I come from a working-class family, where you don’t talk about things like depression,” Winkler confesses. “I think I’ve actually had depression all my life, I just didn’t realize what it was. Seeing the spiral of despair that is unleashed in the pages of the book, it is not surprising that his writing ended up affecting the author. Set in the desolate landscape of hypermodernity, Creep’s backdrop does not stint in reviewing a litany of psychological pain: the incurable wounds of an unhappy childhood, the hunger for affection and the thirst for belonging, the tapping of white canes in search of a reason to live. Neglected by those close to them, lacking all warmth, Fanni and Junya have disconnected their lives from tangible reality to a point of no return. In the draft of Creep, there was to be a third U.S.-based character who was eventually left out, although Winkler believes the book “works well” without him. Cruelly bullied at school, he now spends his days wandering through shady forums in which he finds instructions on how to commit crimes armed with a hammer and a mask. In Japan, Junya is a hikikomori, one of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who decide to confine themselves indefinitely to a room, imprisoned by choice in their bubble of solitude. The family she spies on through security cameras is the closest thing she has to a human bond, though it’s hard to gauge how hardened her emotions are after years of consuming videos peppered with summary executions, brutal accidents and dismembered bodies - all real. Fanni lives in Germany and works for a surveillance company. Perhaps because its two protagonists live in isolation from the world in such a way that is both radical and devastating, or maybe because their connection is the internet itself a network that supposedly binds us all together with an invisible knot. In Creep - which was published in Germany after his novella, Carnival - Winkler recreates two stories that, despite having a multitude of common connections, never intertwine. There are a lot of Silicon Valley workers talking about it in TED talks and things like that.” People do not realize the damage that networks have done to society, and that is no secret either. “But if I decided not to write about people who become addicted to social media, it’s because I feel closer to people who consume gore videos than to Instagram influencers. It’s a totally different beast,” the writer says, sitting on a secluded terrace, his attire black, his blond hair in a ponytail and blue tattoos peeking out at his hands and neck. “I could have written about social media, about Twitter and Instagram, which I think are even more dangerous than what I describe in my book. In that book, he descended into the sordid world of violence among soccer fans, while in Creep he once again slips into an abyss just as dark or even darker: one that opens in the depths of the dark web, a virtual underground where drug dealers, hitmen, pornographers and all kinds of shady businessmen rub shoulders. It ended up being an unexpected commercial success for which he made a theatrical adaptation and is now preparing another for film. by Arcade in 2018), a story he began while studying creative writing in college. In contemporary Germany, his name came to the forefront in 2016 with the publication of his debut, Hooligan (published in the U.S. Besides, why should I get a job on the side so I can afford to write, if that’s already a job? That idea blows my mind.” But in reality, people still have Goethe and Schiller as references, figures who are long gone. “The derisory support given to artists made me realize that Germany sees itself as a country of thinkers and innovation. “I didn’t realize it at first, but the lockdown played an important role,” he notes with a reflective cadence. But back in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic lockdown, the sun - at least in a metaphorical sense - was not shining brightly enough. “The story it tells is very dark.” On this day in early May, it was a bright morning in Hanover, the nearest city to his home in the countryside, where he lives with his partner and their rescued dog. “I had fallen into a depression, and writing the book probably didn’t help,” he recalls. There are parts of the year and a half it took him to finish his second novel, Creep, that Philipp Winkler is unable to remember.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |