Read Online Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Timur Vermes
Ads: Link
place, I heard her categorically rejecting every meal she was offered as “filth”. As unsympathetic a character as this urchin must be, one could hardly be surprised at her lack of appetite, given the indifference with which her elephantine mother opened a box and carelessly tipped its contents into a pan. It came almost as a surprise that the box was not tossed in as well. Shaking my head, I switched again, to find a third chef chopping meat into small pieces and holding forth about how he held the knife and why. He, too, had a young blonde bint at his side, who nodded in admiration. Exasperated, I switched off the television set and resolved never to watch the thing again. I decided to hazard another attempt at the wireless instead, but after a thorough reconnaissance of my room I established that there was no receiver present.
If these modest quarters housed a television set but no wireless receiver, one had to conclude that the television had become the more important of the two media.
Nonplussed, I sat on the bed.
I grant that once I had been very proud of my ability, after years of independent study, to unmask with lightning clarity the Jewish lies concocted for the press, in no matter what guise they appeared. But here my skill in that area was of no help. Here were only gibberish radio and cookery telecasts. What kinds of truths were being hidden?
Were there lying turnips?
Were there lying leeks?
But if this was the medium of the age – which was indisputably the case – then I had no choice. I had to learn to understand the content of this device, I had to absorb it, even if it was as intellectually challenged and loathsome as the plump woman’s boxed food. Full of resolve, I filled a jug of water at the washing galley, poured myself a glass, took a gulp and, thus steeled, sat in front of the apparatus.
I switched it on again.
On the first programme the leek chef’s preparations had come to an end; in his place a gardener, marvelled at by a nodding strumpet, was discussing snails and the best way to combat them. Of considerable importance to the nutrition of the nation, true, but did it need to be the subject of a television transmission? Perhaps the reason it appeared so gratuitous was that, just a few seconds later, another gardener delivered the same speech almost verbatim, but on a different programme, this time in place of the turnip chef. My curiosity was now aroused as to whether the stout woman had also moved into the garden to take up the fight against snails rather than against her daughter. But this was not the case.
Evidently the television set had realised that I had been watching other broadcasts in the meantime, for a narrator now summarised what I had missed. Manndi, the narrator recapitulated, had lost her apprenticeship and did not want to eat her mother’s food. The mother was unhappy. The same pictures I had seen only a quarter of an hour earlier were shown once more.
“Alright, alright!” I said, loud enough for the television set to hear. “There’s no need to do it at such length. I am not senile, for goodness’ sake.”
I switched programmes again. And in fact I encountered something new. The meat chef had vanished, and there were no preaching allotmenteers; instead they were showing the adventures of a lawyer, which seemed to be one of a series of telecasts. The lawyer had a beard like Buffalo Bill’s, and all the actors spoke and moved as if the silent film era had barely ended. A very jolly piece of buffoonery all in all, which made me laugh out loud on a number of occasions, even though in hindsight I was not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was mere relief that for once nobody was cooking or engaged in the defence of their salads.
I switched over, now feeling almost confident in my mastery of the apparatus, and stumbled across more feature films. Apparently older, and with variable picture quality, they depicted farm life, doctors, detectives. But in none of them did
If these modest quarters housed a television set but no wireless receiver, one had to conclude that the television had become the more important of the two media.
Nonplussed, I sat on the bed.
I grant that once I had been very proud of my ability, after years of independent study, to unmask with lightning clarity the Jewish lies concocted for the press, in no matter what guise they appeared. But here my skill in that area was of no help. Here were only gibberish radio and cookery telecasts. What kinds of truths were being hidden?
Were there lying turnips?
Were there lying leeks?
But if this was the medium of the age – which was indisputably the case – then I had no choice. I had to learn to understand the content of this device, I had to absorb it, even if it was as intellectually challenged and loathsome as the plump woman’s boxed food. Full of resolve, I filled a jug of water at the washing galley, poured myself a glass, took a gulp and, thus steeled, sat in front of the apparatus.
I switched it on again.
On the first programme the leek chef’s preparations had come to an end; in his place a gardener, marvelled at by a nodding strumpet, was discussing snails and the best way to combat them. Of considerable importance to the nutrition of the nation, true, but did it need to be the subject of a television transmission? Perhaps the reason it appeared so gratuitous was that, just a few seconds later, another gardener delivered the same speech almost verbatim, but on a different programme, this time in place of the turnip chef. My curiosity was now aroused as to whether the stout woman had also moved into the garden to take up the fight against snails rather than against her daughter. But this was not the case.
Evidently the television set had realised that I had been watching other broadcasts in the meantime, for a narrator now summarised what I had missed. Manndi, the narrator recapitulated, had lost her apprenticeship and did not want to eat her mother’s food. The mother was unhappy. The same pictures I had seen only a quarter of an hour earlier were shown once more.
“Alright, alright!” I said, loud enough for the television set to hear. “There’s no need to do it at such length. I am not senile, for goodness’ sake.”
I switched programmes again. And in fact I encountered something new. The meat chef had vanished, and there were no preaching allotmenteers; instead they were showing the adventures of a lawyer, which seemed to be one of a series of telecasts. The lawyer had a beard like Buffalo Bill’s, and all the actors spoke and moved as if the silent film era had barely ended. A very jolly piece of buffoonery all in all, which made me laugh out loud on a number of occasions, even though in hindsight I was not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was mere relief that for once nobody was cooking or engaged in the defence of their salads.
I switched over, now feeling almost confident in my mastery of the apparatus, and stumbled across more feature films. Apparently older, and with variable picture quality, they depicted farm life, doctors, detectives. But in none of them did
Similar Books
