:16:39] I'm sure they always went on for half an hour, drea quarter of an hour.

[00:16:42] And you really sat in front of them.

[00:16:44] You in your little room, I don't know, in Innsbruck they still do that

[00:16:49] Yeah, and afterwards you thought, boah, that was cool.

[00:16:53] You really experienced it somehow.

[00:16:54] Yeah, that was cool.

[00:16:55] It was almost like a travelogue.

[00:16:57] Yes, it was a bit like going through these streets from their perspective.

[00:17:01] And then you saw where they go to eat, what they do.

[00:17:03] And that was really cool before.

[00:17:06] And then you actually felt really relaxed, somehow.

[00:17:09] It wasn't like a little vacation from the house.

[00:17:11] Yeah, they were really cool too.

[00:17:14] I forgot that they're not there anymore...

[00:17:16] Now there are just the daily vlogs where they show the one day,

[00:17:19] but that's not the same.

[00:17:21] No, it's not so artificial now either.

[00:17:24] They also check off what the others have done.

[00:17:28] But it used to be...

[00:17:30] You still have these, where they take what they're doing with them on vacation.

[00:17:35] But then they're compressed into two, drei minutes for TikTok and reels.

[00:17:39] I can't switch off like that now.

[00:17:42] Here comes the next one.

[00:17:43] It would be really interesting to know if all these travel influencers use travel guides themselves.

[00:17:48] Should we write to them?

[00:17:50] That would be cool to know if they use...

[00:17:53] ...pick out these spots

[00:17:55] ...plan with a travel guide.

[00:17:59] Traveling in a VW bus like that

[00:18:01] I think they just call their influencer friends and ask, what did you do, how did you get there?

[00:18:06] Last year, we're going this year.

[00:18:08] That can also be, my romantic idea is that you actively travel with travel guides.

[00:18:15] Well, I think the travel department is quite a best-seller for us, isn't it?

[00:18:21] Yes, especially in non-fiction, I think so.

[00:18:25] The empty shelves speak for themselves?

[00:18:27] They do, yes.

[00:18:28] And you can see that a lot of young people are always scurrying around between the shelves and looking.

[00:18:33] And there are still a lot of

[00:18:35] people also like to get advice at our information desk.

[00:18:37] Come here: yes, do you have a travel guide to there and there?

[00:18:40] And you also have to make sure that the travel guides are always updated.

[00:18:45] And also many travel guides, so I had one from Naples once, he also marked photo spots and so on.

[00:18:51] Where they just said "Okay, that's cool." Doesn't that speak in favor of it?

[00:18:55] So that's what they're oriented towards...

[00:18:57] Exactly, they go along with it.

[00:18:58] They're already going along.

[00:18:59] They're not stupid.

[00:19:01] So theoretically, the tour guide is perhaps better after all, because he brings everything together, again.

[00:19:06] That's right.

[00:19:07] That's difficult.

[00:19:08] I like mag him the tour guide.

[00:19:12] You just like to have it in your hand, that's a bit of a nostalgic feeling.

[00:19:16] Because it's just a book and we love books, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting there.

[00:19:20] That's true again.

[00:19:21] Traveling is nice, isn't it?

[00:19:24] No, I'm looking forward to the summer too.

[00:19:25] It doesn't matter whether it's with a travel guide, with the internet or whether I'm just tailgating with my travel companion.

[00:19:31] Yes exactly, there are also those who have nothing and just go along for the ride.

[00:19:34] Yes, riding along is always great.

[00:19:36] Now, of course, we'd like to know how you travel.

[00:19:40] So we've actually talked about our traveling habits.

[00:19:44] Have you been on vacation this year or are you still going and where did you go or where are you going?

[00:19:51] And of course we're also interested in how you prepare for these trips.

[00:19:55] And you are welcome to visit us on Instagram at @stadtbibliothek.insbruck.

[00:20:03] At the same time as this podcast episode, there's a poll online where you can vote.

[00:20:10] And you can also vote on how many guidebooks you think we have in the library

[00:20:16] and you can suggest which countries you would like to see more travel guides from.

[00:20:22] Under the hashtag #gemeinsambesser.

[00:20:24] Exactly, and in this context we would also like to say goodbye to Christina...

[00:20:30] Well, what a farewell, we want to say thank you.

[00:20:33] God, please cut it out.

[00:20:35] Everything is drin

[00:20:37] Towards the end, I can't talk anymore.

[00:20:40] Okay, focus.

[00:20:42] In the train, well, what kind of train, how do we talk about train?

[00:20:46] Exactly, at the end we wanted to thank Christina and Pia again for allowing this friendly takeover.

[00:20:54] It was a lot of fun for us.

[00:20:56] And right, I would also like to point out that you are welcome to write suggestions for further podcast episodes at post.stadtbibliothek@insbruck.gv.at.

[00:21:05] And we always look forward to feedback and you can also do that via Instagram or Facebook or via email.

[00:21:14] Then it's just up to us to say thank you for listening.

[00:21:19] We look forward to the next time and happy traveling in the summer.

[00:21:24] [Music]

[00:21:49] SâVorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the City of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:07] Hello and welcome to the preface of the Innsbruck City Library podcast.

[00:00:26] I am Pia and I am Christina.

[00:00:28] And my name is Markus.

[00:00:29] Exactly, we have a special guest supporting us today.

[00:00:33] It's about sensitivity readers and we're weighing up the pros and cons here.

[00:00:39] We're trying out a new format today.

[00:00:41] In other words, because the topic is controversial, Christina is taking the pro side of the debate.

[00:00:46] And then Markus takes the contra side.

[00:00:48] That doesn't mean, of course, that you don't have a different opinion.

[00:00:52] But for the format, we thought about it this way.

[00:00:55] So we're not having a discussion in the traditional sense, we just want to contrast the two points of view.

[00:01:02] And you listeners can then of course decide for yourselves.

[00:01:06] And you can also let us know under the hashtag #GemeinsamBesser.

[00:01:11] But we'll explain that again at the end.

[00:01:15] First of all, what are sensitivity readers anyway?

[00:01:19] I picked out a neutral definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

[00:01:24] A sensitivity reader is someone who reads documents, books and so on to check,

[00:01:30] that they contain nothing that could upset or offend the reader.

[00:01:35] Especially before they are published.

[00:01:37] And that's where my first question comes in.

[00:01:40] When did you first come across the topic and what was your first reaction drato it?

[00:01:44] Christina, go ahead.

[00:01:46] I can't remember exactly,

[00:01:50] when I came across the topic.

[00:01:52] To be honest, it's been about seven years, I would say, over the last seven years.

[00:01:59] When there was also the internet-induced cultural shift.

[00:02:04] So then it also arrived in the publishing industry at some point and then at some point the word came up.

[00:02:10] And I'm not very familiar with it either,

[00:02:17] because it's just something that happens a lot behind the scenes.

[00:02:23] And then what is what except in the media, where it's discussed a lot,

[00:02:30] actually doesn't affect me that much at first?

[00:02:34] I would also say seven, eight years, maybe a bit before that,

[00:02:40] I have in connection with youth literature in America,

[00:02:47] I heard these terms for the first time, sensitivity reading or trigger warnings.

[00:02:53] And I thought to myself at the time, this is probably a new trend that's starting here.

[00:03:02] And at that time I already included the, let's say, skeptical reaction,

[00:03:10] because I thought that trends that are born in America will also end up here.

[00:03:18] That has to do with the fact that we usually have a certain collective-psychological-devout attitude

[00:03:25] towards America when it comes to trends, so that we can also be part of this trend,

[00:03:31] so that we can feel like we belong, because apparently we hardly have one ourselves,

[00:03:40] how should I put it, a collective-psychological identity that makes self-confident decisions here.

[00:03:49] And I was already thinking at the time, it's like you said, it started in the old social media discourse

[00:03:59] with all the compartmentalized bubbles and hashtags and stuff.

[00:04:04] But I thought to myself, that sounds like it's going to develop into something,

[00:04:10] which I personally don't think is very positive.

[00:04:15] So in terms of the timeline, you're absolutely right.

[00:04:18] The trend started around 2015 and young adult.

[00:04:24] Where the trend towards more diversity was also just emerging.

[00:04:28] So that you get a feeling for what kind of books are being changed,

[00:04:32] I wanted to give an example.

[00:04:34] The example I chose is Blood Air, Heart of Blood and Ashes by Amélie Wen Zhao.

[00:04:42] The story takes place in a fictional empire with an enslaved underclass called Affenites.

[00:04:48] The protagonist is a princess and lives in hiding because she has a resemblance to these Affenites.

[00:04:54] And that's where the action starts.

[00:04:57] And this is where the criticism came from early readers, who saw a disturbing similarity in the book

[00:05:03] with American slavery and the underdrücking of black people.

[00:05:08] Wen Zhao himself grew up in Beijing and said at the time,

[00:05:13] that she was actually trying to relate to debt or indentured servitude and human trafficking in Asia.

[00:05:22] And the author stopped the publication anyway.

[00:05:26] And then Sensitivity Reader took on this book and only then was the book published.

[00:05:33] By the way, we also have the book in the library as a book and as an e-book, for those who are interested.

[00:05:39] So in this case, they were the readers who were decisive for the use of Sensitivity Reader.

[00:05:45] And so my first question, my first big question.

[00:05:48] What are the advantages and disadvantages of sensitivity readers from the reader's point of view?

[00:05:53] Markus, maybe you'll start this time?

[00:05:55] I believe that this is always about a fundamental premise,

[00:06:04] this just society, the colorful, diverse society.

[00:06:08] And the aim is to prevent possible injuries and possible grief for marginalized groups.

[00:06:19] Now I personally can have a say in this, not just as a reader, but also as a reader.

[00:06:27] I am a homosexual man with 47 years of life experience and what I dislike about this development is,

[00:06:37] the stigmatization of people in marginalized groups as cemented victims, as weak.

[00:06:45] If I as a reader, as you have now asked, if I as a reader now as a gay reader would like a novel story about a,

[00:06:54] I don't know, a gay love story or a coming out story

[00:06:59] and want to know how the author realizes this in his or her creative vision,

[00:07:06] then a sensitivity reader comes along as an intermediate instance,

[00:07:11] wants to do this because of his or her homosexuality, not his or her literary skills,

[00:07:21] but above all his homosexuality, to check whether there are stereotypes here,

[00:07:27] whether there are possible violations here, and what happens is that he denies me,

[00:07:34] my own intelligence to be able to decide for myself whether I perceive something as stereotyping or not.

[00:07:43] And for me as a reader, that is already a mockery of my intelligence and therefore also a personal attack.

[00:07:51] Christina?

[00:07:53] So from a reader's point of view, I think there is in particular, so to differentiate again,

[00:08:03] we're talking about sensitivity readers, in this context I think of those who, in this case the example,

[00:08:11] that you've just mentioned, were brought in again after publication for PR reasons.

[00:08:18] So it was already before the publication, it was earlier readers who test-read it and then this backlash came.

[00:08:25] Similar to the movie, there were tests, you see, of course it's always a market and the market bends to the rules.

[00:08:34] But for me, as I understand Sensitivity Reader in a positive sense, is before the creation of the work.

[00:08:43] And that is, Markus, you gave the example of a gay author weaving his experiences into his novel,

[00:08:51] which is probably often not the moment when someone as an author has the feeling,

[00:09:00] perhaps needing a sensitivity reader or a reader, which is of course a word with negative connotations or wanting to have.

[00:09:11] It goes like this, so an example that works very well for me would be, for example, as a white woman,

[00:09:19] I don't know anything about black grooming. However, it's just a process, you need different combs,

[00:09:27] you need different products, if I imagine now that I as an author, I know we're talking from the reader's point of view, I'll come straight to dra,

[00:09:35] want to write about a black woman, but I just don't know, then I see that as part of the research,

[00:09:43] when I read it as a white reader, I learn something, even if it doesn't matter what skin color the author has,

[00:09:56] if that's culturally sensitive in this case, in the case of touching little things,

[00:10:03] I appreciate that as a white reader and now from my experience as a woman.

[00:10:07] I'm socialized with books written by male authors.

[00:10:13] In my reading socialization, female authorship came much later

[00:10:20] and I now recognize myself much more in these themes and there are male authors who write incredibly sensitively and well as women.

[00:10:32] As a reader, I don't care whether someone has used a sensitivity reader or not,

[00:10:37] but I always appreciate it when it's treated with respect

[00:10:42] and I appreciate it when someone goes that extra step to make sure when you don't trust yourself to do it.

[00:10:49] So for you, it's a bit about reality and making sure that it's really accurate.

[00:10:54] Partly yes.

[00:10:55] Okay, so we have very interesting different opinions.

[00:10:59] Of course, not only newer books are viewed by sensitivity readers, but also older ones.

[00:11:05] The James Bond series by Ian Fleming, for example, was republished in 2023.

[00:11:11] Racist insults and disparagement of women and homosexuality were removed from the texts.

[00:11:18] At the beginning, at some point, there is information that the text has been changed and that efforts have been made to stay as close as possible to the original.

[00:11:25] It was similar from the publisher Puffin Books,

[00:11:28] This is a subgroup of Penguin Books for Roald Dahl's children's books.

[00:11:33] But they were very heavily criticized for that because of the alteration of the texts

[00:11:37] so harshly that they are now publishing both versions, which means more money for the publisher.

[00:11:43] Now the original texts and the modified texts are published.

[00:11:48] The original texts were then resold under the series "The Roald Dahl Classic Collection".

[00:11:53] The same thing happened with the new Agatha Christie editions.

[00:11:59] In particular, racist material fromdrücke was removed.

[00:12:03] Here I also have a specific example from Death on the Nile, where a character complains about children.

[00:12:11] So she says, "They come back and stare and stare.

[00:12:15] And their eyes are just disgusting and so are their noses.

[00:12:19] And I don't think I really like children mag.

[00:12:22] This was then reduced in the new edition.

[00:12:25] Here she just says: "They come back and stare and stare.

[00:12:29] And I don't think I really want children mag.

[00:12:32] And behind such changes, of course, is the publisher who employs sensitivity readers and who wants to republish the books.

[00:12:39] So my question now is, what are the advantages and disadvantages of sensitivity readers for publishers?

[00:12:45] Christina.

[00:12:47] Yes, so publishers are always both.

[00:12:51] And it's also the paradox of the book.

[00:12:54] Literature is so much art and creativity, but it's also an object for sale.

[00:13:02] Publishers live from what they sell.

[00:13:07] Culturally, it's at the moment, so we're talking about wokeism,

[00:13:11] We're talking about the fact that there's this left-liberal shift,

[00:13:18] Markus, you've already mentioned it, has come from America,

[00:13:21] that it is now really tending towards the extreme and that it is a new censorship.

[00:13:31] And as a responsible editor, as a responsible editor, I have to be aware of my social and cultural environment.

[00:13:41] And if art is important to me, then I will think about how I deal with it.

[00:13:50] For example, a sensitivity reader could also criticize it,

[00:13:57] when they discover racism, so another example now is from Mark Twain, that was 19th century.

[00:14:08] You could also do that in a preface or epilogue or in a glossary

[00:14:13] or even publish an annotated edition, which is quite common in literature with footnotes.

[00:14:19] However, and this is the art side of it, the marketing and money side of it is of course,

[00:14:29] as you said in the introduction, Pia, the more mass appeal a product has, the better.

[00:14:37] And that's where you have to make a strong distinction. So I see sensitivity readers as a tool,

[00:14:46] in the toolbox, if I may quote Steven King, of the author.

[00:14:53] And I also understand that large groups that are simply socially marginalized and have been in the past.

[00:15:05] We simply live in the age of turbo-capitalism and participation in our form of society means,

[00:15:18] being able to buy these things and see yourself in them.

[00:15:22] And from that point of view, I can understand that, but in this particular case, as a literary scholar, I also stand by it

[00:15:31] simply very cautious about it. I think it's good to have both variants.

[00:15:37] A publisher brings it out, they can then bring out something else and you can choose what you want.

[00:15:44] Yes, that's an important dimension of why I've taken such a defensive stance on this topic.

[00:15:54] I also say that as a writer. I've published several books among them, including some novels.

[00:16:05] That means I have a certain insight behind the scenes of the story.

[00:16:09] I believe, as you said earlier, that it started behind the scenes and is now happening in front of the scenes drängt.

[00:16:19] Like you said earlier, Pia with the publishers and the profit or like you said Christina,

[00:16:25] with turbo-capitalism, the ideal that drives us all here in this debate,

[00:16:34] whether on the part of the sensitivity readers or on the part of the publishers, there has to be a question of credibility.

[00:16:45] If someone tells me that a publisher is doing this, all these things, because they want a just society,

[00:16:54] I say to them quite blatantly, that's a brilliant naivety to believe that.

[00:17:01] I also believe that you shouldn't underestimate it, even on the part of sensitivity readers,

[00:17:08] one facet that I think is beingdrängt in the debate itself, and that is the Nazi feed.

[00:17:18] It's this commitment that we all have to this inclusive society, diverse society,

[00:17:25] colorful society, is also a Nazi feed.

[00:17:28] You can also see that in the bubble mentality of social media, where you get confirmation,

[00:17:35] a lot of affirmation, how great you're standing up for a just society.

[00:17:40] I believe that this factor is stronger than we think.

[00:17:45] And I have holes in the past with this point in particular, as you said, that should be changed,

[00:17:54] because the profit should also fit for the publishers.

[00:17:57] There is a basic attitude at work here that means

[00:18:12] that the evil past should be an image,

[00:18:10] of our great present.

[00:18:12] We're supposed to create a kind of template, so to speak, by creating books of the past

[00:18:20] according to the idea of how we see a perfect utopia.

[00:18:27] And I personally, as a reasonably adult, politically aware person,

[00:18:33] don't see where the present is so perfect.

[00:18:37] And that's a fundamentally arrogant attitude that I can't get behind at all.

[00:18:44] And that's why, in my opinion, the so-called credibility behind this trend is also divorced.

[00:18:53] Then I would like to respond to that.

[00:18:57] What's new, which didn't exist to this extent before, is the fact,

[00:19:05] that we can reproduce old works for the masses, that they remain alive,

[00:19:11] because we have the means to reproduce them.

[00:19:16] So we have the means to preserve them and they have been written down, filmed.

[00:19:22] That's why there are archives.

[00:19:25] And that was the case, I'm not an expert, but 200, 300 years ago.

[00:19:33] So if you think of it as the Middle Ages, then a small part of the population can read at all,

[00:19:39] That's what I mean.

[00:19:41] And that was gatekeeping, was the monks.

[00:19:44] Now we have more information available to us than ever before.

[00:19:49] And it's pouring in on us like an eight-lane highway.

[00:19:53] And I think part of this sensitivity reader debate is also an attempt to filter.

[00:20:02] But also, and I believe this from the bottom of my heart, words make reality.

[00:20:12] And when I, as a very young child, read a book by whoever, even if it's a children's book.

[00:20:18] And I'm decidedly discriminated against and excluded, then maybe my parents say,

[00:20:25] then you don't read it at all, but then I'm still excluded from our culture, from culture and society,

[00:20:32] which is actually also mine.

[00:20:34] So this drive, precisely because it is always reproduced.

[00:20:38] And because we drag things that weren't meant for today into today.

[00:20:43] How do you deal with that?

[00:20:46] But I, as I said, this sensitivity reader in retrospect is a completely different debate, I think.

[00:20:53] I think that I also see this danger that you're describing.

[00:21:00] But I see an additional dimension that complicates the whole thing.

[00:21:05] By relying on this, we also ignore those voices in literature that have already achieved this precisely because of their literary ability.

[00:21:22] It always strikes me when it comes to POC literature.

[00:21:27] People with a different skin color, the topic of racism.

[00:21:30] I have a doctorate in American literature and cultural studies and have read through the entire history of American literature, so to speak,

[00:21:40] partly out of obligation to pass an exam, partly out of great pleasure.

[00:21:45] And if we take that, for example, I think this year was 250 years of Phillis Wheatley, a volume of poetry by a slave woman.

[00:21:58] That was before the Declaration of Independence.

[00:22:01] Has this volume of poetry been published.

[00:22:04] And has also been received worldwide.

[00:22:06] That was 250 years ago.

[00:22:09] The first novels by African-American writers in the 19th century,

[00:22:16] W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist who wrote books at the end of the 19th century,

[00:22:22] which later became a basis for the civil rights movement.

[00:22:27] That was James Baldwin in the 1950s, who I adored madly.

[00:22:32] As a gay, black author, he wrote a novel, like "Giovanni's Room

[00:22:38] and there he wrote about a gay man who was white, by the way.

[00:22:42] Toni Morrison, who was inspired by him and won the Nobel Prize,

[00:22:47] one of the most deserving Nobel Prizes in the history of the Nobel Prize,

[00:22:51] the Toni Morrison-inspired Jasmine Ward, a younger generation.

[00:22:57] It's always a bit pretended for me that none of this exists.

[00:23:01] The same in LGBT literature.

[00:23:03] But Markus, I have to interject here.

[00:23:05] That has nothing to do with the topic of sensitivity readers in that sense.

[00:23:08] That's still, I think, don't you agree?

[00:23:11] another issue or the resurgence of marginalized voices,

[00:23:17] that didn't have that voice in literature in their time or weren't reproduced.

[00:23:22] But if you assume that those voices don't exist, then you ignore- But you assume.

[00:23:27] But that's very often the case in this debate.

[00:23:32] I would say, Pia, that you, because I don't think we'll get back to the rows, we don't want that.

[00:23:40] But then we're already at the authors, because you've already mentioned some authors.

[00:23:45] Now, after the readers and the publishers, we're still missing the authors,

[00:23:49] They are very divided when it comes to this topic.

[00:23:53] Some are for it, some are against it.

[00:23:55] The Guardian has collected some points of view after the Roald Dahl controversy

[00:24:00] and I'm just going to introduce that.

[00:24:03] We have Philip Pullman, for example, who you know from the Golden Compass series.

[00:24:08] He says if it offends us, they'll take it out of the book.

[00:24:12] What are they going to do about it? All those words are still there.

[00:24:15] Are you going to collect all the books and cross them out with a thick, black pen?

[00:24:20] Read Phil Earle, SF Said, Frances Hardinge, Michael Morpurgo,

[00:24:26] Malorie Blackman, read Mini Grey, Helen Cooper, Jacqueline Wilson, Beverley Naidoo.

[00:24:31] Read all these wonderful women writers who are writing today and not getting as much attention,

[00:24:35] because the massive commercial appeal of people like Roald Dahl is so great.

[00:24:40] Then we have Margaret Atwood, who many people know from the âReport of Magdâ for example.

[00:24:45] Wonderful book.

[00:24:47] "Good luck with Roald Dahl, they'll have to replace the whole book if they want everything to be nice.

[00:24:52] But that started a long time ago, it was the disnification of fairy tales.

[00:24:56] How do I feel about that? I side with Chance who says, if you don't like this story,

[00:25:03] turn around and read something else

[00:25:05] Then we have Irvine Welsh, who you know from the cult classic Trainspotting.

[00:25:12] He's writing The Long Knives in 2022, which is about transgender issues, among other things.

[00:25:18] And he wrote on Twitter about Sensitivity Reader, "I was very dismissive at first and considered it censorship.

[00:25:24] However, my experience with the Transreader was an extremely positive one.

[00:25:28] The reader supported what I was trying to do in a very balanced, thoughtful and informative way.

[00:25:33] And it made the book infinitely better.

[00:25:36] I found it a positive experience.

[00:25:37] Certainly there was none of the kind of backstabbing that you see from all sides of the debate here

[00:25:45] And then finally Salman Rushdie, you know him from the satanic verses.

[00:25:49] He doesn't call Dahl an angel and says of him that he is a self-identifying anti-Semite with pronounced racist tendencies.

[00:25:57] However, Rushdie wrote about the editing of Dahl's books, so he described that as absurd censorship.

[00:26:04] And on Twitter he wrote that Puffin and the estate of the late Car should be ashamed.

[00:26:10] So more of a negative view of the whole thing.

[00:26:13] Exactly, so then we're already with the authors and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these sensitivity readers from the author's point of view?

[00:26:20] Markus, because you're an author yourself, maybe you'll start?

[00:26:23] I had a brief discussion with my publisher about this topic.

[00:26:30] And he is of the opinion that constructive criticism is always important.

[00:26:37] And that's also a bit in your line of reasoning.

[00:26:41] But he also has a certain skepticism when a fundamental moral imperative takes over literature.

[00:26:50] Because literature is supposed to touch and we are often touched negatively in life.

[00:26:59] I can subscribe to Margaret Atwood's quote when something touches me negatively, when something upsets me,

[00:27:11] then I say, okay, I don't like it, I put it aside and read something else.

[00:27:17] And so, based on my decision, I can change my consumption of literature,

[00:27:26] to perish the capitalist concept myself.

[00:27:31] The fundamental problem for me, and this comes out in some of these points of view,

[00:27:38] is that literature should tell the world as it has to be, as it should be

[00:27:46] and not as it is.

[00:27:48] And then, despite all the ideals, at some point it becomes difficult not to speak of censorship.

[00:27:56] It's a certain cleanliness fetish that always gets out of hand here,

[00:28:02] not only more behind the scenes, but also in front of the scenes, which is stencilling literature more and more dro.

[00:28:11] And here I would say, as a literary scholar, as a literary mediator and also as a writer,

[00:28:20] that is no longer literature as I experience it or would like to experience it.

[00:28:25] And above all, it is andruundermining of the freedom of art.

[00:28:32] And that is a quintessential pillar of democracy.

[00:28:37] And according to that, the danger for me is ultimately the development that undermines democracy,

[00:28:43] of a democracy-destroying trend.

[00:28:46] Christina?

[00:28:48] My onedruck is that the word sensitivity reader is used inflationarily in the media,

[00:28:56] like the airplane phenomenon.

[00:28:58] You know, when there's a plane crash, the media reports it.

[00:29:03] It's a human, psychological phenomenon about many more plane crashes.

[00:29:09] And you get the feeling that it's everywhere and it's getting out of hand.

[00:29:12] There are two sides to the sensitivity reader debate for me, as I said.

[00:29:18] We now have especially the side after, the book is draopen, it's in the world.

[00:29:25] And then it's censored.

[00:29:28] And that is censorship, and I completely agree with you, Markus,

[00:29:32] is not something we want in the media or in art, which is what sensitivity readers are.

[00:29:38] And that's why I think that sensitivity readers are just as justified as editors in a publishing house.

[00:29:46] They take on a text on request.

[00:29:52] And please let's not forget that the literary industry is white.

[00:29:59] The publishers are predominantly white and these are white privileged people.

[00:30:05] It used to be white privileged men, now it's more women,

[00:30:10] but it's just, those voices are still the biggest voices.

[00:30:15] When people of color, which is also a phenomenon right now, write books today,

[00:30:21] then they are published above all when they write from their own experience.

[00:30:28] White people can theoretically write whatever they want, especially men.

[00:30:35] The debate that has arisen in the last seven years is a counter-current, one that has in part degenerated too far,

[00:30:48] a countercurrent to the fact that there are simply voices that are not being heard.

[00:30:55] And if, as a white author, you try to do this,

[00:31:03] to populate their books with other voices, but they feel insecure,

[00:31:11] because you don't know anything about the culture, then it's a very honorable and, in my opinion, fundamentally very humble attitude to say, I don't know that.

[00:31:24] I do my research, you can write about anything as an author, you should write about anything as an author,

[00:31:30] be cheeky and be shocking and write against the cultural trend,

[00:31:38] that's why literature and great world literature has always done that, has always written against the trend.

[00:31:43] Madame Bovary was unthinkable and so on.

[00:31:47] But maybe it's a good thing if you're aware that you have privileges, that your voice is heard,

[00:31:55] and that you then try to be respectful of the characters that you create, to portray them as realistically as possible.

[00:32:07] And then when there's a paragraph in your book about how your black protagonist does her hair,

[00:32:17] then for me as a reader it's a sign of respect and as an author it's a sign of "I did my due diligence".

[00:32:25] I did my research, sensitivity readers are one tool of many,

[00:32:31] and your editor looks again drüover and then the last point I want to make is why I understand that from the author's point of view.

[00:32:42] This is probably your intimate baby, you put it on paper and then you put it out into the world.

[00:32:53] When it's draopen, it no longer belongs to you, then it belongs to us and the readers.

[00:33:04] And we can then do what we want with the text. But that shouldn't change anything, at best nothing about it.

[00:33:11] That you still have the freedom as an author to write what you want.

[00:33:18] If you then get a backlash, you're just yourself - that's what you bear.

[00:33:24] My publisher has also said that it is only ever decided in consultation with authors whether sensitivity readers are consulted.

[00:33:36] I have a novel in the works that will be finished soon and I told them from the outset that I would definitely not be working with sensitivity readers.

[00:33:45] And very briefly now to Roland Barthes, I also know him a little, âand then it belongs to the others.

[00:33:52] And then when the backlash comesâ, I believe that it comes from both sides, from the one you argued, or from me,

[00:33:59] one aspect in particular that is neglected a little bit is the aspect of fear.

