Mariana Leky

The strange and wonderful thing about this novel is that Leky, who was born in 1973, does exactly the opposite of what usually happens to someone who is lovesick. She does not make her narrator lament or complain, nor is her sorrow elevated to metaphorical heights. Instead, Leky breaks down everything that is emotional into tangible things. What is more, she objectifies them in an almost fairy-tale-like way. When Katja notices how Jakob distances himself more and more from her, how she loses sight of him, she is afflicted by an unusual eye ailment. And shortly before Jakob’s funeral, almost senseless under a bell jar of pain, she meets an elegant older gentleman, Mr. Blank, a scholar of ancient languages, who died himself a while ago, who is suddenly sitting on the side of her bathtub and without any great explanation, has come to stay. (…) Suddenly, another man appears. Although he is alive, in every other way he is complete fraud - Armin, who rings Katja’s doorbell one evening, claiming to be a fireman (although Katja suspects that his uniform is from a costume rental shop). In a completely purposeless way, he crawls through her flat with a torch because he thinks there might be a fire somewhere, or at least he pretends he does. Apart from that, he gives her impassioned accounts of karate films in chronological order, and has a slight kleptomania problem. This bizarre scene that Leky spins out of her sadness is so hilariously funny that you forget to be surprised by it.

Wiebke Porombka: „Einfach nur die Hand heben“
© die tageszeitung, 3 July 2010