Known as a journalist and publisher, he is now launching his first novel. Since when Jakob Augstein wanted to write it and why it wasn’t a female protagonist.
Jakob Augstein presents his first novel. The 54-year-old is best known as a journalist, publisher and non-fiction author. His debut novel “Flow” is about a politician from an unnamed party in Germany who wants to get to the top.
The whole thing can also be read as a farewell to a generation. It probably won’t stay with this one novel. Augstein is already working on the next book, as he told the German Press Agency.
If you follow the biography of the publisher (left-liberal weekly newspaper “Der Freitag” in Berlin) and columnist (formerly “Spiegel” column “Im doubt left”), this detail naturally now stands out: With writing novels, he is opening up a profession in whose biological father has been working for a long time: Martin Walser – one of the most well-known writers in Germany. Augstein, son of “Spiegel” founder Rudolf Augstein (1923 – 2002), made the biological paternity public years ago.
Do you feel a blockade because you are new to the profession in which your father has been working for a long time? Augstein told the dpa: “No. I think I’m too old for that. That might have been a problem when I was young, but not anymore.” Have his parents read the novel yet? – to which Augstein replied: «A funny question for someone in their mid-fifties. But yes, I think they found the text quite good. They’re probably not entirely neutral.”
A politician wants to get to the top
On around 300 pages, Augstein develops the story of the protagonist Franz Xaver Misslinger in 2016. A man in his forties who says about himself: “I used to be the shooting star of German politics!” He wants to be at the top of the party. The guy is on the move in an I-cosmos, but he’s not completely unsympathetic. It’s very human: He gets tangled up, for example, if he writes messages to his wife and his new flirt on the cell phone at the same time.
His great role model in the party – Walter, a kind of overpowering figure – advises him to give a speech that will decide everything in the fight for the top. Misslinger goes on a kind of pilgrimage to the USA to write. Again and again you can hear a religious sound in the novel.
Looking back on a decade of self-confidence
Augstein said about the protagonist: There is an overarching theme for the book, namely freedom. “It’s a book about the religion of a generation, about a belief system that has now collapsed. I’m looking back to the 1990s. A time of great western, capitalist and male self-confidence. » Misslinger is a man who believes he can do anything he wants. “Self-assurance has been shot and shredded from all sides. And that’s what this character experiences.”
How real is the protagonist, did Augstein have someone in mind? “Of course there are scraps of quotes. I work with the reality that I find. But it is not a roman à clef», explained the author.
He himself did little classic political reporting in his journalistic work. “I wasn’t a political journalist in the sense that I went to press conferences or flew in a Chancellor plane. I’ve only ever looked at this world from the outside and actually perceived it like literature or like a film. I always had a kind of feuilletonistic approach, »said Augstein.
For him, the book is more of a religious book than a political one. «I believe that this neoliberalism was a religion with all the advantages and disadvantages. Religions are something wonderful because they develop strength, give people support and carry them forward.» On the other hand, they all have an illiberal streak, restrict thinking and suppress other interpretations of reality.
Augstein is already writing the second novel
Augstein places two women next to the male protagonist. Above all, his young daughter, who accompanies him to the USA, holds the mirror up to him. Your generation ticks differently. Misslinger’s wife – the relationship is in deep trouble – is a kind of counterpart.
Mr. Augstein, could you have imagined writing about a female protagonist? “I’m writing my next book right now. The protagonists are two women,” he revealed. About the first book: «It was easier for me to write about a man. But as a counterpart he has his daughter, who is 16. My children have just outgrown their age, I think I can imagine the world of a young person quite well. » Augstein said of the second book: «It is a relationship story. It’s about love and children.”
The publisher, who recently appeared in the ZDF Literary Quartet, had had the idea of writing a novel for a long time. “But I didn’t dare. It’s an enormous challenge that I have a lot of respect for.” He also cited everyday journalistic life. “As a journalist, you have an appointment and a topic. So you get used to not being able to finish without an appointment. And now I’m sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, or in my case in front of a blank screen, and I’m experiencing the horror Vacui – that is, the horror of the void.” He wrote the novel “Flow” over three or four years.
Jakob Augstein: Flow. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2022, 301 pages, 22.00 euros, ISBN 9783351039493