Thomas Pletzinger - Funeral for a Dog

my own story

On the terrace of the Lido Seegarten: I’ve changed my shirt, brushed my teeth, and showered. The sun is setting, the strings of lights are turning on. Your reservation has expired, Elisabeth, but my luggage was waiting for me in a back room. The receptionist asked whether I wanted to stay nonetheless, and I said, if there’s a room with a lake view: yes. Over the water there’s now a slight haze, the sailboats are rolling gently toward the port. I don’t call, I’ve asked for a large envelope, along with a bottle of Barbaresco. In the water behind the hotel there’s a floating dock with green Astroturf, but no one is swimming here this evening, and the pool, too, is deserted. A rat is waiting next to a pot of flowers, in the water a few black plastic ducks are drifting. The Hotel Lido Seegarten really is beautiful, Elisabeth, but it’s decaying, as all beautiful things decay (roses, geraniums, plastic deck chairs). Next to me there’s a freezer on the cracked tiles, the cord yanked out (here Algida is called Pierrot Lusso, in Hamburg Langnese). I’m alone. He was expecting rain, the sweaty waiter said, as he set the bottle of wine and a scratched silver bowl of nuts on the table in front of me. I remain seated. I ask whether they have the Süddeutsche Zeitung here, all of this past week’s editions, I have some catching up to do, and the waiter asks, all the editions, Signore Mandelkern? Yes, I say, feeding nuts to the rat. The heron lands very slowly on the floating dock, the beats of its wings calmly stir the air (I’ve learned to observe such things again). I read my notes, page by page, I sort Svensson’s stories between my own pages. I will send you this stack of paper, Elisabeth, I hope you understand me. You wanted a decision. On the table in front of me lie this story and seven postcards.

My immense gratitude

Katharina Adler for always being there; Adler & Söhne for every seventh sentence; Ross Benjamin for his meticulousness and friendly persistence; Christine Bredenkamp; Erin Edmison for getting me started in the first place; my thesis advisor Bettina Friedl for her leniency; Daniela Greven; Josef Haslinger; Patrick Hutsch; Thomas Janiszewski; Laura Kovero; Benjamin Lauterbach; Johann Christoph Maass; Timo Meisel; Mika Jasper Petersenn; Olaf Petersenn; Jens Pfeifer for his anthropology; my parents Winfried & Elisabeth Pletzinger for everything; Charlotte Roos; Carol Houck Smith for seeing this project through in the most miraculous ways; Saša Staniši for his glowing enthusiasm, his assurance, and his stories; Gerald Stern for his poetry and encouragement; Dieter Wellershoff; Juli Zeh; and finally and most of all my wife Bine Nordmeyer for her immeasurable patience (this book is hers).

The work on Funeral for a Dog was supported by Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland, and the Max-Kade-Foundation. The translation of this book was generously supported by the Goethe-Institut’s Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Grant program.

Thomas Pletzinger was born in 1975 and grew up in Germany’s industrial area Ruhrgebiet. He holds an MA from Hamburg University and an MFA from the German Literature Institute Leipzig. He has worked for publishers and a literary scouting agency in New York and participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. In 2009, he was Writer-in-Residence at Deutsches Haus at New York University, and in the spring of 2010 he taught at Grinnell College in Iowa. Pletzinger lives in Berlin where he works as a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. He has received various literary awards and fellowships, among them the Uwe-Johnson Prize in 2009 and the NRW Prize for Young Artists. Funeral for a Dog is his first novel.

www.thomaspletzinger.com

Ross Benjamin is a writer and translator living in Nyack, New York. He was awarded the 2010 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov (Verso Books). His other translations include Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion (Archipelago Books), Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew (Melville House), and Joseph Roth’s Job (Archipelago).

www.rossmbenjamin.com