What do I believe in this book?

The trend towards self-literature continues, culminating in this book, which has nothing else to tell but the everyday world of a young woman whom one could easily mistake for the author. You follow her on dates, you watch when love fails, you have to be ashamed of others for all her embarrassment and stupidity,” Marilyn Hubrack himself writes on page 233.

Between trips to the duty station, psychoanalysis and romantic chat, Hanno, an important person behind the scenes of the literary business, suggests that Dresden heroine Mara make her an author—as the fake author of an old book actually written by a white man.

Otherwise, Mara spends her days surviving despite depression, unemployment, and an incredible amount of loneliness, staring at the ceiling in bed, visiting her mom or friends or trying to become an Instagram influencer. @tweet It’s called there and it’s both a lie and a truth.

“This novel is a feel-good novel, because no matter how difficult fate the existence of this young woman may be, the reader can feel well held in literary terms, and not have to think or feel, the narrator’s voice doing it for him.” .

Is everything just fake?

At least that’s what I thought at first. The narrative voice oscillates between narrating in “I” and “She”, always centered on Mara. With that said, I couldn’t get any closer to Mara. Your feelings surface. She is much more interested in what you think of other people. It starts with the people on the bus, continues chatting with Paul, and ends with herself: In this book, people are seen as walking clichés.

The plot is also very predictable. Nevertheless, I read the book with pleasure and in a short time, because the language bore me fluently and without fuss. And yes, of course also because it’s nice to read a plot full of recognizable, but socially devalued cliches that are nonetheless permeated throughout the entire book.

For example, lying, attention-seeking on social media, neglecting a cat, and wanting to be prettier and thinner. The whole thing with sexism, classism, and really tired men, which is unbearable at times, and without any overt criticism of capitalism or the system. It’s not a hero’s story where antidepressants or personal revolution are the answer.

Does the book do this on purpose?

However, at one point, I just couldn’t keep up. I did not understand Mara’s actions. The few hints of doubt and stumbling, which I had had about Mara’s world from the start, grew into a state of extreme incomprehension.

At first I was okay with the lack of realism in the dialogue, as it kept me away from Mara and this world where everything is a bit like a clichéd TV show. The book takes clichés and inauthenticities to extremes and can’t be deterred. It made me question my point of view on clichés when they’re seriously carried out across 200+ pages.

But in the end, I no longer understood why Mara fell in love with Paul. I didn’t get the story with the fake book in the book because it wasn’t an issue anymore. I didn’t see it in the power of the book to combine so many subjects in equal measure. I had a sense that the themes were losing depth and the tension that could come into play — and at the same time the question was: Does the book just want to scratch the surface? Isn’t that all there is to it? Don’t you understand Mara in the book Mara in the book itself?

I don’t often believe that a book has a world of its own. The story of the fake book has become quite ridiculous. It’s also a fairy tale that no one wants to read “dry old sacks” bullshit (see p. 133) and that young white women are significantly more successful. I no longer believe that characters really never break away from their clichéd roles, that they take those roles seriously.

I was confused by the shifts between the first and third person and the shifts between points of view rarely spoke – they only told me what I already knew. Still, I enjoyed reading the book, and I don’t know exactly why. I think it is a matter of personal taste and how willing the reader is to question his or her own thoughts and desires for a book.

What world is it about?

And here we are back to self-literature: of course, this book is by no means such. But as soon as Mara’s name appeared on the cover of a book she hadn’t written, I kept asking myself where the book I was holding in my hands came from. Parallels in the plot of the two books, book-within-a-book reviews, which can also be understood as reflections on “Schrödinger’s Grrrl” and the book’s further world.

The feeling that the book had anticipated my ideas and was only playing with my desires had made me more and more entangled between my world, the world of literature, and the world of books.

In addition to: from @tweet Searching Instagram finds Mara’s account, by Marlen Hobrack. Finally, I’ve had so much fun overlapping the facts that I’ve simply skimmed out a few paragraphs in this review of Schrödinger’s Grrrl.

Marilyn Hobrack “Schrödinger’s Grrrl”Berlin Criminal Publishing House 2023 24 Euro.