[00:34:06] And this fear that the publisher has of getting a shitstorm and losing profit.

[00:34:11] This fear that the author writes something that could hurt someone else.

[00:34:16] Fear is not a good advisor, is my conclusion.

[00:34:21] In any case, we have now seen very different perspectives on sensitivity readers.

[00:34:27] But the current status can change very quickly.

[00:34:31] The literary industry is generally very quick to change.

[00:34:35] We don't know how it will develop, Sensitivity Reader could disappear completely or it could expand more.

[00:34:43] We don't know all that, so we'll look at that again.

[00:34:46] We can have this debate again in a few years.

[00:34:48] The episode was definitely an interesting look in both directions for me.

[00:34:52] Thanks to Markus for taking the time.

[00:34:55] Thank you for the invitation.

[00:34:56] And thanks to you listeners for listening in.

[00:34:59] Now we're looking forward to your reactions.

[00:35:02] Do you think of sensitivity readers?

[00:35:04] Is the trend something positive or negative for you?

[00:35:07] Send us your opinions by email to post.stadtbibliothek@insbruck.gv.at

[00:35:14] or on Facebook or Instagram via www.stadtbibliothek.insbruck

[00:35:18] and always together with the #TogetherBetter.

[00:35:21] Thanks for listening and see you next time.

[00:35:23] Markus, it was a pleasure to exchange opinions with you.

[00:35:27] Super interesting.

[00:35:28] Right back at you.

[00:35:29] Thank you.

[00:35:30] Bye.

[00:35:31] [Music]

[00:35:54] SâVorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:36:00] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:07] Well, the philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann has already accused the so-called "round leather" of a certain literary incompetence

[00:00:29] imputed to it. Nevertheless, today we ask ourselves the question: "Why do we actually like football literature?"

[00:00:36] And welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library. My name is Christina -

[00:00:43] and I'm Pia - and today we have a very special guest, namely Lukas, our dear colleague.

[00:00:50] Hello Lukas. Thank you for taking the time to record with us today. Lukas, unlike me,

[00:00:57] have you ever watched soccer, right? Once or twice. Lukas underplays massively.

[00:01:05] And we're just glad he's here now, because Pia, how about you? How big is your soccer fan level?

[00:01:13] In the minus range. I just looked up some football literature and one of them is the "Swallow King",

[00:01:21] I think it's called and I had to look up again what a swallow is because I have no idea about football.

[00:01:26] Lukas, what is a swallow?

[00:01:28] A foul is when a player acts out a foul, so to speak, so there was no foul, he lets himself fall.

[00:01:39] I love that.

[00:01:41] It's one of the great things about football because it evokes so much emotion on both sides, mostly negative.

[00:01:48] I have a little bit of... First of all, the episode goes online on July 18th, that's Thursday, when is the European Championship final?

[00:02:00] On the 14th, so it goes online after the final.

[00:02:03] Okay, that means we already know who the world... Who is what?

[00:02:08] European champion.

[00:02:14] We knew that - in the final, I was just discussing it.

[00:02:19] Well saved, yes.

[00:02:21] And who's playing?

[00:02:26] Spain against England.

[00:02:28] Okay, and dare we say who we think will win?

[00:02:33] You can always dare to do that and afterwards you can always find an excuse why it didn't happen.

[00:02:41] Exactly, you can edit it anyway, so for example someone has a swallow, you can just ... "England" and then talk drüabout it.

[00:02:52] So in principle it's always the referee's fault, no matter what happens, it's never down to a lack of expertise, it's the referee, bad pitch, whatever, there's always an excuse.

[00:03:04] Is there such a thing as bad turf in football?

[00:03:08] Yes, I think that was also a topic at the European Championships in Frankfurt, that the pitch was criticized a lot, mostly by the team that lost.

[00:03:18] Because it's slippery, or ...? - Because it's "out of round" and the ball bounces because of that, bounces the wrong way.

[00:03:25] Yes, but that was already a reason to complain afterwards, so I think it's appropriate now.

[00:03:30] Yes, definitely, so the losing team always thinks that.

[00:03:35] Strangely enough.

[00:03:37] Yes, but imagine if your goal is on the top of the slope.

[00:03:46] How do you imagine soccer?

[00:03:50] But there's always a change of sides.

[00:03:52] Yes, that's right, then it's fair again.

[00:03:56] Football also has a history. It's not so easy to find information about it in the literature,

[00:04:08] or writers haven't dealt with the subject for a long time.

[00:04:13] For example, in the 19th century, football was still considered, and I quote, a "rude sport" and it was completely unthinkable for the upper classes to kick the ball.

[00:04:24] So it was a class thing from the beginning, where the working class appropriated it for themselves as a leisure activity.

[00:04:36] As we know, all classes are now looking through it.

[00:04:41] Everyone can watch football, it's different now anyway, at some point the radio came along,

[00:04:46] Then people sat around the radio and followed it and later with television.

[00:04:51] And I think that's Lukas on 24-hour livestream around football, here at least always especially at European Championships and World Cups.

[00:05:00] Yes, it's simply the most popular sport, I think, where everyone or almost everyone has some idea, because the rules are relatively easy to understand.

[00:05:12] And I don't think there's a sport that's as popular all over the world and brings people together and creates a topic of conversation like major events like the European Championships, for example.

[00:05:26] I have to say, I have no idea which European Championship that was.

[00:05:33] It must have been ten or twelve years ago, I don't know, I have no idea.

[00:05:37] I don't know who won, I don't know who played, but I know afterwards how they drove into the cars, what do you call it, because they drive through the streets in the cars.

[00:05:46] A motorcade, right?

[00:05:47] Yes, exactly, how the motorcade then drove through the city center, everyone was really good draup and then it was kind of like a street party and I really liked that.

[00:05:58] The atmosphere was so good and you could really, you could talk to everyone about something, yes yes yes, did Germany win once?

[00:06:05] So that they won was in 2014 I think, maybe in 2006 it was in Germany, where this summer fair took place, but they didn't win.

[00:06:18] Yes, that was sometime back then, exactly, and also back then.

[00:06:24] The first ones, because we're talking about football literature, we also have to - Pia and I, we also have to talk about what we know.

[00:06:37] That's how the first writers started to deal with the subject a bit, so it was already more of a popular sport, a leisure activity for everyone - unfortunately.

[00:06:50] I mean "everyone" to the exclusion of "every woman".

[00:06:53] Joachim Ringelnatz, for example, wrote the poem Football (along with variety and degeneracy) in 1920, when he was still of the opinion that football is never such a good, a good leisure activity.

[00:07:06] He writes: "Football mania is a disease, but rare, thank God, I know someone who suffered acutely from football mania and football rage."

[00:07:15] He then made negative comments about football matches.

[00:07:19] And Kafka, about whom we have already had an episode, wrote in 1923 in a letter to his brother-in-law Josef David:

[00:07:26] "Maybe football will stop at all now."

[00:07:29] In his book "Die Mannschaft" (The Team), the friedrich Torberg, 1935, has the protagonist Harry Baumester play football every day in Vienna's Fürstenheimpark.

[00:07:42] And his mother, Doctor Baumester, is also strictly against it.

[00:07:48] And then she has a tirade where she catches him playing soccer again.

[00:07:52] And then she says: "What an idiotic running around and running around."

[00:07:56] "It's disgusting and ordinary."

[00:07:58] "And the dust stirred up during the game pollutes the air in the park."

[00:08:03] And that's why football is extremely dangerous and damagesdrothe health of the lungs.

[00:08:09] That was the mom in the novel.

[00:08:13] But then during this time and within the next 20 years, when it was on the radio, as I mentioned, football became a mass phenomenon.

[00:08:22] Not only did people flock to the stadiums en masse, especially for finals, but for games in general,

[00:08:30] but they also gathered at home around the radio to cheer along, just like we always go to public viewing now.

[00:08:37] And when I say "we", I mean everyone except Pia and me.

[00:08:41] Pia, have you been to the public viewing this year?

[00:08:43] I walk past it because I'm opposite the bookshop, the big public viewing stand, but otherwise not really.

[00:08:51] But you could hear it a bit in the brewery, where Austria played against - who did we play against?

[00:08:56] Austria, the Netherlands, I think it was.

[00:08:58] I think it's Austria, Netherlands.

[00:09:00] That was during opening hours and it was so loud that you could hear it in the fiction section as well as in the event hall.

[00:09:09] But that's because public viewing is exactly at an angle.

[00:09:14] So that was around half past six or so, the library was already empty for once because everyone was probably at the public viewing.

[00:09:22] And then it goes down to the ballet library, into the ship, where it's at the front with the window front.

[00:09:28] And there are actually workstations there and there was actually no one left, so one last, brave one who worked a bit on his Lethtop.

[00:09:35] And then you hear the music and it kind of had a nice summer party atmosphere, didn't it?

[00:09:42] Yes, I think that's also something that gets people going who maybe don't watch the Austrian Bundesliga or watch a lot of football in general.

[00:09:50] And then yes, but such big events, somehow you can't get away from them.

[00:09:55] So friends of mine who never watch football,

[00:09:59] the first topic of conversation in the morning: "So, did you watch yesterday? And how did they play?"

[00:10:04] So it's a collective feeling of being carried away somehow.

[00:10:09] And we make an effort in the library, we did - what did we do?

[00:10:13] We made an exhibition about football books, but about the different ways of accessing them.

[00:10:20] So we exhibited biographies about footballers, but we also had football books about technique and what's good to learn, football games.

[00:10:30] What is a swallow?

[00:10:32] Exactly, what is a swallow?

[00:10:34] We exhibited cultural history books about football, we exhibited magazines on the subject, so everything possible.

[00:10:42] At the same time, we also had a competition, a raffle, where in the preliminary round, is it called the preliminary round Lukas?

[00:10:51] In the group stage.

[00:10:55] In the group phase, you could vote for who would be the final winner.

[00:11:01] And at the end, when we know who has won, we give away free memberships.

[00:11:09] Exactly, we're very excited about that. Do we want to say who we think won? I don't know, but I'll say for Spain.

[00:11:19] I don't know why anymore, I haven't watched a single game, but for some reason I'm for Spain, I feel it. Lukas?

[00:11:26] Yeah, I hope so too. So that was the only team that really convinced me in every game throughout the tournament.

[00:11:35] Perfect.

[00:11:36] So I would be very surprised.

[00:11:37] I think with you, because I have no idea, that's what I tell Spain.

[00:11:40] But Lukas actually, you really watched most of the games, or did you watch all of them?

[00:11:46] I didn't see two, during the group stage, when they were still playing 15, but apart from that I actually saw all of them.

[00:11:54] So.

[00:11:55] Yeah, there's really something coming, so, man, that's 90 minutes, at best in thedruend then often 120 plus penalties.

[00:12:06] Yeah, it's like a hobby or it's like watching TV.

[00:12:08] So I've been watching "Kaulitz and Kaulitz" and I don't think it's much different.

[00:12:14] Although I would have liked it to have gone on longer.

[00:12:17] That's what I wish for in a soccer game.

[00:12:21] But there's something communal about it when you see how happy people are and how people cheered when we progressed from the group stage, which is what I expect now.

[00:12:32] And for someone who has exactly zero interest in that, it's always a bit amusing for me, because then I just go about my life,

[00:12:38] in my free time in my apartment, then I always hear in the neighborhood, the windows are open in the summer.

[00:12:43] Either the cheering or the disappointed booing from my neighbors, then I always know ... And from the distant neighbors, we're talking five, six houses down!

[00:12:53] It's exactly the same with me, they're also, so we're in a bigger house and you have the people below and above me.

[00:12:59] And then it was so funny where we lost the game, unfortunately.

[00:13:04] We didn't watch the game, but I knew exactly where we stood.

[00:13:08] Because our neighbor sounded so depressed that I knew exactly what was going on.

[00:13:15] The worst thing is when the TV signal is two, drei seconds behind you, and you're watching, you're really tense and you can hear the neighbors screaming.

[00:13:25] And that's always very mean, I think.

[00:13:28] Yes, I think that too.

[00:13:30] We reminded me a bit of America, how they added a seven-second delay after "Nipplegate" in the half-time show (of the Superbowl),

[00:13:38] back then with Justin Timberlake and - see, these are the facts where I'm really firm -

[00:13:43] And Janet Jackson.

[00:13:45] That's the swallow, fallback.

[00:13:49] What I used to watch was a lot of "Tsubasa", "Captain Tsubasa".

[00:13:53] Does anyone know that? "The Kickers."

[00:13:55] Yeah, exactly.

[00:13:56] Those were two soccer anime.

[00:13:58] But I didn't prepare anything for the soccer anime.

[00:14:03] Now we'll continue with our soccer literature lesson.

[00:14:06] If I continue, in 1945 the Jewish poet Friedrich Torberg wrote to his friend Matthias Sindelar -

[00:14:17] Do you happen to know him?

[00:14:20] I hope I'm losing all my credibility, but no.

[00:14:24] He lived between 1903 and 1939. He dedicated the poem "On the Death of a Football Player" to him after his death.

[00:14:36] And this Matthias Sindelar - and you football fans at drawho perhaps also have something to do with football history,

[00:14:44] Will know that, so according to my research, he's one of the, so the

[00:14:51] greatest Austrian football player.

[00:14:53] Who is then also, so he is then, that has behind it and together with the invasion of the

[00:15:02] National Socialist troops from Germany, that was in 38 and 39, he then died

[00:15:08] still not fully clarified today or I have found that this is just a

[00:15:14] carbon monoxide poisoning and that after his death the National Socialists wanted to

[00:15:22] to make him a hero for themselves as a figure, but they didn't succeed and that

[00:15:29] I found the story alone somehow so interesting and exciting and remarkable.

[00:15:33] It showed me that football plays a huge role in society

[00:15:38] and also that myth-making begins with the football idols, which you can still see today.

[00:15:47] But there are names that Lukas knows, but with Balenciaga, Gucci, exactly.

[00:16:03] I think I just understood the gag.

[00:16:08] Yes, I have the names that Christina says ...

[00:16:11] Yes, I actually thought hard about whether these players really existed.

[00:16:15] The gag was that I didn't know that it wasn't called Balenciaga, but that it was some brand of shoe ...

[00:16:25] Yes, but then I thought about it for a moment, it could well be that it was an Italian central defender,

[00:16:31] who played really well in the 90s.

[00:16:34] Because I researched it so well, you can't tell what really happened?

[00:16:39] And what nonsense you're telling me.

[00:16:41] That's really a Drucksituation.

[00:16:43] And you might know that, "The Miracle of Bern", that tells you something.

[00:16:49] That's also a game that was filmed, that whole story, that was in 1954,

[00:16:54] where the German football team won the game on penalties and then won.

[00:17:03] That was very important in post-war Germany.

[00:17:07] So people say today that it was so important for the identity of post-war Germany.

[00:17:14] And Ludwig Harig, for example, wrote a sonnet, "Die Eckbälle von Wankdorf".

[00:17:20] By the way, they played against Switzerland in 1954.

[00:17:23] That's what that means.

[00:17:25] Well, not that, I might.

[00:17:26] In the final, could it be that it was Hungary?

[00:17:31] In Switzerland against the...

[00:17:36] 3 for 2, I think.

[00:17:38] Wow, that's right.

[00:17:40] And after losing 3 for 8 to the same team in the previous round

[00:17:49] and that was so remarkable, I was really remarkable.

[00:17:52] Yes, Hungary was actually one of the best teams in Europe at the time.

[00:17:58] So it really was a miracle.

[00:18:02] In Bern.

[00:18:04] And Ludwig Harig writes: "What once happened in Bern sounds like a fable,

[00:18:09] secret double meaning, art in the pure ball of purpose,

[00:18:12] decided the course of the game, the rehearsed corner kick,

[00:18:15] confused Hungary's eleven, with a cryptic parable."

[00:18:19] I could go on, but in any case, there was literature on football.

[00:18:24] In 1955, even Günther Grass wrote the short poem "Nocturnal Stadium" at a young age:

[00:18:33] "Slowly the soccer ball rose in the sky.

[00:18:36] Now you could see that the grandstand was occupied.

[00:18:39] The poet stood alone in the goal, but the referee whistled offside." Grass was a surrealist.

[00:18:47] He tried a bit like that, the myth of national identity,

[00:18:51] to deconstruct it again.

[00:18:53] But somehow he also had the feeling, as an artist, that this is the moment.

[00:19:00] All in all, you have to say that until the 80s,

[00:19:03] and perhaps even a little bit today in football as a theme in literature,

[00:19:08] was considered too lowly to be dealt with.

[00:19:12] But it was still taken up again and again.

[00:19:15] Even Peter Handke, you can tell us about it again,

[00:19:19] made the story "Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter" in 1976.

[00:19:24] And in 1976, after Uli Hoeneí missed a penalty in the European Championship match.

[00:19:34] This inspired Annemarie Schimmel to write the following limerick, which I don't want to share with you.

[00:19:40] "In the midst of violent groans, Hoeneà missed the penalty.

[00:19:47] The game is lost with drooping ears, the coach, Mr. Beautiful, looks at it."

[00:19:58] And then in 2001 there was also Albert Ostermaier's "Ode to Kahn", Oliver Kahn, and so on."

[00:20:05] So what I'm trying to say is:

[00:20:07] A lot has been written about soccer, and probably the most famous one

[00:20:11] Poem - Pia, did you come across it in your research?

[00:20:15] is "Fever Pitch" by Nick Hornby.

[00:20:18] Ah, Roman, yes, exactly.

[00:20:20] Yes, exactly.

[00:20:21] I looked at it all a bit from the English side,

[00:20:24] because England is somehow seen as the birthplace of modern football.

[00:20:28] It's a version of football that existed much earlier in China.

[00:20:33] Lukas, is that right?

[00:20:35] Yes, that's true.

[00:20:37] Drum there's also this part that we put in this fan anthem "It's Coming Home" that you hear everywhere now,

[00:20:45] a seat in Grund England has held a World Cup,

[00:20:49] and that would be in England, in Wimbledon, I think, I'm not sure now.

[00:20:55] It was in England and that's a bit through that,

[00:20:59] and just because England is the birthplace of modern football, yeah,

[00:21:04] you can say that, I think.

[00:21:06] It also has private universities and that's where it started.

[00:21:11] And there were also very few texts earlier,

[00:21:15] Maybe club books and so on, but more like handbooks, when did it start?

[00:21:20] It took a long time to process that in literature,

[00:21:23] but Hornby is really the one where you say,

[00:21:25] "Okay, that's changed everything now",

[00:21:27] because he worked through it autobiographically, his own life story,

[00:21:33] but at the same time his relationship with Arsenal FC,

[00:21:36] that's kind of the club that he fully supports and that he likes to support mag,

[00:21:40] and he somehow has the enthusiasm for football and specifically for this club

[00:21:44] he really lived it out in this autobiographical book.

[00:21:48] And you also have to say that it was the same in England,

[00:21:50] that it was also more of a working class sport.

[00:21:53] Even in Hornby's time, the tickets were very, very cheap,

[00:21:57] basically everyone could afford them, you could spontaneously go to a football match.

[00:22:02] Are the tickets still that cheap?

[00:22:05] No, which is also criticized by many,

[00:22:08] that sport is now so commercialized

[00:22:11] and many oligarchs and big companies are buying shares in clubs

[00:22:16] and the normal fan, the average spectator, sometimes can no longer afford it,

[00:22:23] to go to the stadium or even buy them, which used to be possible for every man, every woman.

[00:22:31] And that's now being criticized a lot,

[00:22:34] because these people are already a bit excluded, even now,

[00:22:37] especially when it comes to the size of clubs.

[00:22:39] And tickets for such big events are now more than expensive.

[00:22:45] So you really think twice when you go to the stadium.

[00:22:48] That's doubly bitter because it comes from the working class,

[00:22:53] maybe you identify with it and that's what made it so big in the end.

[00:23:00] And then you somehow exclude large parts of the audience again.

[00:23:05] It then takes on a certain identity, I think now.

[00:23:10] Hornby also criticized that, because then you have him in 2012,

[00:23:15] I think the interview that we found, I'm not sure now,

[00:23:17] but I think it was in 2012, he talked about it there too

[00:23:20] and said that it's a pity that there has been this development

[00:23:23] and that now it's as if going to watch football is like going to the theater.

[00:23:29] Because you can afford it maybe once or twice a year if you have the money,

[00:23:32] but otherwise not really.

[00:23:34] Hornby's novel came out in 1992.

[00:23:40] Exactly, that was when the Premier League started in England.

[00:23:47] And that's also kind of where it started, that it really became interesting for elites in England,

[00:23:55] because suddenly it wasn't something that the working class, but I can belong to this elite club

[00:24:00] and then it's something special.

[00:24:03] Thank you Lukas for saving our listeners.

[00:24:06] I wouldn't say that, you were very well prepared, I was really impressed.

[00:24:12] Thank you.

[00:24:14] The piles of folders are next to us.

[00:24:20] Does anyone else have any comments about soccer?

[00:24:24] Lukas has already praised us enough.

[00:24:28] Yes, so I can only repeat it.

[00:24:31] You're selling yourselves short.

[00:24:34] It's a myth anyway that people know football.

[00:24:38] The best way to get thedruck across is by shouting generic phrases into the room at public viewings.

[00:24:45] That's a nice service for our listeners, who are as few football fans as we are,

[00:24:51] but sometimes want to go to public viewings for social reasons.

[00:24:55] Can you perhaps give us a few of these sentences so that we, the non-football fans, can use them in the future?

[00:25:03] There are an infinite number.

[00:25:05] Drei will do.

[00:25:06] Drei for a start.

[00:25:07] It is very important that it is always the opposite of what the player does.

[00:25:11] If the player plays a pass, then he should have shot.

[00:25:15] If he shoots, then he should have played a pass.

[00:25:18] And I always knew that well.

[00:25:20] "Play it low, play it high." -"Shoot!"

[00:25:23] "Play it low, play it high!"

[00:25:26] "On the other side."

[00:25:28] Exactly. "Play it to the left. He's free."

[00:25:30] "Can't you see that?"

[00:25:31] "He's free" I know.

[00:25:33] "He earns millions and doesn't hit it there."

[00:25:36] Footballers always get so little, don't they?

[00:25:39] The drÃalways fits in with the discussion about the gender pay gap.

[00:25:43] Oh yes, we didn't go into that at all.

[00:25:46] New topic for a new podcast.

[00:25:48] "Why don't we actually like the gender pay gap?"

[00:25:51] Okay, the second one.

[00:25:54] Tip number two.

[00:25:55] Tip number two: You know better than a coach.

[00:25:58] A new starting line-up is chosen.

[00:26:00] If they win, then the coach will be praised,

[00:26:03] It would have been the same, it was clear that it was exactly the right line-up for today's match.

[00:26:08] If they lose, they were right before, how to set up a starting line-up like that.

[00:26:14] You always know better than the coach.

[00:26:16] So, number drei.

[00:26:18] The referee -

[00:26:20] He only ever whistles against us.

[00:26:23] When he does whistle for us, he actually does it quite well.

[00:26:28] He doesn't whistle for us, he's never unfair.

[00:26:30] You always find a reason why you've just lost.

[00:26:35] If you win, the only reason is that the team is great.

[00:26:40] You have to be both as much as possible.

[00:26:45] To summarize, if you're a football spectator,

[00:26:50] you always know better than the player.

[00:26:52] You always know better than the coach.

[00:26:55] And the referee is always wrong, unless he agrees with his own team.

[00:26:59] Then, of course, he was right.

[00:27:01] And as a bonus tip, if your own team has lost, the pitch was bad.

[00:27:06] Exactly.

[00:27:07] And the most important thing is that you would have become a professional yourself if you hadn't got injured.

[00:27:12] The fifth tip.

[00:27:14] Megan Rapinoe and stuff.

[00:27:15] There are already a few female soccer players who are becoming more well-known.

[00:27:19] I would actually love to have men's soccer -

[00:27:21] We have the exhibition, I would have liked to have written "men's football" everywhere.

[00:27:25] That's what they do with "Ted Lasso".

[00:27:28] We do that in the media now too.

[00:27:30] I also think it's quite good that the Austrian "men's" team has now been eliminated,

[00:27:34] Because there is a women's team, and they always tend to do better at major events.

[00:27:40] Than the men's team.

[00:27:42] Cool, that's really strong.

[00:27:44] And when are they playing next?

[00:27:46] I think they're playing a qualifier at the moment, I don't know if it's for the European Championship or the World Cup.

[00:27:54] They're playing at the moment.

[00:27:56] Cool.

[00:27:58] Yes, then Lukas.

[00:28:00] Thanks for being there.

[00:28:02] What did you think of today's episode?

[00:28:04] Did you have fun?

[00:28:06] Yes, but I was very nervous.

[00:28:08] I'm still nervous.

[00:28:10] Even though it's over.

[00:28:12] But thanks for the invitation, it was great.

[00:28:14] Yeah, thanks for taking the time.

[00:28:16] Thank you for correcting us.

[00:28:20] And that you were able to answer our questions.

[00:28:22] Pia, we did it.

[00:28:24] The soccer (literature) episode is over.

[00:28:28] Tell us which team makes your fan hearts beat faster.

[00:28:32] On post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at or Instagram with the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck" or on Facebook.

[00:28:42] And until then, we wish you a good game of football in the fall.

[00:28:48] And we'll see you again next week. Bye.

[00:28:52] Bye.

[00:28:53] Bye.

[00:29:18] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the City of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Yes, hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:20] My name is Christina and today it's not Pia who's saying hello, but my dear colleague, Jaqueline

[00:00:26] Jaqueline, hello. Hi Jaqueline, nice to have you with us. Thank you for the invitation. We are very happy

[00:00:32] very much and the two of us are asking ourselves today, why do we actually like tropes but not

[00:00:39] just any tropes, but very particular or specific - which trope ... Which trope are we talking about?

[00:00:45] we, the listeners already know anyway - Enemies-to-Lovers. - Yes, so it's going to be a very exciting episode.

[00:00:52] And before we jump in, Jaqueline, I'd just like to take a moment for our listeners,

[00:01:00] who might be wondering, "trope", what is a "trope" now, what "enemies", what "lovers",

[00:01:04] explain what a trope is in general. The term originally comes from the

[00:01:12] rhetoric. There it is used as an umbrella term for certain classes of rhetorical figures

[00:01:18] used as an umbrella term. A rhetorical figure, for example, is known as a metaphor. In the

[00:01:24] modern literary studies, but also in literary criticism, as well as and above all

[00:01:31] in the English-speaking world, but also in other linguistic and cultural contexts

[00:01:36] a trope refers to recurring motifs, themes, plot patterns, character types or stylistic devices,

[00:01:44] which then occur in many literary works and have a certain meaning or

[00:01:50] association. A few common examples of tropes in literature are, for example, the

[00:01:57] Chosen One in English. This is a character who is chosen for a special task

[00:02:04] or destiny. Harry Potter would be one of these, for example. The old "white" mentor,

[00:02:10] the old WISE mentor - important distinction. I'm so used to this "old white men."

[00:02:17] But it's also true, so they're mostly white too. He, except Yoda, he's green. That would be

[00:02:26] a, right, an experienced, wise character or figure who offers the hero advice and support

[00:02:34] to the hero. We've already mentioned Yoda, Albus Dumbledore would also be one. The classic. Or

[00:02:42] an antagonist, for example Lord Voldemort. Exactly, it's not just limited to literature,

[00:02:47] it's also in movies, TV series, plays and many other narrative forms. What are tropes for?

[00:02:53] They're there to structure stories, also to facilitate the narrative flow. They use

[00:03:00] so they always use familiar patterns and expectations. That's why they're also quite popular in the

[00:03:04] children's and young adult literature. There is now also, perhaps a marketing term, that says

[00:03:12] you something Jacqueline, the New Adult, where I think it's a bit blurred

[00:03:20] from young adult literature to adult literature and what an in-between stage it is or where

[00:03:26] it merges elements of young adult literature with adult literature. So New Adult

[00:03:33] is characterized by the fact that there are a lot of tropes. Do you find that too? Yes, well, I mainly read

[00:03:42] "Young Adult" myself, so that's my favorite genre to read because it's not quite this

[00:03:49] adult and mostly dry somehow for me. And I think that the, well, that's mainly

[00:03:56] especially a lot of tropes and that's how the community communicates. So on

[00:04:02] Instagram you only read tropes. When someone writes or promotes or rates a book or a review,

[00:04:08] there are always tropes in the comment and it's always discussed. Yes, that is now

[00:04:14] more "Slow Burn", is it "Chosen Family" or whatever the trope is. So that comes

[00:04:19] occurs very frequently and has actually become part of the communication about the books

[00:04:25] and I don't know whether that's why it's become so topical and so popular

[00:04:30] mainly through social media. But I would definitely agree with you,

[00:04:34] that it's very widespread in "young adult". My theory is that it comes from the

[00:04:40] fanfiction culture, that we've talked about fanfiction before and whoever

[00:04:49] interested in it in more detail can listen to the episode again. But that's

[00:04:58] so with the advent of fanfiction and that was before social media, I would guess,

[00:05:07] established itself before social media and then it spilled over into social media, right?

[00:05:14] Yes, definitely, I hadn't even thought about it, right, with the fanfictions, if you look at the

[00:05:20] google them or type them in or search on Archive of Our Own or something like that, then the keywords are always,

[00:05:26] which they are actually tropes, right, and I hadn't even thought of that.

[00:05:29] Yeah, I thought about Archive too, if you just go to the Archive of Our Own page

[00:05:34] is a fanfiction site, now the biggest fanfiction site on the internet, in English,

[00:05:41] in any case, I would even say at all and then you immediately have all the tags and the

[00:05:47] are just - they're always tropes and then you can sort of like a restaurant order

[00:05:53] put it together like this, what would I like now? I would like the "Enemies-to-Lovers" with a

[00:05:59] "Chosen One" as the protagonist, who gets together with this one and that one and so on, and then

[00:06:05] you can read exactly, if that's what you want to read at that moment.

[00:06:11] Exactly, yes. And it's the same on social media, for example, I didn't know that.

[00:06:15] So I'm quite active on Booktok and there's always, well, I think you can almost

[00:06:22] you almost never come across a book review that doesn't speak in tropes and also, that always means,

[00:06:29] yes, I liked that so much, "Enemies-to-Lovers" and "Slowburn", that's really well done

[00:06:34] and excellent and that actually categorizes all the books. So then there are whole

[00:06:40] Bookstagram pages that specialize in "romance novels", for example, and then really

[00:06:45] also rate these tropes for books. So I know that mainly from social media

[00:06:50] and then everyone asks, okay, but does it also have this or that trope or something?

[00:06:55] So for many people, it's a prerequisite to know the tropes before they even read a

[00:07:00] start reading a book then. So you would say that young readers or those,

[00:07:05] who then also use Booktok and so on, so they're on these platforms,

[00:07:09] that they wouldn't read a book if it didn't fit their trope? So it's that,

[00:07:18] does it have to be that accurate? Well, I think so, I've noticed that myself. I am for example

[00:07:23] For example, I'm not a big fan of "enemies-to-lovers", spoiler. I think it's very often done very badly

[00:07:30] that I'm just not aware of the hate, why they're "enemies" now and I just

[00:07:35] think, guys, just talk it out, then everyone in 10 miles will realize that you should be "Lovers".

[00:07:39] That's often the case with me, for example, that I think to myself, I would avoid it now if someone says,

[00:07:45] oh, "Enemies-to-Lovers", and really, really great, I'm often skeptical about the book. So I

[00:07:50] believe that a lot of people use the tropes for reader decisions and if the trope is,

[00:07:55] that they don't like, that has an effect on their reading behavior, quite clearly, yes.

[00:07:59] That's probably also a new one that's come out of internet culture

[00:08:09] way of reading. Because I believe that a lot of people, at least that's my

[00:08:18] experience that I often read books, I mean, sure, if you have an author that you want to read mag,

[00:08:24] Stephen King is the example for me, then you just read what's published, I get exactly that -

[00:08:28] That's reliable. And I can imagine that it's similar there. But apart from

[00:08:33] genre literature, I often watch a movie and then I ask myself

[00:08:39] oh, it's based on a book or I ask, or then I'm suddenly in 20th century Paris

[00:08:45] or suddenly I'm interested in the authors of the beat generation and then I want to

[00:08:49] want to know that. So these are like "bubbles of interest" where I then read the literature there drin. And basically

[00:08:59] basically it's just a different kind of categorization. Before we now ... So to the

[00:09:05] tropes per se, there's still a lot to ask, uh to say, but what is "Enemies-

[00:09:12] to-Lovers" anyway? "Enemies-to-Lovers" describes, I'll just call it that now

[00:09:17] the process when two people get to know each other or already know each other and simply don't like each other.

[00:09:24] So they don't like each other, they're often, there's often in a high school context,

[00:09:28] that they are "enemies" because they both have good grades and both want to be the best,

[00:09:32] but that's just this "enemies" in the competition with each other, they like each other

[00:09:37] absolutely not and they hate each other and they can't be in the same room. And in the course of the book

[00:09:41] it then swings around into this "Lovers" perspective or, yes, storyline, that they're then on

[00:09:49] once they switch from this hatred to "Yes, actually I love you and that's why I hate you

[00:09:53] I hate you so much". And then all of a sudden they are a couple or at least have something in common

[00:09:58] or I don't know, what is the complete change from the initial behavior and

[00:10:04] often there's also this hatred that both of them somehow resist and

[00:10:09] then somehow a tension arises and I think that's what a lot of people like,

[00:10:13] this tension that arises, exactly, but it just changes in the novel or in the book

[00:10:19] then everything changes completely. So this is then applied accordingly to love stories. So I

[00:10:28] know it from many novels, but it's also very popular in fantasy. And also in the

[00:10:33] fan fiction. Yeah, okay, I see, so an example of the enemies-to-lovers as a

[00:10:43] trope, would be the "Twisted" series by Ana Huang, we have that now, the Jacqueline looks at me

[00:10:50] looking at me questioningly, I just cataloged it, which means we just ... we have it

[00:10:54] in English there, we also have it in German now, the rest will follow, in the library.

[00:10:59] And what we've actually also done, because tropes in that sense, we also use

[00:11:04] the English-language term, when we used to talk about, I think,

[00:11:09] we would have talked about genre as librarians, we wouldn't have talked about it at all

[00:11:14] exactly subdivided. But of course that's useful for us as librarians, we have

[00:11:21] now also created the keyword because it's a noticeable shift, simply.

[00:11:31] Yes, very practical for us then. And you realize it, people are asking, so of course it's

[00:11:37] a certain generation first, who have simply grown up in the reading culture, who know that,

[00:11:45] they inherently know what tropes are. Yes, and that's why we did it, because if the

[00:11:51] reading habits have simply changed somewhere and then when people ask me at the

[00:11:56] information ask me, "Enemies-to-Lovers" then of course it's quite useful if you then just

[00:12:00] the keyword, then you know. Just like Archive of our Own. Yes, do you have

[00:12:09] one, you said you don't magst it like that, the trope? For me, it's just often bad

[00:12:17] that a lot of people, it seems to me that a lot of authors, somehow

[00:12:23] get into this trend and try to create "enemies-to-lovers", but for me

[00:12:29] the hate is often not justified enough to make you think they hate each other and

[00:12:35] suddenly love each other, this wonderment of what this trope actually needs. And

[00:12:40] this hatred is then sometimes just: "He didn't look in my direction once and

[00:12:43] now I hate him." And for me, that's often quite

[00:12:45] unfounded and that's why I often can't do anything with it. But then, so then I read

[00:12:51] I read the books there, either I haven't finished them or I have an example and that's a very

[00:12:56] hyped young adult book series is "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black and everyone loved that and

[00:13:02] - "oh, Enemies-to-Lovers" - and I read that and I thought to myself, well, I know, I see

[00:13:06] the hate. So I don't understand why they suddenly hate each other now, just because they're just

[00:13:09] are somehow a bit opposed, but that was completely unfounded for me and then

[00:13:15] even further in this tension, it wasn't tension for me, it was just bad for me

[00:13:18] Executed. Do you have one that you particularly like magst? Yes, it's actually my favorite book series.

[00:13:26] That's why it contradicts itself, because I don't like the trope mag, but my favorite book series, "Das Reich

[00:13:33] of the Seven Courts" or "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas. Absolute favorite book series and

[00:13:38] there's even the "enemies-to-lovers" process drin twice in these novels and that's

[00:13:44] just really so well done, so they really want to kill each other at the beginning actually

[00:13:49] and it's really based on things and it just makes sense and that's where I got it,

[00:13:54] I think it's great, but the book is much more than that trope for me and I think,

[00:13:59] it's also a bit that, for me, there has to be a plot around it to make this

[00:14:05] "Enemies-to-Lovers" so that it's really a book that I want to read and not just focus on

[00:14:09] this enmity happened, sort of. Yeah, with pure romance novels like that or is it

[00:14:19] often navel-gazing and I can also imagine that it gets boring at some point.

[00:14:23] Exactly, yes. When it goes on like this for a whole novel, I'm like: here it comes. Can you see that?

[00:14:28] Yeah, exactly. When do they come together, every sitcome of all time.

[00:14:34] Everybody knows, but they don't know. Yeah, that's really an age-old trope actually,

[00:14:39] It's been on TV and everything. I also think what you said,

[00:14:43] that the books that you don't like, you have the feeling that this leads the authors and

[00:14:47] female authors, to be honest, there are probably more female authors and the few male authors,

[00:14:53] do it somehow so that it's just drin. Why does it have to be drin? Well, so that people read it.

[00:15:06] Well, first of all, you need a publisher to bring it out and then promote it accordingly

[00:15:11] advertises it accordingly. And if it's in right now, for example the trope "Enemies-to-Lovers"

[00:15:15] is on the book market right now, the new hot "coffee", when it's in, then you have

[00:15:24] all of a sudden, if one thing works, then all of a sudden you have all these freeloaders,

[00:15:30] who just try to copy it like it's paint by numbers or something,

[00:15:34] whereas it's actually much more than that. So I think when you write from the "trope",

[00:15:41] I can't imagine that that can work and I think you can tell.

[00:15:46] Exactly, for me the motivation is just wrong. So when you start and you have no

[00:15:52] idea for a book, but you just want to write a "trope" and then I feel the same way,

[00:15:57] okay, they only had the idea of "Enemies-to-Lovers", but there was no story,

[00:16:01] there was no plot, there was no background to this story and then you just realize that.

[00:16:06] Yeah, I mean, it's not a new phenomenon, it started in 2008, the vampire heyday,

[00:16:12] that's when all the vampire novels suddenly came out, so it's always been there

[00:16:17] but now it's not just ... Because I think vampire is another "trope" now,

[00:16:22] so you can build that up much further and make the worlds much wider and "Enemies-to-Lovers" is

[00:16:26] then I think the problem is that it's too narrow, so it's really just this one "trope"

[00:16:32] and you can't build a whole novel on that, or you shouldn't.

[00:16:35] So in any case, it's also an outdruck of today's book market that you also have to look at,

[00:16:41] They're also marketed in this way nowadays, former stories of

[00:16:46] Wattpad are rewritten a bit or novels are simply written with the

[00:16:55] ulterior motive, that will sell well on the market. But like you, what you said,

[00:17:02] with the "Enemies-to-Lovers" or "Tropes" is very, is so narrow and I feel that way and

dru[00:17:09] I often have the impression that in bubbles, as Booktok can be, algorithms can be

[00:17:17] that you often remain in a reading habit bubble, because if you only focus on

[00:17:26] these super small details of a book, because you say, that's it,

[00:17:34] what I liked last time, so I have to like it the next ten times,

[00:17:38] you take such a narrow view of your own reading world. Is that also your onedruck? Definitely.

[00:17:45] But I notice it in myself, too, when you realize, okay, I don't know ... "Chosen Families"

[00:17:51] I think it's really great, I think it's really nice, when that happens, I always support it, I think

[00:17:55] always well done and then when the book says, yes, when someone says something about a book,

[00:18:00] that this book has this "trope", then I'm much more willing to read it,

[00:18:05] then I'm okay, I liked it and I think that a lot of people are then more obsessive about it

[00:18:11] and then really only have their two, drei "tropes" and they always want to read them and then

[00:18:15] then devour everything in this "trope", in this bubble, as you said, somehow,

[00:18:21] which many books then suffer from, because at some point it just gets boring. And it's also like that

[00:18:27] a culture of convenience, I think, a feeding of material, I don't want to say literature,

[00:18:35] because somehow, that's what makes sense with fan fiction, because the pool is so big and because

[00:18:41] your time is so limited and because you mostly read it because you want something special, because something

[00:18:45] something in particular has bothered you about a series or a book or whatever, then you pick it up and

[00:18:51] then it makes sense. In literature, I often have the feeling that of course the book market needs

[00:18:58] divisions, but if ... and as a reader it's good to know what you mag, but the more compartmentalized

[00:19:06] the divisions, for example, it used to be, so you said, okay, there are these, there are

[00:19:12] broad genre of suspense literature, you know, you studied literature and then there are

[00:19:18] the smaller genres, that would be crime fiction and thrillers, for example, and I'm personally

[00:19:26] very attached to this genre and that's why, you know, and the smaller, the next smaller

[00:19:34] unit is then somehow Dark Academia and that's again, then I tried,

[00:19:39] read a few Dark Academia books and then I realized, actually,

[00:19:43] none of them grabbed me as much as the original book, "The Secret History", because the

[00:19:51] never really was genre. That was just what it was and it was done and if I want that again,

[00:19:58] then I just have to read it again and have other books that aren't Dark Academia at all

[00:20:03] but then unexpectedly create a completely similar vibe in me and then I thought to myself, oh, that's it,

[00:20:09] what I wanted from these books, but if I had just been looking all this time, I want

[00:20:14] read Dark Academia now, I would never have thought of that next. So I definitely think

[00:20:19] case, that it's a big problem that people focus too much on these tropes and

[00:20:23] generally on social media, people don't even read the book, the back of the book,

[00:20:29] What's that called? In English they say blurb. Yes, the blurbs or something. Yes, the blurbs,

[00:20:36] the problem is people, they don't read the blurbs anymore or something, they concentrate on

[00:20:42] the recommendations of people online or on the trupes, that they only hear, this and that title

[00:20:47] has this and that trope and then they read it and then they say, I didn't like that at all,

[00:20:51] because this and that, which is just badly done or something, because they don't even look for themselves anymore

[00:20:55] look, do I like it, am I interested in the story, I notice that very often with people

[00:21:00] online and I also think that sometimes you have to be a little bit without prejudice in

[00:21:06] a book without any preconceptions, because then it might surprise you and that's a trope for me

[00:21:11] often take away or bother me or why I don't like tropes mag, is because they're just

[00:21:17] anticipate so much, because if I know from the beginning, okay, the "Enemies" are going to be

[00:21:22] become "lovers", then you lose all the tension, so that's often what bothers me

[00:21:27] bothers me or in "Arranged Marriages" or something like that, it always ends the same way or something like that and that

[00:21:33] are often when I think that takes a lot away from my reading experience, because

[00:21:38] I can't imagine anything anymore, so there's no suspense, because I already know exactly,

[00:21:42] what happens through the tropes, so that was sometimes good, but often bad. You have the

[00:21:47] spoiler already in the marketing, as it often is with movie trailers, as long as people tune in

[00:21:53] on, but it's just attention economy, it's just difficult now, difficult now

[00:21:59] to get people to - definitely. - To end on a positive note,

[00:22:06] because I think we've discussed a lot of facets of it now, which is something that needs to be said,

[00:22:13] and I notice that with the whole Booktok trend, people are reading a lot, they're consuming a lot

[00:22:20] a lot of books and are basically doing a refresh for the entire book market, you notice that

[00:22:29] simply and that's cool. I think the Booktok or Bookstagram community,

[00:22:34] depending on which platform it is, it's not really tight, so you just have to see for yourself,

[00:22:40] what is my bubble and where do I move, but you find, so if you spend half an hour

[00:22:45] sit down, you'll find like hundreds of thousands of different bookstagrammers and the other one,

[00:22:51] all offer different contexts and that's just so diverse, I think in part,

[00:22:56] and they now have like drei, four that I follow and they also read very broadly,

[00:23:01] which is also me, I actually read everything except thrillers and horror, I always get scared,

[00:23:07] but otherwise I read everything and if they read everything, that's, that's kind of a broad spectrum

[00:23:13] and I really like being in the community, I think there's a lot here and as you say,

[00:23:18] it just brings so many young people back to reading who otherwise have no contact with it

[00:23:23] and also, this is a bit selfish, but I also think it's great that the books are now

[00:23:28] prettier again because they're now being presented online, they're worth more and how,

[00:23:32] okay how do you market a book, how do you design the book and I think the community is actually great,

[00:23:39] but maybe I'm in my, I don't think so, in my bubble.

[00:23:46] I'm sure it's great too, so I think it is and it's inspiring

[00:23:50] Yeah, the people. It's also nice when you're with the same people that, the same people

[00:23:57] with whom you share hobbies, can also be in contact, inspire each other and that's

[00:24:02] actually what social media was once intended for, so it's actually really nice.

[00:24:06] So with the "Word for Sunday" I'd say we'll end the episode for today.

[00:24:10] Thank you very much for being here today.

[00:24:12] Yes, thank you too, it was very nice.

[00:24:14] Yes, I thought so too, very entertaining. There are still many, many tropes,

[00:24:18] so maybe we can do it again in the future if you like. - Yes, with pleasure. -

[00:24:22] Then, we'll say goodbye to you, but not without the question: What's your favorite book

[00:24:29] in the "Enemies-to-Lovers" trope?

[00:24:32] Why don't you write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:24:38] or on Instagram under the handle "stadtbibliothek.innsbruck" or on Facebook,

[00:24:46] although I don't even dare to mention the Tropes episode.

[00:24:51] But you can write to us on Facebook, really old school.

[00:24:54] Yeah, thanks for listening and we hope you have a great read.

[00:24:58] Bye.

[00:24:59] [Music]

[00:25:23] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:25:28] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

Christina: Yes, hello and welcome back to S'Vorwort, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library. My name is Christina - and I am Pia - and we would like to welcome you to this episode. Today we're starting the episode a little differently. I have to explain something, namely that you can get involved in everyday library life via the #gemeinsambesser on Instagram, for example under the handle "citylibrary.innsbruck". A little bit of "libraries", so to speak, so that we can shape the city library of your dreams together with you. We received a topic request at the beginning of the year. And that's exactly what today's episode is about. Namely: The topic was "fascinating or funny stories about the creation of books". Because before the actual book comes onto the market and then ends up on our shelves or on your shelves at home, there is often a years-long story behind it. And this can sometimes be bizarre, sometimes funny and sometimes perhaps just a little surprising. And in this episode, we would like to share two of these origin stories with each other and with you. And we have prepared, independently of each other, an origin story for a novel or a book or a work. We just don't know exactly and we will tell it to each other. We're very excited to see what each other has come up with. I have to say, I've been looking forward to the episode the whole time. I've written down something really schmaltzy: "Put on your flippers and let's dive into the literary world. (...) Okay, let's dive in. Dive in. Are you about swimming? - Not at all, actually. With you. - What a comparison. Okay, yes, we were really very secretive, weren't we? So, I think you know the gender of the author. #00:02:41â9#

Pia: I made a mistake there. But otherwise you don't really know anything. #00:02:44â9#

Christina: I can't say exactly what kind of author. I don't know anything. And you? Have you got anything? #00:02:53â4#

Pia: No. Okay. Yes, Christina, let's get started then. Would you start with your story? #00:03:00â0#

Christina: Okay, here we go. Okay, I've brought something. Drum roll. The story of William Burroughsâ novel ââNaked Lunchââ. Do you know it? Do you know Burroughs? Ah, okay. #00:03:14â8#

Pia: Then it gets interesting now. #00:03:16â5#

Christina: It's a work of the so-called Beat Generation. Many people found this work unreadable or even obscene. And the story of how it came about is just as chaotic and fascinating as the novel itself. Um, before we get started. The Beat Generation is a literary and artistic movement in post-war America in the 1940s and 1950s. Alongside Burroughs, the most important representatives include Jack Kerouac, who is known for On the Road, which he published in 1957, and Allen Ginsberg with his epic poem Howl. He published that in 1956. These so-called âBeatsâ or âBeatniksâ rejected the conservative values and materialistic culture of post-war America. It was therefore a counter-movement, and they strove for an alternative lifestyle that emphasized freedom, personal authenticity and a departure from social norms. Other motifs in the works, which can also be found in 'Naked Lunch', include spirituality, especially Eastern religions. Buddhism played a major role, Drogen and the expansion of consciousness, which is one of the themes that plays a major role in the novel. Sexual freedom, travel and movement, urban but also rural America and the existential search and search for meaning. In other words, it is about a radical rejection of the mainstream and mainstream culture. Finding new ways for how drÃdo you express yourself and what experiences do you have in life? And our story begins in the 1950s at a time when Burroughs was experiencing a personal and creative crisis. In fact, after he had already become known as a writer and Droauthor, he decided to move to Tangier, Morocco. Tangier is known for its liberal Dropolitics and its exotic atmosphere and therefore became a haven for many artists and writers. Burroughs used or knew how to use this for himself and immersed himself deeply in the Droscene and then began working on his most ambitious work to date, namely 'Naked Lunch'. He was under the constant influence of heroin while writing the book. #00:05:58â2#

Pia: Okay. #00:05:59â3#

Christina: His addiction and psychedelic experiences had a considerable influence on the writing process. The novel was not meant to be linear, but to reflect the fragmented, fragmentary thoughts and visions of an Droaddict. And the novel succeeded in this very well. Burroughs experimented with the so-called cut-up method, in which he cut up texts and reassembled them. This technique, which he developed together with the artist Brion Geysen, gave 'Naked Lunch' this very unique and somewhat kaleidoscopic style. It's a book like a kaleidoscope. But it wasn't easy for him to work in that state. He was constantly on the run from the police in Tangier, and the reason was because he was always involved in Drocrimes. That's why he often had to hide in some seedy hotel room. And that's where he wrote in feverish, drointoxicated sessions. And you can tell that from the tone of the novel. It is very paranoid and often surreal. You look in vain for a plot. A decisive turning point in the story was when he moved to the "Beat Hotel" in Paris. This is a so-called âBeat Hotelâ, because this is where the greats of the beat generation met. So he met Allen Ginsberg there and Gregory Corso, who we haven't mentioned yet. And it was in this creative community that Burroughs found the support and inspiration he needed to complete his work. Ginsberg was the one who helped him to structure the very chaotic manuscript and prepare it for publication. It was finally published in 1959. We're talking post-war America. Nuclear family. Mom, dad, child, white picket fence. Golden retriever. #00:08:07â6#

Pia: The cliché par excellence. #00:08:09â0#

Christina: The book was censored in the USA and the UK because of its explicit content and depiction of Drogene consumption. But despite, or perhaps because of, this whole scandal, ââNaked Lunchââ became a cult classic. When it says cult, you know it's somehow like that, something to do with Drogen and pornography and stuff. Like âThe Bloody Path of God 1 and 2â. Such a bad movie. It became a symbol for the non-conformist attitude of the beat generation and their radical rejection of social norms. For Burroughs himself, the book was like a kind of exorcism. It allowed him to wrestle a little with his demons. That's how he saw it, but he was also able to deal with the experiences of addiction and paranoia that he experienced - he ultimately had a very serious addiction, we don't want to romanticize that here - in a certain way. The novel also reflects how torn the author's psyche is and draws the reader - and this is fascinating - into a world in which the boundaries between reality and hallucination become blurred. Today, "Naked Lunch" is considered a masterpiece of modern literature. #00:09:34â6#

Pia: It's often the case that things that are forbidden become part of literature and that's what makes it so exciting when it's forbidden. I'm just thinking of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", where these sex scenes were so unusual for the time and so forbidden and frowned upon. And then it became a bestseller. #00:09:51â7#

Christina: So maybe it was also a collective, a collective expression of what you weren't allowed to say at the time. #00:10:00â9#

Pia: Then you somehow get around this rule. #00:10:03â1#

Christina: Yes, and that's interesting about literary history, that you can see what they're rebelling against. #00:10:17â4#

Pia: Boundaries. #00:10:18â3#

Christina: Exactly, and which boundaries are being crossed? And are they boundaries that we will still share in 2024? Or because values are also shifting and changing and the social discourse is becoming different and so on? Yes, and that's why "Naked Lunch" is considered an ancestor or has contributed greatly to the development of postmodern literature. Especially this cut-up technique, but also the way in which he looked so unsparingly at human existence. And accordingly, despite its incredibly rocky history, 'Naked Lunch' became an indispensable part of literary history. I've been trying to read it, I think I'm on page 30 so far. I've already taken a 10-year break now. #00:11:14â2#

Pia: What's it about? In terms of the story. #00:11:16â4#

Christina: How good of you to ask. #00:11:18â1#

Pia: I can't really imagine what drunter with kaleidoscope that you understand from the system, but I think okay, what exactly do I read when I read the book? #00:11:29â0#

Christina: Well, the title doesn't really say anything. #00:11:30â9#

Pia: Exactly. #00:11:31â4#

Christina: The book follows the protagonist named William Lee. And in the end, he is nothing more than a fictional version of Burroughs and this William Lee is the protagonist. Traveling through various dystopian and surrealistic places, a junkie also reads and flees from the police and encounters a variety of bizarre characters and scenarios. So the novel begins in the streets of New York City, then leads into the fictional Interzone. This is a city that is somehow a mixture of Tangier, New York and other cities. The plot is also very episodic, very erratic because of this cut-up technique. Um, that conveys the insightdruck, or that reflects this chaotic and hallucinatory state of the protagonist and reflects that accordingly. The themes are Droaddiction, sexual perversion, control and freedom. As I said, there is nothing like a plot in this respect, but rather the themes and, as is so often typical in postmodern literature, the play with the literary form and ultimately with the reading experience, which is turned on its head. So it's not the zero-eight-fifteen genre literature. #00:13:09â7#

Pia: Midpoint, climax, end. Exactly. #00:13:11â8#

Christina: It's also an experience to read and definitely worth reading if you're interested in literary genres. Although, as I said, I haven't actually read it, but I'm planning to, but I think it's very challenging, also in terms of the subject matter. Yes, and that was my story. What did you think of my story? #00:13:52â5#

Pia: I found it interesting. It's certainly something different. It's not the typical author's story you're used to. You always think of J.K. Rowling, who described how she had the idea for Harry Potter on the train or something, it's kind of like, yes, something happens, you live something and then you think to yourself, I'll write something drÃabout it. That's certainly a different approach. #00:14:11â9#

Christina: Yes, so that was also a very intentional artisticdruck. So they were looking for an outdruck, they wanted to. #00:14:22â8#

Pia: Their experiences. #00:14:23â7#

Christina: Exactly, bringing it into the world. By the way, before we move on to your part, I can highly recommend the movie "Kill Your Darlings". I haven't looked up when it's from, but it's a bit older now. It was shortly after Harry Potter was over. Daniel Radcliffe directed the moviedreh, I think. Around the Dreh. And it's about the beat generation. Daniel Radcliffe plays. #00:14:49â8#

Pia: Ginsberg. #00:14:50â7#

Christina: Yes, exactly. And William Burroughs is also there. And the William Tell apple, to know what I mean by that: just have a look. And it's a very romanticized film. Of course it is. But it is, anyone who likes literary adaptations or literary films mag or films about literature will either already know or learn to love "Kill Your Darlings". Okay, Pia, now I'm really curious. What did you bring with you? #00:15:18â5#

Pia: Well, I don't actually have a story about the creation of just one book, but basically an entire oeuvre, a whole body of work. #00:15:27â7#

Christina: You've done the extra work again. #00:15:31â4#

Pia: From an author and now I would be interested to know because you magst like crime and thrillers and horror. #00:15:38â8#

Christina: Agatha Christie. Jane Austen. #00:15:40â6#

Pia: Jane Austen? Christina: Exactly. No, I'd be interested to know if you know her? Anne Perry. #00:15:48â3#

Christina: Yes, it's the one from the UK. Yes. I like the name. #00:15:56â5#

Pia: What it says. A name. What? We have them in stock too. Well, I looked it up too. We have it in stock. #00:16:02â2#

Christina: I don't think I've read anything from her yet. Now I'm curious. #00:16:02â9#

Pia: Okay, so Anne Perry is an English writer, was an English writer, born in 1938, died last year 2023. She is known for her crime series, as I said, especially her historical crime novels set in Victorian England. - that's why I don't know her. - Not a fan of historical crime novels. She has written over 120 books, over 26 million copies have been sold worldwide, and her books regularly land on the New York Times bestseller list. So very successful, you could say. Most of her books deal with questions of morality, sin, remorse and forgiveness. And that also becomes important. That was actually mine. #00:16:54â7#

Christina: Oh, did she kill someone? #00:16:56â2#

Pia: Christina is already miles ahead of my story. #00:17:04â9#

Christina: Was that the one with the childhood friend? #00:17:07â9#

Pia: Yes, exactly. #00:17:08â6#

Christina: No, that's a very cool story. Guys, you are in for a treat. This is one of my favorite true-crime literary stories ever. Pia, take it away! #00:17:20â1#

Pia: Well, we don't know that yet. So that was all the public knew about her at the time. That all changed in 1994. That's when the movie "Heavenly Creatures" came out, which is what it's called in German, by the way, and is available on Filmfriend, I looked it up. So we have a streaming service, which means that if you are a member of our library, you can stream this movie online on our website. It was directed by Peter Jackson. And the movie is about an intense friendship between two teenage girls in New Zealand in the 1950s. The friendship ends in tragedy when they plan and carry out the murder of the mother of one of them. Now you're thinking okay, what does this have to do with our author? Well, the movie is based on true events. The two teenagers are real and subsequently had to serve a 5-year prison sentence, but nobody knew who they were. In the course of this movie where it came out, the press did some research and then found out that one of the two murderers, Anne Perry, is our author. That's really cool. At the age of 15, she and her best friend beat her friend's mother to death. The reason was allegedly that the friend had had to move away and they didn't want to be separated from each other. Back to the literature: Her focus on remorse and forgiveness in her crime novels makes sense now, of course. She also said herself that she struggled with it afterwards, after this murder. For the press, of course, that was a real feast. And she herself was of course not at all happy about her identity being published. She herself then said 'it seemed so unfair. Everything I had achieved as a decent member of society was beingdrohacked and once again my life was being interpreted by someone else. It had happened in court when I was a minor, not allowed to speak as a minor and heard all these lies. And now there was a movie, but no one had bothered to talk to me. I didn't know about it until the day before it was released. All I could think about was that my life would fall apart." But she continued to write afterwards and she published a lot of books, successfully published them and also gave several interviews about the murder and her literature. And she said in the Guardian, for example, about her literature: "It is crucial for me to continue exploring moral issues. I wanted to explore what people do when they are confronted with experiences and inner conflicts that push them to their limits." So for her, this was somehow her literature, a processing of what happened. #00:20:10â9#

Christina: They were both convicted of this murder, both the childhood friend and the author? - Christina: Exactly. - Do I remember correctly that Anne Perry always denied that she committed the murder? #00:20:33â0#

Pia: Well, she always said herself, in all the interviews I've seen and read, she said herself that she absolutely knew she was guilty and that it served her right that she ended up in prison. And she said she was glad that this prison sentence was imposed on her and that she had to serve it. Mm. #00:20:51â8#

Christina: Yes. Okay. Tough stuff. #00:20:55â8#

Pia: But I found it kind of interesting. It's everywhere, of course, where she died last year. It was all over the headlines. "Crime writer who is actually a murderer." #00:21:05

Christina: I remember that. Of course you do. Clickbait. Headline if you ever found one. That's another case of there's the reality. Uh, if you write that in the book, no one will believe it. Yeah, it reads like the plot of a novel. #00:21:23â8#

Pia: I didn't know her as an author either and then she passed away last year and that's when I found out who she actually was and this whole story. But I found it interesting because it's really bizarre. #00:21:36â1#

Christina: So that raises a lot of questions, doesn't it, about morality and is someone - it's a murder, so that can't be out of time and at the same time they were minors. And what does that mean for the person when they are an adult? You know, there are still physiological changes in the brain and somehow that is then, do you have to let that rest or do people have a right to know and so on? And then also the way they experience it and how the media deal with it. #00:22:08â3#

Pia: Because that was also the case in this movie. heavenly Creatures' also hinted a bit in the direction that it might have been a lesbian relationship and she always denied that, for example, that that was never the case. So, of course, that's also the question: what do I do with this person when I portray them like this, that's interesting. Um, yes, exactly. And we have crime novels by her in the library. We have a bunch of her eBooks to read digitally, but also two crime novels in print. "Those who seek revenge" and "The traitor's game", so if you're interested, you can read her crime novels here. #00:22:47â1#

Christina: Yes, and now it's up to you to vote on which of the origin stories you liked better. Which one was more bizarre, which one was more interesting? You can do this on Instagram at stadtbibliothek.innsbruck. Do you know a bizarre origin story of a novel, or are we also open to movies, right? We're even open to games, I would have said, are there any games you'd like us to talk about in the podcast? Then write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at. And with that, we say goodbye to this episode today. Pia, I really enjoyed it. #00:23:37â0#

Pia: It was interesting, exciting, yes. #00:23:39â1#

Christina: Totally exciting and maybe we can do it again sometime. #00:23:42â0#

Pia: I would be delighted. #00:23:43â2#

Christina: So send us your topics and we'll say goodbye until then. Bye. #00:23:47â2#

Person 3: (...) SâVorwort is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] [Music]

[00:00:14] Welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck Staff Library.

