And this makes them feel so much less at home in our intellectual republic, our fortress. Not a single book that meets them halfway. Because that publisher’s list has probably never included a single book for them. They’re gobsmacked when one hallowed old publisher or another is hailed as an intellectual cornerstone of our republic. Reading and books are not a “natural part” of their everyday lives. A trade campaign like “Jetzt ein Buch!” (“And now for a book!”) doesn’t reach them. When a book fair advertises with a slogan like “All together now!” these people don't feel that includes them. Roughly fifteen million people in Germany alone can’t read very well. You can’t experience that sense of being left out from inside. But that sense of being excluded creeps inside you and can last your whole life long. I certainly didn’t feel included or in a happy-go-lucky globetrotting mood. My first day as an artist-in-residence in Nanjing, for example, I felt lonely there in the city on the Yangtze. We've all been on the outside looking in at some point in our lives. If you’ve never experienced exactly that situation, you’ve certainly been through something similar. It sure would be nice to be as slaphappy as they are.
Some of them are splashing you with water now. They’re all so boisterous and self-assured. So you just stand there while everyone’s urging you into the water. Your body doesn't feel like communicating today.
Or you just don't want to get naked in front of all these people. Someone hollers, “Let's go for a swim!” And before you know it, they’re all tearing off their clothes. The sun is overhead, its heat beating down on you. But how many books on the market are really accessible to the millions of people who have difficulty reading? So he knows the book trade is forever exhorting everyone to read away. In his capacity as director of the Literaturhaus in Frankfurt, our new columnist, Hauke Hückstädt, deals with the culture industry every day.
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