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Nikola Richter, Jan Brandt, Katy Derbyshire's thumb.

© Privat

Going Dutch with German Writers (3): A surprise date

What happens when an e-book publisher and the writer of an incredibly long novel get together? Nikola Richter and Jan Brandt talk to Katy Derbyshire about Schlecker, evil plastic bags, Club Mate and literary criticism. Were there fisticuffs? Well, no.

Who?

Nikola Richter has written and published a heck of a lot of things – poetry, drama, short fiction, blogs – as you can tell from her Wikipedia entry. Her most recent venture is the e-publishing company Mikrotext, launched just the other week to bring you short digital texts.

Jan Brandt has written and published one novel, Gegen die Welt. It is very long indeed and only available in print form. I am translating it into English. It will take me at least a year.

Where? Morena Bar, Kreuzberg

What? Jan had Flensburger Pilsener, Nikola and I had a rather nice Tempranillo.

What did we talk about?

I thought I’d try going out drinking with two writers at once, just to see what happened. And Jan said I should surprise him with my other guest, so I invited Nikola. The rationale being that they’d argue about long and short form, digital and print, etc. Obviously, this idea was doomed to fail. They were both terribly nice to each other.

The first thing we – or they – talked about is how they knew each other. They weren’t quite sure – was it from one of Nikola’s former poetry circles? Jan looked sceptical – he doesn’t do poetry but he did used to hang out with the poet Jan Wagner quite a lot. In fact people tend to muddle them up, and also another bespectacled writer, Jan Böttcher. Jan Brandt once ordered a book in a bookshop and the man behind the counter noted down his details and said, “Jan Wagner, right?” Or people would tell him how much they liked his last novel before his novel was even finished. I made a lame joke that has got me into trouble in the past – What d’you call a guy who hangs out with musicians? A drummer. Nikola told us the best part of one of her old poetry circles was the quickie round. They’d do it at the end of the evening once everyone had drunk a litre of wine each. You had to read your poem aloud and then someone else read it aloud, then everyone discussed it for five minutes but the poet wasn’t allowed to say anything at all. It didn’t sound much fun to me.

We then spent quite some time talking about ebooks. As you’re no doubt aware, ebooks are the same as normal books only in a different format. Which makes talking about them kind of nerdy and dull, although we found it fascinating personally. I won’t bore you with the details. Jan had his snazzy new phone with him, so he downloaded one of Nikola’s books right then and there. It was Alexander Kluge’s essay, and we all agreed that Kluge and Enzensberger are totally cool old geezers while all other German male writers of their generation are boring old farts. I told a story about how I was once in a bar with an American who didn’t speak German and this woman with facial tattoos came up to us and told him he’d look back one day in his old age and regret having his phone on the table distracting him when he was out with such a pretty woman. What did she say? asked the American. Oh nothing, I said. Jan put his phone away. He’s such a charmer. There was then some discussion of VAT rates for ebooks, which was less interesting than the nerdy technical details, except for a great comparison involving packaged pre-sliced salami and salami sliced at the deli counter, which turned out to be a complete bluff. Actually though I just checked – next time around, remember the simple VAT formula: 7% if you buy a horse, 19% if you buy a donkey (speaking of salami). I tried to steer the conversation to something slightly more controversial, or at least more interesting.

There used to be a club right next door, run by Irish people, where I first drank Club Mate with vodka. Jan seemed to find the idea revolting but Nikola loves it too (spoiler: this was the height of dissent between the two of them all evening). It gets you drunk and lively at the same time, which occasionally leads to shenanigans in my case. It’s also the coolest drink because you have to take a glug out of the bottle and then they top it up with vodka. The last time Nikola went to that club – it’s moved to Neukölln now and we couldn’t remember the name – Kleine something? – a pipe burst in the ladies and there was water pouring out of the wall, and she ran up to the bar and told them and they were like, Oh yeah, we’ve got a mate who’s a plumber, we’ve called him, he’ll be round later. Nikola left once the water reached the dancefloor. Wait, I asked, weren’t the toilets there unisex? No, Katy, they weren’t. Oh. I may have blushed.