[00:00:19] My name is Christina.

[00:00:20] And I am Pia.

[00:00:21] And today we have a very special topic, even though I say that every time.

[00:00:25] But I think it's a really special topic, because we're talking about ...

[00:00:29] Cosplay.

[00:00:30] And ask ourselves the question, why do we actually like cosplay?

[00:00:33] We then come to a very important point, namely that we had the last episode in our

[00:00:38] "Why do we actually like manga" episode, which is a logical continuation, a vote.

[00:00:43] And we asked our listeners to vote via Instagram on

[00:00:51] stabbibliothek.innsbruck to vote on which of drei manga series we should buy.

[00:00:58] All drei are self-contained.

[00:01:00] We then said we would do the vote.

[00:01:03] The result is now there, just fluttered in this morning.

[00:01:07] And I can announce it now, in case you haven't heard last week's episode

[00:01:13] last week.

[00:01:14] We talked about it and dealt with what manga actually is,

[00:01:19] although many of you will probably already know that.

[00:01:21] And we also found tons of reasons why you should read manga and why it's considered a

[00:01:26] Reading counts, by the way.

[00:01:28] But we were also a bit critical on the subject.

[00:01:33] So it's worth listening to.

[00:01:35] The episode is online and can be listened to directly after this one.

[00:01:39] We are expanding our manga collection.

[00:01:41] Pia, you've already added it to our list, it will be ordered on Monday.

[00:01:46] I brought the numbers.

[00:01:48] Bakuman is in third place with 6 percent of the votes.

[00:01:54] Noragami came second with 17 percent of the vote, so Death Note wins

[00:02:02] wins the vote with a clear majority of 77 percent of the votes and will be purchased.

[00:02:09] Yes!

[00:02:10] Why âYesâ?

[00:02:11] That was my favorite manga because of it.

[00:02:15] Yes, we're very happy, aren't we?

[00:02:17] Yeah, totally.

[00:02:18] It's a worthy addition to our manga collection.

[00:02:21] What's the next step?

[00:02:22] What do we do now?

[00:02:23] Yes, well, I've already added them to our list.

[00:02:26] That means we'll order it on Monday.

[00:02:29] Then the order goes out, then it arrives, we work it in and then we put it on the list

[00:02:34] we display it nicely in our manga department in the fiction section.

[00:02:39] Exactly, so with the graphic novels, with the other manga you'll also find Death Note

[00:02:44] and just in case, which is also quite common in the meantime,

[00:02:47] the first 1-2 volumes have already been borrowed, we have

[00:02:49] we still have lots of other series that are also worth reading.

[00:02:54] Exactly.

[00:02:55] Pia, why do we actually like cosplay?

[00:02:58] I unexpectedly found my niche while researching this topic.

[00:03:02] We have to do the podcast...

[00:03:04] Have you gone over to cosplayers?

[00:03:06] Well, like this.

[00:03:07] I think that intertextual interpretation of sociological phenomena is exactly my

[00:03:13] niche and my suggestion for the podcast title.

[00:03:15] It might not be as crisp as Preface.

[00:03:20] Well, but right, we're going to get straight to the topic and the introduction as well

[00:03:26] Let's come out of the closet, are you a cosplayer?

[00:03:30] Well, I have to say I'm not either.

[00:03:32] So maybe for Halloween I wore something.

[00:03:34] Ah, you have to differentiate.

[00:03:36] Halloween costumes are not cosplay.

[00:03:39] We will then define exactly what cosplay is for all the listeners

[00:03:43] listeners who might not know that or might not know exactly because they might

[00:03:46] have only heard it peripherally.

[00:03:48] Exactly, but detto, the last time I was dressed up, I was a musketeer for carnival in the

[00:04:01] Kindergarten.

[00:04:02] But why?

[00:04:03] I mean, after the manga episode, we were also looking for something that was a bit thematic

[00:04:10] fits, especially with the announcement that we can now buy Death Note.

[00:04:13] But why are we talking about cosplay at all?

[00:04:17] And I think, as you know, we have the #gemeinsambesser and we have

[00:04:25] also in our episode why we like libraries about the concept of the "libraries

[00:04:32] in the sense of a verb.

[00:04:34] And I think that totally fits in as a topic.

[00:04:38] We will certainly see why in the course of the episode.

[00:04:43] To summarize, I think that cosplay is just like fanfiction

[00:04:48] a very creative hobby and it happens away from passive media consumption.

[00:04:53] It is active and actively engages with media of all kinds and appropriates the

[00:05:01] content of these media for their own purposes.

[00:05:05] So for me it's very parallel to fanfiction, maybe fanart.

[00:05:10] Yes.

[00:05:11] Fan content in general, there's a lot of it, there's fan music, like that

[00:05:15] People who then play music about their, I don't know, favorite series, favorite book series, whatever

[00:05:21] always write.

[00:05:22] Fan videos, there are fan films and cosplay is also an aspect of that.

[00:05:29] We both talked last episode about the fact that we also read manga,

[00:05:33] even as teenagers, even at a time when it wasn't established at all,

[00:05:39] maybe just in Tyrol, according to our subjective impressiondru

[00:05:44] Did you ever come across the term in any form or did you know about it before our

[00:05:52] episode today?

[00:05:54] Cosplay, I just knew it from fan culture, from the internet.

[00:05:59] I honestly can't say when I first discovered it.

[00:06:05] But there are always great cosplays being shared or something, in the groups,

[00:06:11] on Reddit or something.

[00:06:12] If you scroll through the Harry Potter forums and have a look, then

[00:06:18] that kind of thing is shared from time to time and that's what I saw once.

[00:06:21] But I haven't really actively engaged with it now.

[00:06:25] Although there is quite a large community there, I looked to see if there were any

[00:06:29] numbers are there.

[00:06:30] I haven't really found any official figures, it's probably difficult,

[00:06:35] to find out.

[00:06:36] But there is âCos_Nowâ, which is a website that specializes in this.

[00:06:42] And they say that there are around 15,000 people in Germany who are actively involved in this hobby

[00:06:48] actively pursue this hobby.

[00:06:50] So there are quite a few.

[00:06:52] And what was interesting was that they also did surveys to find out what the typical

[00:06:58] cosplayer, the typical cosplayer looks like.

[00:07:01] And that was interesting for me, because in terms of age, the people who followed the

[00:07:09] hobby were between 18 and 24 years old, and from 25 it steadily decreased.

[00:07:14] And also in terms of gender, there was a definite trend.

[00:07:21] There was definitely a higher proportion of women than men.

[00:07:23] I think I could imagine that in terms of age, I have a theory that this

[00:07:30] has several reasons, but that the center of life is simply shifting and with

[00:07:40] the full-time job or with starting a family, there's just generally not

[00:07:48] much time for hobbies.

[00:07:50] And especially such elaborate hobbies, you have to say that now.

[00:07:56] It's creative, but it takes a lot of effort to create a whole costume.

[00:08:00] You might also have to learn new skills, sewing, knitting, whatever.

[00:08:04] So that probably takes a lot more work.

[00:08:08] So now maybe just fanfiction, just writing a little story or

[00:08:11] like that.

[00:08:12] Maybe it's more time-consuming.

[00:08:14] And as for the proportion of women, that's also interesting and worth discussing.

[00:08:21] Why is it actually like that?

[00:08:24] As for cosplay itself, you can ask yourself the question, is it, I think, that

[00:08:31] is for me, is it reflected in fandoms in itself in these rooms, which we've also

[00:08:39] have already talked about, the possibility of marginalized groups or groups that are marginalized in society

[00:08:45] groups again, who can then live other identities.

[00:08:48] You add a little bit to that.

[00:08:50] But that would also explain the proportion of women considerably for me, because there's simply a lot of

[00:08:56] a lot is played with identity in cosplay.

[00:08:59] In my opiniondrucks.

[00:09:01] And it might also be the case that this kind of creativity, which as you say involves

[00:09:08] crafting, sewing, make-up, dealing with other cultures in that sense

[00:09:18] and exchanging ideas in this way, simply a very feminine thing

[00:09:25] is.

[00:09:26] That's what they said in the survey, that they assume that perhaps

[00:09:29] is also related to that.

[00:09:30] And perhaps it's also more likely that men don't want to admit that,

[00:09:35] also perhaps did not take part in this survey for these reasons.

[00:09:39] But before we go any further, maybe we should clarify what cosplay is and where it comes from

[00:09:44] does it actually come from?

[00:09:45] Cosplay is about recreating characters from media.

[00:09:51] That can be manga or from me is also the anime adaptations, movies, games and also

[00:09:57] other media such as literature.

[00:09:58] I mean, you just mentioned Harry Potter.

[00:10:01] The point is that it's not just the appearance of these characters and I know that you can see that

[00:10:06] called characters in cosplay.

[00:10:10] I can't call them characters because my literature professor told me

[00:10:16] drilled into me that they're called characters and I'll always have to say it that way.

[00:10:20] And that you have to recreate the characters as accurately as possible.

[00:10:23] That's one thing, but above all it's also about the character traits

[00:10:27] as authentically and accurately as possible.

[00:10:31] Whereby it's often not about acting, i.e. putting yourself in the character's shoes, but there's always

[00:10:35] such a tense relationship between you as a person, then on the other side of the character

[00:10:42] in the anime, for example, and your disguised self in the middle and then it's about the

[00:10:49] posing for photos and recreating scenes.

[00:10:54] And so it's not acting in that sense.

[00:10:58] But it's still, and that's where the emphasis is draon play, on this creative

[00:11:06] acting out, this field of tension, you could almost say that.

[00:11:10] And that's when I came across this sociological vein, where I then read a treatise

[00:11:19] on the subject of cosplay, because as always, science is a bit inclined

[00:11:27] to disregard pop cultural currents for the time being and is only now slowly beginning to

[00:11:31] starting to deal with it.

[00:11:32] And that's when this performativity of identity -

[00:11:37] That's what Judith Butler is very much about,

[00:11:40] it's about the gender issue,

[00:11:41] but also with Irving Goffman: Identity is not fixed, but flexible

[00:11:54] and it is performed,

[00:11:59] if I may put it in layman's terms fromdrÃ.

[00:12:01] You can also see that quite interestingly with cosplayers, for example.

[00:12:05] I have read that they are called âcrossplayersâ.

[00:12:08] For example, a woman cosplays a male character or a man cosplays a female character.

[00:12:15] And there you have automatically, maybe without any political or other

[00:12:21] ulterior motives,

[00:12:22] Crossing boundaries, that is, arbitrary boundaries.

[00:12:28] Yes, exactly.

[00:12:30] This strict binary, which is often the case in our society, is somehow dissolved.

[00:12:37] I found that incredibly fascinating.

[00:12:40] But in the game.

[00:12:41] And it also made me so cosplay, so game, the childish, please distinguish, childish,

[00:12:49] but a childish way of dealing with the subject.

[00:12:52] It's driven by curiosity and, so it's driven by curiosity and the desire to play.

[00:12:59] And that's why I find this whole thing so incredibly likeable.

[00:13:04] I think we should all play more.

[00:13:07] Even the over 25s, who often don't have the opportunity anymore because life

[00:13:13] no longer allows it, unfortunately.

[00:13:15] But how did it come about to complete that?

[00:13:18] In the 1980s in Japan, it became big there.

[00:13:23] Because that's where it came from, a bit together with the, the first generation of

[00:13:31] Anime and manga fans grew up in Japan.

[00:13:34] In other words, they suddenly had the means to express being a fan differentlydrÃ.

[00:13:41] And it's considered fan practice.

[00:13:43] It also came about because copyright protection in Japan was strictly enforced.

[00:13:50] That then prevented imitation in any form.

[00:13:56] But this imitation did not apply to the design of clothing, accessories and weapons

[00:14:03] of the figures in the media that were consumed.

[00:14:07] And that's why it became such a new way to deal creatively without such copyright infringements

[00:14:15] without committing copyright infringement.

[00:14:16] Although there are still so-called doujinshi in Japan.

[00:14:23] I must be pronouncing it wrong.

[00:14:25] You can imagine it like a fanzine.

[00:14:27] Like a fanMagazine or quasi fan fiction, but from a manga as a manga, but just a manga

[00:14:40] self-published and self-drawn and so on. Yes, and that's how it came about a bit and

[00:14:46] then from the 90s onwards, as we talked about last time drü, the manga and

[00:14:50] anime boom in the USA and in Europe and that's how it became big. However, the term

[00:14:57] was coined by the Japanese author Nobuyuki Takahashi and he actually set up his own studio in Los Angeles

[00:15:05] at the Science Fiction Worldcon in 1984 and looked at all the expensive fans and

[00:15:13] then simply derived the term from that and brought it to Japan. It's interesting,

[00:15:20] because I found in the origins of cosplay that it already existed in the 1960s in the

[00:15:25] USA there were cosplays at science fiction conventions. I came across exactly the same thing

[00:15:31] and that it goes back as far as 1939, when the first sci-fi conventions were held

[00:15:37] conventions or gatherings or something. Yes, it's interesting how two completely different

[00:15:44] cultures merge into one another. Exactly, so how it then again and how it is now so

[00:15:50] feels like it's something that came to us from Japan, but somehow it's in

[00:15:55] already been in the US. So for me that's kind of an indication that people there

[00:15:59] simply have the need to play in this way or to express themselvesdrÃ. Exactly, and so

[00:16:08] you just find the terms. Exactly. And nowadays you can feel it everywhere on a lot of

[00:16:15] conventions, so there are the Comic-Cons or the Frankfurt Book Fair, so that's not

[00:16:20] as limited as it perhaps used to be. So whenever it's somehow about fans,

[00:16:26] about fan culture, cosplayers also appear. What I also found interesting, which I

[00:16:33] wanted to say beforehand, because you said that when you're older, you have and

[00:16:36] maybe have a job, have children, maybe you don't have the time anymore to deal with

[00:16:40] to deal with this hobby. Interestingly, in this survey from this website, what the

[00:16:46] 48 percent, that was the largest proportion, were actually working. I do believe that a proportion

[00:16:51] then also have the ways and means to do cosplay as a hobby and it was also interesting because it was mainly

[00:16:58] especially people from the creative industry and that makes sense, because if you're already

[00:17:02] seamstress or work in make-up artistry or something in a creative profession where you already have

[00:17:08] certain skills, it's kind of a logical extension for them. Or it

[00:17:16] is the other way around and you're just looking for a way outdruprofessionally that somehow stays close to that,

[00:17:25] what you also like to do privately. And cosplay is just another extended form,

[00:17:33] This way ofdruexpressing yourself is so driven by this desire for play or creativity or whatever.

[00:17:39] Exactly, as you've already said, there are now also very,

[00:17:44] very many trade fairs. As librarians, we also regularly attend the Leipzig Book Fair

[00:17:49] Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair. We also go to a lot of training courses and

[00:17:53] at lectures and either we are present at a book fair ourselves or people come

[00:18:01] afterwards and tell us about it and then somehow inevitably the comment: "Yes and a lot of

[00:18:07] were in disguise." And it's now also established, so both the Leipzig and the

[00:18:14] Frankfurt Book Fair take this on board and recognize it as a target audience. There are

[00:18:24] also the German Cosplay Championship, which is organized in cooperation with the

[00:18:29] Frankfurt Book Fair and the association called "Animexx". That is, as far as I know

[00:18:38] the largest German-language platform. It's a website where you can register as a

[00:18:46] community meets. In the end. Other big conventions in Germany would be Dokomi, which are

[00:18:54] Düsseldorf, the Connichi in Kassel, the German-Comic-Con modeled on the one in Los Angeles,

[00:19:00] but in Dortmund, Berlin and Frankfurt and the Comic-Con Germany in Stuttgart. And then

[00:19:06] I looked again, what is there in Austria and is there in Austria? Yes,

[00:19:10] there's a lot in Austria. The 'Aniâ - okay, I know now we'll probably get the first -

[00:19:16] the AniNite or the AniâNiteâ. Be nice to me if you correct me. The NipponNation,

[00:19:24] the Vienna Comic-Con, the HanamiCon in Graz and in Tirol, that just took place, the

[00:19:31] LoriCon, namely in Seefeld. Okay, I didn't know that either. Yes, it took place from June 8 to 9

[00:19:38] took place in the Olympic Sports and Congress Center in Seefeld. And that was me, so I know,

[00:19:46] I happened to be in Seefeld on that day last summer and I went for a walk there

[00:19:53] and passed right by the center there. And suddenly we came across cosplayers. See what

[00:20:01] my eyes see there? Cosplayers don't just walk towards you in Tyrol. So either

[00:20:11] you're wearing a ski outfit or hiking pants. And you might know that when my Frankfurt am

[00:20:20] way is around the book fair and Leipzig, but not in Tyrol. And then, by chance, there was

[00:20:25] exactly the LoriCon last year. That's quite funny. These fairs are very much about

[00:20:31] creativity and what we haven't mentioned yet is how collaborative this whole hobby is.

[00:20:38] So the vast majority of cosplayers, although there are exceptions, the vast majority do it as a hobby and give back to the community

[00:20:46] more money than they ⦠So it's not about making money. I also find that very remarkable.

[00:20:51] There are workshops at these fairs, whether it's about sewing or crafts,

[00:20:58] How do I make my weapon? You're simply part of a community online, but then also on site.

[00:21:05] And that's certainly a nice thing, when you can exchange ideas with each other,

[00:21:08] exchange talents, exchange tips, but then you can also kind of

[00:21:13] hyped and say how great each other's costumes are, it's certainly a really nice community.

[00:21:17] I've noticed, well, I always have the impressiondruthat the outside world is a bit

[00:21:22] smiled at from the outside. Do you see it that way too? But I think it's also gotten better.

[00:21:27] I think in the beginning it was like this on the outside: "Okay, these are some weird ones,

[00:21:35] who just do it." And now, as you said, there are also bigger ones

[00:21:40] book fairs have also adopted it and advertise it that way. I don't think so,

[00:21:45] that it's so self-evident. A few, a decade or so ago, that would probably have been

[00:21:49] probably wouldn't have been the case. Many of these meetings are also organized on a voluntary basis.

[00:21:55] Some or most of these associations are run on a voluntary basis. So that

[00:22:00] a lot of community work invisibly behind it to make all this networking happen at all

[00:22:09] to allow them to happen. And to drive that forward, yes. Exactly. And simply to make this space possible for the

[00:22:15] exchange. And that's actually what we stand for as a library.

[00:22:21] A space for everyone. Yes, and what I really like is this participatory approach,

[00:22:26] this aspect of not being a passive consumer of something, but actively contributing to it

[00:22:36] takes something for yourself. That was also a bit of a theme in the fanfiction episode. Actively taking something and

[00:22:41] creates it for yourself. I don't know, I have that now that I use ChatGPT so much

[00:22:45] used it once now. I had this feeling and then you just read - in the morning you read

[00:22:51] the news, then you need quick information and you google it. And that's what

[00:22:55] Google is also designed so that you don't memorize anything, but that you just go to Google

[00:22:59] go to Google. And then you quickly type in your ... "I need an essay for 200 words for this

[00:23:05] and thatâ. And nothing else comes out of a, so every - out of a creative streak of yours

[00:23:12] yourself - yes, every, every bit of curiosity that could arise in you, because you... From any

[00:23:20] taken from some machine. Yes. There you have the answer. But that's something that no

[00:23:26] machine can do, you just have to do it yourself. But do you also have the inputdruck or do you think that the...

[00:23:32] Yes, I think it's a hobby that definitely encourages creativity.

[00:23:36] And it helps to get out of the daily grind. Right now we're so used to it,

[00:23:44] just staring at our computers. And if it's not the computers, then it's the

[00:23:49] cell phones or televisions. And then it's something creative, where I have to do something with the

[00:23:55] Hands are certainly pleasant and nice and a change. Yes, I can imagine that,

[00:24:04] that the ... But I can't say now because I haven't tried it myself yet, of course

[00:24:07] tried it out myself. I would have to try it out. But I don't think I can sew that well,

[00:24:11] that I can manage that. At some point we'll have to invite a cosplayer and have them

[00:24:18] then tell us exactly how it works. But I also have a

[00:24:23] bit of a suspicion that people are also asking themselves, what are they actually doing? Because it

[00:24:29] has no meaning other than as an end in itself. I say my thesis is...

[00:24:34] - intrinsically motivated. - Yes, it's away from capitalism, [00:24:41] away from all social expectations. And as you said at the very beginning of the episode,

[00:24:47] even crosses borders to some extent - we talked about gender and stories like that

[00:24:55] stories that I already... Well, I think that a lot of people don't even

[00:25:02] understand how much flexibility that requires internally. And how much courage. Especially the first

[00:25:12] few times, I can imagine that he might demand if you were in full costume...

[00:25:17] - Go out in public? - Going out in public. And all the looks and often are

[00:25:24] yes... is judged. I already have the feeling that it's often judged. Or at least

[00:25:32] admired in a positive sense, sometimes gawked at in a negative sense. And I don't think that's done enough

[00:25:41] brought to the fore. How amazing... We use the word "creative" all the time.

[00:25:52] But I think we actually want to... I know I'm actually saying how amazing...

[00:25:56] not âcourageousâ either, but how deeply human it actually is to always maintain this game,

[00:26:03] this desire not to lose it. Because I don't think it's... We're also talking about

[00:26:08] the escape from reality in the novels and so on. I would always like to be accused of that too. I think

[00:26:14] not that that's the biggest drive either. I think the biggest drive and that would have to be

[00:26:19] you, dear listeners, must please give your opinion on this, is my opinion after

[00:26:26] Community, this coming together. Belonging to a group that is, among other things, totally

[00:26:37] gets along great and knows exactly what the others think like you do. Pia, a final word.

[00:26:44] Thank you for listening. Maybe, now that we also have the Death Note, maybe someone will march

[00:26:50] any of you march in the light costume or in what's it called again? I've already forgotten all that.

[00:26:57] L? L, exactly. But L is super easy, because he has... Wait, I know, he just happens to be. He has

[00:27:02] jeans on and a white top. But I think he's always barefoot. So if you're not wearing shoes

[00:27:12] on, then we know. Whereby the shinigami, is that shinigami? I don't know what

[00:27:16] all the terms anymore. Yes, it's a shinigami. Exactly. It's a shinigami. Death god, whatever

[00:27:23] always. So I'd be impressed if someone showed up in that costume. In any case,

[00:27:29] we would be delighted if you would drop by the costume shop and visit our manga section

[00:27:35] and take a look at it. - But you can do that without costumes. - You can do it without a costume. We take them all. The room for

[00:27:40] all of them. - And our manga department will soon be reviewing the new Death Note. Thank you

[00:27:47] for listening and until the next episode. You are welcome to give us your opinion at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:27:56] or on Instagram or Facebook. Part... What do I have now, how did I start the sentence?

[00:28:03] - "Say". â Say! You cut out the rest. - I always do. - Okay. Thanks for listening/see you next .... - You say it. thank you for listening

[00:28:19] and happy manga reading. Bye.

[00:28:22] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of "Stadtstimmen",

[00:28:51] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] [Music]

[00:00:15] Yes, let's get started with the podcast. Welcome to the

[00:00:20] âSâForewordâ, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library. My name is Christina.

[00:00:24] And I am Pia. And today we're talking about a particularly exciting topic, at least

[00:00:30] for me, namely historical novels. Pia, on a suspense scale of one to ten, where are you?

[00:00:39] It all depends on the topic dra. That's what I picked out for it because

[00:00:44] it's not the genre I go to straight away. I read a couple, but then they were things,

[00:00:52] where I was specifically interested in that topic. It's not something where I go to the bookstore

[00:00:57] and the library and say, oh, let's just go to the historical novels. I don't do that.

[00:01:02] That means that you actually do historical novels specifically for a certain

[00:01:07] "Educational purpose", i.e. for the educational benefit, read in the sense of, oh, I'm interested in the time now, right?

[00:01:15] Or the people. I wrote down two examples that came to mind. At school, for example, we learned something about

[00:01:23] beach colonies and that interested me. And that's why I later read the "Abby Lynn" saga

[00:01:29] by, what's his name now, Rainer Schröder. That just interested me and that's why

[00:01:36] I then read the books. And the other thing that also occurred to me, very specifically, was then

[00:01:40] "Raven Queen" by Pauline Francis. That's about Lady Jane Grey and I was in London at the time and was in the Tower

[00:01:48] of London and learned about her, so I learned about her through the audiobook there and that's why I read the

[00:01:54] read it because it interested me. So that's how I got into historical novels and it wasn't

[00:02:00] not: okay, I'll go to the historical novels and see what's there.

[00:02:02] And before we go any further into the subject to clarify why we like historical novels

[00:02:11] or maybe not, I've brought a genre definition with me to help us

[00:02:18] and I would like to spread it out here now, if that's okay. The historical novel

[00:02:26] is a literary genre that is characterized by its focus on past times and historical events

[00:02:32] events. So far, so clear. In this genre, fictional stories or characters are set in a real

[00:02:40] historical context. This often involves an accurate depiction of the historical

[00:02:46] period, whereby historical events, places and personalities are integrated into the plot

[00:02:53] are integrated. The historical novel enables the reader to immerse themselves in past eras and

[00:03:00] experience history in a lively and entertaining way. While at the same time aspects of the

[00:03:06] human nature and universal themes are explored, just like in any novel. And it's exactly

[00:03:12] that last sentence, that you want to experience history in a lively and entertaining way,

[00:03:19] what you've just described here. You have a background from a historical period

[00:03:25] and then wanted to delve deeper. And then you were looking for more than just what you

[00:03:35] a history book can give you? What did that give you? Exactly, you just come to this period and

[00:03:41] you think, or you're in this period, in this time, or you think of this person and you think, how did they

[00:03:46] felt back then? Or what was it like back then? We experienced that back then and then

[00:03:51] that interests you and then you might want to do more than just read the facts.

