Transcription
[00:00:00] Caution, listening to this podcast may lead to more visits to the library.
[00:00:07] Yes, hello and welcome to S'Vorwort, the podcast of the Innsbruck City Library.
[00:00:27] My name is Christina and I'm here today with the...
[00:00:29] Viktor.
[00:00:30] And today we're talking about why we actually like good books and what good books actually are.
[00:00:38] But today, before we get into the topic, I have some very exciting news,
[00:00:44] that this year, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Innsbruck-Liest,
[00:00:50] Innsbruck-Liest will move to the foreword from April 25th.
[00:00:55] There will be a so-called friendly takeover from our colleagues, Lisi and Boris.
[00:01:01] And they will then delight us with very special episodes.
[00:01:06] Innsbruck-Liest, takes place this year from April 30th to April 10th.
[00:01:12] 10,000 books will be distributed and on 16.4.
[00:01:17] And that's really the date to remember now, the book will be published
[00:01:22] and of course the author will be announced.
[00:01:26] 10,000 free books and free events from April 30 to May 10.
[00:01:35] Innsbruck Reads for the 20th time.
[00:01:38] It remains exciting, we are very happy.
[00:01:43] But now back to our topic.
[00:01:45] Dear Viktor, it's great that you're here. Thank you for taking the time.
[00:01:48] Thank you very much for the invitation.
[00:01:50] We're excited because this is my podcast debut today.
[00:01:54] You've chosen a very nice topic.
[00:01:57] Or we have chosen a very nice topic that is also wonderful to discuss.
[00:02:01] I'm really looking forward to it drabecause I think we might have slightly different opinions.
[00:02:05] Yes, exactly. That will be extra exciting, won't it?
[00:02:07] Exactly, that's ... that's how it should be.
[00:02:09] Before we start, because we think about why we have good books.
[00:02:14] What is a good book? And we both come from the field of literary studies.
[00:02:18] What did you study?
[00:02:20] I'm a comparatist. That means I studied comparative literature here in Innsbruck.
[00:02:24] I also completed my bachelor's degree some time ago.
[00:02:28] I think I graduated in 2019. So, it's been a while.
[00:02:31] But the desire to read remains, of course.
[00:02:34] And of course you want to read good books.
[00:02:37] And the canon doesn't get old, it remains.
[00:02:42] And that's also the canon we're talking about.
[00:02:45] I also have a background in comparative literature, so I also studied comparative literature.
[00:02:50] And there's a lot of discussion about what a literary canon actually is.
[00:02:56] In short, just so that we have this predefined for our episode,
[00:03:02] as follows: A literary canon refers to a selection of works that are considered particularly significant
[00:03:08] and representative of a particular literary tradition or period.
[00:03:13] These works are often compiled and defined by institutions such as schools, universities and literary critics.
[00:03:22] The formation of a literary canon often occurs through a mixture of historical significance,
[00:03:28] cultural relevance, aesthetic quality and the lasting influence
[00:03:35] on subsequent generations of writers and readers.
[00:03:41] However, it is important to note that literary canons are often subjective
[00:03:47] and remain changeable over time as new perspectives, values and texts are brought into the discussion.
[00:03:55] So it's not a fixed thing, but of course people turn to the same texts again and again.
[00:04:01] Would you agree with the definition, pi by thumb?
[00:04:04] The definition is now very detailed and there are already a lot of things drin,
[00:04:09] which I can clearly agree with and which I consider to be very important.
[00:04:13] What is very important, I think, and what is of course also in the definition drinsteckt,
[00:04:18] is that you have to say and point out that the canon is not fixed.
[00:04:26] There are really many canons, canons, I don't know what the number is.
[00:04:31] Kannon? - Kanoni, something will be right.
[00:04:34] There are a lot of things and it just changes. New things are added, other things are forgotten,
[00:04:39] Some things are then no longer received in the same way, other things become very, as they say,
[00:04:45] known more than read. So these are things that you just know, so to speak,
[00:04:51] because it's also in the whole culture, not just in literature, but in cultural history,
[00:04:55] has simply left an influence.
