Grenzgänge. Zu (männlichen) Ausbrüchen aus emotionaler Routine im Romanwerk von Stephan Thome

The article is devoted to two novels of the German writer Stephen Thome: Grenzgang (2009) and Fliehkräfte (2012). The essential element of those partly melancholic, partly witty narratives are desperate, more or less successful attempts to free the literary heroes from emotional routine which – after the fall of habitual norms of masculinity – manifests itself as a makeshift shelter for the ‚plagued ego‘ of the male subject. The point of departure in relation to those deliberations are sociological and cultural works which debunk the thesis that the spectrum of male emotions limits itself to suppressing emotions as well as to disciplining pathological desires.