Hermann Bürger Libri

Rinchiuso in una misteriosa e metafisica gattabuia, un uomo, affetto da uno strano morbo che gli impedisce di leggere i libri e di decifrare i segni del mondo, cerca la guarigione nel rapporto epistolare con una radiosa principessa, vestale dei classici letterari di ogni tempo. In sette vertiginose missive l’«illettore» racconta la propria vita come una «morte apparente». La narrazione, pagina dopo pagina, si trasforma in terapia per riaffacciarsi alla speranza e all’immaginazione, un percorso capace di regalargli infine l’euforia della convalescenza. Libro ossessionato dai libri, corso intensivo per lettori convulsi e dissennati, questo romanzo è un viaggio all’interno di una miniera oscura, ricca di frasi e immagini lucenti, sfaccettate ed enigmatiche come pietre preziose. Allucinato esperimento su «quanto in là si possa andare nello spingersi troppo in là», la confessione di Burger è anche – come rivela il breve saggio autobiografico che chiude il volume – il documento unico di un’esperienza di depressione clinica, un ironico «tentativo di sopravvivenza in prosa» scritto contro l’oblio: «Lo scrittore non dimentica mai, serba rancore in eterno».

“Hermann Burger was an artist who went the whole hog every time, didn't conserve himself. He was a man with a big longing for happiness.” --Marcel Reich-Ranicki Appearing in English for the very first time, Brenner is a delightfully unusual novel full of dark humor tracing the childhood memories of the book's eponymous narrator, a scion of an ancient cigar dynasty. Perpetually shrouded in a thick cloud of cigar smoke, Herman Arbogast Brenner, scion of an old and famous cigar dynasty, has decided to kill himself––but not until he has written down his forty-six years of life, in a Proustian attempt to conjure the wounds, joys, and sensations of his childhood in the rolling countryside of the Aargau region of Switzerland. Estranged from his wife and two children, he decides there is no point in squirrelling away his fortune, so he buys himself a Ferrari 328 GTS, and drives around sharing cigars with his few remaining friends. In this roman à clef, writing and smoking become intertwined through the act of remembering, as Brenner, a fallible, wounded, yet lovable antihero, searches for epiphany, attempting to unearth memories just out of reach— the glimmer of a red toy car, the sound of a particular chord played on the piano, the smell of the cigars themselves. Brenner is the final work from Hermann Burger, who died by suicide in 1989. The book comes out just days before what would have been the author’s 80th birthday.

Nach dem durchschlagenden Erfolg von „Schilten“ erschien 1982 Hermann Burgers zweiter Roman „Die Künstliche Mutter“, seine wohl waghalsigste Phantasie und Konstruktion. Darin reist der Privatdozent Wolfram Schöllkopf, der nach dem Verlust seiner universitären Arbeitsstelle einen Zusammenbruch erleidet, zur Kur in eine aufgelassene militärische Festung im Gotthardmassiv. Schöllkopf wird analysiert und einer abenteuerlichen Therapie unterzogen, an deren Ende die Erkenntnis steht: Erst im Tod ist das Leben endlich genesen. Ein episch-wuchtiger Roman, bitterscharfe Analyse der Schweiz, Satire auf Akademie und Psychologie – und zugleich der grandiose Versuch, mit den Mitteln des Erzählens einen Heilungsprozess in Gang zu setzen.