[00:04:57] But it doesn't mean that people have actually studied it, they've just heard about it,
[00:05:03] So the classic example, I would say, in Western literature and culture is simply the Bible.
[00:05:08] As striking as the cultural history of the West is, you can't understand it without the Bible,
[00:05:13] But who has really read the Bible? Well, except really now,
[00:05:18] Hardcore Catholics who really go into the text and look at it, but, I don't know,
[00:05:25] An eye for an eye, tooth and tooth and things like that, anyone can really get that from the FF,
[00:05:31] but where does it come from, what does it really mean, is of course an important story too, exactly.
[00:05:35] And because you just mentioned the Bible, which is one of the basic texts in literary studies,
[00:05:40] of Western literature, as you just said.
[00:05:42] With the Odyssey, exactly.
[00:05:44] An example of why canon is important, the number twelve, which in the Bible, for example, on the basis of the apostles
[00:05:51] or various other things, you find it again and again in literature and processed further.
[00:05:59] That means a lot of novels, one of my literature professors used to say,
[00:06:05] Look, how many chapters does the novel actually have?
[00:06:08] And the number twelve usually has a meaning in literature,
[00:06:11] People, the writers, think about it because of the literary tradition.
[00:06:17] And that's where you go back to.
[00:06:19] That's what the canon does and creates a bit.
[00:06:23] And in my opinion, that's also a bit of what's problematic about the canon.
[00:06:27] Especially in comparative literature, but maybe we'll come back to that later.
[00:06:32] First of all, we thought of something really cool today, because we talked about it,
[00:06:36] we came up with the episode idea because we talked to each other and asked ourselves the question
[00:06:41] what are good books for us.
[00:06:45] And then we said, you know what, let's take ... the challenge is,
[00:06:50] that each of us takes two books and then just tells us once,
[00:06:56] why these books were important to us, respectively.
[00:06:59] One of them is from traditional canon literature.
[00:07:03] Here I would also like to point out that it is of course national,
[00:07:08] the national canon or the so-called world literature.
[00:07:13] As a primarily English-speaking person, I orient myself more towards the world literary canon.
[00:07:19] I don't know about you.
[00:07:21] Well, I also, I would say it's both for me, it's both for me.
[00:07:26] Because it's, for example, I have now, if I may say so, I have for example
[00:07:29] my own personal copy of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes,
[00:07:33] which is of course an important book for the Spanish canon,
[00:07:37] but is of course also a central book for the world canon.
[00:07:41] It is often said that it is the most important book in the history of literature,
[00:07:46] which of course you can say now, which is kind of nonsense,
[00:07:48] you can't say that about any book, because the book has, in its natural national context
[00:07:53] a meaning, which another book in a different national context, for example,
[00:07:57] that has a meaning.
[00:07:58] In other words, it is both national and world literature in this sense,
[00:08:03] but of course exactly, so you can make a distinction.
[00:08:06] But world literature, the world is so globalized, so even the national canon
[00:08:12] are now ultimately included in world literature in some way, of course.
[00:08:17] Yes, so this national canon doesn't really exist anymore,
[00:08:22] or you don't think about it anymore, because genres are also developing,
[00:08:25] Take crime fiction, for example, just to throw that in,
[00:08:28] that came from the English-speaking world and from France
[00:08:32] and then developed in our country, not at all out of our own literary tradition.
[00:08:36] And the twist in the whole episode is that we also set ourselves the goal.
[00:08:42] Each of us has also chosen the second book from - I have it lovingly
[00:08:47] trashy literature - so just station literature,
[00:08:52] pulp fiction, whatever you want to call it that's not in the canon
[00:08:56] and what our, probably, we'll both be like that,
[00:08:59] our comparative literature professors might have said:
[00:09:02] "We don't really need to talk about that today."
[00:09:05] But it's still a good book, isn't it?
