Michel Mettler

Die Spange

«Lautstärke = Macht – über die zentrale Rolle dieser Formel besteht nicht mehr der geringste Zweifel: Sie ist als das Gesetz Rhaelands, als 'Rhaelands Rule' in den anthropologischen Kanon eingegangen. Auf ihr beruhen die Hauptlinien des rituellen Lebens der Herdkultur, die Soskin vorschnell wertend 'Tanzdiktatur' nennt. Jede geistige Bewegung steht im Dienste eines Wettstreits des Lärms.»

Anton Windl is a veritable phenomenon. During an examination, a prehistoric dental brace is found under his gums. As a research expedition into his oral cavity unearths no further insight, dentist Dr. Berg tries to expose the ancient layers of his patient’s consciousness with the help of a ‚narrator.’

Michel Mettler’s novel «Die Spange» (The Brace) is a weirdly intriguing spectacle with a hero who is the quasi-embodiment of our therapy-obsessed society. The flow of his choppy memory stream, which is actually rooted in an early childhood experience involving a brace, cuts through the entire universe of the human powers of memory. We begin with the aliens of the Roswell UFO incident in the US, a strange ‚rhaelandic’ high culture, and the ‚black pedagogy’ of the nineteenth century.
The narrative increasingly dishevels: place, time and storyline spin out of control and reveal discontinuities, which we can no longer grasp logically. Only the author himself masters all of it with precise austerity and maximum musicality. The novel is distinguished by sarcastic wit; Michel Mettler shines with anecdotal showpieces, which beautifully prove his affinity for the essay and his accurate style. Robert Musil would probably have been delighted by this fireworks display of hypotheses, memories, myths, dreams and conspiracy theories.

(Beat Mazenauer, trans. by Simon Froehling)

Full german version on viceversaliteratur.ch

Translation of title: The Brace

Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt 2006

ISBN: 978-3-518-41755-3