What I have and haven't read so far and what that tells and doesn't tell about me
I’ve actually never finished anything by Goethe, but I’m not proud of it, trust me. What’s worse, I haven’t even attempted to read his most important works. Faust for instance. People should be forced to read Faust in school, if they have to do it afterwards; it’s bound to feel like a mere exercise of duty. This is why I probably won’t read it, although I’m sure it would be fun recognising all that famous scenes and quotations, an “Ah, that’s where they got it from!”-moment guaranteed on every second page. Werther? We had to read that one in school and I couldn’t stand it. (So I probably did finish Werther, but I certainly skipped most of it in the process). I remember myself devising passionate speeches (never to be held of course) on the numerous reasons why Werther was simply too stupid to be cared for. They were quite elaborate but basically it came down to my considering him what I would now call a useless, whiny emo-boy. (But that term had yet to come into fashion then). I tried to read “Elective Affinities”, but again I heartily disliked some of the main characters (that is Eduard and Ottilie, the latter however only a little bit, as I found her actually too boring to invest too much emotion) and therefore couldn’t bring myself to finish the book. It’s not that I have a problem with disagreeable heroes – the author might deliberately deny the reader identification with the characters and have very good reasons for doing so – I just have a problem with disagreeable heroes the author apparently wants me to like.So I obviously don’t care too much about Goethe, but does that tell anything about me? Rather not. My current dislike might just result from a lack of knowledge of his works, having only dipped into two of them so far – hardly a representative sample. I’m determined on giving Goethe another chance sometime, for Goethe certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I can honestly say that I like Shakespeare. (Could this atone for the Goethe-bashing above?). I probably wouldn’t however, if I hadn’t heard that lecture on his tragedies. So this doesn’t mean much either. Firstly I didn’t discover him myself. (Then again, you probably cannot discover Shakespeare yourself anyway – sorry, Will, that’s the drawback of being canon). And secondly, Shakespeare is rather comprehensive when it comes to the human nature, so I’m actually convinced that everybody studying Shakespeare carefully enough should find something to like him for.
I read quite a lot of Hesse once. Who doesn’t, at a certain age? Then I reread some of it and my enthusiasm cooled. Again, quite a common development. They say that Hesse will become very meaningful again once you’ve reached an advanced age, and I think that’s altogether possible. Yet there seems to be a time to be very fond of Hesse and a time to be not so very fond of him and I’m currently in the second stage. I just couldn’t fail to notice that he was not above certain tricks, doing quite a lot of telling instead of showing for instance. Not that I’d believe “Show don’t tell” to be some sort of unalterable rule, oh no! In fact it’s quite easy to focus on showing if you’ve got nothing to tell anyway. Yet in Hesse’s case this occasional dominance of telling somehow started to annoy me. Just take the Glass Bead Game for instance. That game is supposed to be a synthesis of all arts and scholarships and you are constantly told what amazing effect it has on the minds of the player, but could any of you work out, how that damn thing actually works? Rather not, I’d dare say. To me, that’s cheating. (Only now, that is, for when I read it the first time I was quite above such small-minded reproaches).
What’s more, I somehow ceased to be impressed by Hesse’s constant zeal to construct dichotomies the results of which I now consider rather too neat. It’s tempting of course. He provides you with a clean division of your world into two spheres – usually something along the lines of mind vs sensuality. And I’m seriously pissed that Hesses rarely admits any woman in the sphere of mind, they mainly serve to represent the opposite pole. But apart from that it’s a nice way of bringing some order in our experiences of the world, a great invitation to try it at least. At any rate, I’m indebted to Hesse, because he encouraged me to delve into some thoughts that I considered very deep at that time. And who knows? Maybe they were. I’ve never again tried so desperately to be deep as I did when reading Hesse.
I quite like Böll, but I feel that this needs some explanation. After all he can be quite preachy at times and I can understand how some of his sermons might seem a little bit redundant to someone raised in a liberal, progressive environment. But if your mother actually thinks that Hans is to blame for alls his misfortunes, even for Marie’s miscarriage (or was it an abortion?), because he should have looked for a decent job to provide for his family instead of wasting his time as a clown (she doesn’t think a lot of artists, my mother), you cannot help but defend poor Hans, even if – nay, especially if! – you harbour just so slight a hint of the same reproach in your own heart. Apart from that Böll is good at describing landscapes.
We dealt with “Madame Bovary” in school, but our German teacher decided that showing us the film would do. Sadly I never made up for the shortfall by reading the book voluntarily, which I should really do some time, as I quite frequently catch myself referring to Bovary (not loudly, just in my mind), when analysing a certain type of human behaviour I personally deem rather stupid (not in Madame Bovary herself, mind you, because she was a child of her time; we however have absolutely no excuse.)
I remember being quite charmed by the catcher in the rye. I suppose I fell a little bit for Holden when I read it. Such a rebel! But oh, how frail! Just the kind of boy a fifteen-year old might fall for. On closer inspection it occurs to me that Holden could indeed be classified as emo-boy. He never seemed particularly whiny and useless to me however – quite bitter and judgemental but not exactly whiny and useless (he wants to save children from falling off a cliff, well, that’s quite useful to me; on a less metaphorical level he definitely does care for his little sister), so that’s okay with me. I don’t have any problems with the emo-boy as such, just with the whiny and useless breed. But I haven’t read the novel since and maybe my evaluation of Holden’s character would be less benign now. My fifteen-year old self is not to be trusted on these matters.
I encountered Camus while spending my holidays in Croatia together with my friends, most of the time lying on the beach, alternately reading some passages of “The Stranger” and my friends’ women’s magazines (I would never waste any money on them but I do read them whenever I can get hold of them, little hypocrite that I am). One morning I got up earlier than the rest of my party and had a solitary walk along the coastline, thinking about quite a lot of things, my reading among others. To me, Merseult was an abyss I didn’t quite dare to look into too closely, rather appalling in more than one way and yet I admired the way he faced death. He couldn’t do it this way if he hadn’t got at least one or two things right, I figured and I wondered what it would be like to lead such a life so devoid of almost anything I considered valuable - meaning, for instance. Could I do without all these things Merseult was obviously doing without? Most definitely not, but it was worth contemplating. Actually this was the general topic of this morning’s musings: “Things I might or might not be able to do without” and the women’s magazines were providing as much input for this topic as good gold Camus, albeit one a quite different level admittedly. I suppose I came to some conclusions during this walk, even made some resolutions, but I’ve forgotten them by now. Since then this question “Do I really need that?” has been a regular visitor to my mind, usually accompanied by the answer “Unfortunately you probably do”.
To be continued
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Keine Ahnung. Zur Übung vielleicht.
geschmunzelt hab ich schon am anfang, aber den letzten absatz hab ich fast genauso selbst erlebt - camus und trivialliteratur am strand.
herrlichherrlichherrlich.
herrlichherrlichherrlich.
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24.03.2007 - 20:50 Uhr
herrderkringel