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Helblauw
Tillmann is samen met zijn vriendin op vakantie in de Verenigde Staten en correspondeert met een Afro-Amerikaanse collega over het ontstaan van techno en over hun onderzoek naar de evolutie van bluesmuziek. De discussies van het trio variëren van Mariah Carey tot Ronald Reagan, van de Black Power-beweging tot de erfenis van Nazi-Duitsland. En terwijl een orkaan over de Atlantische Oceaan raast, zal hun onderzoek naar hoe etniciteit, ras en geslacht zijn gedefinieerd, met name voor de Afrikaanse en Joodse diaspora in Amerika, culmineren in onthullingen over hun eigen etnische identiteit.
- GenresFiction
384 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2001
5 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Meinecke
32 books13 followersThomas Meinecke wurde am 25.08.1955 in Hamburg geboren. Ab 1977 in München lebend, war er dort von 1978 bis 1986 Mitherausgeber und Redakteur der Avantgarde-Zeitschrift Mode & Verzweiflung.
In den 80er Jahren erschienen in unregelmäßigen Abständen in der ZEIT Kolumnen von ihm, 1986 der Kurzgeschichten-Band Mit der Kirche ums Dorf. Es folgten die Erzählung Holz (1988) und die Romane The Church of John F. Kennedy (1996), Tomboy (1998), Hellblau (2001) und Musik (2004).
Thomas Meinecke ist außerdem Musiker in der 1980 von ihm mitgegründeten Band Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (FSK) und Radio-DJ in seiner Sendung Zündfunk (BR 2).
1994 zog er mit Frau und Tochter in ein oberbayrisches Dorf.
In den 80er Jahren erschienen in unregelmäßigen Abständen in der ZEIT Kolumnen von ihm, 1986 der Kurzgeschichten-Band Mit der Kirche ums Dorf. Es folgten die Erzählung Holz (1988) und die Romane The Church of John F. Kennedy (1996), Tomboy (1998), Hellblau (2001) und Musik (2004).
Thomas Meinecke ist außerdem Musiker in der 1980 von ihm mitgegründeten Band Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (FSK) und Radio-DJ in seiner Sendung Zündfunk (BR 2).
1994 zog er mit Frau und Tochter in ein oberbayrisches Dorf.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 10, 2019
Het feit dat er door vijftig vertalers aan gewerkt is, past goed bij een boek, waarin geen van de personages een eigen stem of idioom heeft. De eigenlijke hoofdpersoon is Wikipedia.
Wat blijft is een zekere woede, waarin de auteur zich verraadt, over de geschiedenis ( het onrecht dat) die zich herhaalt
Wat blijft is een zekere woede, waarin de auteur zich verraadt, over de geschiedenis ( het onrecht dat) die zich herhaalt
March 14, 2013
Kind of Pale Blue?
Pale Blue is a lot like Tomboy, another book by Thomas Meinecke, in that it follows students doing research, and the research is incorporated into the text. Why not just present the research as the book? The lives of the researchers are pretty boring and don't add much. Their story arc consists of little else besides doing research and emailing each other their findings. In the case of Pale Blue there are three main characters: Tillmann, a German vacationing in North Carolina, with his girlfriend, Vermilion--like the color that she frequently wears, but with one "l"--as he corresponds with the third character, an African American colleague--whose name I could never catch, despite constant attempts. Perhaps, like Lot's salty wife, it is never mentioned?
The perspective shifts between the three without warning. Research is presented, and then a little background from one of the three. There are no chapter breaks. Sometimes the experiences of the researchers connect with what is being researched, as when they go diving off the shore of North Carolina where sunken U-boats lie. Or stroll through the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood of Wlliamsburg shopping. Like the book's author, Tillmann is a DJ, and a lot of time is spent searching for rare records and obscure Techno and House tracks. I am not obsessively compulsive about such music, so a lot of that stuff was like listening to a Philatelist talk about stamps.
Since I had read Thomas Meinecke's stuff before, I knew what to expect, and I enjoyed reading this a lot, but I can't say it was a great book or recommend it without caveats. The research portions of the book did present a lot of interesting material: Germany, Yiddish, Black Music, U-boats and The Ziegfeld Follies, Mariah Carey, Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Ford, Mezz Mezzrow, Irving Berlin, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Slim Gaillard, Al Jolson, Leni Riefenstahl, and Mae West were among the illustrious luminaries profiled. It was all thrown into a blender and yielded a surprisingly compelling concoction.
The above is what I wrote for my Amazon Vine review. The Vine program is where they give you free books but you have to review 80% of them before you can get new ones. Sometimes you get backed up on your reading. So, it is like being maxed out on your credit card. Anyway, I read the book and wrote the review, which is pretty good--short, concise, to the point--as far as Amazon reviews go. But I wanted to talk about the touchy subjects in the book, like Politics, Religion, sexual identity, gender issues, Nazis, Israel, Jews, Blacks, Race, and so forth. Amazon has an automated review checker that pulls reviews if certain "flag" words are mentioned. Then, you have to wait a long time for them to publish your review. Which is a big drag, because you have to have the review before you can order new free stuff, and the good stuff is snatched up if you even flinch. If you snooze, you lose. So, I pulled out all of the controversial words of the above Amazon review. Like I know for a fact that if you even mention Hitler they will have to have someone read your review--no doubt a lowly though officious wage slave angry at his tedious job and hungry for revenge on the verbose reviewers who are obtuse enough to have their crummy reviews flagged by using obvious trigger words like practically every word in my Pale Blue review had I been honest about its contents.
