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Radio Dialogs II
As in the first volume, published by Green Integer in 1999, this second volume contains dialogic discussions of literary figures, performed over German radio from 1953 to 1971 by the great German novelist. Here Schmidt discusses, again, his beloved James Joyce, as well as the English writer Bulwer-Lytton, and the German language authors Schnabel, Herder, Stifter, Frenssen and others.
One of the most noted of German writers of the 20th century Arno Schmidt died in 1979. He was author of The Egghead Republic, Nobadaddy's Children, Zettle's Traum (forthcoming from Green Integer) and The School for Atheists.
One of the most noted of German writers of the 20th century Arno Schmidt died in 1979. He was author of The Egghead Republic, Nobadaddy's Children, Zettle's Traum (forthcoming from Green Integer) and The School for Atheists.
382 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2003
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About the author
Arno Schmidt
243 books203 followersArno Schmidt, in full Arno Otto Schmidt, (born January 18, 1914, Hamburg-Hamm, Germany—died June 3, 1979, Celle), novelist, translator, and critic, whose experimental prose established him as the preeminent Modernist of 20th-century German literature.
With roots in both German Romanticism and Expressionism, he attempted to develop modern prose forms that correspond more closely to the workings of the conscious and subconscious mind and to revitalize a literary language that he considered debased by Nazism and war.
The influence of James Joyce and Sigmund Freud are apparent in both a collection of short stories, Kühe in Halbtrauer (1964; Country Matters), and, most especially, in Zettels Traum (1970; Bottom’s Dream)—a three-columned, more than 1,300-page, photo-offset typescript, centring on the mind and works of Poe. It was then that Schmidt developed his theory of “etyms,” the morphemes of language that betray subconscious desires. Two further works on the same grand scale are the “novella-comedy” Die Schule der Atheisten (1972; School for Atheists) and Abend mit Goldrand (1975; Evening Edged in Gold), a dream-scape that has as its focal point Hiëronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and that has come to be regarded as his finest and most mature work.
Schmidt was a man of vast autodidactic learning and Rabelaisian humour. Though complex and sometimes daunting, his works are enriched by inventive language and imbued with a profound commitment to humanity’s intellectual achievements.
With roots in both German Romanticism and Expressionism, he attempted to develop modern prose forms that correspond more closely to the workings of the conscious and subconscious mind and to revitalize a literary language that he considered debased by Nazism and war.
The influence of James Joyce and Sigmund Freud are apparent in both a collection of short stories, Kühe in Halbtrauer (1964; Country Matters), and, most especially, in Zettels Traum (1970; Bottom’s Dream)—a three-columned, more than 1,300-page, photo-offset typescript, centring on the mind and works of Poe. It was then that Schmidt developed his theory of “etyms,” the morphemes of language that betray subconscious desires. Two further works on the same grand scale are the “novella-comedy” Die Schule der Atheisten (1972; School for Atheists) and Abend mit Goldrand (1975; Evening Edged in Gold), a dream-scape that has as its focal point Hiëronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and that has come to be regarded as his finest and most mature work.
Schmidt was a man of vast autodidactic learning and Rabelaisian humour. Though complex and sometimes daunting, his works are enriched by inventive language and imbued with a profound commitment to humanity’s intellectual achievements.
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April 10, 2016This Review is a BURIED Book report regarding Arno Schmidt’s Radio Dialogs, incorporating volumes One and Two ; and bemooning the not=deliverance of a volume Three which was to have included an additional 7 dialogues.
They are dialogues performed over the radio between the years 1953 and 1971. Not exactly dramas, although they do tend to contain extended excerpts from the works under discussion ; more like a slightly didactic conversation between two or three or four fictional characters, one of whom is always Arno=in=light=Disguise ; most resembling a dialog of Plato.
From volume the First ::
Zunächst, to proceed ToC=like.
.I. -- Which I have also RE=view’d. But to capitulate=again.
Barthold Heinrich Brockes -- “The first true realist and the Church Father of German descriptions of nature.” And a poet, so I’ll let someone else handle him.