[00:09:07] But it's still a good book.
[00:09:09] Now I'm curious about the reasons.
[00:09:11] Exactly, you've already started with the Cervantes.
[00:09:14] Why is that, why, does it mean so much to you?
[00:09:18] Exactly, so you have that in your definition, that was already drinnen
[00:09:22] and I think that's one of the things I like about canon literature
[00:09:26] and that I simply appreciate about canon literature.
[00:09:28] And why I think the canon is good is simply because these books have often done things differently.
[00:09:35] So I don't think you can think of canon literature separately from literary history.
[00:09:41] That was already well defined in your definition drin.
[00:09:43] In other words, Cervantes and Cervantes' Don Quixote are simply one book,
[00:09:49] that first of all reacted to literature itself.
[00:09:52] So you have to imagine that in the Middle Ages there were a lot of chivalric novels
[00:09:56] and Don Quixote came out at a time when this wave of chivalric novels was already dying down,
[00:10:02] it was already over again.
[00:10:04] And then Cervantes writes a book about Don Quixote, where you just realize,
[00:10:08] he really read a lot of knightly novels.
[00:10:10] And these are all the top boys, all the things that make up a chivalric novel, are drin.
[00:10:18] But what did Cervantes do?
[00:10:20] His protagonist, Don Quixote, when you read the novel, you just realize it.
[00:10:25] He's actually a madman, he's somehow insane.
[00:10:29] He's just fantasizing it all, as I said, that's where what we've already mentioned comes in briefly.
[00:10:35] These are things that everyone knows from Don Quixote, for example, the fight against the windmills,
[00:10:40] where Don Quixote says that he now has a giant or an evil opponent against whom he must fight.
[00:10:46] And then as a reader you learn that windmills are actually a reality.
[00:10:50] That's only in his imagination.
[00:10:52] In other words, this is actually one of the first books where you have a protagonist,
[00:10:58] who actually, where you think to yourself, he's out of his depth, so there's just a madman.
[00:11:03] And it's just so well done and so new and just so, and it was so successful and so, so influential.
[00:11:15] But did you get carried away reading it?
[00:11:17] Totally, totally.
[00:11:18] Because it's just...
[00:11:19] You can hear the enthusiasm in your voice, I almost fell asleep reading it.
[00:11:22] Really?
[00:11:23] Do you actually have it?
[00:11:24] No, it's so well done.
[00:11:26] And it's just funny.
[00:11:27] And I think that joke, so I really loved the book.
[00:11:32] And that has also left its mark.
[00:11:36] So you can't write a chivalry novel after Cervantes, you make a fool of yourself somehow,
[00:11:41] because if you were still in the 16th century when something new came out,
[00:11:46] then it always happened against the background of Don Quixote, for example.
[00:11:51] In other words, it left its mark on the history of literature, but also on the history of art.
[00:11:57] Unfortunately, people don't see it now, my great edition from DTV, from Susanne Lange, a super translation.
[00:12:04] What has come out, new translations, is a picture drauf and that is also quite famous.
[00:12:09] It's by Picasso.
[00:12:10] It's this painting by Picasso, where Don Quixote is with his squire, who is called Sancho Panza, I think.
[00:12:17] Yes, Sancho Panza, I get flashbacks to my studies.
[00:12:20] Drauf is and where Picasso then really many centuries later still received this thing in art history,
[00:12:28] because of course that was also a certain, how shall we put it, state of mind of the modern age, where people simply began to doubt people's ability to judge and their capacity for knowledge based on philosophical tradition and the like.
[00:12:44] That's from philosophy with Descartes, who asked what can I actually know and so on, so all this uncertainty and can I even recognize that?
[00:12:54] Or are we actually all crazy like Don Quixote and only see things the way we want to see them?
[00:13:00] So, of course, it's also a zeitgeist that has been captured and then translated into this Wessel, this knight's novel, which is of course super, super well done.
