"Is there a word for when you're thinking something that someone is going to say in the next moment (regardless of it), or that's being said on TV, etc.?" A little over a year ago, on December 10, 2021, the Austrian writer Raphaela Edelbauer asked this on Twitter in the middle of working on her new novel "The Incommensurables".

Maria Wiesner

Style Coordinator.

  • Follow I follow

Fridtjof Küchemann

Editor in the Feuilleton.

  • Follow I follow

The book has just been published and it is now clear why the author wanted to know all this – and much more – at the time.

At the end of July 1914, Hans, a seventeen-year-old farmhand from Tyrol, got it into his head to visit the psychoanalyst Helene Cheresch in Vienna, who specialized in mass hysteria and parapsychological affects.

His hope: She might be interested in this phenomenon, namely that Hans is always thinking something that someone is saying in the next moment.

Not only does Helene Cheresch have to do with something completely different, Vienna is also dealing with something completely different these days, and the keyword mass hysteria fits here too: “The Incommensurables” is set on the eve of the First World War.

We talk to the author about what collided in 1914, about old nobility and queer Vienna, the empire and ragtime, the eloquence of simple soldiers, the cause of women in the still young century, about seductibility, mass hysteria, basic questions of consciousness and amazing Short circuits with our present.

Then we will set a new literature puzzle, reveal the solution from December and of course who won our book prize this time.

If you want to win something without solving a riddle, you can take part in the big survey on the FAZ podcasts until the end of February.

We are giving away ten pairs of exclusive FAZ in-ear headphones among the participants.

"The Incommensurables" by Raphaela Edelbauer was published by Klett-Cotta, has 352 pages and costs 25 euros.

Every Sunday morning, the FAZ books podcast alternately publishes talks about books and topics, interviews with authors, readings, literary puzzles and recitations from the Frankfurt anthology.

All episodes and other articles on the topics discussed can be found here.

You can easily subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Deezer and never miss a new episode.

Of course we are also available in other podcast apps, just search for "FAZ books podcast".

You can also find us in the FAZ.NET app.

You can find all of our podcast offerings here.