Im goldenen Herbst des Jahres 2012 stand »Die Welt« für einen Tag still, und als Sinnbild des Stillstands lag dort ein schläfriger Hund, wo sonst die Schlagzeilen drohen. Was war geschehen? Gerhard Richter, einer der global maßgeblichen Künstler, hatte die Herrschaft ergriffen und allen 30 Seiten der »Welt«-Ausgabe vom 5. Oktober 2012 seinen Handstempel aufgedrückt: Bilder von ruhigen Momenten in unruhigen Zeiten, Aufhebung des politischen Primats, Privates statt Welthistorisches, vor allem aber: kunstvolle Kontraste zwischen Schärfe und Unschärfe. Bei der öffentlichen Vorstellung dieser ungewöhnlichen Kunstaktion hielt Alexander Kluge die Laudatio. Spontan begleitete er die Fotos mit Geschichten. Gerhard Richter antwortete darauf ebenso spontan mit dem Vorschlag eines gemeinsamen Buches. Richter lieferte weitere Bilder und Kluge weitere Geschichten. So entstand nach dem Erfolgsbuch »Dezember« eine zweite gemeinsame Arbeit der beiden im Februar 1932 geborenen Künstler: ein Buch zur zeitgleich durchlebten Geschichte, so scharf wie unscharf gesehen.
He studied history, law and music at the University of Marburg Germany, and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, where befriended the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, who was teaching at the Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School.
In 1960 he shooted his first films, before the launch of the New German Cinema.
He also was a remarkable fiction writer, which tended toward the short story form, significant for their formal experimentation and insistently critical thematics.
The city that we carry around inside ourselves, he said, is visible. But when you see a city destroyed by bombs, one which you do not know and means nothing to you, and you nevertheless feel sad, then you can see from this reaction that we carry around inside ourselves just such an invisible city. You see the city only when it has been lost.
This is a soft four stars. The achieved effect is the distance between the images of Richter and the flowing narratives of Kluge. The formation of stories does appear tighter than usual. The narratives don't overlap but do appear fixed to an almost magnetic course. Kluge muses over the notion of a city, imagines it in collected musical notation or an assemblage of photographs--he thinks about Monastic solitude and the sins of translation and a proliferation of error. I found this at odds with his notion of a bomb delivering airplane as a factory. Each metaphor is broad and intricate, yet complimentary if only in an antipodal manner.
He was in control of the situation but not in control of his imagination.
This is a pairing of flash fiction (by Kluge) and sometimes-related photography (by Richter). Between the gap in our ages (Kluge and Richter were both over 80 when this book was published), our differing nationalities, and the fact that he's evidently really into opera, the author and I likely have very different sets of background knowledge about the world. I think that's why I frequently didn't know whether I was reading fiction or fact. Some of the stories are about real people and events - opera singer Leonard Warren really did die on stage, for example.
The title reflects the photography more than the stories. Some of the stories are soothing descriptions of idle scenes, as you might expect: the random protrusions of a tree stump are compared to an alien city; the nature of photography is contemplated ("The instant of time that the photo wins from the intractable flow of reality is shorter than the blinking of an eye..."); a dog sleeps contentedly, a toddler plays safely under the careful eye of his parents. Others are not so calm. One minute you're reading about reproductively-frustrated pigeons; the next, about a man accidentally killing himself in the act of proposing marriage. A sick woman experiences a moment of false hope before death; a doctor and a nun discuss the inconsolability of a woman whose baby has died; a family faces the duty to put down their injured dog ("The dense emotional field which filled the room, and which the doctor was trying to steer towards a decision, remained immobile.")
I wasn't expecting to love this — and as expected, overall, I didn't. But there are some memorable passages and it increased my (previously very low) estimation of how enjoyable extremely short fiction can be.
----“这最可爱的联合让孤独者幸福。”这是“不求回报的爱”和“无缘由的勇 敢”,只有在东方才能找到,才能实现。法国的幻想家们经验老到,他们知道,如 果把世界看作水晶球,那么历史上平行宇宙的入口处就在波拿巴当年远征印 度时,接近亚柯的那个地方。在黎巴嫩山脉和如今几乎已不存在的香柏树林 [14]脚下的大海之间,是天堂的入口,反对教会干预政治的法国人却错误地认为 天堂在耶路撒冷。 On lui doit la Victoire. Vraiment, dit le seigneur ; Puisque tu fais ma gloire Je ferai ton bonheur. De ma fille Isabelle, Sois l’Epoux à l’instant, Car elle est la plus belle, Et toi le plus vaillant. 我们的胜利归功于你。 的确如此,主上说, 既然你为我带来荣耀, 我将赐予你幸福。 我的女儿伊莎贝拉, 将成为你的妻子。 因为她是最美丽的姑娘, 而你是最勇敢的骑士。
Fascinating project. A result of Richter taking over a Berlin newspaper for a day and filling it with images that are removed from the political and social chaos that is usually found in papers. And layer Kluge writes stories in sync with the images.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars because I really disliked the fictions and really loved the photos. So my rating was literally split in the middle. I didn't get the stories nor did I enjoy it at all. And I don't know if that's the original material or I just didn't vibe with the translation. I just stared at the photos and sort of let my thoughts wander.
Fairly interesting (as in, never gets boring) exercise in meaning making that only occasionally seems to transcend the feeling that this is a writing exercise for Kluge
For me this is a richer, more meditative collaboration than Kluge and Richter's December. There are many rich meditations woven into Kluge's brief narratives, and Richter' images are simple, yet evocative. Beautifully bound and presented by Seagull Books. My full review is here: https://roughghosts.com/2016/11/30/wh...