Anyway, now that I have that off my chest I no longer feel the need to go into the details of Pale Blue but there was a lot of material about Jews and Nazis, Israel, Ronald Reagan's trip to an SS cemetery in Bittburg, Henry Ford's support of Hitler, Ford's Anti-Semitism, and so forth. It wasn't discussed in an objectionable way, but more from the stand point of a German coming to terms with his Country's past, but the subjects are all such hot button issues that even mentioning that they are in the book can set off alarms.
Only one thing I would like to add at this time, and that is that I was really intrigued by the part about Hedy Lamarr, who was a beautiful actress from Germany, who was also really intelligent, and she defected to the West during the war, and along with a musical composer designed a way of sending coded messages that is being used today in cell phone technology. That was just one of the many interesting tangents in Pale Blue.
Pale Blue is a lot like Tomboy, another book by Thomas Meinecke, in that it follows students doing research, and the research is incorporated into the text. Why not just present the research as the book? The lives of the researchers are pretty boring and don't add much. Their story arc consists of little else besides doing research and emailing each other their findings. In the case of Pale Blue there are three main characters: Tillmann, a German vacationing in North Carolina, with his girlfriend, Vermilion--like the color that she frequently wears, but with one "l"--as he corresponds with the third character, an African American colleague--whose name I could never catch, despite constant attempts. Perhaps, like Lot's salty wife, it is never mentioned?
The perspective shifts between the three without warning. Research is presented, and then a little background from one of the three. There are no chapter breaks. Sometimes the experiences of the researchers connect with what is being researched, as when they go diving off the shore of North Carolina where sunken U-boats lie. Or stroll through the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood of Wlliamsburg shopping. Like the book's author, Tillmann is a DJ, and a lot of time is spent searching for rare records and obscure Techno and House tracks. I am not obsessively compulsive about such music, so a lot of that stuff was like listening to a Philatelist talk about stamps.
Since I had read Thomas Meinecke's stuff before, I knew what to expect, and I enjoyed reading this a lot, but I can't say it was a great book or recommend it without caveats. The research portions of the book did present a lot of interesting material: Germany, Yiddish, Black Music, U-boats and The Ziegfeld Follies, Mariah Carey, Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Ford, Mezz Mezzrow, Irving Berlin, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Slim Gaillard, Al Jolson, Leni Riefenstahl, and Mae West were among the illustrious luminaries profiled. It was all thrown into a blender and yielded a surprisingly compelling concoction.
The above is what I wrote for my Amazon Vine review. The Vine program is where they give you free books but you have to review 80% of them before you can get new ones. Sometimes you get backed up on your reading. So, it is like being maxed out on your credit card. Anyway, I read the book and wrote the review, which is pretty good--short, concise, to the point--as far as Amazon reviews go. But I wanted to talk about the touchy subjects in the book, like Politics, Religion, sexual identity, gender issues, Nazis, Israel, Jews, Blacks, Race, and so forth. Amazon has an automated review checker that pulls reviews if certain "flag" words are mentioned. Then, you have to wait a long time for them to publish your review. Which is a big drag, because you have to have the review before you can order new free stuff, and the good stuff is snatched up if you even flinch. If you snooze, you lose. So, I pulled out all of the controversial words of the above Amazon review. Like I know for a fact that if you even mention Hitler they will have to have someone read your review--no doubt a lowly though officious wage slave angry at his tedious job and hungry for revenge on the verbose reviewers who are obtuse enough to have their crummy reviews flagged by using obvious trigger words like practically every word in my Pale Blue review had I been honest about its contents.
Anyway, now that I have that off my chest I no longer feel the need to go into the details of Pale Blue but there was a lot of material about Jews and Nazis, Israel, Ronald Reagan's trip to an SS cemetery in Bittburg, Henry Ford's support of Hitler, Ford's Anti-Semitism, and so forth. It wasn't discussed in an objectionable way, but more from the stand point of a German coming to terms with his Country's past, but the subjects are all such hot button issues that even mentioning that they are in the book can set off alarms.
Only one thing I would like to add at this time, and that is that I was really intrigued by the part about Hedy Lamarr, who was a beautiful actress from Germany, who was also really intelligent, and she defected to the West during the war, and along with a musical composer designed a way of sending coded messages that is being used today in cell phone technology. That was just one of the many interesting tangents in Pale Blue.
May 6, 2019
De roman Helblauw van Thomas Meinecke – verschenen in 2001, maar pas eind vorig jaar in het Nederlands uitgebracht door uitgeverij het balanseer – is in vele opzichten uniek. Het boek bestaat vooreerst niet uit hoofdstukken, maar is een bijna 400 bladzijden vullende opeenvolging van paragrafen. Deze tekstblokken zijn bovendien van een hoge densiteit en het is opvallend dat er in het boek nergens dialogen te bespeuren zijn. Er is ook het veranderende font, van een klassieke schreefletter naar een quasi onleesbaar gebroken schrift en, naar eigen zeggen, 7.992 mengvormen tussenin.
Erg bijzonder dus, en dan heb ik het nog niet over het verhaal zelf gehad.
Lees deze recensie verder op MappaLibri: http://mappalibri.be/?navigatieid=61&...
Erg bijzonder dus, en dan heb ik het nog niet over het verhaal zelf gehad.
Lees deze recensie verder op MappaLibri: http://mappalibri.be/?navigatieid=61&...
November 8, 2025
Putting 1 star because I can’t put none. fuck this book and the time I wasted on it. I have unfortunately always been one to literally judge books by their covers, and this book has absolutely made me wake up and realize that that is a bad idea!!! This is one of those times I’m glad my memory is shit so I can forget everything about it. These characters are just awful and not even in a good way. I can’t truly say I read this because it was so bad for so long I just skimmed it because I didn’t want to dnf it since I spent money on it (the biggest mistake of my life)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews