We talk to Austrian writer and storyteller Michael Köhlmeier about second chances for things, people and ideas.
Questions by Frank Haas, Miriam Holzapfel

Mr. Köhlmeier, in your recently released book about guitars, you reference many different musicians. Is there one who you’d particularly like to see making a comeback – i.e., an artist who deserves to be (re)discovered or afforded a fresh wave of appreciation?
I’d like to see that happen for all the blues musicians from the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s: Robert Johnson, Sun House, Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and all those guys. But also Stevie Ray Vaugh. And Jimi Hendrix, of course. I don’t think Hendrix has been forgotten – heaven forbid – but people really should check in with his music regularly. We live in a time of war. At Woodstock in 1969, Hendrix performed a war requiem with his rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” the likes of which does not exist today.

You’re a passionate guitarist yourself. What is it about the guitar that continues to enchant you?
I’m fascinated by all instruments. Think about it for a second: There’s some metal lying around, skilled hands and poetic minds make a trumpet out of it, and the next thing we know Miles Davis is playing it – and we have the soundtrack to “Elevator to the Gallows.” That’s crazy, a miracle! A tree grows for a hundred years and more, then it’s cut down and its trunk lies for a generation in storage, then out of it comes a guitar. How can you not be a guitar worshipper with a backstory like that? I’m certainly one, especially when I’m holding a Martin or Gibson – and find myself apologizing to their makers for failing to achieve the playing standards such a fine instrument deserves.

Eric Clapton once lamented that young people no longer thought playing a guitar was “cool.” Do you also get the feeling that the guitar has fallen out of fashion with the younger generation?
That’s probably true. Learning an instrument is difficult and sometimes a bit messy. If you want it all, and want it right now, without putting in the work, you’ll have to settle for standing in the audience while others are playing up on stage. As for scrolling around on a phone: How mind-numbing is that! Where’s the imagination? Maybe you’ll end up listening to AI music; people seem to be ok with that. But it leaves me cold. It’s a great joy to be able to play music with other people, to find your collective sound – it makes all the work and effort worthwhile. Is it possible that we are seeing a generation growing up who just don’t have that urge to make art or become artists, musicians, painters or poets? There’s a sense that it’s cool to be dumb...like wearing your trousers the wrong way round, if it’s what you want to do. But that’s not for me. When I was 18, there were a good half dozen bands just in the small provincial town in Austria where I lived. That’s the desire I’m talking about – to not only listen to music but make it as well.

Is there a kind of “golden age” of the guitar that you would like to live through all over again?
The sixties and seventies. The guitar was an artistic, societal, even political statement...which brings us back to Jimi Hendrix and “The Star Spangled Banner.”

What type of music do you think deserves a revival?
The blues.

Why are certain cultural treasures – in the worlds of music, literature or art – simply not celebrated and opened up to a broader audience?
Nothing is out of reach to the wider public nowadays. Nothing at all. Whatever it is you want, just say the word and you’ll be inundated with it. In our part of the world, everyone has all the access to education you can imagine. I can buy a whole digital library for nothing – I could never have dreamed of that fifty years ago. If someone isn’t interested in art, music, literature or painting, that’s their decision, let it go. But please don’t whine about it.

What do you think are the ingredients an old story or old song needs to have to excite a new generation?
A story cannot move us if it doesn’t tell us some­thing about ourselves as we are now. I need to be able to imagine that so and so is experiencing something I could experience too. If I am in that place, it doesn’t matter how old the story is. “Odysseus” gives me that feeling. Some old stories don’t move us emotionally anymore and those then disappear. Others stick around. “The Passion of Christ” is a case in point. A man sentenced to death for political reasons feels like an enduring theme.

Are there books or stories you would like to see given a second life – and why?
There are many books I can think of. But you know what? If I want to relive a book, I just get up from my desk, head for my nearest library and take the book in question off the shelf. “A Life in the Making” by Franz Michael Felder is a good example. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Which traditions or cultural customs should definitely be revived?
Politeness.

What characters from history could you personally have done without?
There are two: dictators and brownnosers. They belong together.

What things would you happily consign to oblivion, never to be seen again?
Racism, xenophobia, thirst for revenge.

Are there questions in the history of humankind which will probably never be answered definitively, no matter how often they are posed?
Does it make any sense to look for answers to questions that you know – and I mean know for sure – cannot be answered?

Are there certain events in history that we could do with remembering as a matter of urgency?
Remembering history means making sense of it. We should remember everything. Our memories make us what we are – our actions and words who we are.

Do you go back and read books / watch movies several times? If so, which ones?
Yes, of course. I’m always returning to Thomas Mann. Same with poems and movies. In the last few months I’ve watched Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood” three times. The Brad Pitt / Leonardo DiCaprio double-act! It’s great art!

Do you think music ages differently to liter­ature? Is music from the past revisited in a different way to old stories?
Yes, I think so. For example, the Ö1 radio station in Austria plays a lot of music that is at least a hundred years old. But if you go into a bookstore, you will pretty much only find litera­ture written in the last two years. Thoughts age faster than feelings, so maybe that’s why.