Neue Zürcher Zeitung 28.09.2007

Islamic scholar Stefan Weidner commemorates the 800th birthday of mystic poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, who once more has a wide circle of readers. "Founder of the Mevlevi Order in the Turkish city of Konya, home of the famous whirling dervishes, he is still honoured like a saint in his home town. Even in unadorned, rough translations, the vivid language of his poems intoxicates readers. The Persian originals, for their part, are pure music." Weidner goes on to admonish German publishing houses focused on the German classics, stressing that there has not yet been a respectable German edition of the poet's works.


Frankfurter Rundschau 28.09.2007

Christian Thomas defends American architect Richard Meier against critics who maintain that his new building for the Hans Arp Museum in the Rolandseck train station is too self-referential. "Like Meier's other designs, this building is a metaphor-free zone, whose sole purpose is to properly house the artwork inside it. Unless, that is, you think that the narrow windows which frame the bluffs outside - or the monumental front windows that open up a grand Rhineland panorama - are deliberate distractions from the works on display. Here an exit, there a balcony the size of a deckchair. One Arp sculpture is exposed on grey basalt stones on a terrace. As if displayed in a panoramic window, it commands a majestic view over the Siebengebirge mountains." In another article, Thomas sums up the dispute over the Hans Arp Association's replica praxis.


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28.09.2007

Cornelia Funke's "Tintentod", the final volume in the Ink trilogy was a massive disappointment to Alex Rühle. "Inkheart' and 'Inkspell' are categorically different from 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Harry Potter,' where there was no external parallel world behind the horizon of reality but rather a 'literary' world. If you read emphatically enough, you may discover in the here and now, an infinite space behind the letters and words. The action is constantly tipping into the reality of the world of book and back. But in 'Tintentod', now that we are all familiar with the Tintenwelt, the flitting spring between the text and reality is gone and almost everything takes place 'over there.' Alas the Tintenwelt is a conventional fantasy setting: bloodthirsty Middle Ages, knights, mossy trees, many animals, extra-sensory airborne particles like elves and angels of death."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28.09.2007

Oh the Germans! Why do they always have to do everything so right? When they learn English, it's not as a second language but rather a replacement of German – according to writer Jürgen Trabant, taking the state premier of Baden-Wuerttemberg at his word. In an interview in 2005, Günther Oettinger told his fellow Swabians that English would be the language of the future. Globalisation? No, German's "language shame." If we speak English, Germans don't have to be "ashamed about having to speak Hitler's language, this barked language. What will develop – and we already are seeing this in the more cultured, ambitious segments of the population – is a new, post-national linguistic community on the territory of what used to be Germany which will be, like the ruling classes in India, part of the English-speaking community. This would take care of the historical memory of the predominantly Nazi language." (But are Germans really incapable of speaking both German and English? Is this not a particularity of the "German soul," as Ingo Metzmacher suggested yesterday in Die Zeit?)


Die Tageszeitung, 28.09.2007

Leading up to the elections in Ukraine, Barbara Oertel talks to author Andrej Kurkow, who is sharply critical of the politicians of the "Orange Revolution" and who thinks Ukraine is not ready for entry to the EU. "Europe has enough of its own problems. What's important is that Poland and Lithuania continue to represent the interests of Ukraine. That's enough to keep the idea of Europe alive in Ukraine. In the next 15 years, Ukraine will not be advanced enough to become an EU member. We must have patience, we must wait and see how the EU looks in fifteen years. Then we'll know if EU entry makes sense for Ukraine."


nachtkritik, 28.09.2007

Nikolaus Merck leaves Robert Wilson's staging of Brecht's "Three Penny Opera" at the Berliner Ensemble visibly exhilarated. "Wilson has brewed together silent film pathos, cartoons à la Simpsons and a good dose of drag queen glamour. Stefan Kurt presents a cold Macheath, chic and sharp. Under the glittering suit he wears a transparent corset, which suits his heavily made-up androgyny. And as if that's not strange enough, the man from Waco borrows one of his main stylistic elements from Baroque theatre. Wilson's actors move in the same way that the deer and hare, bush and castle used to be pulled onto the stage with cords. Illuminated from above to the knee, the lowest of revue extras are stunning as they are shoved – foot in, foot out – across the stage, as though they had studied such movements for decades in the Music Hall. Wilson's greatest accomplishment on this evening is possibly the mobilisation from top to toe of the grey but distinct male members of the ensemble."