Homepage / Vanitas or Hofstaetter’s Desire
Coverabbildung von "Vanitas or Hofstaetter’s Desire"

Evelyn Grill - Vanitas or Hofstaetter’s Desire

Novel

Long listed for the “Deutsche Buchpreis 2005”.

It was not love that drove the ambitious lawyer Alois Hofstätter into marriage with the actress Olga, the much older widow of a deceased client; it was her standing and her fortune, her mature erotic charisma and the not insignificant circumstance that she was expecting his child. Hofstätter's true and eternal love belongs to art, and his passion to gambling. His wife pays his debts, and the child has meanwhile grown into a youth, in whom the practising aesthete finds compensation for the unreasonable physical and intellectual demands of his fading wife. The structure of the illusory upper-middle-class world that satisfies the decadent vanity of both is brittle – in the field of tension between outward prestige and inward discontent. A bitter power struggle which ultimately leads to a catastrophe. With a ruthless eye for detail, Evelyn Grill draws a portrait of a callous but pitiable dandy for whom the aestheticising of everyday life replaces the education of the feelings. Grill sketches her characters in a few confident strokes, in a language devoid of flourishes or empty phrases. She avoids sentimentality and false pity. This is way the way stories can still be told, without the all too palatable flavouring of a moral message (Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler).

Book details

192 pages
format:110 x 190
ISBN: 9783701714056
Release date: 01.01.2005

License rights

  • World rights available
License requests

Sie können dieses Buch vormerken:

Authors
Evelyn Grill

born in Garsten, Upper Austria in 1942, Grill is a freelance writer living in Freiburg im Breisgau and since 2017 back in Linz. In 2017 she was awarded the OÖ-Landeskulturpreis für Literatur. Published by Residenz Verlag: "Vanitas oder Hofstätters Begierden" (Vanitas or Hofstaetter's Desire) (2005, nominated for Deutscher Buchpreis), "Der Sammler" (The Collector) (2006, awarded the Otto-Stoessl-Preis), "Wilma" (new edition 2007), "Das römische Licht" (The Roman Light) (2008), "Das Antwerpener Testament" (The Antwerpian Will) (2011), "Der Sohn des Knochenzählers" (The bondedigger's son) (2013) "Der Begabte" (The Talent) (2019)  and most recently "Der Nachlass" (The Legacy) (2022).

Press
Evelyn Grill entwirft in lapidarem Ton und drastischen Bildern souverän die Szenenfolge eines Lebens, das die Wirklichkeit nur in künstlerischer Bearbeitung gelten lässt. Ein erfrischend kühnes Buch.
Spiegel

Der Blick auf eine monströse Ehe in den besten Kreisen: Wir folgen Evelyn Grill gerne in dieses Labyrinth aus Kunst, Dekadenz und geheimen Lüsten.
Ulrich Weinzierl, Die Welt

Evelyn Grill ist von einer wüsten Fantasie umgetrieben, die sie tollkühn immer drastischere Wirklichkeitsbilder finden lässt. Diese Autorin soll gepriesen sein, und viele Leser mögen ihr verfallen.
Anton Thuswaldner, Salzburger Nachrichten

„Vanitas“ ist ein gräßlich-amüsantes, kunstvoll komponiertes Buch …
Daniela Strigl, Literatur und Kritik

Kunst und falsche Pracht, Schönheitssinn und Prunksucht, ästhetisches Vergnügen und Eitelkeit, interesseloses Wohlgefallen und Wollust sind die Pole einer spätbarocken Weltanschauung und die Stoffe ihres Welttheaters, auf dem aber – ein besonders aparter Kontrast – nur moderne Figuren auftreten. Evelyn Grill zitiert viel Schönheit herbei und setzt dieser viel Schmutz entgegen …
Hannelore Schlaffer, FAZ

Evelyn Grill schont ihre LeserInnen nicht. Wer sich von ihr eine Geschichte erzählen lässt, muss damit rechnen, mit Anstößigem und Abstoßendem konfrontiert zu werden...Dass man den Büchern dieser Autorin dennoch bis zur letzten Seite mit großer Konzentration folgt, liegt vor allem an Grills Erzählkunst. Sie versteht es, mit ihrer genauen, unsentimentalen Sprache, dem Abstoßenden einerseits Faszination abzugewinnen und andererseits die finsteren Szenarien mit Humor zu durchbrechen.
Irene Prugger, Wiener Zeitung

Evelyn Grill hat für ihr verrückt-absurdes Geschehen die entsprechenden literarischen Mittel gefunden und ihren Erzähler mit quasi hofstätterscher Weltsicht ausgestattet. Der Wahnsinn und das Absurde werden erzählerisch so klar herausentwickelt, dass man sich in der zunehmend surrealen Wirklichkeit lesend einzurichten beginnt. – Für literarisch Interessierte sehr zu empfehlen.
Reinhard Ehgartner, Bibliotheksnachrichten

