Parody or Serious Memory Literature? – Christian Krachts Eurotrash (2021) within the Tensions of an ‘Aesthetics of Unavailability’

Abstract

Christian Kracht’s literary work is characterized by an aesthetic that makes deliberate use of irritation and provocation and consciously distances itself from conventional modes of representation. This article explores the implications of such an aesthetic process for the examination of themes in memory literature. The central question here is the extent to which Kracht’s novel Eurotrash (2021) can be read as memory literature despite – or perhaps because of – its irritating and ironic design. The starting point is the thesis that Kracht subverts traditional moral-aesthetic narrative conventions within the framework of an ‘aesthetics of unavailability’ and in this way establishes an autonomous approach to a literary narrative of memory. This specific aesthetic treatment of questions of memory culture is exemplified in the depiction of the mother figure. The article argues that Kracht’s method does not contradict the memory-literary dimension of the novel, but rather expands it in a productive way.