The Tenths

At first it’s just a passing thought for Hans Eisfeld: what if we applied the decimal system to spheres other than mathematics? Might it not instil some order in this volatile world at last? When he mentions the idea to his closest friends, they soon come around to it too. Before long the ‹Tenths› movement has ten members, then a hundred, and it keeps on growing. With help from Fanny Ferracce, who has lots of friends in high places in industry and politics, the movement quickly succeeds in appointing its own members to key positions within governments, companies and cultural organisations. But behind the scenes, the movement is in crisis. While Fanny is clearly committed to forging a new decimal world order, Hans, for whom it was always more of a personal thing, no longer feels represented by the Tenths, and leaves the movement. Meanwhile, investigative journalist Sibel Ceylan is collecting material for a big scoop, a revelatory story: are the Tenths a threat to the constitution, or just harmless cranks?

In The Tenths, David Gieselmann invents a strange and sinister movement whose absurd arguments are almost impossible to refute using ‹non-decimal› reasoning. And yet he shows how quickly its many supporters amass unexpected power, in a way that is highly reminiscent of anti-democratic and anti-constitutional groups today.