The Things That Happen

Thirteen Everyday Fantasies
Suhrkamp | Insel

The Things That Happen / Was alles so vorkommt
Thirteen Everyday Fantasies
»He glimpsed himself for the first time as himself, as no longer in communion with others, as his own isolated self. He had named himself.«
The »thirteen everyday fantasies«, with which Karl Heinz Bohrer moves on to shorter, modest forms after his scientific study of hate, are not so mundane: they show the handwriting of a restless intellectual who, in the concentrated form of short prose, provides information about selected sensitivities, preferences, empathisations, disturbances, even antipathies of a long life. Bohrer sets the tone with a suggestive account of a train journey to Brussels – at the height of the...
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The »thirteen everyday fantasies«, with which Karl Heinz Bohrer moves on to shorter, modest forms after his scientific study of hate, are not so mundane: they show the handwriting of a restless intellectual who, in the concentrated form of short prose, provides information about selected sensitivities, preferences, empathisations, disturbances, even antipathies of a long life. Bohrer sets the tone with a suggestive account of a train journey to Brussels – at the height of the 2018 heatwave – that literally threatens to derail in an apocalyptic experience, before moving on to the foundations of our emotional life: to the origin and nature of resentment, for example, to the roots of friendship and alienation, to reflections on isolation, loneliness and being alone, and to narcissistically mirrored self-perception.

Thus unfolds a rich panorama of very different thoughts and memories, in which the author, as is his wont, does not mince his words and allows the reader to experience the everyday as an exciting encounter with ultimate unfamiliarity.
»It is a terrible thing to think that in the future we will only be able to hear the stubborn voice of Karl Heinz Bohrer in books. But at least there are these anything but Everyday Fantasies to remind us of an unusual writer, intellectual and friend.« Michael Krüger, Die literarische Welt

»[Karl Heinz Bohrer's] posthumous but fully polished book [The Things That Happen] shows him once again in the glory of his subjectivity, it provides a personal key to his enormous oeuvre.« Gustav Seibt, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»What Karl Heinz Bohrer reveals in The Things That Happen is a way of thinking that is as pleasurable as it is defiant. ... What Bohrer orchestrates here, the tonal variety and nuance, the span between cultural history and anecdote, speaks directly to readers and engages them for a long time.« Fridtjof Küchemann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»[Bohrer's older texts in particular offer] an illuminating and fascinating read to help us understand the intellectual history of the old Federal Republic ...« Chris W. Wilpert, Jungle World

»A thoroughly enjoyable read!« General-Anzeiger

»… one never emerges from Bohrer’s texts indifferent or with a shrug. Following him on his winding paths of discovery is an adventure in and of itself every time.« Eike Gebhardt, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
»It is a terrible thing to think that in the future we will only be able to hear the stubborn voice of Karl Heinz Bohrer in books. But at least there are these anything but Everyday Fantasies to remind us of an unusual writer, intellectual and friend.« Michael Krüger, Die literarische Welt

»[Karl Heinz Bohrer's] posthumous but fully polished book [The Things That Happen] shows him once again in the glory of his subjectivity, it...
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2021, 184 pages
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Karl Heinz Bohrer, born in Cologne in 1932, was a literary critic, publisher, scientist and creator of numerous works focusing on the central ideas of Momentanism and »suddenness«. He worked as a secondary school teacher in Germany, England and the USA. In 2007, he was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize and received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2014. Karl Heinz Bohrer died in London on August 4, 2021.

 

Karl Heinz Bohrer, born in Cologne in 1932, was a literary critic, publisher, scientist and creator of numerous works focusing on the central...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Speaking with Daggers
Year of Publication: 2019
Karl Heinz BohrerYear of Publication: 2019

Particularly in recent times, the term »hate« has made a career in public importance. In the journalistic and socio-historical critique of the reaction to the refugee crisis prevalent in Germany and Europe it moved to the forefront of the discourse alongside terms like »identity« and »racism«.


But Karl Heinz Bohrer’s study in twelve chapters searches for something entirely...

Now
Year of Publication: 2017
Karl Heinz BohrerYear of Publication: 2017

Karl Heinz Bohrer is one of Germany’s most pugnacious intellectuals. The steadfast expectation that the banal present will turn into the fantastical now – this is what drives Karl Heinz Bohrer’s autobiographical, adventure-filled story. Spanning more than five decades and unfolding through nine chapters, his story plays out in various locales: in European cities like London and Paris, at...

The Appearance of Dionysus
Year of Publication: 2015
Karl Heinz BohrerYear of Publication: 2015
Has Dionysus only become Dionysian in the course of modernity? Dionysus, son of Zeus, god of ecstasy, has been ascribed many characteristics. But only one of them discerns him from all the other gods: his sudden »appearance«, that mysterious eventfulness that is connected to his entrance and which was already thematised in the Greek texts. In his new book, Karl Heinz Bohrer explores the...
Suddenness
Year of Publication: 1981
Karl Heinz BohrerYear of Publication: 1981

»Suddenness or epiphany – an expression of discontinuity and rupture – resists aesthetic integration. This argument is the centrepiece of Bohrer's collection of...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Columbia UP), Chinese simplex rights (China South Publishing & Media Group)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Poland (Oficyna Naukowa)


DISCOVER

News
05.08.2021
Karl Heinz Bohrer has died in London at the age of 88.