Der Sammler

by Evelyn Grill

Evelyn Grill erzählt die berührende Geschichte eines Messie im Widerstand gegen unsere Wegwerfgesellschaft: Alfred Irgang ist Sammler. Er sammelt schlichtweg alles, was ihm in die Hände fällt: alte Zeitungen, neuwertige Zahnprothesen und andere Dinge, die seine Mitmenschen unbedacht der Müllabfuhr überantworten. Entsprechend vollgeräumt sind auch seine Wohnung und diverse Kellerabteile, was zu beträchtlichen Schwierigkeiten mit der Hausverwaltung führt, ihn aber nicht daran hindert, weiter auf die Jagd nach Kostbarkeiten zu gehen. Weiß nicht ein achtlos entsorgtes Damenmieder ebenso viel zu erzählen wie ein Biedermeiersekretär? Mit feiner Ironie führt Evelyn Grill in ihrem Roman eine Welt vor, in der die Devise leben und leben lassen von der Gier nach Vereinnahmung eines Unangepassten zu Grabe getragen wird.

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2006

About the author

Evelyn Grill, geboren in Garsten in Oberösterreich, lebt als freie Schriftstellerin in Freiburg im Breisgau. Sie zählt zu den wichtigsten österreichischen Erzählerinnen, die nicht zuletzt für ihren schwarzen Humor und die Beschäftigung mit eigenwilligen Charakteren geschätzt wird. Für ihren Roman "Der Sammler" wurde sie 2006 mit dem Otto-Stoessl-Preis ausgeszeichnet.

Reviews

[reea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evelyn Grill történetében tökéles éleslátással kidolgozott karakterek kelnek életre, megismertetve, feltárva magukat nekünk. Egészen magával ragadó, tárgyilagos stílusban íródott regény, helyet hagy az elmének, hogy maga elé idézze az elképzelhetetlent.

http://napifalat.blogspot.hu/2017/01/...

[Manuela Ruseva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start backwards - with how I ended up picking up Der Sammler by Evelyn Grill in the first place. It was my birthday, and I was casually walking through the graveyard in Hallstatt, playing a small game with myself: to find someone who shared my birth date. And then I saw it - a candle lit on one grave, and beneath the name, the word “Schriftstellerin”: Evelyn Grill, born 15/01/1942. I knew immediately that I had to read something by her. On my last day in Salzburg, just minutes before a central bookshop was about to close, a kind woman asked if she could help me. When I said I was looking for anything written by this author, she disappeared briefly and returned with the only book they had: Der Sammler.

Now, as a small disclaimer, I developed a strange attachment while reading the book - perhaps because I read it in the original German, or perhaps because of the way it found me. Contrary to what the description might suggest, there are no modern heroes or messiahs here. The story offers only a fragment - a group of people brought together by circumstance, orbiting around a central figure: Alfred Irgang, a man with an odd, do I dare call it, hobby (somewhere mid-book, we learn that he is, in fact, a millionaire of sorts).

Alfred collects trash. Yes, not antiques, not forgotten treasures, just things that other people have discarded as useless. He finds beauty in it. He categorises it, preserves it, gives it a place. And it might have been almost charming, if not for one simple truth: Alfred Irgang is no less than a troubled person. While the story keeps evolving, tempting us to see him as an artist, an archivist of human lives, or even as a poor man who remained a boy, lacking love and understanding throughout his childhood - by the end of it, we realise that Alfred is none of these. The supper goes on repeat, and every time Alfred remains the main subject of discussion - for better or worse. He does not mind that his inadequacy bothers the rest, because he actually craves their attention. And here is what made me regret my initial sympathy for this misunderstood character. Alfred is self-absorbed, manipulative in subtle ways, and disturbingly indifferent to how his behaviour affects others. One cannot help but wonder: placed in a different time, with more power, what might he have become?

So, what kept me reading until the end? The exact same driver that kept all Alfred’s companions gathering at their Stammtisch - hope. The hope that something will change, improve, heal, save itself from decay. It is in human nature to hope for this - for a resolution, for a kind of untangling. And this is why Der Sammler feels so unsettling. Because it does not provide a clear path of growth. Our main character does not want to learn. And somewhere near the end, that becomes the most frustrating realisation of all - not that he is different, or even that he is difficult, but that he refuses change altogether. And death comes as the only natural consequence of that.