“You can’t choose your appearance,” writes Judith Schalansky. That one of them would be a giant marble look? She may not have expected that, but she hits it big in her new volume of essays Marble, mercury, fog (€ 25.95/176 pages, Suhrkamp) but this is the first piece. From the pomp that is associated with this material and which she rejects, to the dead in quarries that lead to the weight of the soul, it then moves on to sculptures and mythology and the formative work on the text. You can imagine her rummaging through books with the keyword “marble” in the Berlin State Library. The next part, “Mercury,” is about the word “bastardo,” and from there it leads to Noah’s Ark; “Fog,” among other things, even leads to the origin of the world. It’s just about: What the world is made of. Stimulating.
