Virve

Internet of the House of Literature, Vienna

Christine Rigler, 6/15/1999

The basic circumstances of both stories in this volume are already familiar from earlier works by Erdheim: told in the first person, there are biographic correspondences with the author. Here, the protagonist's name is even Claudia (an ex-husband by the name of Erdheim is also mentioned). She lives as an author in Vienna. Both stories relate stays in Eastern Europe, and the novel about Russia announced in the blurb also plays a certain role.

The first part is about a strange woman by the name of Virve, a woman of Estonian-Swedish heritage, who works as a foreign instructor in Vienna and who rules unofficially over positions at universities in Estonia. She is primarily portrayed through conversations and meetings with the protagonist, who, from memory fragments, constructs a rather unfriendly picture of her. Thereafter, Virve becomes inconsiderate towards her colleagues, and is obnoxious and scheming - qualities, which make her unpopular, but apparently further her career. And herein lies the point of the story: the description of Virve as inhuman ends dryly with the news that she has been made the Estonian ambassador of Austria.

Both stories marginally also describe the living conditions of writers. In "Virve", one finds a hint at the dependency on a sneaky literature/science undertaking, and in "Rice Chicken Fish" chronic diarrhea prevents the protagonist from writing; finally, however, her suffering serves as motive and, simultaneously, as material for the story. Not a single one of the doctors consulted, not even the experts can help. Various methods of examination and therapies are attempted: classical medicine, naturopathy, acupuncture - but her diarrhea does not budge, and overshadows everyday life to an ever greater extent. The daily menu is reduced to rice, chicken and fish, and the psychic burden grows. Doctors and acquaintances begin to be enervated; they speculate about psychosomatic causes, that is, lacking interest in betterment. ("I know this from psychotherapy. The patient you can't help because of the patient.") This story also ends with an ironic twist: the relieving diagnosis, made by a specialty clinic in Munich confirms that which the story-teller had always presumed. She suffers of a type of stomach-intestine illness that is not entirely unusual, and which can be healed by adhering to a strict diet.

The texts are realistic and at first glance self-revealing. Erdheim uses the Austrian dialect, the scenes (and, if one knows them, perhaps even some of the people) are recognizable. The autobiographic approaches are, however, as other elements of the story, calculated. They are stylized "self portraits" that demonstrate something concrete. Erdheim uses her fictive author-self as means for observation and experience in various experimental structures, thematic extracts and episodes in which the consciousness of a greater societal connection discreetly resonates. The informal and subjective tone of the narrator therefore does not get caught up in the endless associational concatenations of diary prose, but creates, in connection with precisely construed plot patterns, laconic points.

Erich Schirhuber

Neue Wiener Bücherbriefe (New Viennese Book Letters), 4/99

As is generally known, Claudia Erdheim, Viennese author, never turns her heart into a den of thieves, and never turns a den of thieves into something sweet. Her trademark, breathlessly told dialog, coarse without reserve, and with a disdain for political correctness, is again present. A Baltic woman, concerned with cultural exchange, gets on her nerves, ever increasingly - reading, one becomes witness how a person by the name of Virve turns into an affliction, and increasingly possesses the everyday life of the narrator. "Rice Chicken Fish" deals with an intestinal illness that befalls the author, and which puzzles doctors. Erdheim describes how a physical defect begins to reign over the course of the days and her entire thinking, how trips to the toilet, doctor appointments and findings, diets, enemas and medications become her sole life reality. Travel, books, social contacts: everything loses importance beside physical self observation on the one hand, and intestinal observation on the other. Claudia Erdheim has successfully written a text that connects her individual experience with generalities. It is not a self-descriptive novel, and it is not a self-help book. Irritating, tormenting.

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