[00:13:13] This chivalric novel is something that people knew back then and Cervantes simply put this image on drait and then made something new draout of it.
[00:13:23] That's why I'm a big fan.
[00:13:25] I also believe that good literature and expectations are always shifting.
[00:13:30] And that's whether you're talking about a beast like Don Quixote, which has left such a big mark on literary history, or small genre literature, we always enjoy the things that subvert our expectations in whatever way the most.
[00:13:49] And that's the exciting thing about reading, about stories in general.
[00:13:55] Exactly.
[00:13:56] I brought Virginia Woolf's "A Room to Myself" with me and I'm sure that has also left a big mark on literary history.
[00:14:08] But my reasons are more personal, because I remember when I was in my early 20s.
[00:14:16] That fell into my hands.
[00:14:18] I'm an English major, not an American major.
[00:14:20] That means Virginia Woolf was an American writer and then of course very, very famous.
[00:14:25] But for me...
[00:14:27] she was just a name. I didn't know who she was, what she was writing.
[00:14:31] It's a modernist text and she wrote it in 1929.
[00:14:36] So forever away, at first I felt.
[00:14:40] Not nearly as old as Don Quixote, of course.
[00:14:43] And then it fell into my hands and it was such a short essay,
[00:14:47] is not long. And I discovered it quite independently while I was studying.
[00:14:54] And I remember where I was when I read it.
[00:14:57] I know what the light was like, I know what the pages were like.
[00:15:00] You know when you remember that in more detail?
[00:15:02] That's such a personal memory.
[00:15:04] Exactly.
[00:15:05] And then I thought, this book is over 100 years old
[00:15:10] and what the woman writes are issues that concern me now in my mid-20s as a woman
[00:15:14] in this century, in this millennium.
[00:15:18] "A room to yourself" is about female creativity, female independence
[00:15:27] and the emphasis on being materially and spatially independent,
[00:15:34] as a woman in order to create things.
[00:15:36] And also about that, and that's why I brought it,
[00:15:39] because then we can talk about the canon again so beautifully,
[00:15:41] It's also about the fact that women can't look back on a literary tradition.
[00:15:47] And that women also need a space, even in a canon,
[00:15:53] to develop creatively.
[00:15:56] And I found that verydruimpressive.
[00:15:59] I felt that way while I was in a degree program
[00:16:05] which, I think you'll probably agree, is very characterized,
[00:16:10] the literary canon is white and male.
[00:16:14] Like many things of course in the patriarchy, most 80, 90 percent of the texts,
[00:16:22] that we've discussed in comparative literature,
[00:16:26] because we were talking about literary history, were written by men.
[00:16:29] Yes, of course that's a big criticism and a very justified criticism
[00:16:33] of Kranon.
[00:16:34] And that's true, you can't argue that away, of course.
[00:16:37] Because of course canon and canonization is always a question of power.
[00:16:43] Because of course it's always important who can write and who is heard.
[00:16:47] Those are two important points.
[00:16:49] And of course that was unfortunate, you have to say. The majority of literary history
[00:16:56] were of course men and of course actually white men or Western men,
[00:17:00] Let's put it this way, it's a Western canon.
[00:17:02] And upper class, so privileged too, of course.
[00:17:05] Those were the ones who could read and write,
[00:17:08] who had access to literature or writing in the first place
[00:17:10] or language in writing at all, so to speak.
[00:17:13] And that's a big problem, of course.
[00:17:15] And what I said, of course you have to do that beforehand,
[00:17:19] if Don Quixote, of course, you have to revise it a bit.
[00:17:22] Because of course it's like that, if you have one,
[00:17:26] so if you ask a Romanist who specializes in the literature of the 16th century
[00:17:31] all his life, then of course he will be able to say,
[00:17:34] there are also precursor texts for Don Quixote,
[00:17:37] they are definitely forgotten,
[00:17:39] because they simply fell victim to history.
