Thomas Meinecke’s “Odenwald”: Is the self-reflective theoretical novel still contemporary?

Thomas wants to write a novel about the Odenwald. He compiles excerpts, quotes and notes. Malwida, Walter, Cord and Kordula help him. The research for the novel begins in the Hotel zur Post in Amorbach. From there, Thomas and his fellow researchers wander spiritually, among other things, to Texas, to Adorno and jazz, to the Nibelungen, to negative dialectics and binary thinking, to the question of life on Mars, to transsexuality and gender trouble. Last but not least, they are traced back to Thomas’ older novels and the research literature about these novels. “Thomas has to go through that now,” Malwida states, when the characters are a little tired and strained after about four hundred pages due to the many excerpts and blocks of quotes: “So let’s move on.”