Odenwald

Amorbach in the hills of the Odenwald, across from the Hotel zur Post, where Theodor W. Adorno used to spend his summer holidays: this is where the novelist Thomas Meinecke meets with his characters to carry out his research. It quickly becomes clear that Amorbach is also Adornobach, the oneiric realm of the exiled philosopher (and the place he often dreamed of from his temporary home on the Pacific coast). The Odenwald also exerts an influence on the research carried out by the characters in the novel. It is a place of myth and legend, in which foresters, expropriated by the local prince, skulk about as bandits. Some of these individuals were sent to Texas back in the 19th century, allowing Thomas Meincke to also inscribe his novel with the motifs of the Wild West.

In the Odenwald, Meinecke and his protagonists weave together the threads of a sprawling research project into a discursive braid, in which Paul Preciado’s speech to psychoanalysts in Paris is folded in with the fascinating role of gender and language in medieval texts. The vaunted return of the body, of the material, and of materialism all get a mention – and are also played out in the private lives of the characters. All accompanied by the concert music of the 20th century. In one last nod to the influence of Adorno.
 

»Playful, demanding, and at the same time, highly enjoable.« Björn Hayer, der Freitag

»Reading this book leaves you richer than you were when you started.« Moritz Bassler, Frankfurter Algemeine Sonntagszeitung

»A book that resists all categorisations.« Jakob Hayner, WELT AM SONNTAG

»The rhythm of the language pulls you forward, and like it or not you find yourself running after it, like a dog straining at the leash.« Elfriede Jelinek on Lookalikes