Style and Appearance
Kracht’s novels are pastiche; a playful blend of influences ‘stolen’, in Kracht’s words’, from areas of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. Thus, Kracht's writings contain alienating references to other works, including Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, the subtly ironic travel journals of Robert Byron, and Hergé's Tintin series. Furthermore, the ligne claire ("clear line") drawing style developed by Hergé is used for the illustrations (by Dominik Monheim) in the first edition of Ferien für immer (1998).
Kracht has attested that a writer also ‘always performs being a writer’. His performance is persuasive and has successfully seduced reviewers into sometimes overlooking the distinction between the author and narrator to erroneously identify Kracht as the autobiographical protagonist of his debut novel Faserland. He has sometimes been a controversial figure in modern German-language literature. The meaning of his pronouncements in interviews is not always obvious; his description of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar (and by implication the Taliban itself) as "camp" should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt: in this case moral values take second place after media aesthetics. A similar principle applies to Kracht's foreword to the 2006 illustrated book Die totale Erinnerung (published with Feral House as "The Ministry of Truth" in the U.S.), in which Kim Jong-Il's North Korea is referred to as a gigantic simulation, whereas his apparent ignorance of actual suffering in North Korea upset some commentators.
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Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or appearance:
“The flattering, if arbitrary, label, First Lady of the Theatre, takes its toll. The demands are great, not only in energy but eventually in dramatic focus. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a star to occupy an inch of space without bursting seams, cramping everyone else’s style and unbalancing a play. No matter how self-effacing a famous player may be, he makes an entrance as a casual neighbor and the audience interest shifts to the house next door.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)
“Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans—forgive me the fact that even Goethe’s prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the “good old time” to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a “German taste”Ma rococo taste in moribus et artibus.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 16:7.