These »few handfuls of very short stories« are the next big step of a great author. Wit, the absurd-grotesque, the fantastic, and deep seriousness meet in this book − in the spirit of Kafka and Daniil Charms and with a pinch of Julio Cortázar.
Texts roamed by thoughtful animals and mini policemen promise final revelations; in a continued stories we read a sort of adventure novel and a prequel; some characters − such as a dog painter, someone’s nephew, an acrobat − recur so that we share in their lives, loves and sufferings; even Jesus, Wittgenstein, Trotsky as well as a shadow priest get their appearances. Strange things happen in this volume.
Thomas Stangl seduces us beyond the boundaries of reality into unexpected fictional realities and writes as playfully and fabulously as never before.
»Stangl, otherwise a novel-length master, takes short trips to the side of the world averted from everyday understanding and dreams with open eyes of radically different writing.« (Richard Kämmerlings, Welt am Sonntag)
»Fabulous, with what self-understanding and precision this book places itself in the spaces of literature.« (Klaus Kastberger, Die Presse)
»A profundity that is so wonderfully abnormal.« (Michael Pick, Literatüren)
»An author with a special idiosyncrasy and subtlety, and with lightness and precision of tone.« (Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau)
»This clairaudience towards what is going on beneath the surface is reminiscent of Büchner’s Woyzeck. As with him, tremendous sentences emerge from quiet seismographic fluctuations.« (Wolfgang Huber-Lang, APA)
»Stangl is opening doors of perception to us. He works to re-write the lost time. This is a piece of literature in which I feel very free.« (Iris Radisch)