Grill taucht ein in die Perversionen einer Gesellschaft, die noch immer untergeht. „Vanitas“ ist ein österreichisches, ein amoralisches Buch. Es führt kommentarlos böse ins Dunkel hinter all dem Ästhetizismus und Feinsinn.
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Mit kräftigen Bildern schildert sie das Leben eines Ehepaares, dem Repräsentation über alles geht und das nur dafür lebt, die eigenen Eitelkeiten zu befriedigen. Grill beschreibt dieses Paar sehr eindringlich und mit drastischen Bildern, dabei zeigt sie aber auch kräftige Ironie und Witz.
Buchmedia Magazin

...man kann gar nicht anders, als die präzis realistische Beschreibung der Autorin zu bewundern, die beängstigende Aufmerksamkeit, mit der sie noch die gruseligsten Details bis in letzte Hautfalten und medizinische Gerätschaften ausformuliert.
Kieler Nachrichten

Es ist eine herrschaftliche, reiche, dekadente und perverse Gesellschaft, die Evelyn Grill in ihrem neuen Roman „Vanitas oder Hofstätters Begierden“ entwirft. (...) Seinen Reiz bezieht er aus dem raffinierten Kontrast zwischen höchstem ästhetischen Kunstverstand und tiefsten menschlichen Abgründen. (...) Wie ein altmeisterliches Tableau entwirft Grill die bizarre Handlung als lebendes Bild, als eine Groteske. Und enthält sich dabei wohltuend jeder moralischen Wertung.
Anita Pollak, Kurier

Ein Roman als schonungslos-gekonnte Inszenierung einer großbürgerlichen, repräsentativen Scheinwelt, schnörkellos erzählt und kunstvoll arrangiert. Eine wahrhaft frostig-schauerliche Kaltnadelprosastudie.
Georg Pichler, Die Presse

Die seit 1986 in Deutschland lebende Autorin schafft es großartig, ein „Paralleluniversum“ zu entwerfen, dessen Bewohner Schönheit, Ästhetik und Feinsinnigkeit proklamieren, jedoch nur der eigenen Verrohung zusehen können. (...) Ein unmoralisches Buch. Ein gutes Buch.
Wolfgang Huber-Lang, Neues Volksblatt

Wie man es von ihr gewohnt ist, schont Evelyn Grill den Leser nicht. Sie mutet ihm hier allerlei Szenen zu, in denen Erotik und Verfall eine abstoßende Allianz eingehen. Ihr bewundernswert kalt sezierender Blick nimmt den toten Körper nicht aus. Mit gemeißelten Sätzen steuert der makellos konstruierte Roman auf die finale Katastrophe zu. Sein Ton schmiegt sich dem Habitus seines Helden konsequent an: Er ist absolut indifferent.
Bettina Schulte, Badische Zeitung

Der Text hat Schönklang, stilistischen Charme, weckt zuweilen die Assoziationen zu schwebender tänzerischer Anmut. (...) Eine starke Rückkehr des Residenz-Verlags auf die Belletristik-Szene Österreichs.
Reinold Tauber, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten

Grill zeichnet ein knallhartes und schnörkelloses Psychogramm eines Menschen, der komplett außerhalb jeder konventionellen ethischen und moralischen Normen agiert. Konsequent verzichtet sie dabei auf jegliche Moralisierung. (…) Unbeeindruckt bleibt man davon nicht.
Brigitte Kompatscher, Neue Vorarlberger Tageszeitung

More Books

Coverabbildung von 'Der Nachlass'

Evelyn Grill - The Legacy

An old woman sits in an armchair. Her mind turns to her Aunt Paula, from whom she inherited the piece of furniture, and to her own enforced solitude. Outside, the pandemic is raging, and she has been designated a ‘vulnerable person’. As such, she has been sequestered away as a precautionary measure – ‘kept in a sterile environment’. Maybe she’ll turn one hundred under this bell jar. Aunt Paula, on the other hand, didn’t even make it to fifty. She was deported, and the armchair is all that’s left of her. The old woman’s thoughts – sometimes clear as crystal, but growing increasingly confused – keep returning to the lives that are protected and those that are considered ‘worthless’, to social violence – and to the pleasures of not being bothered by anybody.

Coverabbildung von 'Der Begabte'

Evelyn Grill - The Talent

There's no doubt the boy is talented. They called him "little Mozart" in the town. But he's in prison now. Rightly or wrongly. Step by step, the reader descends into the depths of the boy's memory. With almost agonising artfulness, Evelyn Grill uncovers how a boy who grew up at his grandparents' home, without mother or friends, who was raised and educated, pampered and demeaned by his grandfather – the school's headmaster and an authority in town – became a suspect, perhaps even a killer. For the boy's grandmother is dead, murdered with a pickaxe, and his grandfather was at the inn when it happened. Evelyn Grill masterfully weaves together the threads of this cruel novel about everyday malice and the longing for recognition.

Coverabbildung von 'The Bonedigger’s Son'

Evelyn Grill - The Bonedigger’s Son

Novel

It’s been eight months since Titus’ mother disappeared without a trace. As a native Italian, she always remained a stranger in the village. His father had brought her with him from one of his expeditions. Rumors and suspicions quickly spread: Did she drown in the lake, did she run away with a lover, or was she the victim of a crime? Titus has been an outsider for years. He avoids people because of a burn scar in his face. The offer to live with and assist the new gravedigger seems like a good way to escape the confinement of his father’s home. As it turns out, the gravedigger is no stranger… Evelyn Grill takes her readers on a journey into a dark world full of secrets. Thrilling suspense from first to last page!