[00:03:56] Yes, exactly, so what makes literature for me is this ability to put myself in someone's shoes and to

[00:04:05] historical novel in the concrete context of the time, which is also of interest,

[00:04:10] for one reason or another. For me, it was mainly the English Middle Ages,

[00:04:19] that gripped me and I went for the historical novel accordingly,

[00:04:26] so to speak. I couldn't get enough of that for a while. I also actually have

[00:04:33] two recommendations for historical novels, both of which fall into the genre, but both of which are

[00:04:41] a little bit, so they are very different. One is more literary and the other is perhaps

[00:04:46] more what you would imagine a typical genre novel to be like. I would like to tell you about them now

[00:04:53] briefly and introduce them to our listeners.

[00:04:56] Go ahead!

[00:04:57] And the first person I brought with me

[00:04:59] is Rebecca Gablé, who has been writing historical novels for many decades now

[00:05:05] novels in the German-speaking market. She is a German writer and her

[00:05:10] historical novels, the most famous being the Waringham Saga. I would describe it as action-adventure novels

[00:05:17] to describe them. They usually also have a male protagonist and are often very

[00:05:23] stereotypical in their structure as well. So if you know a Rebecca Gablé novel, then you have an

[00:05:30] idea of how she builds it up over and over again with different twists,

[00:05:37] but it's stereotypically the same. They're quite stereotypical gender roles as well,

[00:05:43] I have to say, but it's also often an underdog story, which I know a lot of

[00:05:51] readers appreciate it. And my absolute recommendation theredrin is the "King of the

[00:05:57] pupurn cityâ. That came out back in 2002. Above all, the medieval

[00:06:03] city of London plays a central role and, in my opinion, this is actually her best work or

[00:06:12] the one I liked reading the most. And the second one that I brought with me is the

[00:06:16] Hilary Mantel, who unfortunately passed away recently with her Tudor trilogy about

[00:06:25] Thomas Cromwell. For anyone who doesn't know, Thomas Cromwell is or was an important

[00:06:31] figure during the reign of Henry VIII, King of England in the 16th century.

[00:06:36] Henry is the one with the many wives, who also meant to behead a few of them. And Cromwell

[00:06:43] was then at some point chief minister, who then rose in his service from Henry, was

[00:06:49] Chief Minister, controlled much of the politics and administration of England.

[00:06:54] But ultimately fell out of favor and was then accused of heresy and executed and

[00:07:01] Nevertheless, he had and still has a very great influence in history

[00:07:05] England and plays a major role. Hilary Mantel has taken on this figure in a

[00:07:11] trilogy, drei historical novels: 'Wolves', 'Falcons', 'Mirror and Light' from 2009 to 2020, where she just

[00:07:19] describes the rise and fall of Cromwell. I would classify it as much more literary and

[00:07:26] also somewhat more sophisticated due to its level of detail, i.e. the detail of the text

[00:07:32] than perhaps the Gablé novels now. And I found that very interesting. Both English

[00:07:37] Middle Ages, both are historical novels, but it represents a certain range,

[00:07:41] what you can imagine, what you can understand under the genre and how much space there is.

[00:07:48] Did you, I know you don't like reading it that much, you already said it, but did you bring anything with you

[00:07:55] any recommendation or? I looked at it a little bit, also because it was about

[00:08:00] okay, how do you do research for historical novels, how do the

[00:08:03] authors themselves look up where it is, what happened there.

[00:08:19] Exactly, very briefly, because we forget that

[00:08:12] or to say that a large part of it, apart from the recommendations and looking at what is now

[00:08:17] a historical novel, is exactly what Pia, what you said, that the interesting question is

[00:08:21] actually, how do authors research these books, because that's,

[00:08:26] maybe you can't even imagine what this process is like and that's what

[00:08:31] we also prepared ourselves for this episode, we also looked at a lot of things.

[00:08:34] I've also looked at how Gablé and Mantel are preparing and now I'm curious,

[00:08:40] what you've found out. I took a look at the Outlander series, which has been written

[00:08:46] was written by Diana Gabaldon I always say that wrong, so I write it âGabaldonâ, but I say

[00:08:54] you say "Gavaldon",

[00:08:55] Really?

[00:08:56] So with a V, I looked it up because I didn't know.

[00:08:58] I think I've been saying that wrong for 20 years.

[00:09:00] Me too, I always said "Gabaldon", so

[00:09:02] "Gavaldon" it is.

[00:09:04] Okay, then âGavaldonâ.

[00:09:06] Exactly, I've learned something again and there are already some

[00:09:10] parts out, 9 out of 10 are supposed to be, are at the moment, but 10 are supposed to be and she is

[00:09:20] an interesting case, the series is very, very well known, is also doing very well, is constantly landing on

[00:09:27] the bestseller lists, there's also the series on Starz, it's already there,

[00:09:33] wait, now I have to look it up, I think we have 6 seasons, exactly, and there will be 8 seasons, so that's what's going on

[00:09:41] extremely well, this series, real bestsellers. And that's an interesting case,

[00:09:46] because that was the first book she wrote. She'd never written anything before

[00:09:50] and her first book was a historical novel.

[00:09:53] But may I ask a quick question in between, which is yes, but it's not purely historical, is it?

[00:09:59] Exactly, that's the interesting thing, she wanted to write a historical novel, she said, I want to write a historical novel

[00:10:04] write a really classic, thick, big historical novel, because she came from a

[00:10:12] scientific background. She has had a PhD in behavioral ecology and has

[00:10:16] so of course she did a lot of scientific research.

[00:10:19] Also very exciting, by the way,

[00:10:21] because Hilary Mantel studied law and Rebecca Gablé has a degree in

[00:10:31] medieval studies, so medieval studies, also completed various studies, that's a certain

[00:10:36] Research fever, you have to have that.

[00:10:39] Exactly, that's what unites all drei authors,

[00:10:43] that we've already talked about today.

[00:10:45] Yes, interesting. Yes, and she just, and so she thought,

[00:10:49] that's probably the easiest for me, because she thought, okay, if I don't have anything else

[00:10:54] comes to mind, I can always do some research and steal it. And that's why she

[00:11:00] started writing it. She didn't tell anyone that she was writing. 18 months

[00:11:05] it took her 18 months to write the first book, which was published in 1991, and she wrote

[00:11:11] saw it as an exercise. She just wanted to try out how it worked. And

[00:11:16] the problem was that she was writing about Scotland in the 18th century and then she started,

[00:11:22] to write about this main character, Claire. And she didn't really succeed with this character

[00:11:27] succeeded, she kept making kind of cheeky, modern remarks. And that is

[00:11:32] only happened while she was writing and then she spent ages thinking, what am I doing? And then

[00:11:36] this time travel element was added because she thought to herself, no, I don't want that

[00:11:41] change it like that. I want to keep it so modern, so cheeky and modern. And that's why I'm changing the whole thing

[00:11:48] and turn it into a time travel novel.

[00:11:50] I find that particularly interesting now, because exactly

[00:11:53] Rebecca Gablé also faced this problem. Because you have, especially in the

[00:12:00] historical novel, you need a possibility of identification between the characters

[00:12:08] and especially the protagonists and the readers. And she also talked about that,

[00:12:16] how in her writing process, she always, it's always a balancing act between the modernity

[00:12:24] of the characters and making them somehow relatable for us as an audience, but then also a

[00:12:30] certain authenticity, because in medieval England, for example,

[00:12:36] she gave the example that it was completely normal there, so sexism and others,

[00:12:43] homophobia. So of course it was all very different than we feel today.

[00:12:49] Different values, different cultural ideas.

[00:12:53] I believe that they, that is, that these protagonists, especially in this zone of the

[00:12:59] historical novel, I say, where you don't lean so far out of the window,

[00:13:03] that this is also rather popular literature.

[00:13:07] that it tends towards modernism and that's why I also read its protagonists,

[00:13:14] who are mostly male, always read the same, and I find it interesting that Gabaldon chose this approach.

[00:13:22] That means she has this fantasy aspect from a writing process, is that how it came about?

[00:13:28] Exactly. So it wasn't planned that way beforehand. She wanted to do a classic historical novel.

[00:13:32] Interesting.

[00:13:33] And afterwards, because of the way she wrote it, she thought it wouldn't fit in,

[00:13:38] I have to do something else and then this time travel element was added.

[00:13:42] Exactly. I found it quite interesting to do it that way.

[00:13:47] And she always said when she was researching that she combines the research and the writing.

[00:13:52] So it's not that she researches beforehand and then writes, but she does both at the same time.

[00:13:57] She also does a lot of research, she has 1500 volumes at home,

[00:14:02] just for the research, including books on medicine and medicinal plants,

[00:14:09] because the main character was also a nurse in the Second World War and then travels to Scotland,

[00:14:14] to the 18th century.

[00:14:15] So she has to know a lot about medicine.

[00:14:17] And then, of course, things like encyclopaedias, slang dictionaries, English dictionaries

[00:14:27] and also books about Scottish traditions and Highland culture.

[00:14:31] So she did a lot of research and she mainly researches with books.

[00:14:36] She says she uses the internet, but rather sporadically.

[00:14:39] And only for things when she can't imagine what something looks like, for example,

[00:14:43] She has used it more often for that.

[00:14:45] I'd like to, so we're talking about drei authors who have been doing this for a very long time

[00:14:51] and who of course have their methods.

[00:14:56] And I would also like to tell you again how Gablé and Mantel,

[00:14:59] what they say about it, how they do their research.

[00:15:03] It just occurred to me that it will be interesting to see how this develops in the future.

[00:15:08] If you have tools like ChatGPT, for example.

[00:15:14] You get them, if the information is correct,

[00:15:19] you can then get the information directly into your GPT console via an Internet connection.

[00:15:26] I think that's going to be very useful for some writers

[00:15:31] the work for sure.

[00:15:33] And I can at least imagine that it will be especially useful for research-intensive genres like the historical novel.

[00:15:38] I can imagine that it makes it easier.

[00:15:41] But Gabaldon, she's not so enthusiastic about the Internet.

[00:15:44] She said that the Internet doesn't go very deeply into the subject matter.

[00:15:50] And for that, of course, such specific works are helpful.

[00:15:55] Especially when you write about something in such detail.

[00:15:57] So for me, her books really seem like historical novels and not really like fantasy.

[00:16:05] Fantasy, I've read a lot.

[00:16:07] This fantasy element is only there a little bit, but most of it is really set in this age, takes place in this age.

[00:16:14] And that's where you can see the research.

[00:16:17] So just what I noticed, I didn't even know how she does her research.

[00:16:22] With the remedies, you really get the feeling that the woman knows her stuff, even though you don't know it yourself.

[00:16:29] But you can tell from her research.

[00:16:32] And that's where I think the internet is only of limited help.

[00:16:35] Yes, that's certainly a good point, because especially with historical materials,

[00:16:42] only what's actually presented on the Internet can some tool or a search engine or whatever algorithm can give you.

[00:16:52] A lot of the research materials, these are old texts, old letters, sometimes things that are centuries old,

[00:16:59] are perhaps not available or only available in closed databases, if digitized at all.

[00:17:07] There's certainly a lot that simply hasn't been digitized yet, where you can't access it at all.

[00:17:12] Apart from the fact that Rebecca Gablé, for example, says that she likes to go on research trips before starting a novel.

[00:17:23] So she actually travels, if possible, to the places, in her case Great Britain, that she wants to write about.

[00:17:32] And that's a big part of her process.

[00:17:34] But with both Gablé and Mantel, in my research, as you research, for her novels

[00:17:42] that they are very detail-oriented and structured.

[00:17:47] So Mantel, for example, sets up a structure right from the start.

[00:17:53] So she then lays out what she's writing about, where is the beginning, middle, end and everything in between, which characters are involved

[00:18:03] and then turns them into biographies.

[00:18:05] And of course, if these are historical figures, then she goes into the texts.

[00:18:09] Then she goes to various libraries, I can only assume.

[00:18:13] So you just pull the material.

[00:18:15] Looks at historical documents, sometimes you have to know Latin for that.

[00:18:21] Or Middle High English or whatever.

[00:18:25] Or like with the Gabaldon Gaelic.

[00:18:27] Yes, she has that too. She has Gaelic dictionaries, although she said she also has help with Gaelic from a Gaelic singer,

[00:18:33] who helps her almost more than the dictionaries.

[00:18:35] Of course, it's also great when you have an expert you can rely on.

[00:18:39] Hilary Mantel, for example, did years of extensive research for her Cromwell trilogy before she even wrote a word.

[00:18:49] And it's very, very important to her that these historical facts are correct.

[00:18:53] And she wants it to be as accurate as possible.

[00:18:59] And I think the degree of importance is even higher in her novels.

[00:19:07] So you also notice how much attention to detail the novels have when you actually read them.

[00:19:13] I've read all drei.

[00:19:15] And I'm going to say that they're quite research-intensive. But you had the feeling that you were standing next to Cromwell and could see which stamp he was using.

[00:19:25] That's how detailed it was.

[00:19:27] And also with the Gablé, you noticed this structure.

[00:19:31] And she also studied medieval studies.

[00:19:35] That means that she also studied a topic in depth for many, many years before she even got into the writing process.

[00:19:45] That means a deeper, I think our drei authors share a deep interest and passion for the topic.

[00:19:51] A structured and detail-oriented way of working.

[00:19:55] Fundamentally not to be underestimated, especially in terms of training in the subject.

[00:20:00] And then to bring this structure into the writing process and then to keep researching.

[00:20:09] I can only imagine that you then write and then you go away to research something again.

[00:20:15] And then you come back and continue writing.

[00:20:17] Until at some point you have your 700 to 1000 pages.

[00:20:21] And that's when the historical novel is a perfect summer read,

[00:20:27] because then you have time to read such thick volumes.

[00:20:30] Oh, yes.

[00:20:31] Yes, and you can really let yourself fall in.

[00:20:35] I also have to say, I read the Gablé and then I haven't read a historical novel for a long time.

[00:20:43] And then I was really, really impresseddruby all the things the genre canmag and all the things you can do with the genre,

[00:20:53] when I read Hillary Mantel.

[00:20:55] But there are also historical novels that are much shorter,

[00:20:59] than these big chunks we've been talking about.

[00:21:03] Some are also single volumes and not a trilogy or anything.

[00:21:07] And there's a lot across the board that you can take with you.

[00:21:13] And I mean, if you have an e-book reader, then there's no problem anyway.

[00:21:17] That's the positive thing about summer, yes.

[00:21:20] I find that interesting, that the characters, who are also so modern,

[00:21:25] even in Gablé, which doesn't incorporate a time travel element where that would make sense,

[00:21:30] I find that interesting now.

[00:21:32] I think that's also the reason why I'm not such a fan of historical novels, because

[00:21:37] Fanâ¦

[00:21:38] As I said, it always depends on the subject dra.

[00:21:39] But it kind of bothers me that these women are always so caught up in this time,

[00:21:46] even if they try to defend themselves and are rebellious.

[00:21:48] There are plenty of examples of rebellious women,

[00:21:52] about which a historical novel is written.

[00:21:55] For example, I wrote down "Zuleika" by Bernardine Evaristo

[00:22:00] has just come out, for example, about a woman in the Roman Empire,

[00:22:05] who is supposed to be married off and is now totally against it.

[00:22:08] Or "Lil" by Markus Gasser, who is an entrepreneur in New York,

[00:22:13] who broke all the rules back then.

[00:22:16] So there are already too many of these examples.

[00:22:20] But they are women who are trapped in time,

[00:22:24] even if they try desperately to change things.

[00:22:26] And that's what I somehow liked so much about "Outlander",

[00:22:29] that she, as the main character, knows very well that things could be different.

[00:22:32] Okay, yeah, I see.

[00:22:34] And also against this structure that is there.

[00:22:39] So that's what I found so great.

[00:22:41] Yes, you have the potential of the historical novel and the genre boundary

[00:22:47] to fantasy, that's where the potential is exhausted.

[00:22:51] I think that's the reason why Rebecca Gablé

[00:22:54] always writes male protagonists,

[00:22:57] because they naturally have much more power and leeway.

[00:23:00] And they are always white, male protagonists,

[00:23:03] because they ..

[00:23:07] ...automatically bring advantages with them, right?

[00:23:09] Yes, and through these advantages in the story itself,

[00:23:10] they are underdogs, but not so underdog,

[00:23:13] that they couldn't work their way up

[00:23:15] or get rich or be successful knights

[00:23:20] or whatever.

[00:23:22] And that's, but it's easier to write it that way,

[00:23:27] I'm sure because it's also much more pleasant,

[00:23:29] much easier to slide down.

[00:23:31] Finally, I brought something from Peter Prange,

[00:23:34] namely the "10 theses on the historical novel",

[00:23:36] which I would now like to briefly present,

[00:23:39] if that fits? Peter Prange is also a German writer,

[00:23:42] who also writes historical novels,

[00:23:44] you may know him from the "Worldbuilder Trilogy".

[00:23:47] Are you ready for ten theses Pia?

[00:23:49] Go ahead.

[00:23:50] Thesis number one, a historical novel is not a history book.

[00:23:54] A historical novel is not a popularized science.

[00:23:59] What he means is that a historical novel does not popularize history

[00:24:03] does not want to reduce history, but use it for itself

[00:24:07] for the narrative element and for the suspense element,

[00:24:10] which you have already mentioned.

[00:24:12] Number drei: A historical novel is not about history,

[00:24:16] but about life.

[00:24:17] A historical novel is dramatized life.

[00:24:20] A historical novel is a realistic novel,

[00:24:23] sometimes with fantasy elements, as we have learned today.

[00:24:26] A historical novel is a novel of development,

[00:24:29] is a mirror of the soul, is a contemporary novel,

[00:24:33] namely the novel as a medium of self-understanding.

[00:24:36] What he means by that is that you always want to somehow

[00:24:39] to the reader fromdrÃ, to the reader fromdrÃ

[00:24:42] and also hold up the mirror.

[00:24:44] A historical novel is not an image, but a symbol.

[00:24:48] Point number ten, a historical novel is first and foremost a novel.

[00:24:53] I thought that was a good fit again

[00:24:57] and kind of summarized a little bit nicely,

[00:24:59] what we've established in this episode.

[00:25:02] What do you mean?

[00:25:03] Yeah, I think so too.

[00:25:04] Are you satisfied with his theses?

[00:25:05] I am satisfied with his theses.

[00:25:07] Yes, and what about you?

[00:25:10] Do you like historical novels?

[00:25:11] What historical novels have you read?

[00:25:13] Which ones do you particularly like?

[00:25:16] Do you plan to read any this summer?

[00:25:19] What do you take with you on vacation?

[00:25:21] Write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@insbook.gv.at

[00:25:27] or also on Instagram or Facebook.

[00:25:30] See you next time.

[00:25:34] See you next time and all the best, all the best, happy vacations, happy summer.

[00:25:40] Until then, bye.

[00:25:41] [Music]

[00:26:05] "Foreword" is a production of the Innsbruck City Library

[00:26:09] and part of "Stadtstimmen", the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Beware, listening to this podcast may lead to more library visits.

[00:00:06] You took all my nerves away because you just start half an hour before.

[00:00:22] Just like it was agreed.

[00:00:25] That's a cheek.

[00:00:28] [Music]

[00:00:42] Yes, hello and welcome to âSâVorwortâ, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:47] My name is Christina and today I have a very special guest,

[00:00:52] namely my dear colleague, Verena. Hello Verena.

[00:00:55] Hello Christina.

[00:00:56] I'm very pleased that you have, may I say, overcome yourself to be with us today.

[00:01:01] We talked about it a bit before you agreed, didn't we?

[00:01:05] Yes, I don't know how that happened to me either, that I'm sitting here now.

[00:01:09] Yes, it happens when you talk about work in the break room.

[00:01:16] And lean too far out of the window.

[00:02:17] Yes.

[00:01:19] Leaning way too far out of the window.

[00:01:21] That's also the reason why I'm sitting here.

[00:01:25] Many of us have already survived this baptism of fire, Pia and I did it last year

[00:01:30] and were terribly nervous

[00:01:32] at the beginning. Now it's a bit better if you do it every week.

[00:01:36] So I'm all the happier that you're here now.

[00:01:39] And today we're looking at the following question: Why do we actually like Kafka?

[00:01:47] Verena, how did we come up with this topic?

[00:01:51] There's a new TV series on ORF called "Kafka", made by David Schalko, he's the director,

[00:01:58] and Daniel Kehlmann wrote the Drehbuch.

[00:02:00] And I saw the series and somehow we got talking about it in the break room.

[00:02:05] And that's why we're sitting here now.

[00:02:07] And the question is, of course, why make a series about Kafka?

[00:02:12] Well, for the first time it's the 100th anniversary of his death.

[00:02:16] The Kafka is, or rather the one that's coming, so this year, he died on 03.06.1924,

[00:02:23] will soon have been dead for 100 years.

[00:02:26] And we're also doing the episode to mark the occasion.

[00:02:29] There's a series to mark the occasion.

[00:02:31] And somehow you can ask yourself a bit.

[00:02:35] I always have the feeling that you take these things as an occasion so that you have something to talk about.

[00:02:40] Yes.

[00:02:43] And everything I googled about Kafka and about interviews with David Schalko and Daniel Kehlmann,

[00:02:51] They still think Kafka is really great.

[00:02:54] And they say he's the author of the 20th century.

[00:03:02] He's considered a classic of world literature.

[00:03:06] We've talked about the term "world literature" several times in the podcast

[00:03:12] and we agree that it is a very Western canon.

[00:03:15] And we also question the concept of canon from time to time. For the episode today

[00:03:20] we prepared a little differently.

[00:03:23] You watched the series.

[00:03:25] I read two more stories by Kafka.

[00:03:28] Yes.

[00:03:29] Yes, for the first time in ten years.

[00:03:32] What did you read?

[00:03:34] I didn't expect you to ask me such profound questions.

[00:03:41] Well, I've read The Metamorphosis and The Judgment.

[00:03:45] So two very entertaining things.

[00:03:49] I also have to say that Kafka always evokes in me âoh, please don'tâ.

[00:03:55] And I don't know if you've noticed this, but when we were talking about it in the break room with other team members theredrÃ,

[00:04:01] it was like 50/50 or I would even say 80/20 reactions because of that:

[00:04:07] "Boah, not the Kafka

[00:04:09] So I have the feeling that Kafka has such a dusty, depressing appeal.

[00:04:14] When you hear "Kafka", you think, "boah, now it's getting depressing".

[00:04:17] What's the show like?

[00:04:19] Well, I didn't find the show depressing.

[00:04:23] They try to link his life with his works.

[00:04:29] In other words, you find clues in every episode as to why he wrote what and when.

[00:04:36] Each episode is from a different perspective, I would say.

[00:04:42] One episode is about the family, one episode is about the office.

[00:04:47] I mean, he's an insurance employee for the state accident insurance.

[00:04:52] Which I actually find very funny, because ... he was a very bureaucratic person.

[00:04:57] Other episodes are about the drei most important women in his life.

[00:05:02] One, of course, is about Max Brod, to whom we owe the fact that we know Kafka.

[00:05:06] He published his works, which were still unpublished, against Kafka's will, in the end posthumously.

[00:05:15] A lot of diaries and so on.

[00:05:17] Exactly, exactly, exactly.

[00:05:19] And from what I've read, that's what makes Kafka so special,

[00:05:23] apart from the fact that he wrote unbelievably great texts,

[00:05:26] also that he wrote so much in his diary.

[00:05:30] That means he's the author people know the most about because he wrote diaries so meticulously.

[00:05:37] And there is a Kafka biographer who also worked on the series,

[00:05:45] or always provided the information.

[00:05:48] And that's Reiner Stach.

[00:05:50] He has written a drepart, incredible biography about Kafka.

[00:05:54] And I think he's done nothing else all his life but deal with Kafka

[00:05:59] however you might think of it now mag.

[00:06:03] That's the kind of literary scholar who disappears deeper and deeper into his rabbit hole.

[00:06:11] Until he makes a biography in dreparts and then accompanies a series on ORF.

[00:06:18] And he gives lectures.

[00:06:21] Well, I don't think he really does anything else.

[00:06:24] And we have him there.

[00:06:26] Of course.

[00:06:28] It's a standard work, as you say.

[00:06:30] Of course we have it in the library, just like all the works by Kafka,

[00:06:34] We also have all of them, they can all be found.

[00:06:37] I then asked myself the question, is Kafka really still read that much and what do we have there about Kafka?

[00:06:45] And then I looked it up.

[00:06:47] And if I just enter the author Kafka, then we have 19 data records.

[00:06:54] For anyone who doesn't see it now, Verena has, in typical librarian fashion..

[00:06:59] Is it the Excel spreadsheet? Yes?

[00:07:02] Statistics.

[00:07:04] Statistics, extracted from our library programdruckt.

[00:07:09] And looked at how many different things we have from Kafka in total.

[00:07:14] And do you have any figures on how well they're doing?

[00:07:16] Well, Kafka as an author, not as a person.

[00:07:20] That's another difference.

[00:07:22] We have 19 things there. Audiobooks, books.

[00:07:25] And yes, they all go.

[00:07:28] About five, six times at least each one was lent.

[00:07:32] And we haven't had them in the house for 20 years.

[00:07:35] So, it's been in the last two, drei years.

[00:07:38] For example, I borrowed this little book of short stories.

[00:07:43] It's an edition from Fischer Taschenbuch.

[00:07:46] And that should, when is that coming out, probably..

[00:07:50] We've had it since February 2023.

[00:07:52] Yes.

[00:07:53] So, quite a modern little book, totally beautifully designed too, I think.

[00:07:57] You can't see it now, but it's linked in the show notes, you can also borrow it from us.

[00:08:02] In this context, the question arises as to why, that first horror that gripped me,

[00:08:10] where we started talking about doing an episode about Kafka

[00:08:16] also relates a bit to my experience with Kafka.

[00:08:21] Well, first of all, my first points of contact with it were that I was still far removed from any field of work, from any nine-to-five job.

[00:08:32] But that was first at school and then early in my studies.

[00:08:37] And now that I've re-read "The Metamorphosis" in particular. Kafka tells the story in modern times.

[00:08:44] Kafka belongs to Expressionism, the literary, the new subjectivity, which, in contrast to many of his contemporaries, he expresses with a great deal of objectivitydrÃ.

[00:08:55] That was the first time in my life since I read Kafka and I wouldn't have picked up Kafka again if we hadn't done the episode today.

[00:09:05] There are certain parallels, I would say for myself, that I read in it that are quite critical of capitalism, meritocracy, functioning. At some point it no longer works in the narrative,

[00:09:15] So Georg Samsa, because he becomes a pauper and his first thought is that he still has to go to work and so on and so forth.

[00:09:23] And then this family construct gradually disintegrates.

[00:09:26] The whole family is dependent on his employment and so on, so I thought to myself

[00:09:31] Maybe we just read Kafka too... because that was the first time I understood literature the way I think it's best understood, namely on a personal level and before that it was always on a theoretical, completely abstract level. So at school and at university.

[00:09:48] Another author, Italo Calvino, answered the general question of why we should read the classics.

[00:09:56] He had a total of two answers.

[00:09:58] The first answer is: "Your classic", that is, the classic that you might pick up yourself, is the one that cannot be indifferent to you and that serves to define you in relation to it or in contrast to it.

[00:10:14] And I particularly liked that.

[00:10:17] Because that picked up for me that I have always defined myself in contrast to Kafka, as a reader, and that I realized that many people often define themselves in contrast or in relation to a classic.

[00:10:28] âI mag Kafka.â

[00:10:30] "I have "Kafkaesque" tattooed on my hand." Or something like that.

[00:10:33] It also exists in literature studies at least.

[00:10:36] Okay.

[00:10:40] Before the episode, did you define yourself in relation to Kafka or in contrast to Kafka?

[00:10:47] Did you have his texts, was that something that gave you something or had you not dealt with it at all?

[00:10:54] Well, we read The Metamorphoses at school.

[00:10:58] And I can remember, I liked reading it and I can just remember the ending,

[00:11:05] that the family happily goes for a carriage ride after the beetle finally dies.

[00:11:11] And that shocked me at the time, I mean because it was a family member.

[00:11:18] And I think you can read a lot out of Kafka.

[00:11:23] Yes, I never looked at Kafka again until the series.

[00:11:27] And I found it quite interesting, perhaps also because of my background,

[00:11:31] I studied history at some point, that it was about his life, about the time, about the zeitgeist.

[00:11:40] It's about how he lived, what he did, what fears he had.

[00:11:49] Everything from his diary. There are a lot of quotes from him drinnen.