Christoph Martin Wieland -- Let me just link you to his Sämmtliche Werke ; and find what you can in English ;; Mr Moore like’d him too. For our English convenience we do have available his History of the Abderites, a title which should interest all you Burtonians too.
Johann Ludwig Tieck is not BURIED in germany ; a significant Roh=Mann=Tick.
Karl May -- Notoriously embarrassing portion of Schmidt’s peculiarities. But if you might like something ; “But, heed my advice, and stick strictly to just these two : Ardistan and Djinnistan: A novel and Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen. Here one sees May for what he is : the last in the chain of our literature’s Great Mystics ! - ” But you won’t read May ; what is interesting though is to watch Schmidt attempt his salvage operation of a boyhood favorite and one could imagine someone today of perhaps a Schmidtian=stature doing the same perhaps to someone like a Stephen King ; surely there’s something knot=derivative there maybe.
Next is a thing on the Brontë juvenilia which i had found rather neat.
And volume the first of these Dialogs wraps up with a veryvery nice piece on The Wake.
.II. -- Won’t get much better treatment from me here in this space ; I should have taken notes, lists.
Johann Gottfried Schnabel -- Check out his Insel Felsenburg whose presence in the goodreads database is a little more than scattered. The only edition I can find which would seem to accurately represent its 2300 pages is this one available on amazon. “Robinsinade”.
Johann Gottfried Herder is also KNOT=buried in germany. But Woods directs us to the final pages of this Dialog, and why not? I’ll quote extensively.
Adalbert Stifter -- The English of his Indian Summer looks maybe abridged ;; cf. its three volumes, its “one thousand thin-paper pages”, its “1 point 4 million letters !”, its ten-times the length of Werther. Schmidt’s verdict ? : “ the low-water mark in Stifter’s work”. And since my Review is short on lists ; here is Schmidt’s answer to Nietzsche when old Fred said that Indian Summer counts among the best of German books :
Gustav Franssen was a Nazi Asshole. Schmidt presents an argument that his Otto Babendiek may be safely unBURIED. See if you can find any trace of it today.
The 19th=cent Englishman Edward Bulwer-Lytton ? I don’t know. Schmidt’s trying his hand at a revival ; he translated B-L’s Dein Roman: 60 Spielarten Engl. Daseins; Roman and Was wird er damit machen? Nachrichten aus dem Leben eines Lords. Perhaps his The Coming Race could be something ; and his Last Days of Pompeii has a healthy dose of ratings here on goodreads.
As with the former volume, this one concludes with a=Joyce. And thank-you Arno for saying what needs to be said : That “Joyce” means two things -- Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and far more the latter. When reading U Arno skips the Telemachus which belongs more with those two earlier volumes. Let me repeat, just to be clear :: Joyce is The Wake. And for hard=head’d Schmidtians, one should not miss this Dialog for its explication of Arno’s own theory of the etym.
.III. -- Green Integer did not published the announced Third volume. But if you’ve got some german and need more Dialogs ;; Das Essayistische Werk Zur Deutschen Literatur In 4 Bänden: Sämtliche Nachtprogramme Und Aufsätze. Inhalte ::
And I’ll conclude with another anecdote :: Arno Schmidt is responsible for about half of the German=Poe, as may be seen ::: Edgar Allan Poe Das gesamte Werk in Zehn Bänden komplett alle 10 Bände in original Pappschuber. Ins Deutsche übertragen von Hans Wollschläger und Arno Schmidt. Fur such reasons, yes, Me Wantee that Poe=Dialog. Poe is also responsible for about 78% of Zettel’s Traum ; prior to the publication of which we may want to read our Poe, komplett.
________
n.b. ; the “{“ and “}” are my work;around for the inability to use the angle brackets of Arno due to the habits of html=code and my laziness in not using the html=code itself as a work;around. You conventionals should think of “{“ and “}” as “”” and “”” ; but “””’s make my skin crawl ; the Ancients didn’t need them.
They are dialogues performed over the radio between the years 1953 and 1971. Not exactly dramas, although they do tend to contain extended excerpts from the works under discussion ; more like a slightly didactic conversation between two or three or four fictional characters, one of whom is always Arno=in=light=Disguise ; most resembling a dialog of Plato.
