One can approach writer Joshua Groß’s new novel through the stimulants consumed by its eponymous narrator. Joshua takes LSD, smokes a lot of marijuana, likes to drink espresso with whipped cream and sucks chupa chups with all seriousness, for which he even made his own pouch. “It was a bit druid, well, but also swanky and completely pointless and horny.”
For him, the decisions about what to put into one’s own body follow the agenda of determined infantilization. It is important to maintain one’s relationship with one’s own environment, to “become completely fluid”, and for this goal the return to childlike behavior patterns seems to be a suitable means: as a step into a biographical epoch in which abstracts were still tangible and tangible, in that you could suck joy.
The desire to feel oneself motivates both things: the sugar shock as well as the creation of a collection of pictures of teeth affected by caries and the disgust that follows. The main thing is that the perception is intense.
“Prana Extreme” is both an autofictional and fantastic work, at the same time as spectacular as it is banal. Joshua accompanies his partner Lisa (if you like, you can recognize the author Lisa Krusche in this character) to a scholarship in Tyrol. There they make friends with the ski jumping talent Michael and his sister and trainer and spend the summer in their parents’ house.
The hostess’ partner, an astronaut from the ISS, the narrator’s eccentric grandmother and a spoiled child also join the story. This is how the summer goes by without too much happening. Lisa is writing her novel, Joshua is given a stolen meteorite, Michael has to assert himself against his father’s will and is training diligently for the Austrian championship.
In digressions, the narrator reports on the life and death of the (fictitious) narrator Gertrude Rhoxus, who he admires and who loyal readers already know from Groß’s previous novel, “Flexen in Miami”. So much for the narrow plot.
The actual drama takes place in the background of the book and nevertheless makes the characters sweat. It begins with Lisa and Joshua discovering the aloe plant, which is actually only found in Africa. In the coming months there will be drought, the meadows will dry up, the asphalt will liquefy, the atmosphere will turn dark yellow, evolution will hiccup and spit out giant dragonflies over the Alpine landscape.
One can understand “Prana Extreme” as a blueprint for a successful life in the climate crisis. This is hardly characterized by inhibitions or feelings of guilt. Completely at peace with himself, Joshua races through the countryside in an SUV. The characters’ response to ecological decline has nothing to do with consumer behavior or emissions.
Rather, it consists in working on the ego, in breaking down its limits with the goal of maximum permeability. “Even though the dragonfly was huge, it didn’t strike us as monstrous; she was just the product of a mutating world. It was we ourselves who had to adapt to it. We breathed calmly, without a shudder.”
Joshua has long known that there will be no rescue, that temperatures will only continue to rise. But if every thought of a tomorrow that resembles yesterday is forbidden, then it is just a matter of exploring the now more attentively and appreciatively in order to discover ways out of it.
The narrator wishes to “pass into the time patterns of the mutated dragonfly, into its neural configurations”. From here it is not far to post-humanist philosophers like Rosi Braidotti, Eugene Thacker or Donna Haraway, who is quoted in the book.
Such theories are met with enthusiasm, especially among artists, which often results in esotericism and kitsch, but at least could create a counterbalance to the lukewarm skepticism about art these days. Even many who practice it are now suspicious of art, as it stands in the romantic tradition of an unleashing that is difficult to combine with a political claim that insists on the preservation of identitarian boundaries. The self-designation artist is therefore increasingly giving way to that of artivist or activist in younger age groups.
Even if posthumanism is strongly influenced by feminism, literature inspired by it, such as that presented by Joshua Gross, now formulates a counter-offer to political engagement by re-opening the resources of art that have been abandoned. Prana Extreme, that is aesthetic fracking. In a good mood, Groß taps into the romantic sources of energy again and describes life itself as an aesthetic task with the aim of redefining existence.
Social issues take a back seat, the first thing to do is form new communities. “Longing”, the word is often used and points in the direction of the goal of this journey: into the depths of feelings, into a world in which the word reality only describes the top layer. Such an experience can come from cracking a lollipop, from having sex, from jumping from thirty-foot towers, in any condition where reason is momentarily suspended.
The laws of nature have finally been overcome and the path to the open is free. With persistent practice, Joshua even manages to juggle antimatter. And thus easily proves that hope can be had for the ridiculous price of sanity.