THE GIVE-AWAY BOOKS

by Claudia Hummel

I'm sitting at the end of an exhibition, I'm a museum guard. A man with a round face, the hair on his head curly but starting to thin, and carrying a very full cloth bag under his arm approaches the door and holds a ticket out for me to tear. I point out to him that this is the end of the exhibition and that, if he would like to be able to follow the curatorial concept, he should please... »The what?« he interrupts me, uncomprehending, then reaches into his bag and pulls out a sticker. It reads »Weichardt Bread, an address and closed Monday«. »I'll give you this« he says, and »that's my spiritual family.« It takes a while before I comprehend that he is talking about a holistic baker, his wife included. But he's already pulling the next thing out from under a bottle of French water in his bag. This time, it is a red book packed in plastic wrap. »Erich Fried« is written on the cover, and »Gründe Đ ausgewählte Gedichte aus dem Gesamtwerk« (Reasons Đ Selected Poems from the Complete Works) (1). »This is for you«, he says, because he hopes that in 40 years from now, people won't just be reading Goethe and Schiller, but Erich Fried as well, who has already been dead for 14 years and also belongs to his spiritual family Đ just like Hermann Scheer, who is an antagonist to people like Bush or Berlusconi because he has shown how it would be possible Đ in 40 years from now, by the time the oil supply has been exhausted Đ to have developed an alternative ecology. And in 40 years from now, well, he would still be alive and so would I, and he would like to still be able to experience the world, but there would be no chance of that unless people started to rethink. And if people like Bush or Berlusconi kept on doing like they do, then we wouldn't be able to experience any of this in 40 years. He would be speaking on Wednesday, Hermann Scheer, at the Abgeordnetenhaus. It's important for people like that to be heard and to be published. Because all of the things that didn't get published were basically like books that had been burned. Even though one wasn't really allowed to say that. He pulls another book out of his bag. It is brand new and is also wrapped in plastic wrap. It is »The Solar Economy« by Hermann Scheer.(2) He'd often given that book away, he says, once even to a pharmacist, who wasn't just a pharmacist, of course, but a person, too. Yes, first and foremost a person. And if it were to inspire her and if she were to come to the lecture on Wednesday, then the whole game - his game, which he was now playing with me, as well - would be a success. I ask him how he finances his give-away books. He answers that he is a doctor's assistant, but that he doesn't drink champagne and doesn't eat caviar and that although it does get to be quite an investment, he's glad to do it. It's a game, his way of doing something. Because if he didn't do anything, he would go crazy.

One time, he had the good fortune of acquiring 500 copies of another one of the books he gives away for only four Marks apiece. But within one year, they were all gone. He pulls that book out of his bag, too. But now I don't want any more give-aways. We agree that, when I'm finished reading the book, I can leave it for him at the baker's. This time, the prized piece is wrapped in a white plastic bag. It is a fairly old book, 5th edition 1979, published by Aufbauverlag. »What Is To Be Done?« is the title. The author is Nikolai Chernyshevsky.(3)

Then I ask him if I can interview him about his book giveaways. He immediately says no. But I could write a story about it. He has to go now, though. I comment that it would be worth his while to have a look at the exhibition. He says he really only wanted to pop in quickly, and that he was on his way to his baker now.(4) And if I were to go there myself sometime, then I should talk to the two of them, to Mr. and Mrs. Weichardt. I could have coffee there, too. I should talk to them about baking bread and such. »Like I always say, that kind of people, that's my spiritual family« he says, and starts off towards the stairs, his cloth bag nearly bursting on his shoulder. »Renew Germany« is printed on its side.

(1) Erich Fried, Gründe. Gedichte, Eine Auswahl aus dem Gesamtwerk; Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin, 1989, ISBN 3 8031 1111 0. Not available in English translation.

(2) Hermann Scheer is a member of the German Parliament for the Social Democratic Party. His book, The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future (Earthscan Publishers, Ltd. London, 2002 ISBN 1 85383 835 7) illustrates that the decision to move away from fossil fuels and atomic energy towards solar and other renewable energies would make a sustainable global economy possible. (German original title: Solare Weltwirtschaft Đ Strategie für die ökologische Moderne; Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 2002, ISBN 3 88897 228 0.)

(3) Nikolai Chernyshevsky, What Is To Be Done? Tales About New People; Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1989 [1863] ISBN 0 8014 9547 4. (German language edition: Was tun? Erzählungen von neuen Menschen; Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin und Weimar, 1979.) Chernyshevsky, a proponent of critical realism at the time of the peasant reforms, dedicated this novel to »new people«, the Russian revolutionaries of the 1860's, of whom Lenin wrote: »The revolutionaries of 1861 remained isolated and, on the face of it, suffered complete defeat. Actually, they were the great figures of the day, and the further that day recedes, the more clearly do we see their greatness «. (From V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition; Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968).

(4) »Weichardt Bread« is: Weichardt Brot, Mehlitzstraße 7, 10715 Berlin, www.weichardt.de