Originals: Mark von Schlegell on Another Country
Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore, courtesy of Mark von Schlegell.
Contemporary writer Mark von Schlegell is a dual Irish and American citizen. He was born in New York and lives in Cologne, Germany. He is the author of the novels Venusia (2005) and Mercury Station (2009) published by M.I.T./Semiotext(e). Venusia was honor’s listed for the 2007 James Tiptree, Jr. Prize in science fiction. His experimental fiction and cultural criticism appear regularly in the international art community. Realometer (2009), a collection of literary essays on Poe, Melville and James Tiptree, Jr. is available from Merve Verlag, Berlin in German.
February 17th, 2012 at 2:32 am
It’s clear that von Schlegell is used to pushing his imagination during his writing process, because I’m wondering just how the tile floors in Another Country creak. Or how he conjured up a litter box when they’ve never had a cat, let alone a cat toilet. I understand the impulse to embellish, but aren’t these “Berlin stories” supposed to be nonfiction? Finally, von Schlegell, instead of writing about reality, conjures up images of a transgender person in accordance to stereotypes the mainstream trash media painted from the ’70′s through the ’90′s (and still, though less so, today). Sophie, the proprietor, dresses more like the stereotype of the librarian that she is, than the over-the-top, “man in a dress and heels,” stereotype this author has hallucinated. I frankly found that part very offensive and shocking that NPR would reenforce such stereotypes, particularly when they’re not true.