[00:17:43] That is, of course, if you're specialized enough,
[00:17:45] then of course you can say, yes, yes, what Cervantes did,
[00:17:48] is actually not that modern, it also has a history.
[00:17:52] And that is of course, so you always have to keep that in mind.
[00:17:56] Nevertheless, what we have there,
[00:17:59] is of course intrinsic and very good in itself.
[00:18:06] It's a pity, of course, that a lot of things that were otherwise very good,
[00:18:10] because of these trating mechanisms, unfortunately the history
[00:18:15] a bit of a victim of history.
[00:18:17] But thank God, one must also say,
[00:18:19] it's also the case that the canon is constantly being revised.
[00:18:23] And just as you said, Virginia Woolf is a good example,
[00:18:27] finding women beforehand, it also falls to me quickly,
[00:18:31] Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.
[00:18:33] That's right, there are a few, there are exceptions,
[00:18:37] There are, of course, but that really just confirms the rule.
[00:18:39] But in the last 100 years, the canon has been revised again and again.
[00:18:44] And that is precisely on a gender basis.
[00:18:46] So a lot of female literature has been added and rediscovered.
[00:18:52] And of course there's also a lot of it,
[00:18:54] from the post-colonial-study side, i.e. not European,
[00:19:00] non-European literature has also added a lot.
[00:19:04] And you could also see that there was great literature there too,
[00:19:09] great ideas, worlds that perhaps don't always correspond to the West,
[00:19:14] but which are also really interesting and where there are also traditions,
[00:19:18] which is also worth receiving.
[00:19:20] So it's very, very important to always keep that in mind.
[00:19:23] Exactly. But enough about Kann.
[00:19:25] What kind of trash do you have?
[00:19:28] What kind of trash do I have with me? I've already gotten a little bit of smut
[00:19:30] by our colleague Pia, with whom we talked about it briefly beforehand.
[00:19:33] Pia had a bit of a shag?
[00:19:34] Yes, so Pia doesn't scold.
[00:19:36] Pia can't do that, and Pia isn't capable of it.
[00:19:39] But Pia said that what you brought as trash,
[00:19:42] could actually be described as canon again.
[00:19:44] I made an extra effort to bring extra trash.
[00:19:46] Extra trash.
[00:19:47] And I brought, that was the first thing I thought of,
[00:19:51] was Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or in German
[00:19:56] "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is.
[00:19:58] And when Viktor says "brought along", he really means it
[00:20:00] in the literal sense, because he has the books with him.
[00:20:03] Of course I have the books with me, because I need to know,
[00:20:04] what I'm talking about, I can't put it in front of my mind's [00:20:07] eye
[00:20:07] eye. And The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is of course
[00:20:11] actually a bit of a
[00:20:14] classic and is of course already well received.
[00:20:18] Classic sci-fi literature. Classic sci-fi, exactly.
[00:20:21] But of course it's a genre, it's much younger.
[00:20:25] It's just a book that's incredibly
[00:20:30] great wit.
[00:20:32] It's just, well, when you say,
[00:20:35] Don Quixote was too boring for you, you would say that about The Hitchhiker's
[00:20:38] Guide to the Galaxy, you'd probably never say that, would you?
[00:20:40] You must have read it, I imagine?
[00:20:42] No. I'm not a sci-fi fan.
[00:20:43] Okay. Yeah, it's just ...
[00:20:45] You would recommend it to me.
[00:20:45] I would highly recommend it.
[00:20:47] I think it's very entertaining, very funny.
[00:20:50] I think it's just good literature.
[00:20:54] It's just a weird premise.
[00:20:57] Exactly. The earth is supposed to be torn down to make a highway,
[00:21:02] because it's in the way of the highway in the galaxy.
[00:21:07] And that's the starting point, so to speak, where it's all about.
[00:21:10] And then what great adventures the protagonists have in space
[00:21:16] and what strange characters they meet there.
[00:21:20] And that's just very entertaining.
[00:21:23] I have to say, yes.
[00:21:24] And do you remember where you were, where you read that?
