Elgar gains a voice

“Elgar Eisbär und die Zivilisation” (Elgar the Polar Bear and Civilisation) was the book that fell victim to the pandemic. It was supposed to be presented at the 2020 Leipzig Book Fair, with festive whatnots and readings in intereseting places. Unfortunately, like so many other things at the time, Leipzig Book Fair fell victim to the coronavirus and was cancelled.

I don’t wish to complain. Other people suffered much more from Covid than I have. I’m still alive. Elgar is still alive too. Nevertheless, my book launch unfortunately never took place, and Elgar, the fluffy polar bear with the sharp tongue, sank into oblivion. He didn’t deserve that.

Here’s the blurb:

Who wants to become extinct? Not Elgar. – And neither do we.
Elgar is a polar bear seeking asylum in our civilisation. Driven from his melting ice floe, he tries to find his way among us urban dwellers. In doing so, he comments on the human world as he experiences it from his bearishly shaggy and ever-hungry perspective. Occasionally overwhelmed by the complexity of civilized existence beyond the – no longer quite so – eternal ice, he portraits the strange life of humans in our country in single topical chapters.

A little book to make you smile and ponder. Here comes Elgar. Take care – he bites.

So Elgar led a rather quiet life, something that probably wouldn’t have bothered him, but I as an author was considerably dismayed. I thought (as every writer of a book thinks)  that Elgar deserved to be widely known and loved.

I met Axel Aldenhofen at a reading last year at the Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar. Both of our readings were under the header  ‘extraordinary heroes,’ and our heroes were truly extraordinary. Axel has a wonderful sense of the abstruse, and his books are full of strange characters and encounters. He read from ‘Der erste RSTTR’ (The First RSTTR).

I liked his reading and Axel liked Elgar. Since Axel is also an audiobook narrator, he suggested recording Elgar as an audiobook. Axel has a wonderfully deep, bear-like voice (and many other voices he can draw on), and now you can listen to Elgar as well as read his book.

I would like to quote an initial review by Joshua Friedrichs here (translated).

Here I discuss ‘Elgar Eisbär und die Zivilisation -Gedanken kurz vorm Aussterben’ (Elgar the Polar Bear and Civilisation – Thoughts on the Brink of Extinction) by Ju Honisch, read by Axel Aldenhoven.

(…)

Well, I cenrtainly didn’t expect that. Even though it looks like a children’s book at first glance, it is so much more. A very interesting view from a ‘refugee’.

The writing style is quirky, but definitely worth listening to. Axel manages to captivate the listener with his deep and pleasant voice.

The story is entertaining and addresses so many topics. It briefly reminded me of The Kangaroo Chronicles. Incredibly philosophical, but also with a straightforward and even blunt sense of humour. Elgar has such a simple view of the world. Exciting ideas packaged in a narrative, philosophical cloak of social criticism.

How would I rate it?

5 out of 5 stars or 10 out of 10 points.