Re: *LOL*
in reply to a message by Lillian
It is frustrating. As if my taste were not cliche stompygerman enough, as if I did not find the american fixation on germanicity slightly distasteful. This is the last name I need to be liking. But I do.
I think one of the reasons I'm so annoyed is that for once, this stompy german namelove didn't come from a composer (felix, ludwig, wolfgang) or a nazi (albert) or a german prince (rudolf, franz), but from a little postmodern 14 year old american dude in a book I just read, whose sisters are Steffi and Denise, whose hairline is receding and who plays chess through the mail with convicted criminals. I don't even have that much admiration for the character, I just enjoyed reading his hard red-clay name, the way it crunches in your mouth. And then at some point, Steffi asks why he named Heinrich Heinrich, and the narrator says there's something strong and admirable about German names, their raw bare militarism, stuff like that, and I was so disappointed - the German-obsessed subculture is like the Irish-obsessed dominant culture, except more frightening, and I am so easily subject to it. And the frigging narrator was a professor of Hitler Studies, which is the creepiest aspect of german-obsession of all.
Anyway the point is the Heinrich in the book seems a little like your Heinrich, which makes me feel a little less guilty for liking it, lol.
I think one of the reasons I'm so annoyed is that for once, this stompy german namelove didn't come from a composer (felix, ludwig, wolfgang) or a nazi (albert) or a german prince (rudolf, franz), but from a little postmodern 14 year old american dude in a book I just read, whose sisters are Steffi and Denise, whose hairline is receding and who plays chess through the mail with convicted criminals. I don't even have that much admiration for the character, I just enjoyed reading his hard red-clay name, the way it crunches in your mouth. And then at some point, Steffi asks why he named Heinrich Heinrich, and the narrator says there's something strong and admirable about German names, their raw bare militarism, stuff like that, and I was so disappointed - the German-obsessed subculture is like the Irish-obsessed dominant culture, except more frightening, and I am so easily subject to it. And the frigging narrator was a professor of Hitler Studies, which is the creepiest aspect of german-obsession of all.
Anyway the point is the Heinrich in the book seems a little like your Heinrich, which makes me feel a little less guilty for liking it, lol.