Wetlands on Stage

A brief virtual flick through Bild (not a newspaper, it's official) shows three new "stories" about their favourite bugbear, Charlotte Roche's Wetlands. First off, it's going to be adapted for the stage in Halle. The director is quoted: "If it's sex you're after don't go to the theatre. You're better off having it at home." A wise woman. I'd adapt that slightly to "If it's novels you're after..." after seeing a very dull adaptation of Raul Zelik's Berliner Verhältnisse on stage. At one point I amused myself by pulling faces at the actors.

Next, readers have voted for who could play the leading role. I don't know who the "scandal noodle" is who won this dubious honour, though.

And finally, Roger Willemsen has slagged Charlotte Roche off - apparently. The author, whose book An Afghan Journey comes out in paperback in September (trans. Stefan Tobler), calls Wetlands "the most disgusting book by a long way" that he knows. He doesn't find it erotic at all.

I suspect Bild might be twisting the guy's words ever so slightly, not that they'd do that kind of thing on purpose, of course. Why do I think this? Well, it's just the small fact that Willemsen is quoted on the back of the actual book in question. Here's what he says:

Radical, drastic and just as tender. I can't recall having a debut manuscript in my hands as self-assured, as courageous and as full of the present day as this.

Someone is getting a wee bit muddled, I suspect.