From volume the First ::
He who would speak of unknown authors, buried beneath the rubble of centuries, inevitably lays himself open, at least to begin with, to the suspicion of being a crotchety sort with very queer tastes.From volume the Second ::
When an important writer recommends a work to you -- whether by openly naming the title; or by shy=covert use of it (which perhaps is the greater praise) then go right ahead and follow his momentous hint ! A man with expertise and taste has done trusty spade-work for you : {pre=reading} and winnowing 1000 volumes of antiquated chaff for you. Not to make grateful use of such a hint would mean my thoughtless=arrogant shoving aside all the precious, irreplaceable hours that a venerable predecessor spent reading for me.Schmidt’s Spade=Wielding credentials are well=attested.
Zunächst, to proceed ToC=like.
.I. -- Which I have also RE=view’d. But to capitulate=again.
Barthold Heinrich Brockes -- “The first true realist and the Church Father of German descriptions of nature.” And a poet, so I’ll let someone else handle him.
Christoph Martin Wieland -- Let me just link you to his Sämmtliche Werke ; and find what you can in English ;; Mr Moore like’d him too. For our English convenience we do have available his History of the Abderites, a title which should interest all you Burtonians too.
Johann Ludwig Tieck is not BURIED in germany ; a significant Roh=Mann=Tick.
Karl May -- Notoriously embarrassing portion of Schmidt’s peculiarities. But if you might like something ; “But, heed my advice, and stick strictly to just these two : Ardistan and Djinnistan: A novel and Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen. Here one sees May for what he is : the last in the chain of our literature’s Great Mystics ! - ” But you won’t read May ; what is interesting though is to watch Schmidt attempt his salvage operation of a boyhood favorite and one could imagine someone today of perhaps a Schmidtian=stature doing the same perhaps to someone like a Stephen King ; surely there’s something knot=derivative there maybe.
Next is a thing on the Brontë juvenilia which i had found rather neat.
And volume the first of these Dialogs wraps up with a veryvery nice piece on The Wake.
.II. -- Won’t get much better treatment from me here in this space ; I should have taken notes, lists.
Johann Gottfried Schnabel -- Check out his Insel Felsenburg whose presence in the goodreads database is a little more than scattered. The only edition I can find which would seem to accurately represent its 2300 pages is this one available on amazon. “Robinsinade”.
Johann Gottfried Herder is also KNOT=buried in germany. But Woods directs us to the final pages of this Dialog, and why not? I’ll quote extensively.
B.: And so, if asked my opinion of the general phenomenon {Herder}, I would reply : His life ? : the most compelling cautionary image in our mirror; seen only once before, in the much more glaringly=significant Swift; a {Prime-Number man}, 2 raised to the 2281st power minus 1; divisible only by one=and=himself : cave !
A.: His work ? : the tragedy and triumph of polymathy : a great master of a vast series of micro=, nano=, and pico=works of art. An inspiration to the specialist, whipping one’s sense of language to a pitch with savage coined words. Thoughts less informative than provocative; his technique, that of the “infinite aphorism” -- Nietzsche achieved only the level of “finite” :
Herder is inexhaustible {chernozem}, fathom-deep {Black Earth}, concealing within it centuries of fat harvests -- a metaphor of which he himself would probably have approved.
B. (concluding mysteriously): Herder ? : A giant in the sky; the planet-sized plains of his continents sewn thick with herbs, sociably waving demigrasses, contoured lawns of heath, beneath a searing sun, or saturated thunder-clouds : spice is haunting above all gray non=groves.
A.: Where, as on the manifest sea, the horizon is enclosed by a pure circular line; limiting the eye, yet at the same time strangely stirring the soul with the force of the unbounded : a prairie=spectacle unlike any in the literature of all the nations !