[00:21:27] The first time.
[00:21:28] Do you still have a tactile memory of that?
[00:21:30] Well, unfortunately I don't.
[00:21:33] For me, it always comes from a good book.
[00:21:35] That's when a haptic memory forms in me.
[00:21:38] When I have the book in my hand again and briefly think about the content
[00:21:41] and remember how I found it, then I remember where I was.
[00:21:45] Well, unfortunately I didn't.
[00:21:47] Too bad, I wish I had.
[00:21:47] That's hectic.
I would like that, to be honest.
[00:21:49] But I can't say that about this book right now, well.
[00:21:51] But it's genre literature.
[00:21:54] And we comparatists know that genre is very hard,
[00:21:57] to be recognized, especially in literary studies.
[00:22:02] It's true that crime fiction is now slowly becoming recognized, that's so...
[00:22:05] Now the historical novels are coming, they're being taken seriously.
[00:22:10] And the genre always has to prove itself somehow first,
[00:22:14] but many decades ...
[00:22:16] Forming a canon.
[00:22:17] Exactly.
[00:22:18] And then we can talk about it again, something like that.
[00:22:22] Okay, mine is "She" by Stephen King.
[00:22:27] It's called "Misery" in English.
[00:22:30] That's the name of the movie with Kathy Bates.
[00:22:34] Always worth watching again.
[00:22:37] That's from 1987, the book.
[00:22:39] And yes, it's also a genre novel.
[00:22:43] My genre is horror in that case, not sci-fi.
[00:22:47] It's super psychological.
[00:22:49] It's about the number one fan, the Annie Wilkes,
[00:22:52] who accidentally rescues the writer Paul Sheldon in the snow in Colorado in a car.
[00:23:01] And he thinks he's saved.
[00:23:03] But then she asks him to write the series of novels,
[00:23:07] that she's such a big fan of.
[00:23:10] And she's totally psychopathic.
[00:23:12] And then she famously breaks his foot.
[00:23:14] And he has to be there for her in this ...
[00:23:17] He's locked in the house with him.
[00:23:19] He can't move.
[00:23:20] He's hurt from the car accident she rescued him from.
[00:23:24] And nobody knows where he is.
[00:23:25] And he has to sign himself out of it, so to speak.
[00:23:29] So for me, that's how I read it,
[00:23:31] also a bit of a meta-commentary,
[00:23:34] of course, that Stephen King, who is processing something,
[00:23:39] which he always does.
[00:23:40] And it has a kind of chamber play feel to it.
[00:23:43] It's very psychological.
[00:23:45] And I have it in front of my eyes.
[00:23:47] I know how Paul Sheldon sits in the room,
[00:23:50] with his foot up.
[00:23:52] And in front of him he has the screaming machine.
[00:23:53] And I remember seeing the window.
[00:23:56] And how he hears Annie's footsteps.
[00:23:59] And here I am again.
[00:24:00] And that's just a sign for me ...
[00:24:03] Hey, I really liked that.
[00:24:05] And I remember I really liked the language back then.
[00:24:08] And it was fantastic too.
[00:24:10] Stephen King writes one way, then another.
[00:24:12] He also has a hard time with endings.
[00:24:14] In my opinion, Misery is one of his,
[00:24:17] if not his best, I have to say.
[00:24:20] I think that's very good.
[00:24:21] Because like sci-fi is not your genre,
[00:24:23] crime fiction is not my genre.
[00:24:25] But you've got me a bit hooked now.
[00:24:27] So I ...
[00:24:28] Maybe if we did that,
[00:24:29] we certainly have that in stock,
[00:24:30] then maybe I'll borrow it.
[00:24:31] And then I'll have a good thing for the weekend.
[00:24:34] Good keyword, we have it in stock.
[00:24:37] Because it was first ...
[00:24:38] We just ordered the new edition of Misery
[00:24:40] in the original English and we also have it in German.
[00:24:43] And it's probably already gone.
