Paradiso 14:08
Ceresio crosses the Gulf of Lugano, on the right the large hotels and yacht harbors, promenades and apartment buildings, the Hotel Eden and its over-the-top fountain. In Paradiso I disembark because Paradiso is an appropriate place to disembark. I buy another postcard and ask the salesman about the Hotel Lido Seegarten (image: Porlezza, 2001). On the other end of the city. This time I walk, past construction sites and gravelly lakeside paths, past dredges and rusty pedal boats. A few children are playing with empty Coke cans and ask for change for the binoculars. I stroll past Louis Vuitton, McDonald’s, and H&M posters, past the Piazza della Riforma, past the lindens and benches of the Riva Albertolli, past tennis courts and a Migros supermarket. Then I’m standing in front of the Hotel Lido Seegarten (back in the world).
my own story
On the terrace of the Lido Seegarten: I’ve changed my shirt, brushed my teeth, and showered. The sun is setting, the strings of lights are turning on. Your reservation has expired, Elisabeth, but my luggage was waiting for me in a back room. The receptionist asked whether I wanted to stay nonetheless, and I said, if there’s a room with a lake view: yes. Over the water there’s now a slight haze, the sailboats are rolling gently toward the port. I don’t call, I’ve asked for a large envelope, along with a bottle of Barbaresco. In the water behind the hotel there’s a floating dock with green Astroturf, but no one is swimming here this evening, and the pool, too, is deserted. A rat is waiting next to a pot of flowers, in the water a few black plastic ducks are drifting. The Hotel Lido Seegarten really is beautiful, Elisabeth, but it’s decaying, as all beautiful things decay (roses, geraniums, plastic deck chairs). Next to me there’s a freezer on the cracked tiles, the cord yanked out (here Algida is called Pierrot Lusso, in Hamburg Langnese). I’m alone. He was expecting rain, the sweaty waiter said, as he set the bottle of wine and a scratched silver bowl of nuts on the table in front of me. I remain seated. I ask whether they have the Süddeutsche Zeitung here, all of this past week’s editions, I have some catching up to do, and the waiter asks, all the editions, Signore Mandelkern? Yes, I say, feeding nuts to the rat. The heron lands very slowly on the floating dock, the beats of its wings calmly stir the air (I’ve learned to observe such things again). I read my notes, page by page, I sort Svensson’s stories between my own pages. I will send you this stack of paper, Elisabeth, I hope you understand me. You wanted a decision. On the table in front of me lie this story and seven postcards.
Acknowledgments
My immense gratitude
Katharina Adler for always being there; Adler & Söhne for every seventh sentence; Ross Benjamin for his meticulousness and friendly persistence; Christine Bredenkamp; Erin Edmison for getting me started in the first place; my thesis advisor Bettina Friedl for her leniency; Daniela Greven; Josef Haslinger; Patrick Hutsch; Thomas Janiszewski; Laura Kovero; Benjamin Lauterbach; Johann Christoph Maass; Timo Meisel; Mika Jasper Petersenn; Olaf Petersenn; Jens Pfeifer for his anthropology; my parents Winfried & Elisabeth Pletzinger for everything; Charlotte Roos; Carol Houck Smith for seeing this project through in the most miraculous ways; Saša Staniši for his glowing enthusiasm, his assurance, and his stories; Gerald Stern for his poetry and encouragement; Dieter Wellershoff; Juli Zeh; and finally and most of all my wife Bine Nordmeyer for her immeasurable patience (this book is hers).
The work on Funeral for a Dog was supported by Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland, and the Max-Kade-Foundation. The translation of this book was generously supported by the Goethe-Institut’s Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Grant program.
About the Author
Thomas Pletzinger was born in 1975 and grew up in Germany’s industrial area Ruhrgebiet. He holds an MA from Hamburg University and an MFA from the German Literature Institute Leipzig. He has worked for publishers and a literary scouting agency in New York and participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. In 2009, he was Writer-in-Residence at Deutsches Haus at New York University, and in the spring of 2010 he taught at Grinnell College in Iowa. Pletzinger lives in Berlin where he works as a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. He has received various literary awards and fellowships, among them the Uwe-Johnson Prize in 2009 and the NRW Prize for Young Artists. Funeral for a Dog is his first novel.
www.thomaspletzinger.com
About the Translator
Ross Benjamin is a writer and translator living in Nyack, New York. He was awarded the 2010 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov (Verso Books). His other translations include Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion (Archipelago Books), Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew (Melville House), and Joseph Roth’s Job (Archipelago).
www.rossmbenjamin.com
Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
August 6, 2005
Shut up and play
August 6, 2005
Animals, the Hearts of People
August 7, 2005
Shoot the Freak
August 7, 2005
Capoeira with Heckler & Koch
August 8, 2005
William Wordsworth vs. Robby Naish
August 8, 2005
Lua and the Third Death
August 9, 2005
August 9, 2005
Shitty City 2000
August 10, 2005
August 10, 2005
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Translator
Funeral for a Dog: A Novel Page 29