Adalbert Stifter -- The English of his Indian Summer looks maybe abridged ;; cf. its three volumes, its “one thousand thin-paper pages”, its “1 point 4 million letters !”, its ten-times the length of Werther. Schmidt’s verdict ? : “ the low-water mark in Stifter’s work”. And since my Review is short on lists ; here is Schmidt’s answer to Nietzsche when old Fred said that Indian Summer counts among the best of German books :
...where is old {Anton Reiser}, which is far more deserving of such a badge ? Where {Werther} ? Where Kleist’s anecdotes; where Klopstock’s immortal {Republica Intelligentsia} ? Where is Jean Paul; where Justinus Kerner’s {Traveling Shadow}; where {Blond Eckbert}; where Lessing’s theological writings; {Felsenburg Island}; the pre-Nazi thunderation of {Dya Na Sore} -- from which Nietzsche cribbed very nicely himself ! -- where are : Herder, Schopenhauer, Mommsen, Heine, Heinse, Storm, Luther, Fischart : all men, who should not be mentioned on the same day with Herr Eckermann ! [ie, Goethe’s book which was declaim’d by Herr N as “the best German book there is !”]
Gustav Franssen was a Nazi Asshole. Schmidt presents an argument that his Otto Babendiek may be safely unBURIED. See if you can find any trace of it today.
The 19th=cent Englishman Edward Bulwer-Lytton ? I don’t know. Schmidt’s trying his hand at a revival ; he translated B-L’s Dein Roman: 60 Spielarten Engl. Daseins; Roman and Was wird er damit machen? Nachrichten aus dem Leben eines Lords. Perhaps his The Coming Race could be something ; and his Last Days of Pompeii has a healthy dose of ratings here on goodreads.
As with the former volume, this one concludes with a=Joyce. And thank-you Arno for saying what needs to be said : That “Joyce” means two things -- Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and far more the latter. When reading U Arno skips the Telemachus which belongs more with those two earlier volumes. Let me repeat, just to be clear :: Joyce is The Wake. And for hard=head’d Schmidtians, one should not miss this Dialog for its explication of Arno’s own theory of the etym.
.III. -- Green Integer did not published the announced Third volume. But if you’ve got some german and need more Dialogs ;; Das Essayistische Werk Zur Deutschen Literatur In 4 Bänden: Sämtliche Nachtprogramme Und Aufsätze. Inhalte ::
Band 1: Brockes, Schnabel, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Wezel.And further, what is not in our goodreads db :: Das essayistische Werk zur angelsächsischen Literatur in 3 Bänden. Sämtliche Nachtprogramme und Aufsätze. Band I-III.
Band 2: Müller, Moritz, Lafontaine, Meyern, Tieck.
Band 3: Pape, Fouque, Schefer, Spindler, Stifter.
Band 4: Gutzkow, Oppermann, Fontane, May, Scheerbart, Frenssen, Benn, Andersch.
Band I: Mary Wortley Lady Montagu, Laurence Sterne, J.F. Cooper, Edward George Bulwer, Joseph Smith, E.A. Poe;Me wantee.
Band II: Charles Dickens, Bronte Schwestern, Wilkie Collins, Lewis Carroll, Stanley Ellin, James Jones, Jules Verne.
Band III: James Joyce und Stanislaus Joyce.
And I’ll conclude with another anecdote :: Arno Schmidt is responsible for about half of the German=Poe, as may be seen ::: Edgar Allan Poe Das gesamte Werk in Zehn Bänden komplett alle 10 Bände in original Pappschuber. Ins Deutsche übertragen von Hans Wollschläger und Arno Schmidt. Fur such reasons, yes, Me Wantee that Poe=Dialog. Poe is also responsible for about 78% of Zettel’s Traum ; prior to the publication of which we may want to read our Poe, komplett.
________
n.b. ; the “{“ and “}” are my work;around for the inability to use the angle brackets of Arno due to the habits of html=code and my laziness in not using the html=code itself as a work;around. You conventionals should think of “{“ and “}” as “”” and “”” ; but “””’s make my skin crawl ; the Ancients didn’t need them.
February 5, 2016
Love the "etyms" when it comes to thinking about Jamesy, though I don't agree with the emphasis he places on the place of the brother in The Wake.
As before, the tone, playfulness, intelligence and sheer joy of The Word are present throughout this collection, making it a pleasure to read regardless of the level of one's interest in the author under discussion.
As before, the tone, playfulness, intelligence and sheer joy of The Word are present throughout this collection, making it a pleasure to read regardless of the level of one's interest in the author under discussion.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews