When the letters become independent, they escape from the words. When words become independent, they escape sentences. This is what happens in Franz Fühmann’s “History of the Small and”. It ran out of a long sentence that was teeming with its kind. Because of the many dark words between which it stood, it had longed for sun. As nice as it is to fall asleep lying in the sun, it is difficult for a conjunction to wake up all alone. The small “and” goes through the world in a way that one could call open-ended.
Franz Fühmann, who would have turned 100 this January, has written many stories for children and young people. He has retold the ancient myths, the Nibelungenlied and Reineke Fuchs, written “fairy tales to order” and in books like “Am Schneesee” aroused the desire for language games and nonsense poetry. In Jacky Gleich, who was born in 1964, he posthumously found a congenial illustrator. After the Shakespeare stories “Winter’s Tale” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, after “Anna, called Hobble Witch”, “Doris Zauberbein” and “The Fairy, who could spit fire”, she has now illustrated the “Story of the Small and”, a decoupling from the extensive language play book “The Steaming Necks of the Horses in the Tower of Babel”. The small “and” doesn’t look like its typeface, but like a little boy whose eyes are more likely to have tears than fall when he’s alone. His unassuming companion is a string that runs through the pages and occasionally takes the form of letters. This is a very good idea for visualizing a conjunction. It indicates the assumption on which this language play book lives. It is aimed at children who, even if they still enjoy being read to, are already so familiar with the written language that they can see the “H” in the man, who seems to consist almost entirely of his arms and legs outstretched. which does not resemble block letters but resembles cursive, or the “M” to which a man in a brown pullover extends his overlong arms. Game and riddle are related, also here. The punchline is not obvious, a dash of abstraction and combinatorics is needed to get the phrase “short and small” out of the encounter with the “M” or out of the episode with the little Mr. Short and the short Mr. Little. The “who” comes along in a very friendly form at the end. A promising word emerges as it embraces the small and.
Franz Fühmann: The story of the small and. With illustrations by Jacky Gleich. Hinstorff Verlag, 2022. 31 pages, 16 euros.