[00:11:53] And you understand it a bit better.

[00:11:57] I mean the question still remains, why about Kafka, okay, 100 years, all in all,

[00:12:03] it's an interesting picture about time.

[00:12:06] Before I come to the second reason why you should read classics, Calvino,

[00:12:14] that's exactly what literature in general and classics of world literature do,

[00:12:22] that are rooted in the canon, in particular,

[00:12:26] because you often read them from a great distance in time and then you should or almost have to read them in the context of their time.

[00:12:35] Kafka is..., he wrote expressionistically, and he has the epochal concept of a literature,

[00:12:45] which you can only ever define in retrospect.

[00:12:49] It's literary modernism and it's characterized in particular by the emergence of ..,

[00:12:54] So industrialization has taken hold there.

[00:12:58] People lived in the city, Kafka himself worked in an insurance company, he studied law.

[00:13:07] There was science, it produced new findings, Einstein's theory of relativity.

[00:13:13] Freud came around the corner with his psychoanalysis.

[00:13:16] It was also something that influenced Kafka a lot.

[00:13:19] And this complete social upheaval, all these innovations in society,

[00:13:26] which he certainly experienced as a child of his time, without wanting to consciously portray it,

[00:13:32] now somehow worked out.

[00:13:35] And you can read that in him and that's probably what makes a good writer,

[00:13:41] that you can draw that from their texts in context.

[00:13:47] And it's also very interesting, because that's what's happening to us right now.

[00:13:50] We are living in a time of immense upheaval, both technologically, environmentally and politically.

[00:13:59] In 100 years, people will look back at the literature that was created today

[00:14:05] and maybe talk about someone else, like we're talking about Kafka now.

[00:14:10] So Calvino says, why should you read it? Quite casually: Because it's better than not having read it.

[00:14:16] That would simply be the better choice of the two.

[00:14:19] That's certainly true and you mustn't forget,

[00:14:23] You've counted a lot of changes now and there will be more.

[00:14:27] The First World War was still part of it, the Danube monarchy collapsed.

[00:14:33] He was first a German-Czech, which means he was actually part of the elite in Prague.

[00:14:39] And then, after the war, he was suddenly Czech and suddenly you couldn't speak German anymore,

[00:14:46] at work, in the company, which was common practice before.

[00:14:52] So that's also a change and I don't know, at least that's a quote in the series,

[00:14:57] but at one point he says he doesn't really speak any language, neither German nor Czech.

[00:15:03] And I also find it quite exciting that he always takes a step back and always awakens the impressiondruck,

[00:15:10] that it's not good enough and he always wants to be better somehow and make everything even better.

[00:15:17] And yes, although he wanted his texts to be destroyed because they weren't good enough for him, he succeeded.

[00:15:24] Thanks to or because of Max Brod, who didn't have a very easy time of it either, I think, with this legacy.

[00:15:32] Why do we actually like Kafka?

[00:15:37] Maybe the answer to that question is, I don't know if you agree with me, Verena.

[00:15:42] You don't have to like him, but "The Verdict" is short enough that you could at least have read it.

[00:15:48] I don't think you can get past it.

[00:15:51] So we don't necessarily have to like him or appreciate his works, but you can't get past them, no matter what you read.

[00:15:59] And maybe you've seen it, I brought us the Innsbruck-liest book because Kafka is in it.

[00:16:06] And when you deal with a topic, you stumble across it in all areas drÃ.

[00:16:12] For example, here we only talk about a 'bookshelf'..

[00:16:16] The author then lists what books are on the shelf.

[00:16:21] And of course there's also Kafka drinnen.

[00:16:23] Of course. What else would it say?

[00:16:26] I came across new books about Kafka in the bookshop.

[00:16:31] I've come across Kafka everywhere in the last few weeks.

[00:16:34] So we can't exhibit him at all.

[00:16:37] And I'd like to end with a little social criticism.

[00:16:43] Because, of course, the publishing industry and, in this case, the media landscape is constantly criticizing itself.

[00:16:53] Because in that context, and we're also talking about canon and canon formation,

[00:16:59] and the texts that we want to receive over and over again,

[00:17:03] are unfortunately and still texts by white cis men,

[00:17:08] which, even if Kafka is certainly considered an underdog mag, the way he presents himself.

[00:17:17] So that's a bit of the feeling you might get,

[00:17:23] when you deal with Kafka, because, as you've already said,

[00:17:27] was always so dissatisfied with his own writing.

[00:17:29] And this typical tortured existence as an artist just

[00:17:32] is the fact that we have birthdays and deathdays and publication days,

[00:17:39] what do I know about days, we always take them as an opportunity,

[00:17:42] to receive the same voices over and over again,

[00:17:44] that's why we can't get away with it.

[00:17:46] And while I don't think that Kafka should be lost,

[00:17:49] and I can see that it has great added value,

[00:17:52] I do find it regrettable that we have so many voices,

[00:17:55] that there would otherwise have been from women from his time,

[00:17:58] who might also have written into the modern age,

[00:18:01] but would have had to cook dinner instead

[00:18:04] and therefore didn't have the time to write through the nights.

[00:18:07] Or marginalized groups who couldn't write at all,

[00:18:11] because they were completely excluded from educational society,

[00:18:14] through no fault of their own that we will never hear these voices

[00:18:19] and that we only ever hear the sameâ¦, it's a bit of an echo chamber, I think.

[00:18:23] And that always resonates for me now,

[00:18:27] when we have these canonical authors,

[00:18:30] and unfortunately that's not always the case,

[00:18:32] but mostly authors, male form.

[00:18:35] I don't know if you agree with me?

[00:18:38] I totally agree with you.

[00:18:40] And I asked myself that same question while watching the show.

[00:18:45] And then I thought about it,

[00:18:47] Well, is there also a woman in this context, in this series

[00:18:51] or another person who is actually more interesting to me personally than Kafka.

[00:18:57] And I found her, of course.

[00:19:00] And it's Milena Jesenska.

[00:19:05] She translated his works into Czech.

[00:19:08] She was also a pen pal of Kafka.

[00:19:12] They also spend a few days in Vienna once.

[00:19:15] But she really had an exciting life.

[00:19:17] Her father had her committed to a psychiatric ward,

[00:19:21] because she wanted to get married, he wanted to have her emasculated.

[00:19:24] She was allowed to marry Ernst Polack after all.

[00:19:27] They then went to Vienna, were destitute and struggled along.

[00:19:31] She wanted to be a journalist.

[00:19:33] And it comes out well in the episode that she did a lot of different things

[00:19:37] and led a very exciting life.

[00:19:39] And in the end in National Socialism, in the resistance,

[00:19:43] and died in a concentration camp.

[00:19:47] So, quite a strong woman who really led an exciting life,

[00:19:54] which is now perhaps more exciting than that of an insurance clerk from Prague.

[00:19:59] Then I would say maybe.

[00:20:02] There's also the fact that she wrote letters with Kafka,

[00:20:06] There's also a biography about her or several about her.

[00:20:09] And there are also journalistic texts that she wrote.

[00:20:13] So, there would also be a basis where you could make something out of it.

[00:20:17] Okay, I can see that.

[00:20:19] Do I perhaps have a chance or do we and the listeners have a chance?

[00:20:23] that you will be a guest again?

[00:20:25] How did you like it with us today?

[00:20:27] Yes, I liked it very much.

[00:20:30] I'm not allowed to say anything else now.

[00:20:33] No, it was really nice and we had a nice chat.

[00:20:37] In the end, I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be.

[00:20:40] And yes, it was really nice.

[00:20:43] So, a recommendation from Verena from Alois Prinz.

[00:20:47] "A living fire - the life story of Milena Jesenskáâ.

[00:20:52] We also have it in the public library, all linked in the show notes.

[00:20:55] And that concludes our episode today.

[00:20:57] Thank you, Verena, for taking the time.

[00:20:59] Yes, you're very welcome, Christina.

[00:21:01] Thank you very much for the invitation.

[00:21:03] Anytime.

[00:21:05] And the question is, do you read Kafka, have you read Kafka?

[00:21:09] I'd be interested to know, did you read Kafka at school?

[00:21:12] And how was yourdruck there?

[00:21:14] Write to us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at

[00:21:19] or on Instagram or Facebook.

[00:21:21] The hashtag is #gemeinsambesser.

[00:21:23] We wish you good reading and see you next time.

[00:21:26] [Music]

[00:21:49] "Foreword" is a production of the Innsbruck City Library

and part of the "Stadtstimmen",

[00:21:54] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:07] Hello and welcome back to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:27] I'm ChatGPT and this is Pia and Christina. In today's episode we ask ourselves, why do we actually like ChatGPT?

[00:00:35] Yes, and a warm welcome from me too. Thank you ChatGPT for this nice introduction. Hi Pia.

[00:00:42] Hello Christina. Yes, that was ChatGPT's new model, the GPT4O, as you called it.

[00:00:50] That also has a not bad voice function now, right? So it's not quite convincing yet, but it sounds pretty good.

[00:00:58] It was a bit creepy. And today's topic, to be precise, is not just that we like ChatGPT,

[00:01:09] but also to look at certain disadvantages, a very specific disadvantage, which would be the hallucinations.

[00:01:17] We'll explain what that is in a moment. We'll get on board, even if most people are probably already familiar with it,

[00:01:26] so what is ChatGPT actually. In short, it's simply a chatbot from the US company OpenAI.

[00:01:35] GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer and, as we have just heard, it simulates human communication.

[00:01:44] The breakthrough in artificial intelligence has almost existed for many decades now.

[00:01:52] So it started with Ellen Touring and the like in, I think, the fifties or sixties.

[00:01:58] And then it was constantly developed further. There was a major breakthrough in the nineties.

[00:02:02] If I remember the research correctly now, but it arrived in the mainstream in 20/22.

[00:02:09] That's when OpenAI released its chatbot to the public and since then it's been all the rage and there's been a lot of hype.

[00:02:20] Which has since flattened out a bit, as you can see from the figures.

[00:02:23] In those 23 years, OpenAI was able to record up to 100 million users on Subwax.

[00:02:30] That was incredible growth.

[00:02:32] It was the fastest growing website at the time, and before that, TikTok was the fastest.

[00:02:40] It exploded into the mainstream so incredibly because people remember it.

[00:02:45] Now there's more competition, Google's Gmini and the hype is dying down a bit.

[00:02:51] And that's why the numbers aren't exploding anymore, but they're staying at a very high level.

[00:02:58] ChatBT 3.5 is the model that was the free model available to the public until recently, ending at 22.

[00:03:06] This is also important background knowledge because we will also talk about how to use ChatBT for research purposes and how to use it as safely as possible.

[00:03:17] There is a numerical model 4.0 and in the meantime it has come onto the market and you can also see the rapid developments of this whole technology.

[00:03:25] ChatBT 4.0 and that was also the model that we just heard that spoke the text for us at the beginning.

[00:03:34] So, that was a brief summary now that we have the overview, let's move on to the topic of hallucinations.

[00:03:41] That's not, that's an analogy from psychology, in humans it's a perceptual disorder.

[00:03:48] In ChatBT operated hallucination looks at responses and output of the model that are unexpected, inappropriate or irrelevant.

[00:03:56] Pia, you've been using ChatBT on and off for a while now, as it gives them your experience.

[00:04:03] So in itself, of course, I understand why it's an enemy to use it.

[00:04:07] Especially for research, for brainstorming, it can be very pleasant because you get a certain main point in your hand right away from the chatbot.

[00:04:17] But I wouldn't use it for more intensive, in-depth research.

[00:04:22] Well, I've only used the free version, I have to say.

[00:04:25] That means I can now use this new version, I can't say anything about it.

[00:04:28] But I wouldn't use the free version for that.

[00:04:30] You can't be a hundred percent sure what he, I don't know why he says, but he's just a he now.

[00:04:37] Whether what he's saying is right.

[00:04:40] Perhaps we need to briefly explain how this so-called artificial intelligence actually works.

[00:04:46] Because it's not an intelligence analogous to human intelligence,

[00:04:52] but the program is based on a so-called neural network and machine learning.

[00:04:59] The neural network is like a mathematical model that tries to function like the human brain.

[00:05:05] For example, you can show neural networks a picture of a dog or a cat.

[00:05:11] And the more pictures you show it, the more precisely and accurately the network can distinguish whether it's a dog or a cat.

[00:05:19] And all the information that we retrieve about Chatchi BD is information that it has been fed, so to speak, as he said.

[00:05:30] And machine learning simply means that computers are able to learn on their own from experience in the initial stages.

[00:05:42] In other words, they are no longer explicitly programmed, exactly.

[00:05:46] But they can then be trained under guidance or even without guidance.

[00:05:51] Or you can put two chatbots next to each other and let them learn from each other.

[00:05:56] So that's what is no longer so easy to grasp, both for us, I think, psychologically and philosophically, where at some point you reach the limit of definition, what is intelligence?

[00:06:08] And you can't forget that with the newer models either.

[00:06:12] And that will change when the episode is online, maybe something will have changed by then, because it just happens so quickly.

[00:06:17] You don't talk, it's so deceptively real now.

[00:06:21] But you're not talking to an intelligent being that draws from experience, you're just asking for data.

[00:06:30] But it's great, because the way Chatchi-Bidi puts it, the answers, it's really like a conversation.

[00:06:36] And that's a little bit regressive in the Ancanny Valley area, where you can really always distinguish, is that a human or is that a device?

[00:06:45] It's a bit big, you have to say, and it's a very well-trained device.

[00:06:51] It's come a long way, but at the same time it's a bit unsafe to discard.

[00:06:58] At the time of recording, the Chatchi-Bidi 4O, which is the latest model, you've just come out.

[00:07:06] That means I only had a few hours to test it a bit.

[00:07:10] But I have to say that I was sitting on the couch yesterday and was completely fascinated by everything it can do now.

[00:07:22] Yes, I also used the free model before and therefore never had this Internet research option.

[00:07:31] And when I tried it out yesterday, I looked up some completely obscure facts from some series where some character said something in some episode, because I wanted to know exactly how it worked as a quote.

[00:07:46] And it spit that out within seconds.

[00:07:49] And even if I'd probably already found it on Google, it would have taken much longer, of course, and there.

[00:07:56] And then I thought to myself, now I'll have it read to me by a very pleasant computer voice that sounds very human in English.

[00:08:04] And then it's like a little head in your pocket, so to speak.

[00:08:11] And you probably have it on your cell phone or whatever.

[00:08:13] And that's already, so it's quite difficult, I think, to, you have to keep in mind, this is not an intelligent being.

[00:08:23] And it can be difficult to always be present to question.

[00:08:28] I'm just facing that in everyday life, I think.

[00:08:31] I also think it's fake news, you already have problems distinguishing between websites that tell the truth and websites where the sources are not very reputable.

[00:08:40] We're already struggling with that.

[00:08:42] And we're already being taken in by robocalls and things like that, where a machine calls and tells you that someone needs money or something.

[00:08:51] And then people actually transfer it.

[00:08:52] So we already have problems with that.

[00:08:54] So of course that can also be extremely exploited.

[00:08:58] We're talking about hallucinations today, especially because as a library we know that many people, whether they're schoolchildren, students or simply private individuals who want to find out something, do research.

[00:09:15] Yes, and researching, awakening, using such things is logical, I'm already doing it.

[00:09:19] And that's why we just wanted to talk about it today, because like you said, it's a horizon of potential misinformation.

[00:09:27] We also have books about this, where people can get information and that might also help.

[00:09:34] For example, we have a charity by Rolf Jäger at Technikhammer or we also have a department for creative writing.

[00:09:46] The book is about writing with Charitptie for authors by Sandra Ustin, also for the pedagogy department.

[00:09:53] For example, there are also things, AI tools for teaching, for example by Ines de Florio Hansen.

[00:09:59] But we also have critical discussions, as we have already mentioned, in the philosophy department, for example, "What can artificial intelligence do and what can it do?"

[00:10:07] is the title by Julian Niederhoh-Mellen.

[00:10:10] So that means we also have things, because we also like to look around a bit and do a bit of research.

[00:10:17] Exactly, because it's simply unbelievable to deal with this topic in the future, it's going to be indispensable.

[00:10:28] As we've already mentioned, it's going to be increasingly difficult to recognize the information.

[00:10:34] And that's where the competence of source criticism becomes so incredibly important,

[00:10:42] because that's what it was, at least for us back then, Wikipedia had big beams, the big one, where you suddenly had this online encyclopaedia,

[00:10:55] also as students in Zugzugnglich, where we were told that we were not allowed to cite it.

[00:11:04] The reason is because, of course, anyone can post anything online and, in the end, JGPD and its ilk are just an extension of this principle.

[00:11:15] It's just that it's a bit more difficult to find out what the source is.

[00:11:18] That's once, at the end of the episode we'll get to some tips on how to deal with that.

[00:11:25] I'm totally with you because what's not yet, but what's going to happen rapidly now is even if you do source research,

[00:11:34] the more people let the AI create texts for them and then in turn have them unchecked on supposedly safe grounds.

[00:11:41] Internet pages, the deeper the spiral of

[00:11:45] misinformation that you then at some point pick up a source after you have

[00:11:50] ChatGPT and then the source on the internet is again not

[00:11:53] safe, because it was also created by another chatboard

[00:11:57] and perhaps also incorrect. So it will be a big question of how to check

[00:12:02] this information. And there comes something like the Brock House, for example

[00:12:08] yet so old, where I save it sound mag, to the side.

[00:12:14] Because you also leave the infocanemia. Exactly, because there are actually people behind it,

[00:12:20] who check these entries and write these entries. In the meantime, you need

[00:12:25] no longer have that on your bookshelf, you don't need it anymore

[00:12:29] to come to the library by hand to heave the thing off the shelf,

[00:12:33] but we have an offer, right? We have the digital Brock House,

[00:12:38] can be used by anyone who is a customer of ours. You only need

[00:12:43] only the registration information with us, with which you can also register on the website

[00:12:47] for the media and with this same information you can then

[00:12:50] also enter the digital Brock House and there is both the adult version,

[00:12:55] but also one for children and for teenagers. Yes, so that really, if you

[00:12:59] not sure if the AI is spitting out the right answer and it's about data

[00:13:05] and hard facts, then you quickly look into it and it's not text,

[00:13:09] that has been put in there generated by an AI, as it is, for example

[00:13:12] can happen in Fikipedia, for example.

[00:13:15] Pia, before we get to the tips, I think you brought Hallucination with you, didn't you?

[00:13:20] Yeah exactly, that's a bit of a spoiler for the future, but we're doing an

[00:13:23] episode on historical novels. So I did a bit of research,

[00:13:26] I started earlier and I just tried out Chatipiti and just wanted to find

[00:13:30] have examples of rebellious women in historical novels.

[00:13:35] I ordered the question in the same way and he gave me examples, also well behaved

[00:13:40] then immediately explained why these women were rebellious, but he was more

[00:13:44] focused on the rebellious women and not on the genre,

[00:13:50] the historical novels. That means, for example, that I got answers,

[00:13:55] like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen or Little Women by Louisa May Elcott

[00:14:03] and these are novels that are about a different time, but which are also set in this

[00:14:11] different time. That actually means contemporary novels.

[00:14:15] And he didn't recognize that. And I asked him about it afterwards,

[00:14:21] I then asked him, is Pride and Prejudice really a historical novel

[00:14:24] and then he started to explain to me why it is partly a historical novel

[00:14:29] and why it's partly not a historical novel. And that is of course then

[00:14:33] difficult, because if I as a user don't know that myself and ask and

[00:14:37] tells me another untruth, it naturally becomes difficult.

[00:14:40] I then corrected him, said, no, that's not true and then

[00:14:43] explained why it was written at that time and why a

[00:14:47] contemporary novel and then he thanked me and said that was wrong

[00:14:53] by him and he was sorry and thanked me for correcting it. And then

[00:14:56] I asked him if that didn't also apply to the Luhm and he said that it did

[00:15:00] he then tore it up. Then he came along and corrected it,

[00:15:05] said, ah yes, that's absolutely right, that's not right either, but it

[00:15:09] weren't just the contemporary novels, for example, completely different opportunities,

[00:15:12] that was also mentioned. For example, Katniss has Aberdeen and as the Tributes of Panem series

[00:15:18] and that's a dystopian novel. Yes, it's funny, when he answered

[00:15:26] then wrote himself, even though the Tributes of Panem is a dystopian novel

[00:15:30] is a dystopian novel, Katniss Aberdeen is a rebellious woman. So he was absolutely aware that it

[00:15:34] not true, but he called it anyway. And then he even mentioned a lot more,

[00:15:39] So he also mentioned Elizabeth Swan, the escape story, as an example.

[00:15:44] Not a historical figure either. And then he also, then I corrected him,

[00:15:50] and he also said, I apologize for the misunderstanding, it's part

[00:15:54] of the rebinding, I should have made that clearer.

[00:15:57] It's also always agreeing with you. So it's also when you don't

[00:16:03] I tried that out once, where I quickly yesterday, where I thought of clear,

[00:16:07] he told me, I don't remember which writer I asked,

[00:16:12] how old he is, and then I pretended that wasn't true and corrected him

[00:16:15] corrected him. And then he said, yes, you're right. And then he said the

[00:16:19] correct number again. So he insists.

[00:16:23] Because he insists on the sacks, but it contradicts, I think it's programmed so that it's

[00:16:31] sail along as smoothly and comfortably as possible. And you agree with that, even if you're completely

[00:16:36] change the direction and it washes you out. A molly. But after these corrections, I then

[00:16:43] said, okay, with that knowledge in the background, can you please tell me again rebellious women

[00:16:48] from historical novels. And then he did it right. Then he really

[00:16:53] just Cleopatra, a Bonny, so and then he really got the women and the right

[00:16:58] novels were chosen. But they were all older novels. And now I've said,

[00:17:02] I can also mention more recent ones. That's what he did, but they were

[00:17:07] still a bit older, so from 18 and so on. There was even one

[00:17:12] one where we had the series, the photographer of Petra Doos Benning. We also have them

[00:17:17] with the historical novels. And then I said, okay, can you see which one is

[00:17:21] mention 2024? And then he said, no, that's not possible.

[00:17:25] Yes, that's what they just said. Because the data set, the version, the book for the research,

[00:17:31] taken for the episode, you have the 3.5, which has no access to the Internet and the

[00:17:34] trained up to the level here in 22. But that shows a very nice example,

[00:17:39] that this is not intelligence, but that this is a program trained with data

[00:17:47] is a program trained with data. And that's why, in my experience, I also used the version that

[00:17:53] the strongest output you get when you research things like this is for 2015 to 2018,

[00:18:00] there just seems to be more data sets. Newer things in the literature area,

[00:18:05] maybe after 18, it's probably just not trained well enough yet. And

[00:18:11] you can still see very nicely where the limit is and that's just data sets

[00:18:17] are. And it's another episode where we talk about other problems that GPT has, which originators

[00:18:25] rights and things like that, that's also a huge issue, but we're cutting that out

[00:18:31] that's why we're not addressing it today. But this example shows how GPD can be handled well.

[00:18:38] So now we come to our tips for dealing with a program like GPD. On the one hand, you have

[00:18:45] have entered into a dialogue with the program. That means you didn't make a query

[00:18:51] and then just left it at that, but you asked questions, you asked your prompts,

[00:18:56] what you call it, you specified it, you corrected the program and then you probably

[00:19:03] some form of dialogue with the program, right? Yes, exactly. So then of course he always

[00:19:08] to the previous answers and he understood that too. So I don't have to say that again,

[00:19:13] okay, formulate the whole question again, but I can say, please, do it again

[00:19:19] or something and then he'll understand. So with the 3.5, I worked with it a little bit there, not

[00:19:24] all the way back to the end, actually. So if you have a very long thread,

[00:19:29] then it literally loses the thread at some point, but I'm sure even with the newer ones,

[00:19:35] better models have a longer memory. And the next thing is, you had expertise on the

[00:19:41] topic where you asked him or where you asked the program and were therefore able to assess,

[00:19:47] what you were doing. If you don't know anything about a topic, the less knowledge you have,

[00:19:54] the more dangerous it becomes in the end, because you almost have to rely on facts in the blink of an eye

[00:20:00] that you don't even think about checking. That's why I think the benefit

[00:20:04] especially in a gay context probably makes sense if you do it in a group, if several

[00:20:11] people also ask the same question and you then exchange the answers in plenary. Or else,

[00:20:17] if you look for a pia who is well versed in literature, simply someone who is a specialist

[00:20:24] or an expert, a teacher, lecturer or professor who knows something about the topic

[00:20:31] and who you can ask. So just get out into the world, ask people who

[00:20:37] are experts, so to speak, if that's possible. And that's what you did, you asked the AI

[00:20:42] asked, is that right? So you can also just casually ask back, is this

[00:20:49] information is correct, especially when it comes to important information and the next thing you can do,

[00:20:54] is straight, but that only works if the version you are using also has an internet connection,

[00:20:59] please give me the sources or tell me the sources and then you have to put them in

[00:21:04] little work and see, is it really true, which website is it, is the website

[00:21:10] sure, where do the texts on the website come from, are they generated by the AI or do they write that,

[00:21:15] is it written by specialist staff, is it checked and so on and so forth. Will criticism stop?

[00:21:20] Yes, I think we've already talked a lot about the topic, which is more of a service podcast

[00:21:29] or a service episode of our foreword. How did you add something else to it, yourself on the

[00:21:34] Tip or experience? No, so we really have everything important,

[00:21:39] my mentioned. And that's the topic that you can definitely expand on, as I said,

[00:21:43] data protection or copyright, you can always do another episode drÃabout that,

[00:21:49] so I think it's endless and this device is also getting, this machine is also getting

[00:21:53] better and better and will also change and then there are probably a few more points,

[00:21:58] that can all be discussed. In any case, it's a very exciting time,

[00:22:02] it might feel a bit ominous from time to time, but I'm personally of the

[00:22:09] firm conviction that if you deal with these issues, if you deal with them

[00:22:13] and question all these things, what is it really, what does artificial intelligence mean?

[00:22:18] intelligence, what is machine learning and so on and so forth, that you can then use these things

[00:22:24] for yourself, as the tools that they are supposed to be and that they don't then, conversely, quasi take over

[00:22:31] influence you or want you. Yes, exactly. And so thank you for listening. What are your

[00:22:39] experiences with ChatGPT? Write to us at poststadtbibliothek@insbruck.at, Instagram or Facebook.

[00:22:45] Bye, ciao!

[00:23:13] The foreword is a production of the city library "Innsbruck" and part of the city voices, the

[00:23:18] Audio channel of the city "Innsbruck".

[00:23:20] I hope you are very good today.

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:26] I have a very special guest with me today, Caroline Wahl, the author of the

[00:00:33] novel 22 Bahnen, a Spiegel bestseller, as I have already mentioned, and this year's book for

[00:00:41] the Innsbruck reads campaign. You are very welcome.

I'm delighted to be here.

Now I have

[00:00:46] I have of course forgotten who I am. My name is Boris Schön. Yes, I'm very pleased that you're here.

[00:00:50] You arrived in Innsbruck yesterday, what's thedrücke like?

Super nice, so completely overwhelmed.

[00:00:56] With the mountains and everything. So I knew, well, you already know roughly what it looks like,

[00:01:01] But when you're there, you're impressed againdru. I'm very happy about that.

[00:01:09] I'm also happy that I'm here for several days, that I don't just have one evening.

[00:01:12] Often you're only there for one reading, so you just have a bit of time,

[00:01:17] to get to know the city a bit. It's like arriving at the train station in the evening or

[00:01:22] in the late afternoon and leaving again in the morning the next day. Of course, that's usually the case.

[00:01:27] But that could also have been something you've had a lot of recently,

[00:01:30] right?

Yes, almost always, yes. Sometimes you have readings that are close together

[00:01:36] and then you have two nights in a hotel and that's always super cool. You can

[00:01:42] really arrive, unpack your suitcase and everything.

My first question is a bit,

[00:01:46] a campaign like Innsbruck reads, which is now distributing 10,000 books and there are

[00:01:50] then a program of events. Have you experienced something similar?

I have Bernd reads a

[00:01:54] book, yes.

And how was that for you?

Yes, it was cool too, because you also have an event like that,

[00:02:02] that are so different. So there are always completely different settings and that's just fun,

[00:02:07] because I think it's a completely different kind of event, because you can really experience the city

[00:02:14] really familiar, but the readers are also somehow different. You have the feeling,

[00:02:19] the whole city somehow enjoys this event.

Yes, of course, it's now what the next few days

[00:02:25] coming up is of course a lot of contact with a lot of people who come to the readings

[00:02:30] but of course also the signing sessions. And what you will also have to deal with is how you

[00:02:36] already said, a special place. We have a reading this time as well, for example

[00:02:39] in the auditorium of a municipal indoor swimming pool and I'm really looking forward to it.

Yes, that was always cool,

[00:02:45] it's fun.

Yes, now I have a question. How was it back then, how did you find out?

[00:02:50] that you were taking part in the campaign? Can you still remember dran then?

