Georg Büchner Prize to Rainald Goetz

Sue me – I have never read Rainald Goetz and I'm not even planning to. I think he's like Marmite; you have to have grown up with him to appreciate him. But a hell of a lot of Germans do appreciate him, and now he's won the mega-prestigious Georg Büchner Prize for his life's work. It comes with €50,000 and eternal glory. The judges said:

Rainald Goetz has described Germany's present of the past thirty years, let it come to perception and speak for itself, he has celebrated it and condemned it and analyzed it over and over by means of theory. Behind his nervous, tense willingness to gain experiences are a broad education and a sensitive awareness of history, which enable his language a balance between passionate expression, observational coolness and satirical clarity.

They're really into him, huh? But I know a lot of people (men?) who worship the guy. I once went to a reading he did where he was like, I'm going to read for ten minutes and then go out and smoke a fag on the doorstep (it was raining, I think) and then I'm going to have a rest for a while and then at half past I'll read for five minutes and then I'll have a bit of a sit down and then on the next full hour I'll read for another ten minutes, but first here's the list of ingredients on my cigarette packet. Those may not have been his exact words; it was about five years ago. But instead of totally losing patience and leaving, like I did, everyone else was hanging on his every word and had nothing they wanted to do more than spend all day waiting for the guy to read in between his extended cigarette breaks. Also I used to see him in my local supermarket before I moved house. He's quite short and likes white bread rolls.

He's written lots of novels and plays about contemporary phenomena. I think the only thing available in English is the play Jeff Koons, translated by David Tushingham.

Goetz at Suhrkamp: Still Loved By His Fan Base

According to Wikipedia, Rainald Goetz is a German author, playwright and essayist. "Goetz won numerous literary awards. He is still loved by his fan base, but he hasn't written anything which captivated the larger audience for some years."

That same source also tells us: "Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin."

Having done so, they've just opened a temporary store in Berlin-Mitte, the edition suhrkamp laden, run by hard-core booksellers from the Autorenbuchhandlung in Charlottenburg. The place is gorgeous, tastefully done with a rainbow wall of books and slightly silly chairs, a bar, espresso machine, etc. And of course there are events. Lots of classy events you'd really want to go to. Film screenings, readings, discussions.

Unfortunately I chose to go and see Rainald Goetz. As did what looked like his entire adoring fan base. And all 200 of them squashed into the relatively modest-sized store and started breathing in each others' vapours. Because it's raining outside and they're presumably all still steaming away in there. Although possibly not - I left after 32 minutes.

The thing about Rainald Goetz' adoring fan base is that they all seem to know each other. Or perhaps they all work for Suhrkamp. Certainly there was a huge amount of air kissing going on in the 15 minutes before Rainald Goetz deigned to arrive. I, on the other hand, am not part of the adoring fan base and knew one and a half people. Neither of whom appeared to recognise me. My feeble attempt to get chatting to two men behind me resulted in a look as if I had killed their mutual grandmother and gone on to ask the world's most stupid question.

I wouldn't usually attempt to talk to strangers at a reading. But this was a Rainald Goetz reading, so it was special. The special thing about it was this: Rainald Goetz stood on a chair near the front of the room. From there he announced that he'd be giving short readings at quarter past every hour. On the hour, he told us, he would do some kind of action. Then we stood around steaming and waiting for the next 15 minutes to be up, during which time I asked said stupid question. Then Rainald Goetz read very quickly and breathlessly from his latest book - about talking to drunk publishing people at the Frankfurt book fair in 2008 - for what felt like two minutes. Then he squeezed his way outside. The adoring fanbase applauded. I left.

I don't know what happened after that, except that by the time I made my way to the door I had had more physical contact with strangers than I cared for and Rainald Goetz was attempting to get back in. Reminded of rush hour in Tokyo, I rebuked him that one has to let people out before one can get in. But seeing as I was incredibly annoyed at the downright cheek of the thing, it may have come out too quiet to hear.

He may be good, for all I know.

Update: I'm told Goetz performed for four hours and everybody loved it. I'm mystified. My only suspicion is that Rainald Goetz is like Marmite - you either love him or you hate him, and in order to love him you have to have been fed him at a formative age.

Update II: See what I missed on youtube. I still don't get it.