[00:24:45] Shall we do the following?
[00:24:47] You read Misery, I'll read Hitchhiker's Guide.
[00:24:51] And then we'll tell each other in a distant episode of the podcast
[00:24:54] again how we found it.
[00:24:56] I think that would be very nice.
[00:24:57] That would be a great thing.
[00:24:59] Yeah, cool.
[00:25:00] But now to answer the question again,
[00:25:05] why do we like good books, I think is obvious.
[00:25:09] Because it's fun.
[00:25:12] Exactly.
[00:25:13] Well, I think it's just a pleasure,
[00:25:17] to read things like that.
[00:25:18] And just ...
[00:25:20] So the canon literature has ...
[00:25:25] It's just great to see, for example.
[00:25:28] I've brought you several more books,
[00:25:30] If you look at Ulysses, for example.
[00:25:33] As well as the Odyssey, for example.
[00:25:36] That is, that's, well, that didn't come up at all,
[00:25:38] but good writers are simply literary people.
[00:25:42] And literary people simply read a lot.
[00:25:46] And what's in the Odyssey or in the Bible,
[00:25:48] in these oldest texts that Western literature has history,
[00:25:53] simply drin, that is simply processed again and again.
[00:25:56] And of course, time changes.
[00:25:58] That means that the ...
[00:26:01] So how people use these things changes too.
[00:26:05] And then it's always new.
[00:26:07] And there are new twists and new perspectives,
[00:26:09] new perspectives.
[00:26:10] And then, of course, if you have the background knowledge
[00:26:14] and you've already read the Odyssey, then of course you read Ulysses
[00:26:17] again with completely different eyes.
[00:26:19] And good writers are always good readers.
[00:26:22] And it's just great when you get a ...
[00:26:26] Maybe you have a bit of background knowledge,
[00:26:28] then you take away so much more,
[00:26:30] although of course you can also read it,
[00:26:32] without the background knowledge and have a great book.
[00:26:34] But that's also what the women often did,
[00:26:36] They wrote against the canon,
[00:26:39] they simply appropriated characters from the canon.
[00:26:42] That is, there ... so it's also,
[00:26:44] the canon is also a ...
[00:26:46] weapon against the canon.
[00:26:48] So there's so much to say and after.
[00:26:50] And writing is an incredibly interesting topic.
[00:26:53] And the literary canon and the so-called deconstruction of the canon,
[00:27:00] will probably be with us again and again in this podcast,
[00:27:03] resonate again and again.
[00:27:05] Writers, as you said so well,
[00:27:09] always write in a tradition.
[00:27:11] And good books for me are independent of,
[00:27:19] whether they are so-called high world literature
[00:27:23] or so-called low genre literature.
[00:27:26] They write in a tradition and what applies to the canon,
[00:27:30] applies to any good writer.
[00:27:32] Whether they're writing horror or sci-fi.
[00:27:35] It's good if you know your stuff,
[00:27:37] with what you do, like a good craftsman.
[00:27:40] Exactly, it's a craft of course,
[00:27:42] in a way too.
[00:27:44] Yes, Viktor, thank you so much for being with us today.
[00:27:47] Thank you very much for inviting me.
[00:27:48] It was as much fun as I thought it would be.
[00:27:51] Well, I'm glad.
[00:27:52] You were incredibly informative.
[00:27:54] I hope we can do it again.
[00:27:57] That would be, I would love to, yes.
[00:27:59] And with that, we'll say goodbye for today.
[00:28:03] What do you think?
[00:28:05] Makes a good book.
[00:28:07] Write it down for us at post.stadtbibliothek@innsbruck.gv.at
[00:28:11] or on Instagram or Facebook.
[00:28:14] The hashtag is #Gemeinsambesser
[00:28:16] And until then, all the best.
[00:28:19] [Music]
[00:28:45] The foreword is a production of the Innsbruck City Library
[00:28:49] and part of Stadtstimmen, the audio channel of the city of Innsbruck.