Coverabbildung von 'Das Antwerpener Testament'

Evelyn Grill - The Antwerpian will

When Henriette Stanley dies, the family standing at her grave is no longer large: There is Harry, her “mentally disturbed” son, on whom the shipowner family from Antwerp had once placed all their hopes. There is her daughter Ann with her German husband, whose marriage Henriette was unable to prevent even though it cost her Belgian inheritance after the War. And then there is the sister of her husband, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances many years before. Nobody speaks to her, even though she is the only one to know what happened to her brother and what the Antwerpian will really said. And she also knows that every attempt to forget is futile. This novel is a magnificent painting and Evelyn Gill proves her mastery with it. She recounts the story of a marriage, a novel about a family full of cracks, which reveal the chasms of an entire century.

Coverabbildung von 'The Roman Light'

Evelyn Grill - The Roman Light

Xenia is a painter. When she gets a scholarship and is invited to Rome, she sees her chance to no longer live in the shadow as an artist. Xenia has just arrived in Rome when she receives a call by her sister from her homeland: Their mother, a famous writer, has collapsed at a lecture and is in a coma. The mother for whom her own prestige has always been more important than her family, her art more important than her children: Because of her Xenia shall travel back, turn down the chance to assert herself – not least towards the mother? The mother’s silence and death and her own distance force Xenia to grapple with her childhood, with her mother’s egoism and not least with her own art – the egoism of the daughter. Xenia stays: because of her mother who is unreachable for her approaches, and because of Alma, the photographer, who disappears in a mysterious way; also she, without saying good-bye. Evelyn Grill is unmistakable: sober-minded, lapidary, without sentimentality. Evelyn Grill is endowed with the ability to draft lives with all their inherent ambivalence. (...) Beyond the fascination (...) terrifying biographies appear that are revealed with masterful precision by the narrow novel. Alongside the row of memorable characters (...) Evelyn Grill designs a Rome that sparkles with life and art (...). FAZ, Andreas Platthaus Even though it is more psychological than her last novels, "The Roman Light" is still typical of Grill: Clear language is combined with complex construction; the motives are artfully interwoven, and, likewise, ironically undermined. FALTER, Kirstin Breitenfellner

Coverabbildung von 'Wilma'

Evelyn Grill - Wilma

For the people of a remote village in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, Wilma is a spawn of hell, a monster, and surely not one of them: she is a retarded, corpulent and close-lipped child - and a child without parents. Her helplessness, however, engages the love and sympathy of Agnes, a widowed and childless woman, who both embraces and clings to her fosterling. In constant anxiety for Wilma, she tries to protect their little happiness against the locals, youth welfare officials and all external threats. But their happiness is based on dependence, and in a narrow, secluded world, this can prove lethal... In this book, Evelyn Grill demonstrates once more why her recent novels "Vanitas" and "Der Sammler" [The Collector] made her one of the most provocative voices of contemporary German-speaking literature. She writes uncompromisingly succinct, without sentimentality or shallow morality, and she is never afraid to explore the abysmal depths of the human soul. Let’s worship this author! ANTON THUSWALDNER, SALZBURGER NACHRICHTEN Grill loves to search for strange hobbies and weird passions. Great! DER SPIEGEL

Coverabbildung von 'The Collector'

Evelyn Grill - The Collector

Novel

Collecting as an obsession: the touching story of a junkaholic defying throwaway society. Alfred Irgang is a collector. However, he does not collect stamps or antiques, but simply anything that he comes across: old newspapers, false teeth that are as good as new, and other things that naïve members of the throwaway society surrender to the garbage collection. Accordingly, his apartment and various cellar compartments are remarkably filled to the brim, which in turn leads to considerable difficulties with the property managers, which, on the other hand, does not keep him from his hunt for treasures. Does not a lady’s corsage have as much of a story to tell as a Biedermeier davenport? At the regular’s table, where a group of scientists and art lovers meet, the collector likes to present his treasures but naturally meets little appreciation. When after an “occupational accident” he is confined to a hospital bed, the regulars see their chance to force their blessings on him …. It is with subtle irony that Evelyn Grill tells of a society that considers itself to be good, while the motto “to live and let live” is buried by the insatiable desire to usurp a maladjusted person.

You might also be interested in

Coverabbildung von 'Merciless Luck'

Max Blaeulich - Merciless Luck

Born in Romania between the wars, raised in poverty and washed up in Austria by the turmoil of war, Mrs Berta’s life was one of humiliation, pain and misery. Now in an old people’s home, she describes these violent events to the narrator. He in turn lives in the Pension Adler, with various tattooed, one-armed guests, as well as kindly Swedish women. In the home, with its shifty inmates and carers, he begins to feel comfortable, and takes detailed notes of Mrs Berta’s story. Max Blaeulich’s novel illuminates every shade of despair there is. Yet existential loneliness has seldom been described with such assured language and unsparing precision since Kafka.