Those poor attractive women writers

Nikola and Jan inspecting their photos on Jan’s snazzy new phone. There’s a thumb on one of them.
Nikola and Jan inspecting their photos on Jan’s snazzy new phone. There’s a thumb on one of them.

© Privat

Nikola told us she’d read Daniela Strigl’s recent acceptance speech for the Alfred Kerr Prize for literary criticism. What she liked best was this passage:

Rather than providing any polar opinions to liven up this post, Jan and Nikola conferred that yes, back when they both started writing there was the whole Fräuleinwunder PR phenomenon. Those poor attractive young women writers who got their photos plastered all over the papers, and some of them were good and survived it and some simply disappeared. Nowadays the papers seem to be crazy about youth, whether male or female. We talked about legal restrictions on writing, out of fear of libel suits. In Jan’s novel, the now defunct drugstore chain Schlecker is one of the baddies, if you like, and the publishers considered changing the company name in case they sued. But it would have been stupid because everyone would have known anyway, right? We talked about how annoying it is that Schlecker had gone bust and now there was no drugstore for miles around in Kreuzberg. We talked about how the rival drugstore, DM, pretends to be the good guy with its organic-style own brands and its allegedly fair treatment of its staff. But in fact all their products come in plastic containers, and plastic is the scourge of the earth and the oceans. Someone Nikola knows tries to live his entire life without consuming plastic or something. He buys hand cream in glass jars and uses solid shampoo bars. There were quite a few further examples, which didn’t make it into my notes later on.

At this point things took an unexpected turn. Instead of arguing with each other, Nikola and Jan started ganging up on me. I tried to defend myself half-heartedly but there was no getting around the fact that I sometimes use plastic shopping bags and I don’t go to organic food stores. I was trying to lead my life without doing anyone any harm, I said, but it was pretty damn hard even on a personal level, never mind at the shops. They never quite said that it was all my fault the world was going to end, but I felt a definite need to change the subject again. Luckily, the barman was sending out less than subtle signals that he’d like to go home. We begged him for another round of wine for the ladies, and Jan promised not to draw out his remaining inch of Flensburger for more than half an hour. It was snowing outside and Monday is obviously not their busiest night.

So then I picked their brains about how to moderate literary events, hoping to regain their sympathy by revealing my vulnerable side (Jan had already admitted to once being addicted to computer games – I suspect that explains why he’s so slim, because he hardly ate as a teenager, apparently). I occasionally get asked to moderate English-language events featuring German writers, and I’m terrified every time. Nikola said she’d been on a course about it after completely fucking up an event once, and shared quite a lot of useful tips, which I duly forgot. Except for: Never ask yes/no questions! So I put on a cheesy voice and practiced by asking Jan, “So, is there an event that you remember as being your favourite?” “No!” said Nikola, “No yes/no questions!” “Shit, OK, so, Jan, what was your favourite ever event?”

Jan Brandt’s favourite ever event was when the entire local Rotary Club came along and he played them heavy metal songs. Nikola studied in Norwich for a year and once got a letter from WG Sebald, in which he encouraged her to carry on writing poetry. She has lost it. The barman came over with the bill, misheard how much tip I wanted to give him (possibly on purpose – certainly to his advantage – but perhaps I wasn’t enunciating all too clearly) and went on putting chairs up on tables. We took some quick snapshots, which was fun, and braced ourselves for the snow.

Foto0144

(Nikola and Jan inspecting their photos on Jan’s snazzy new phone. There’s a thumb on one of them.)

Hangover? Yes. I woke up at 5 a.m. and had an Alka Seltzer and then went back to sleep, which helped, but now my head is hurting again. I had to go and see my eye doctor this morning. I hope I didn’t smell too bad, but I suppose the dentist would have been worse.

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