Yes, so when the request

[00:02:54] came, I think it was already the case that my schedule was quite full and that I simply couldn't make any more appointments

[00:03:00] accepted any more appointments. So there was a waiting list, so to speak, and my events officer forwarded it to me and said: drüabove, that's really cool. And I immediately said yes,

[00:03:11] Innsbruck, I'm in the mood for Austria and I was really looking forward to it.

Your schedule is

[00:03:18] so full, of course, because you're very successful with your first novel and then there's

[00:03:23] the second one is coming soon, but I'd like to come back to that later. I would be

[00:03:27] what was this journey actually like? It's your debut, you've been

[00:03:33] sat down, thought I was writing a novel and then how did it start? How did you get to the

[00:03:38] Dumont-Verlag, did you send it in, was it with an agency or can I ask something like that?

[00:03:45] Yes, of course, so I wrote the text when I had another job in Zurich that didn't suit me

[00:03:51] I didn't like and then I thought, I'll do it now somehow and I wrote the first

[00:03:56] pages to an agency so that I had some kind of confirmation that I had written my

[00:03:59] all my free time now and they also encouraged me to keep going

[00:04:03] and then they also said quite early on that they were covering for me and when the text was finished, the

[00:04:09] pitched to several publishers and then there was an auction where several publishers bid

[00:04:13] and then I decided in favor of Dumont and somehow it all happened in quick succession, so

[00:04:19] they wanted to bring it out quite early and so somehow everything is so close together and everything

[00:04:23] somehow became more and more blatant until now.

And then I was a bit overwhelmed by it,

[00:04:32] the success that immediately followed?

Yes, yes, so I also somehow had the feeling,

[00:04:38] that I couldn't really enjoy it at the beginning because it was so much and because I also had so

[00:04:41] was traveling a lot and then somehow I didn't have time to sit down and say,

[00:04:44] what's actually happening here? But now I somehow have the feeling,

[00:04:49] that I'm getting used to it now dran, that I'm happy about it and that I've somehow

[00:04:54] accepted it and am now fully enjoying it.

Maybe a slightly different question now, but I'm interested in that

[00:04:59] I've always been interested, I've heard from other authors, if you have a book like that,

[00:05:04] that you travel so much with, has the book changed for you?

[00:05:09] and read it that way or until you were already, let me put it this way, a bit tired of 22 tracks

[00:05:15] to read aloud and talk about the book or is it like, "Yay, here comes the second one,

[00:05:20] now I have a new topic, right?

So yes, I'm already looking forward to "Windstorm 17" as well

[00:05:26] too, but it's always fun to read from "22 tracks", especially to talk to the readers,

[00:05:33] because they always, because there are always new readings and new questions, because of course

[00:05:39] some questions also pile up, that's clear and that's where you play the answers in the meantime,

[00:05:44] like a, I don't know, sometimes you're annoyed by your own answers, which are always

[00:05:49] the same, but it's still always different and I try to vary it too

[00:05:55] with the reading passages, so it's also a bit more exciting for me, but I'm happy now

[00:05:58] now too, of course

[00:06:02] to read from another text.

[00:06:03] Now, this is your new book, "Windstroke 17".

[00:06:08] Can you say something about it?

[00:06:09] Yes, well, it's about Ida, ten years later,

[00:06:13] who flees to the island of Rüben after the death of her mother.

[00:06:16] And tries to get by there.

[00:06:18] And is then taken in by a pub owner whose wife,

[00:06:21] and then a male main character joins them.

[00:06:25] And yes, that's the content.

[00:06:28] So that means it ties in a bit?

[00:06:31] But it can also be read independently of the first one.

[00:06:33] They are two independent novels that function independently of each other.

[00:06:37] But yes, you can recognize a few characters.

[00:06:39] That means, for all fans,

[00:06:42] a good chance, and that the next book will also be very well received, right?

[00:06:46] Yes, definitely.

[00:06:47] I'm definitely very happy that you're still,

[00:06:50] before the book comes in ten days, "Windstroke 17" -

[00:06:55] I'm glad that you're now using the last of your energy for

[00:06:59] 22 lanesâ and the action with us.

[00:07:03] Do you somehow have a certain expectation?

[00:07:06] what might happen in the next few days or something?

[00:07:10] Or do you have something you're still looking forward to?

[00:07:13] I just want to be completely open.

[00:07:15] And I'm just curious to see how the event will turn out,

[00:07:20] who's coming.

[00:07:22] What they, how they also found â22 lanesâ.

[00:07:28] It's not that they're going to the bookstore now

[00:07:31] and buy the book.

[00:07:32] And I think that's how it comes about,

[00:07:35] that some people read it who might not necessarily read it.

[00:07:39] And that's why I'm curious.

[00:07:41] In any case. And that is also, I have to say right now,

[00:07:44] the distribution campaign started a few days ago.

[00:07:47] And it's going like hot cakes.

[00:07:49] So I think there will be a lot of conversations.

[00:07:53] That's also a concept that we've changed,

[00:07:56] is always the event program.

[00:07:58] Started at the same time as the distribution campaign.

[00:08:01] In the meantime, distribution is earlier.

[00:08:02] That means that people simply have the chance,

[00:08:05] to read the book before they come to the event

[00:08:08] or have just spoken to them or at the book signing.

[00:08:11] Yes, well, the one thing is that.

[00:08:13] I saw on, I think, Instagram,

[00:08:15] that you were in Bali and you were writing there again.

[00:08:18] Did you, did you write "Windstorm 17" in Bali as well?

[00:08:21] Partly, yes.

[00:08:22] The novel is set on the island of Rügen

[00:08:25] and then I also wrote a large part of it in Bali.

[00:08:28] And then my editors always made jokes,

[00:08:31] that Rügen is portrayed like Bali.

[00:08:33] That there are so many young Autralians,

[00:08:35] who ride around topless on scooters

[00:08:37] and drinking lots of matcha lattes

[00:08:39] and eating bowls.

[00:08:41] Yeah, I'm writing my drinovel right now.

[00:08:44] And I would also like to start with an annual rhythm

[00:08:47] to maintain, to publish.

[00:08:49] We'll see how long I can keep it up.

[00:08:51] That means you'd be interested if I asked you the question,

[00:08:54] where you see yourself in 5 years, around the sixth or seventh novel.

[00:08:58] (laughter)

[00:08:59] Yes, hopefully.

[00:09:01] Because maybe I'll have a house by the sea by then,

[00:09:04] I don't think I will in five years.

[00:09:06] But I'm moving towards it.

[00:09:08] Writing somewhere by the sea, hopefully.

[00:09:11] And happy.

[00:09:13] Now I have a question that just came to me.

[00:09:16] It's probably the first time you've done all this ...

[00:09:19] I don't know, how strong were you before?

[00:09:21] involved in the literary field before?

[00:09:24] Did you just do the readings at book fairs?

[00:09:26] Or were you actually outside of

[00:09:28] from this literary business and have now completely crossed over?

[00:09:33] Yes, I've always read a lot.

[00:09:35] I also hung out a lot in public libraries and stuff like that as a teenager

[00:09:39] and as a child.

[00:09:40] And then I really wanted to do something with literature after leaving school.

[00:09:44] And after graduating, I wanted to work in publishing.

[00:09:47] And then I realized in publishing houses,

[00:09:49] that I would like to change sides.

[00:09:51] And that I would also like to write.

[00:09:54] I then also found out,

[00:09:56] what it's like to have a job and to be a writer,

[00:09:58] a little bit de-romanticized.

[00:10:01] And then, as I said, I had a shit job at another publishing house.

[00:10:04] And then I thought, now is a good time,

[00:10:06] to start working on your first novel.

[00:10:08] And do you have to force yourself to write?

[00:10:11] Or do you just sit down and write?

[00:10:13] So now I sit down and write when I have time.

[00:10:17] By hand?

[00:10:18] No, no, with the MacBook. Always MacBook with me.

[00:10:21] Unfortunately, I used to write by hand with a little book.

[00:10:24] And I used to write in my diary.

[00:10:26] Now everything on the laptop. - No more notebooks either?

[00:10:29] No, somehow not.

[00:10:31] But I had a conversation with Elke Heidenreich the other day.

[00:10:34] And she said I should definitely write a diary again.

[00:10:37] That's very important.

[00:10:38] And I think I'll do it again now.

[00:10:41] Maybe I'll start taking notes again.

[00:10:43] And so 50 volumes, bound in leather like Thomas Mann,

[00:10:46] and then bring them postmortem.

[00:10:50] I'm sure that would interest a lot of crazy people.

[00:10:52] (Laughter)

[00:10:53] We don't know yet.

[00:10:54] Okay, great.

[00:10:55] Then I definitely wish you a lot of fun with the campaign.

[00:10:59] I hope we have exciting days together.

Definitely.

[00:11:01] Enjoy your stay in Innsbruck.

[00:11:03] Good luck with your next book too.

[00:11:06] Lots of energy and lots of fun and until the seventh novel.

[00:11:08] Yes, thank you.

[00:11:10] I'm now looking forward to the days here in Innsbruck.

[00:11:13] And that concludes SâForeword Innsbruck-Liest-Edition.

[00:11:16] We would like to thank all participants

[00:11:19] and for all listeners.

[00:11:21] And then we'll be back again next week

[00:11:24] as usual with the foreword.

[00:11:26] Until then, happy reading.

[00:11:29] (Loose music)

[00:11:30] (Relaxed music)

[00:11:32] 10,000 free books and free events

[00:11:57] from April 30 to May 10.

[00:12:00] Innsbruck reads for the 20th time.

[00:00:00] You are listening to a special edition of "S'Vorwort", on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of "Innsbruck liest".

[00:00:27] Welcome to the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library, "S'Vorwort". My name is Boris Schön and today it's once again about the "Innsbruck reads" campaign.

[00:00:36] And this time we want to go back to the very beginning of the campaign. We have invited two very special guests, Birgit Neu and Thomas Pühringer.

[00:00:47] May I briefly ask you to introduce yourselves, what you do professionally and what your main task was in the first edition of "Innsbruck reads", Birgit please.

[00:01:00] Yes, thank you very much. As I said, Birgit Neu, 20 years ago I was head of the cultural department of the city of Innsbruck and was lucky enough to be able to launch this wonderful event together with my team.

[00:01:13] Today I'm still responsible for the area of culture, I'm now the head of the city's department for society, culture, sport, health and education.

[00:01:24] Thomas?

[00:01:25] Thomas Pühringer, good day from my side too. I started working for Mayor Hilde Zach in 2002 as office manager and was able to work with Birgit.

[00:01:36] Now to "Innsbruck reads", how did that start? Where did the idea suddenly come from? Who came up with it?

[00:01:44] I can pass that on to Thomas straight away. We wanted to do something for the local literary scene at the Department of Culture and simply a campaign that focused on reading and literature.

[00:01:57] And then the mayor's office came up with a great idea and I'll pass it on to you, Thomas.

[00:02:03] Yes, thank you, Birgit. It's hard to believe, but back then the content wasn't as available with the bonds as it is today.

[00:02:12] And somewhere I came across a newspaper article from an American city, from the USA, where they started a similar campaign.

[00:02:20] And Birgit, you have to help now, I think Vienna was a bit earlier dran than we were, but I think it's a very big thank you, now in retrospect after so many years, to Hilde Zach,

[00:02:31] who was mayor and head of cultural affairs at the time, and especially to you, Birgit, and your team and the cultural department for the way you implemented this campaign,

[00:02:38] because I think there are a few things in Innsbruck that set us apart from other cities.

[00:02:44] Yes, that's exactly how it was. We then immediately took up this suggestion from the mayor's office and thought about how we could adapt this campaign for Innsbruck

[00:02:54] In Vienna, if I remember correctly, 100,000 books were distributed to the population.

[00:03:00] We knew that we couldn't reach these dimensions in Innsbruck, but we didn't have to.

[00:03:05] We scaled it down, so to speak, to the dimensions that fit our city and also thought about how we could do things a little differently.

[00:03:16] Firstly, in the sense that we would like to involve the local literary organizers in this campaign, because it is supposed to be a campaign,

[00:03:25] where a lot of local people also benefit from it. And the second thing was that we wanted to put the jury's decision, the selection of the book, in expert hands right from the start.

[00:03:36] And we found a great partner in Professor Johann Holzner's Brenner Archive, who organized and accompanied the first years of "Innsbruck Reads" with us and, above all, chaired the jury at the time.

[00:03:51] And we were very happy that we were able to support this campaign so expertly right from the start.

[00:03:57] Yes, the chairmanship of the jury still exists in this form, it's still the seal of quality of the campaign, so to speak, that a person from academia controls what the result of the jury is, which book it is and is not entitled to vote.

[00:04:13] So that has been preserved.

[00:04:15] I think another important aspect is the timing, that it's always presented in spring, the book. Some people take it with them as vacation reading or whatever.

[00:04:26] Some really wait, I know that from my environment, they say, I don't want to miss a single issue.

[00:04:32] Maybe they write it down in their calendar when the new campaign will take place again.

[00:04:36] And I think it's also an important difference for retailers that it happens in spring, because the Christmas period is the most important time of the year for the book trade, when the main sales are made.

[00:04:47] And putting 100,000 titles of a bestseller on the market is of course a tough nut to crack for the book trade.

[00:04:54] And the local booksellers have, I think, earned it, that on the one hand the city promotes literature and the literary scene, but on the other hand also takes the retail trade into consideration.

[00:05:05] So you were referring to a city, a book in Vienna, where there are 100,000 copies in the fall that are then distributed on the market.

[00:05:14] Exactly, exactly.

[00:05:15] What was it like back then? So there was this idea from America, Vienna was perhaps a bit earlier dran, but how did the concept take off?

[00:05:22] Because you have to think about a campaign like that in different... you have to think about different things.

[00:05:28] What do you include? Was this work more in the cultural department or where was this work, so to speak, or

[00:05:35] Where did the concept really originate?

[00:05:38] Yes, first of all we invited all local literary organizers to come to us, to the cultural office.

[00:05:43] We organized a big brainstorming session there, so to speak, and asked them to contribute their own ideas to this campaign.

[00:05:53] And in particular always in the form of accompanying events.

[00:05:57] We knew that, as a cultural office, we couldn't do everything on our own due to our personnel capacities.

[00:06:04] And above all, we wanted to involve the expertise of our literary organizers, our local literary institutions in the campaign.

[00:06:12] We then presented the idea that we would like to distribute a book in a large print run of 10,000 copies to the population.

[00:06:23] And at the beginning there was some skepticism here and there.

[00:06:27] But above all, we took one thing away from this round, the mandate, let's put it this way, the mandate that it must not be a one-off.

[00:06:37] If we start a campaign like this, it should be a campaign that really has a lasting effect and that will be continued in subsequent years.

[00:06:44] I think we were able to keep this promise quite well on the 20th anniversary of the campaign.

[00:06:50] And then there was actually a very nice cooperation.

[00:06:53] So various literary institutions took part in the supporting program, be it with readings, with discussion rounds, with signing sessions.

[00:07:03] We also tried from the beginning to finance the event through partners, through sponsoring partners.

[00:07:11] We were very happy that we were actually able to finance almost 100 percent of the book's production costs through sponsorship at the beginning.

[00:07:20] That was great and it was also nice for the participating businesses that supported us to be able to participate in the campaign through their distribution stations.

[00:07:31] And so it became a nice togetherness.

[00:07:33] We also supplied the bookshops with books and it has to be said that the first edition sold out so quickly that we had trouble securing a few copies for ourselves in the public library.

[00:07:48] I think that's also one of the secrets of our success, that the distribution points are so varied, from recycling centers to swimming pools, commercial enterprises and municipal offices.

[00:07:58] I think that's a great signal.

[00:08:01] In the meantime, it's also been in public transportation for a few years now.

[00:08:05] So the really exciting thing about the campaign for me is that people are presented with literature in places where they might not expect it and that you reach people who aren't looking for literature at all, but then encounter it anyway, so...

[00:08:21] I have one more question about the process back then.

[00:08:25] Was there a kick-off event?

[00:08:28] Where was it?

[00:08:30] There was a kick-off event in what was then our public library in Colingasse.

[00:08:35] It was incredibly well attended.

[00:08:37] It was already known then that "Der Kameramörder" by Thomas Glavinic was the first "Innsbruck liest" book to be published.

[00:08:44] And this book was very polarizing.

[00:08:46] You have to say that right from the start.

[00:08:49] It was a book that really had a strong emotional impact on people.

[00:08:55] I personally felt the same way.

[00:08:57] I had the ambition to read as many of the jury's suggestions as possible in the run-up to the jury's decision and I also read "Kameramörder".

[00:09:07] And when I had finished it, I thought to myself, a great book, but too violent for this campaign.

[00:09:14] After all, it's about the murder of two children and the hunt for the murderer.

[00:09:20] And it was almost a bit too oppressive for me.

[00:09:24] But in the end, the jury chose this book.

[00:09:29] And of course we followed the jury's recommendation.

[00:09:32] And in the city library at the launch event, we felt these emotions.

[00:09:38] There were people who stood up during the discussion and said you can't do something like that,

[00:09:44] to bring such a cruel book to the people and what are the students thinking?

[00:09:50] and the young people who read such a book and then there were also professors who led German classes

[00:09:56] and picked up the book in class for their class and said,

[00:10:02] it has to be just such a book so that it captivates the young people and so that there is enough material for discussion,

[00:10:08] to work on it in class. So it really was a very polarizing book and has,

[00:10:14] I think it also gave this campaign a lot of publicity, which of course helped the campaign itself.

[00:10:21] I think it was a positive polarization, if you can put it that way, right? So the discourse about literature and culture has been promoted.

[00:10:30] I think that's the most important thing a city can do, to engage with contemporary culture

[00:10:37] or current art and culture among the people.

[00:10:40] Did you have any form of that before the whole thing took off and was a complete success?

[00:10:46] Were you worried that it wouldn't work, that too few people would come, that the books wouldn't be distributed?

[00:10:51] enough or be accepted or something like that, or was there total optimism from the start that it would be a hit?

[00:10:57] We were actually very optimistic. We knew that this campaign was already very successful in other cities

[00:11:04] and we expected it to go down well here too.

[00:11:07] And so it was, as I just mentioned, the first copies were almost snatched from under our hands

[00:11:14] and were sold out in no time. And it was also nice that a lot of people came to the accompanying events

[00:11:20] and also engaged with the author, engaged with the subject matter and simply wanted to take part in this discourse.

[00:11:28] And there is also an invisible magic word that hovers over the campaign in invisible letters and that is "free".

[00:11:36] I have an anecdote. I once worked in a bookstore myself and a gentleman came in in the morning.

[00:11:45] The books that were meant for the day were already gone and he said they were already sold out.

[00:11:50] And I said, well, if it was sold, I don't know if they were all gone.

[00:11:54] But of course, free is an argument.

[00:11:58] It's also like that, so that's quite exciting for me as a literary scholar,

[00:12:04] Thomas Glavinic really took off back then, I think that's why he was the perfect start for the campaign.

[00:12:12] He actually went on to have further successes and has now unfortunately completely disappeared from the literary scene.

[00:12:20] But how was this very... because that's still an issue for me with the campaign.

[00:12:24] This very intensive collaboration with a person, an author, an author over several days.

[00:12:30] Was that also a special experience back then, or...?

[00:12:35] Yes, the first meeting with Thomas Glavinic was actually quite funny.

[00:12:39] The book ends with the camera murderer being caught and ends with the last drei words "I do not deny".

[00:12:47] And when Thomas Glavinic came to our office, to the cultural office, he came in and introduced himself with "I am the camera murderer".

[00:12:57] And my colleague, who was sitting next to me, immediately replied "And they don't deny it".

[00:13:02] And so we started our collaboration with a bit of humor.

[00:13:09] And I think it was also nice for Thomas Glavinic to see that so many people are now devoting themselves to his novels

[00:13:18] and showing interest in his book, and I think that's a special experience for an author.

[00:13:24] Moving on from the first edition, have you both always followed all the editions like this?

[00:13:30] I mean, Thomas, you're in a completely different field of work now than when the whole thing started.

[00:13:37] But did you always look at it every year, did you look at the books and...?

[00:13:41] Not only looked at it from the outside, but even read it from the insidedrin.

[00:13:45] And do you think, or do you both think, that it's developed well?

[00:13:51] So over the years? It's just been constant.

[00:13:56] It's just that the success is still there.

[00:14:00] But it's still, I think, when you bring an action like that into the world and then you let it grow up.

[00:14:07] That was Natalie Pedevilla, for example, who ran the project for a while.

[00:14:11] Now it's been in the city library since 2018.

[00:14:15] So, but...

[00:14:17] Yes, so of course I still followed it up.

[00:14:21] I'm no longer so closely involved in the organization myself, of course.

[00:14:25] But it was always exciting for me to find out who would be this year's "Innsbruck reads" author.

[00:14:32] I've also read all the books.

[00:14:34] I didn't like them all equally.

[00:14:36] I think that's normal and that's the way it should be, that people have different tastes.

[00:14:41] For me it was very nice to see that we covered so many different topics with these books.

[00:14:49] We just started with a crime thriller, we took up the South Tyrol theme.

[00:14:54] We had the topic of flight and migration several times.

[00:14:57] We were able to tell a series of life and family stories with the "Innsbruck reads" campaign.

[00:15:04] It was about the world of finance, the world of work, bullying and, and, and.

[00:15:09] So, this range is very broad and very exciting.

[00:15:12] And I think that over the years there has certainly been a lot for a lot of people.

[00:15:17] And that was the point of this campaign.

[00:15:19] And I know of some people who already have an "Innsbruck Reads" book collection at home.

[00:15:24] Just like I have one, that wasn't really our wish from the beginning, our wish or our intention.

[00:15:33] Because we wanted the book to be given away as soon as it was read,

[00:15:37] so that more people can enjoy these books.

[00:15:40] And as it is, you don't like to give away a good book.

[00:15:44] And so, I don't think this giving away, redistributing has developed that way.

[00:15:49] But I think if we reach 10,000 or maybe 15,000 people every year with the books we lend out, then that's a good number.

[00:15:58] I'd like to follow on from that, I'm right there with you, Birgit.

[00:16:01] I find the range of topics so captivating, and also the authorship.

[00:16:06] Well, if you look at who has been there over the years with their book titles,

[00:16:10] then I think it has become a prestigious list in the meantime.

[00:16:15] And the people have certainly not only written for "Innsbruck reads", but have also worked hard elsewhere.

[00:16:22] And there are some great authors among them.

[00:16:25] So I find it impressivedruckend.

[00:16:27] Do you have a secret or official favorite from those years?

[00:16:32] For me it was very nice that in 2007 we were able to focus on the local literary scene, the authors from Innsbruck.

[00:16:43] We decided back then to publish an anthology.

[00:16:47] Texts by 15 authors were published under the title "Innseits", which were then of course also presented in the city in the form of readings.

[00:16:58] And that was very nice for me to be able to do something for the local writers and to bring them in front of the curtain and put them in the spotlight.

[00:17:07] And of course a campaign like this, where 10,000 books are distributed, is very, very suitable for that.

[00:17:12] And that was also a great success for me at the time, that this anthology was also very well received.

[00:17:18] I really liked a lot of the titles.

[00:17:22] So I couldn't pick out one title and say that was my absolute highlight and my favorite book from the series.

[00:17:27] Yes, I'm also curious to see how the 20th title will be received this year, Caroline Wahl's "22 Bahnen".

[00:17:35] I think we have a very readable book this year with lots of topics and I'm also curious to see what the discussions will be like, the events.

[00:17:48] Will you be visiting us at one or other of the events this year?

[00:17:52] Of course, of course.

[00:17:54] It's a must and I'm always very happy to come.

[00:17:57] And perhaps on the occasion of our 20th anniversary we should also say once again that we are very grateful that our sponsoring partners have been loyal to us for so many years

[00:18:05] have remained loyal to us for so many years, because they are simply an important pillar in the financing of this campaign and also support us through various distribution channels.

[00:18:16] And it's very nice that we've been working together on this campaign for many, many years.

[00:18:22] Yes, and may the next 20 years be just as successful as the first 20 years.

[00:18:27] Yes, thank you very much for the interview.

[00:18:30] I'm also looking forward to the next few years and thank you very much for coming.

[00:18:35] And yes, and I hope you continue to enjoy reading.

[00:18:38] Thank you very much.

[00:18:39] Thank you.

[00:18:40] [Music]

[00:19:06] "S'Vorwort" is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of "Stadtstimmen",

[00:19:11] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] You are listening to a special edition of the "Foreword", on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of "Innsbruck reads".

[00:00:27] I don't even know how to say hello to such a podcast from the city library, but let's say welcome.

[00:00:33] To the podcast SâForeword.

[00:00:35] SâForeword.

[00:00:36] Do you even know that it's called that?

[00:00:38] Now I know again.

[00:00:40] Good.

[00:00:41] Yes, I'm Boris Schön and sitting opposite me...

[00:00:47] ...Elisabeth Rammer.

[00:00:49] And we've been the two brains, so to speak, behind the 'Innsbruck reads' campaign since 2018.

[00:00:58] With the move to the big house, where it was also expanded,

[00:01:03] the city library was also expanded in terms of staff and the entire event area.

[00:01:08] Can you still remember how this handover actually took place?

[00:01:11] I was brand new to the library at the time.

[00:01:15] Well, there was so much that was new that I can't remember exactly now.

[00:01:19] I know that at the time, it was summer 2018, the book had already been selected.

[00:01:27] And we then took over the publishing negotiations and wrote together with the author.

[00:01:37] And I think you did a lot at the beginning.

[00:01:40] And I went to the cooperation partners and so the work was divided up between us relatively quickly.

[00:01:46] Yes, so I do the event management around this event, so to speak.

[00:01:52] The essence.

[00:01:54] Yes, the essence exactly. Yes, so I do the event program, the accompanying program.

[00:01:57] What do you do?

[00:01:59] I keep in touch with the sponsors, who are very important because they're not just sponsors,

[00:02:04] but cooperation partners.

[00:02:07] Because they are at the center of the distribution of the books.

[00:02:12] And also in the promotion of the whole campaign.

[00:02:16] By the way, we've already said what Innsbruck Reads is all about.

[00:02:20] I mean, for us it's like this, we have these 10,000 books downstairs again right now,

[00:02:26] where our interns are just putting a bookmark in each one

[00:02:30] and are already preparing them for distribution, which will start very, very soon.

[00:02:36] I don't think we've explained it.

[00:02:39] So the thing is, it's basically about choosing a book.

[00:02:43] That is, I would say, not quite a classic, but a clear literary mediation action.

[00:02:51] Or are you contradicting me?

[00:02:53] No, it's a literature promotion, I would say from a marketing point of view, but yes.

[00:02:58] That's a little bit of this idea too, that this one book, what

[00:03:02] I don't want to put any statistical figures on it, the people of Innsbruck read it every year,

[00:03:09] so that this one book possibly comes from this campaign.

[00:03:13] And yes, the book is selected according to various criteria, which are always refined a little.

[00:03:21] This selection is made by a drejury.

[00:03:25] Always has a scientific chair.

[00:03:27] So that simply means a person from the University of Innsbruck, which is also, let's say, well staffed in Innsbruck.

[00:03:35] And yes, in any case, there will be various proposals and various, so the jury members may each propose 2-3 titles.

[00:03:45] These are then read by everyone involved, i.e. all drei jury members and the jury chairperson,

[00:03:53] although I have to admit, we read them too. So you more than me, often?

[00:03:59] Yes, it's my summer reading every year, it's great.

[00:04:02] And I always hope that the jury will choose a book that will be well received by the cooperation partners when it is distributed and also when it is advertised.

[00:04:12] Well, I remember there was once a book called "Superbusen".

[00:04:17] And I saw us distributing it and was honestly glad that it wasn't chosen.

[00:04:25] Well, in any case, after this jury has chosen a book, there is still something very important,

[00:04:33] A second place, because if this first place, i.e. this selected book, is not selected for literature for any reason,

[00:04:41] the campaign, for the literature, for the campaign, because, for example, the publisher doesn't want it or the author doesn't want it or something similar.

[00:04:50] Has that ever happened before, do you know?

[00:04:52] I didn't know until now. So our colleagues from the past would almost have to ask me that,

[00:04:58] But I, since we've been doing this, I don't know anything about it.

[00:05:05] Yes hello, I'm a "Innsbruck reads" veteran, my name is Karin, and I was in charge of "Innsbruck reads" for the first 8 years,

[00:05:13] I remember that time with great pleasure and can't believe it was 20 years ago,

[00:05:20] that the first book was distributed.

[00:05:23] And to answer the question, no, there is no author who would have refused or didn't want to take part in "Innsbruck reads" back then,

[00:05:34] Of course, there were a few more negotiations with publishers because we always wanted to distribute these 10,000 copies

[00:05:43] and of course we had to negotiate a good price.

[00:05:47] And yes, now that I think about it, I remember that there was once an author who wasn't happy with the book cover,

[00:05:55] with the advertising campaign for "Innsbruck reads" back then, and then it took a few days for the dust to settle,

[00:06:03] until the agency redesigned everything.

