Of ancient pulp fiction in new dressings and female memoirs
The Book Fair is always among many other things always a great opportunity to chat with people from the industry you rarely see. Yesterday I caught up with two of my favourite publishers of iconic German pulp fiction, Bernhard Schmidt who publishes Karl May and Klaus Frick who publishes Perry Rhodan, aka our attempt to compete with Doctor Who for longest running sci fi series. Like the Doctor, Perry and friends were a product of the Sixties, so Mr. Frick decided to launch in addition to the ongoing adventures in the old continuity a reboot called Perry Rhodan Neo. Apparently this is greeted somewhat like the ST and BSG reboots were, with part of the fandom crying "heresy!" and a part being intrigued. As someone fond of the multiverse and pallel universes, I'm all for it as long as the original timeline still exists as well. And I'm looking forward to reading the rebooted origin story which, as I teased Klaus F., hopefully will be without that mark of the early 60s, the fact that the aliens are captained by a woman excused by the fact their people are degenerated. (I love the early adventures which have some nifty ideas about getting rid of the arms race in them, but yes, the sexism is undeniable.)
Anyway, apparantly the majority of journalists are mundanes unfamiliar with what a reboot is, or the concept of parallel universes, so Klaus F. was happy to talk to a fellow geek, and so was I. Meanwhile, fellow Bamberger Bernard S. told me there is talk about a new film version of Karl May's "Winnetou", currently scripted by Michael Blake who wrote "Dances with Wolves", which sounds promising, except Blake doesn't speak a word of German. And while there might be some Victorian translations, somehow we doubted that they would provide the basis of the film to be. "It might end up as something like the new Musketeers", he said, torn. "Not much Dumas in that one. Though Bamberg in 3D is nifty." "Steampunk Karl May, you mean?" I asked, and we looked at each other, trying to envision that.
"Err."
"Quite."
"Well", he said philosophically, "at least it would sell a few more books."
Memoirs and biographies are a theme this fair. Our most famous feminist, Alice Schwarzer, has just published hers, and at first glance they appear to be well written and cleverly end just when the first copies of her magazine EMMA are sold. As I observed apropos the Thatcher biopics recently, a "growing and struggling, ending with big breakthrough" story is always easier to sympathize with than a having power and holding it story. Alice Schwarzer in her old age has been accused of having become increasingly autocratic - as you do, if 99% of humanity are anything to go buy - but she was one of the pioneers for women's rights in post war Germany. I met her twice, for the first time ages ago at a conference about Heinrich Heine, where she delivered a great presentation on Heine, and I was struck by the warmth and personal charme that doesn't come across in the media.
As the lecture on Salka Viertel had been one of the most intriguing hours of the recent Feuchtwanger conference, I was delighted to discover there was a new book published about her and her relationship with Greta Garbo. It doesn't play coy about the fact the relationship most likely had an erotic dimension as well but doesn't sensationalize it, either; the author does pay attention to Salka as a writer and for example offers the interesting suggestion that what intrigued her about Maria Walewska and made her suggest the subject to Garbo - resulting in their first big flop as a scriptwriter and star team - was the idea of a woman falling for a charismatic person of power, seeing that person descend into megalomania and becoming disillusioned but continuing to love him, now with opened eyes - was basically Salka's state of relationship with Garbo at the time. Though they had a better ending, after decades of ups and downs. In the last year of Salka's life when her illness left her in need of constant nursing and she hardly could talk anymore, having been one of the great hostesses and witty talkers of her day, it was Greta Garbo who in a complete role reversal waited on her hand and foot and chatted with her, distracting her from her pain.
Lastly: the Iceland pavilion is a bit of a let down compared with what other guest of honour countries did in recent years. It basically consists of video projections of the Icelandic landscape - which is great, sure, but what about some history or scenes from the sagas? - and of reading Icelanders.
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