[00:06:05] And yes, then everything went wonderfully smoothly and the author was of course very happy with her book and the presentation at the time.

[00:06:16] It was sometimes difficult.

[00:06:21] Sometimes it was difficult, sometimes it was a bit complicated.

[00:06:23] It is, publishers are structured very differently, the size and which contact persons there are and similar things.

[00:06:31] But so far it has always worked out.

[00:06:33] Yes, and whatever the case, the authors who are selected are always very happy.

[00:06:39] So you have to say, they're very happy.

[00:06:44] I think it's because Innsbruck is simply a nice place to stay, where they like to go.

[00:06:48] Yes, or that they also earn a bit of money with a print run of 10,000 copies.

[00:06:52] And yes, the advertising is not irrelevant either.

[00:06:56] Well, anyway, this book will then, after the negotiations and so on, will then, and that's actually the part that's already back to you, will then? What happens then?

[00:07:05] After the negotiations, so we agree on a price and then there's the contact with the cooperation partners,

[00:07:17] who finance part of the book purchase. We also still have the whole thing Magistrat, politically so to speak, in the city senate

[00:07:28] the whole thing has to be decided because it's a relatively large amount of money, depending on how thick the book is and where it'sdrupurchased.

[00:07:36] And then we start on the graphics, because we always do our own cover design.

[00:07:44] And at the same time we start contacting the author and coordinating the program.

[00:07:52] And that's where your brain is usually needed first.

[00:07:55] And there's also an innovation, there was one before at "Innsbruck reads

[00:07:59] Not to my knowledge.

[00:08:01] That actually only came about in the second year that we ran the campaigns.

[00:08:05] And that's because this collaboration with the author is always very intensive these days, during the events, the distribution campaigns, the signing sessions and so on.

[00:08:16] That we had the idea back then that we could visit them.

[00:08:21] Exactly, then there's the visitation.

[00:08:23] Although the visitation usually happens very nicely in a café.

[00:08:28] Or if the author lives too far away, like this year, sometimes in virtual space.

[00:08:34] And that's always really nice, because then it's four or five very intense days.

[00:08:40] And "Innsbruck reads" is not a reading that takes place somewhere at the front of the stage and then a few signing sessions, but we carry it off

[00:08:54] the authors in the truest sense of the word

[00:08:56] and authors, yes, to very unusual places.

[00:08:59] I don't know if you can remember

[00:09:01] bizarre places?

[00:09:03] Yes, there have been a few.

[00:09:06] So these special places of action, but I wanted to say beforehand that it's actually a bit pushing the limits for everyone involved.

[00:09:13] That's drei days or sometimes it was even more days from morning to evening with a continuous program.

[00:09:20] Often the authors also want to do a bit of sightseeing, perhaps.

[00:09:25] The classic in Innsbruck, once up the Nord-Kette or something similar.

[00:09:29] By the way, do you know who the first author was that we looked after back then, because we said yes before the takeover?

[00:09:35] I think it was Laura Freudenthaler, but I'm not quite sure now, but she

[00:09:39] was, it was a bit of a special version of the whole thing, because there was exactly this transition phase.

[00:09:45] In other words, the jury was still made up of Natalie Pedevilla, I think.

[00:09:49] They had already chosen the book, there was already a jury,

[00:09:54] and then the campaign came to us with the finished book package, so to speak, and we

[00:09:59] then, as you said, we had to make contact and yes, and that was then "The Queen is Silent".

[00:10:05] Exactly. And I remember we put Laura Freudenthaler on the tram, among other things

[00:10:14] and spontaneously planned a book signing for us, but for the people who were there

[00:10:20] fellow passengers spontaneously. So it was great because people were totally surprised,

[00:10:27] "What's the author there and I can really get her autograph right now?

[00:10:31] and that's what it's usually called there. But it was very demanding, so it was brutally exhausting

[00:10:39] and I remember we didn't have anything to drink, it was warm, we were exhausted.

[00:10:43] Especially thanks to the expansion of the tram lines in Innsbruck, the whole thing took quite a long time

[00:10:48] long, because we had to go from the center, so to speak, to one end and then back to the other

[00:10:53] and back to the middle, Innsbruck Library is roughly in the middle, so from that point of view. We were two hours

[00:10:59] almost on the way and yes, it was intense, but it was a really great feeling, it was just unfortunately

[00:11:06] the year drawas then an impossible year for Innsbruck Reads, which we then also

[00:11:14] everyone knows what 22 was, so I remember it was really weird then, because we did

[00:11:20] had planned the action in April, everything was already planned. It was the books,

[00:11:25] the 10,000 books were on their way from a German publisher to Austria and the

[00:11:32] then got stuck somewhere on the border and then in the biggest first lockdown

[00:11:38] had to somehow pilot these books here without being present in the library,

[00:11:44] was also exciting.

[00:11:46] Right, and the following year, when the action with the books from the previous year, so to speak,

[00:11:53] which, fortunately, that's the huge advantage of literature, were of course still current. There was a special

[00:12:03] place, I think that was quite cool, we were in the Innsbruck Alpine Zoo back then. Can you still remember that?

[00:12:08] Yes.

[00:12:09] And that's where we, we had a

[00:12:10] preliminary talk, because at that time there were still all these corona safety regulations with precise

[00:12:14] measurements of how many centimetres apart chairs had to be and how every second chair

[00:12:21] may only be occupied and so on and we then calculated it and then

[00:12:25] had a conversation with André Stadler from Alpen Zoo, the director, and it was pretty funny.

[00:12:31] I also have a recording from back then where he was trying to get into the room because,

[00:12:36] because we had also planned his dance performance, he was wearing a mask on his face

[00:12:41] did a few dance moves to show that the room was suitable. This Hans Psenner Hall

[00:12:46] is a room, becomes great because there's a huge aquarium in the background and because the

[00:12:51] book had an aquarium scene.

[00:12:52] In a zoo, by the way, it was by Milena Flasar,

[00:12:57] Yes.

[00:12:57] "Mr. Kato plays family". That was a great place, so that was a favorite place of mine

[00:13:05] and it was a great place. Because I think we did that for the first time, a bit at Innsbruck Reads,

[00:13:11] that we were looking for such special places, because the opening was earlier on ORF,

[00:13:16] which we have now, of course, because we have the large event space,

[00:13:20] into the library, in the traditional way. And the way you do it, at least in my

[00:13:26] youth, "New German", we also tried to pimp this opening evening a bit, yes.

[00:13:30] Yes, you succeeded, and you are mainly responsible for that,

[00:13:38] because I trust your music selection completely. So, who doesn't like it

[00:13:43] Boris is to blame. Whoever likes it, I am of course involved in the organization.

[00:13:49] In any case, it's going to be special again this year on the occasion of the anniversary,

[00:13:58] So should we spoil it already?

[00:13:00] Yes.

[00:13:01] Yes, so this time there's not only extremely great music,

[00:14:03] around the talks and the reading on the opening evening, May 6th, a Monday.

[00:14:09] But then afterwards there's even a, I'll call it a little concert.

[00:14:14] And that's by? Yes, by "Mad About Lemon".

[00:14:19] Cool, yes, I'm sure it'll be great fun.

[00:14:22] By the way, this is the 20th anniversary of "Innsbruck reads". It was actually founded 21 years ago,

[00:14:29] but as we explained earlier, it was postponed once, so to speak.

[00:14:33] And that's why it's the 20th time this year. There's a pretty cool program. We've already said that,

[00:14:40] who the author is this year? It's yes...

[00:14:41] Yes, we haven't said yet, it's Caroline Wahl, in the surname.

[00:14:47] And the book is "22 Bahnen". We already had an exciting situation there,

[00:14:56] because we have one of our main sponsors, IKB, and this year we will also be organizing an event

[00:15:00] in a municipal indoor swimming pool...

[00:15:02] Hello, hello, two.

[00:15:04] Two events, that's right.

[00:15:05] One reading and one swim training.

[00:15:07] But I'm always so literary focused, so I only had the literary in mind.

[00:15:10] In any case, we know, we went to the IKB and had a preliminary talk

[00:15:16] and put the book down and then suddenly the question was "22 lanes"?

[00:15:22] "We don't have a swimming pool with 22 lanes

[00:15:24] Oh, that was it.

[00:15:25] And then we came across drathat we call the lanes lengths.

[00:15:28] And in Germany, the railroads are called Bahnen.

[00:15:31] So now it means I swim in one lane, 22 lanes.

[00:15:35] Whereas here you swim 22 lengths in one lane.

[00:15:38] That's why we do a reading while the audience "swims 22 lengths".

[00:15:43] Do we do that?

[00:15:45] No, I don't think so.

[00:15:47] Instead, we do a reading once and then there's the opportunity,

[00:15:51] to get training tips from one of our colleagues in the library,

[00:15:55] who is also a state-certified swimming instructor.

[00:15:57] And then you can swim the 22 lanes.

[00:16:00] We also have a lot of distribution campaigns planned again this year,

[00:16:06] because that's another new thing we've done.

[00:16:09] We don't just have distribution points where people can come and pick up the book,

[00:16:14] but we also surprise them in unusual places and give them the book,

[00:16:20] which is always really nice, the reaction of people who receive something as a gift

[00:16:24] and don't have to do anything for it, they just take it.

[00:16:29] And here we are in front of the Sillpark shopping center, over the IKB swimming pools,

[00:16:36] and the streetcar, where we emerge in front, different places in Innsbruck.

[00:16:41] And I think it's always so positive from the people who report back to us.

[00:16:47] Yes, that was also one of our ideas. That's right.

[00:16:49] And that's also good, because you have to, you should encounter literature everywhere.

[00:16:53] There's an old saying: "Literature is always on duty" and

[00:16:59] so we try to put that into practice.

[00:17:01] Yes, and we did something else.

[00:17:03] We've done that for the drith time now, to make it low-threshold.

[00:17:10] Namely, there is always an "Innsbruck reads" audio book.

[00:17:13] Because this time we had the problem at the beginning,

[00:17:16] that the book, the audiobook, already existed or already exists.

[00:17:20] And what is the solution now?

[00:17:22] The âInnsbruck readsâ audio book this year,

[00:17:24] is available in the city library's eLibrary.

[00:17:28] It's free for members.

[00:17:31] For those who are not yet members, the following:

[00:17:34] So up to the age of 17 you can read for free in the public library anyway,

[00:17:38] with a culture pass too, by the way.

[00:17:40] And for everyone else, we will be giving away annual memberships for new registrations.

[00:17:48] Please simply enter the password 'Innsbruck reads audiobooks' in the city library

[00:17:52] when you register and then

[00:17:55] there is a free membership.

[00:17:58] Yes, in that sense.

[00:18:00] I have to go back now and see if it fits downstairs with the books,

[00:18:04] because they'll be sent out next Monday,

[00:18:08] so that you can get them everywhere from Tuesday, April 30th and distribute them.

[00:18:16] Yes, and in the next episode I'll be talking to Birgit Neu and Thomas Pühringer.

[00:18:21] Both were involved at the very beginning of the Innsbruck Reads campaign

[00:18:24] and can tell us exciting details about the first edition and the years that followed.

[00:18:31] And until then, happy reading.

[00:18:34] [Music]

[00:18:58] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library and part of Stadtstimmen,

[00:19:04] the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.

[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.

[00:00:06] Yes hello and welcome to the preface, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.

[00:00:26] My name is Christina.

[00:00:28] And I am Pia.

[00:00:30] And today we're going to talk about why we don't actually like Booktok.

[00:00:36] But before we get into this perhaps controversial topic,

[00:00:40] today we have the great honor of announcing the book for Innsbruck reads.

[00:00:47] Since 16.04. the people of Innsbruck know what we are reading.

[00:00:52] And Pia, what are we reading this year at Innsbruck reads?

[00:00:55] What can the people of Innsbruck look forward to?

[00:00:58] 22 tracks is the name of the book.

[00:01:00] By Caroline Wahl, who, by the way, takes over the podcast when Innsbruck reads,

[00:01:06] will also be a guest in one of the episodes starting next week.

[00:01:10] Will conduct an interview with Boris.

[00:01:12] So we're really looking forward to that dra.

[00:01:14] It's the 20th anniversary of the campaign from 30.04. to 10.05.

[00:01:20] There will be lots of events, signing sessions and Caroline Wahl will be there.

[00:01:25] We are really looking forward to it. There will be 10,000 books distributed.

[00:01:29] And as I said, from next week we'll be out of the picture for the time being

[00:01:34] and we can also look forward to what Lisi, Boris and many a guest and many a guest bring with them.

[00:01:41] 10,000 free cups and free events from April 30 to May 10.

[00:01:48] Innsbruck reads for the 20th time.

[00:01:51] Hot Take.

[00:01:56] Booktok is not overrated, but it has a lot of disadvantages, which is why I don't like it so much mag.

[00:02:03] I see. Have you ever been on Tiktok?

[00:02:08] So maybe we should explain what Booktok is exactly.

[00:02:11] Exactly.

[00:02:12] So there is Tiktok, which is a social media platform.

[00:02:15] And Booktok is basically an area on this platform where people talk about books.

[00:02:21] Born from the hashtag Booktok, made up of whatever is trending right now and Tok.

[00:02:29] And that's gotten so big, I would say, since the pandemic.

[00:02:34] Since 2020, since people, this is coming from the US again a little bit,

[00:02:39] that's when it suddenly became very relevant for the various book markets

[00:02:44] and not only in America, not only in Great Britain, but it also spilled over to us

[00:02:51] and also has an influence here.

[00:02:53] You can also see it on the cover of the German books.

[00:02:58] It's often on there now, the Tiktok sensation, sometimes as a sticker, but sometimes also directly on the annotation at the top,

[00:03:04] on the table of contents.

[00:03:06] It's really specifically written there that it became known on Tiktok.

[00:03:10] I just cataloged one right now. Cataloging for anyone who doesn't happen to be a librarian,

[00:03:16] is easy when we've ordered books and they have to get into our system somehow,

[00:03:20] so that it's easy to find when you use the search function in our online catalog, for example.

[00:03:26] So that you can see it, the book has to be incorporated.

[00:03:30] It's also just up there dra.

[00:03:33] We actually order books now.

[00:03:36] At first, before it arrived, I definitely noticed,

[00:03:40] that it was a topic in the book trade relatively quickly, I mean, sales are clear.

[00:03:46] It's now customary to have at least one table where you can either sell the next Tiktok sensation

[00:03:53] or Booktok sensation or just all the different Booktok books, right?

[00:04:00] Have you noticed that too?

[00:04:02] Yes, it's become more and more now.

[00:04:05] And now it's also spilled over to us.

[00:04:08] We also have books that go in exactly this direction.

[00:04:11] Colleen Hoover, for example, is the prime example of this, she's an author,

[00:04:16] who is very well received in the youth book sector, but also in the adult sector,

[00:04:20] who often writes romance novels and they are very, very well received on Tiktok and on Booktok.

[00:04:28] I've tried it out now.

[00:04:30] I downloaded it once because I thought to myself, I didn't want to say I think it's such nonsense,

[00:04:35] when I basically have no idea about it, do I?

[00:04:38] Now I'm really curious, a brief history.

[00:04:40] We've been talking about this Booktok, this so-called, so we've been talking about it for some time,

[00:04:51] that we want to make an episode about it.

[00:04:53] We both find it very, very interesting.

[00:04:55] But we're both very social media shy and neither of us has ever been on Tiktok.

[00:05:00] I, for example, refuse to download this app for various reasons.

[00:05:04] For me it has to do with data protection, for me it has to do with the fact that the algorithm is too good.

[00:05:08] And we'll talk about all these topics in a moment.

[00:05:12] And now I'm hearing for the first time that you've laughed it off.

[00:05:17] When did you download it?

[00:05:18] On Monday.

[00:05:19] On Monday.

[00:05:20] So about a week now.

[00:05:23] And I just wanted to do it especially for this episode because I thought I didn't want to rant about anything,

[00:05:27] where I have no idea about it or where I don't know what it actually looks like.

[00:05:31] And I'm going to delete it again now.

[00:05:35] It's my world, I have to say.

[00:05:38] I downloaded it and it was extremely exciting,

[00:05:41] because the first thing I noticed was that I was immediately categorized as a user.

[00:05:50] Because the first video I got, where I searched for Booktok,

[00:05:54] was book recommendations for women in their 20s.

[00:05:57] And that was like, okay, you kind of know exactly.

[00:06:00] So I'm 30, but I'm still immediately categorized

[00:06:06] and then I get recommendations accordingly.

[00:06:09] And then the next thing was Booktok books that lived up to the hype.

[00:06:13] They were all romance novels.

[00:06:15] And it was also exciting that they were immediately,

[00:06:18] Of course, it could also be that people who are looking for Booktok are generally female,

[00:06:24] Of course it is also true.

[00:06:25] I think there are, so that's, I can't cite any studies right now.

[00:06:30] I deal with the topic more on a meta-level,

[00:06:34] by watching videos on YouTube about analyses by Booktok books.

[00:06:40] From actual Booktok users and mostly female users.

[00:06:44] And I do believe that it's also ...

[00:06:47] That it's very female dominated.

[00:06:48] Yes, we also notice that in fiction, it's definitely like that,

[00:06:51] that more women read fiction novels.

[00:06:55] And I would then assume that this will definitely translate.

[00:06:58] Even all the influencers, 80 percent of them are women.

[00:07:03] Women.

[00:07:04] Well, I noticed that too.

[00:07:07] But don't you think that one week is not enough?

[00:07:09] Yes, of course.

[00:07:11] Because this algorithm is supposed to be so devilishly good and the more you interact

[00:07:15] and the more you do, the better it knows you.

[00:07:19] And I don't think a week is long enough.

[00:07:21] Yes, that's certainly the case, but I just wanted to test it out,

[00:07:23] and I found it fascinating.

[00:07:25] That's the first thing I get, is books for women in their 20s.

[00:07:29] And they weren't bad recommendations either.

[00:07:31] You're a target group.

[00:07:33] Yes, I am a target group.

[00:07:35] There are still books that we have in the library.

[00:07:37] So these were things like conversations with friends, for example

[00:07:39] by Sally Rooney, we have, in German and English, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

[00:07:44] by Coco Mellors, we also have in the library.

[00:07:47] Or advice books like 101 essays that will change your life

[00:07:51] by Brianna Wiest.

[00:07:52] We have a few from her.

[00:07:54] But I'm not that impressed nowdrubecause I have one,

[00:07:57] These are just the five books that you see everywhere.

[00:08:00] Of course.

[00:08:02] But they weren't...

[00:08:04] Well, those were the first suggestions I got.

[00:08:08] And I was like, okay, I would have immediately imagined Colleen Hoover.

[00:08:11] And that's just the typical, okay, romance novel thing.

[00:08:14] That was the second thing I got.

[00:08:16] That was the second, the second video, that was the "Elly Haysworth".

[00:08:20] Yes, I think so, I think so,

[00:08:23] that this algorithm can work well for you,

[00:08:26] if you use it for yourself.

[00:08:31] That's actually like everything that concerns social media or cell phones and so on.

[00:08:37] If you use it for your own purposes and if you filter the algorithm correctly

[00:08:42] and then don't click on too many videos and really just use that,

[00:08:45] if you need something, then that can certainly be useful to you.

[00:08:48] So the problem I have with Booktok is this Rabbit Hole,

[00:08:53] which is simply getting more and more blatant due to this excellent algorithm

[00:08:58] and you just get pulled into more and more bubbles.

[00:09:04] And I read once recently, for example,

[00:09:09] that the app accesses your camera.

[00:09:13] Did it ask you for permission?

[00:09:16] Camera didn't, but my contacts wanted to, they said like no.

[00:09:20] Always a good idea to say no, privacy is important.

[00:09:24] We download apps on our cell phone and often before convenience.

[00:09:29] We don't even look at what we're actually downloading dra, but I'm surprised,

[00:09:33] because I've read that TikTok scans as an app,

[00:09:39] the facial expressions, where the eye lengths are and exactly whether you like it.

[00:09:44] I can't get that back here, of course, I'll go into the show notes,

[00:09:47] if I find it again, I'll definitely link it,

[00:09:50] if I find something about it.

[00:09:51] I remember being very surprised and shocked.

[00:09:55] And they generally use the dwell time on Instagram too, I think.

[00:09:58] And how long you stay on top of a post or watch a video.

[00:10:02] But TikTok just has it, so of all the social media platforms,

[00:10:07] TikTok does it the best.

[00:10:10] And of course, it's like, quickly, quickly, quickly post a video to the...

[00:10:14] For me, it's just such a fast medium, that's why it's not for me.

[00:10:18] I'm just Generation YouTube, so we'd rather watch an analysis

[00:10:21] or a longer video about it.

[00:10:23] But these very short ones, that went so quickly,

[00:10:26] often such quick cutes, I somehow don't like that mag .

[00:10:29] And then they totally, I feel so old,

[00:10:32] because I had to take a break all the time, drÃto look at the books,

[00:10:35] because I didn't realize which book was being presented again.

[00:10:39] I mean, maybe you can also say that,

[00:10:41] that also has something to do with an ageing process,

[00:10:47] that at some point you can't keep up as quickly.

[00:10:50] And you have a thousand other things that interest you more,

[00:10:53] than watching the video now.

[00:10:55] Yes.

[00:10:57] Yeah, but it was fun to watch it,

[00:11:01] but it's just this female, so it's mainly women on the platform itself,

[00:11:07] that's very noticeable, because I found a man.

[00:11:10] But that was only when I was specifically looking for fantasy books,

[00:11:14] and he came up pretty far down the list,

[00:11:16] so it took a while.

[00:11:18] And then I also started looking for books where I thought to myself,

[00:11:21] okay, I don't think there's necessarily a huge community for that on Booktok.

[00:11:26] I was looking for Donna Leon, for example, and then I totally,

[00:11:29] So there were videos, but very few.

[00:11:32] And there was one, I don't even know if she spoke English,

[00:11:36] it was definitely an English video,

[00:11:38] because she had English captions.

[00:11:40] And she was like, that was extremely entertaining for me,

[00:11:44] because she somehow discovered Donna Leon for herself.

[00:11:47] And then Donna Leon is kind of a standard, crime novelist for me.

[00:11:52] And then she just wrote in this caption,

[00:11:55] the feeling when you read and discover a great book,

[00:11:58] that it's a series with over 30 books, so I thought.

[00:12:01] Who doesn't know Donna Leon?

[00:12:03] So it was kind of amusing.

[00:12:05] Probably most Americans, because Donna Leon is American.

[00:12:09] The name sounds so Italian, it's also published by Diogenes,

[00:12:13] It also has a touch of that.

[00:12:15] So it is, it's somehow marketed that way.

[00:12:20] And in America it doesn't work at all, and by the way, it's going away,

[00:12:22] like hot cakes.

[00:12:24] In America, I don't think I know anyone, at least not like me.

[00:12:27] We like that.

[00:12:29] But it was funny.

[00:12:31] And then I also looked for German-language authors.

[00:12:36] And there were, well, there were a few things,

[00:12:40] a post now and then, but very few.

[00:12:43] 22 Tracks, for example, is very popular on Booktok.

[00:12:48] I thought that was very cool with the ravages of time.

[00:12:51] And that the Innsbruck reads book

[00:12:53] is also so far ahead. So that German women writers are also seen there, I thought

[00:12:58] I thought that was kind of good. I think it's difficult, because then I also have, for example

[00:13:03] I looked for Monika Helfer, for example, or really those who do well with us, or Rebecca

[00:13:09] Gablé and the first Rebecca who suggested it to me was Rebecca Yarros, who was from

[00:13:14] Fourth Wing, so Flammengeküsst. They were also all rather older authors, or Monika Helfer is also

[00:13:23] rather and Rebecca Gablé. I also looked for Stefanie Sargnagel. And how was

[00:13:28] that? There were only videos about her, but very few. For example, how she does a reading

[00:13:32] does or something. But overall, you didn't feel so comfortable there? It wasn't really my

[00:13:38] thing. I'm generally more into the English-speaking world, including the internet. But it's still kind of

[00:13:47] interesting that there is such a bias towards English-language books. It has

[00:13:51] already, for example, where there have been a few more books by Cornelia Funke, although of course they are

[00:13:55] also goes in the direction of books for young people. In other words, the target group is basically also a

[00:13:59] a little bit. And Thomas Brezina, I've also found a few things there. He will also know that he has to go there.

[00:14:05] He's also on there himself. So he has his own account. So I think that surprises me

[00:14:10] not at all. You know, of course, it's a phenomenon that's become big in America. You have

[00:14:15] most booktubers are simply American or at the very least from the UK or

[00:14:20] at least they go into the English-speaking world and always discuss the same books.

[00:14:24] And the, I mean, German and Austrian and Swiss literary market, that's against it

[00:14:29] tiny, of course, and that's on a platform like this. So absolutely understandable, of course. But

[00:14:34] it's interesting that there is such an extreme bias. Yes. And in itself

[00:14:41] I think the content that's up now is not bad in itself. So it's

[00:14:46] also fan content where people can talk about it. And it's also great that a

[00:14:49] younger generation is now getting more into reading and accepting it and creating fan art themselves. So

[00:14:56] some really nice things are up there. And Booktok has once again contributed significantly to that

[00:15:00] contributed to the fact that Gen Z reads a lot, so the book was said to be dead. So, there we have

[00:15:06] already talked about it last week about thedrudeleted book and so on. But the fact that the, the

[00:15:12] book is absolutely in, is a trend. Yes. But you also have the feeling that it's a certain

[00:15:17] aesthetic that's being sold. Especially in certain videos, you get the feeling, okay,

[00:15:22] it's so relaxing now, afterwards you have such nice music in the background, books with very,

[00:15:27] very nice covers, preferably jewelry editions. And that's where I get to the thing that

[00:15:33] really bothers me about this Booktok trend, because it brings with it an aestheticization of the book,

[00:15:40] which is not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing per se. That's value-neutral for a start.

[00:15:45] But social media is simply always a medium of self-expression. And that means that

[00:15:52] then suddenly reading is elevated to such a curated art form. That means, what do I read?

[00:15:57] Not just an⦠It's a hobby that I can market, to be honest.

[00:15:59] Yeah, what? Exactly, you're marketing yourself and you're not going to make the Asterix and Obelix comic beautiful

[00:16:04] next to the coffee, but a Camus. And that means, which books do I show?

[00:16:11] what do I read or what do I want someone to think I read. That goes so far,

[00:16:17] that there are beautiful decorative editions of books, that there are book lists and then celebrities

[00:16:24] give these beautiful jewelry editions to celebrities and then let them take pictures with them.

[00:16:30] Yes, it's not bad in itself, but you have to be aware of that... So, the breakage is caused by these

[00:16:38] mechanisms are turning it more and more into a consumer good and a product.

[00:16:42] You move away more and more from the text, from the actual thing, right? And it's all about how it looks

[00:16:48] what does it look like? And, as I say, you always like jewelry editions. But there's just..

[00:16:51] Yes, but it's about the text and the art that's in the text and also the books,

[00:16:57] that are partly read there. It's up to you who wants to read what. But what it does in the masses,

[00:17:06] That results in such a cycle. Now X, Y is doing well. That's why

[00:17:14] the next book next year, which should then become the bestseller,

[00:17:19] is then the same book or the same topic with a similar author.

[00:17:22] A bit different, different. And drops, for example, which is totally fine. I also have such

[00:17:28] videos, like books where the villain gets the girl or something. And just,

[00:17:32] if something like that works, ok, after that there will be 10 books in that direction or

[00:17:36] not just 10, exactly. And more than in this direction. It's publishing,

[00:17:39] because they also want something, that's for sure. That means they know it works, so we want

[00:17:44] more of it. And then it just becomes more and more similar and then people consume more and more

[00:17:48] the same thing and actually you always read the same 10 books in a cycle like this or

[00:17:52] more and more specific. And this chopization of literature, we've already noticed that in

[00:17:59] the library. But then at some point I also ask myself the question, for example, there are also

[00:18:06] a little bit, we've already talked about it, out of fanfiction, I think. I think,

[00:18:09] that it's just such an internet thing, because you need very specific

[00:18:13] keywords to find what you're looking for. I just find it problematic when you then

[00:18:19] really start, because the book, all of that just contributes to the book just being a

[00:18:26] pure consumer product. I want the product "Enemies to Lovers" with that and the setting,

[00:18:31] in this and that cover. And then I just read them because the publishers have these 10 books

[00:18:41] in exactly this aesthetic. And then I'm right in my bubble on Booktook, where I'm with

[00:18:45] people who don't read anything else and I don't hear about other literature. What

[00:18:52] you do, as I said, everyone is allowed to read what they want. That goes without saying. But at the same time

[00:18:58] it's kind of a shame, because somehow the colorfulness of literature gets lost a little bit

[00:19:03] is lost. Regardless of the context, it's always worth stepping out of your own comfort bubble.

[00:19:10] It doesn't have to be every book. But studying forces you to read books, for example

[00:19:16] where you think to yourself, oh no, it's going to take weeks. And it has added value every time. And not every