Brand's Haide

by Arno Schmidt

German

Genres: Fiction, German Literature

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Arno 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.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Brand's Heath is Arno Schmidt's first published novella, written when the great experimental author was thirty-six years old. It's a semi-autobiographical tale set in 1946, a year following the end of the war in Germany. During this time, the narrator (also named Schmidt) and millions of his countrymen attempt to move on to the next phase in their lives. Schmidt, a returning POW under the British in Brussels, now travels to the outskirts of a rural town in Northern Germany where he lives a hardscrabble life with two young ladies: small, composed Grete and broad-shouldered, lithe Lore.

Arno considered a 24-hour day as comprising 1440 minutes, and Brand's Heath mirrors how our stream of consciousness truly experiences the world. In other words, the novella bears Schmidt's signature style: instead of following a conventional storyline with standard punctuation, each mostly short paragraph starts with italics and indents all subsequent lines. Additionally, there's a touch of the author's unconventional punctuation.

To share a taste of what a reader will encounter in this 75-pager that, in many ways, reminds me of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I'll offer my comments linked to a dozen direct quotes.

“Parents who continue to bring children into this world should be punished (i.e, fined : made to pay 20 marks a month for the first child, 150 for the second, 800 for the third.”

Arno judged humans as life's true catastrophe! In his wish for a less populated planet, one can hear echoes of Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe who wrote an extended essay on the subject - The Last Messiah (I wrote a review; please check it out). Although Arno eventually married, he and his wife, Alice Murawski, had no children.

“Pleased to meet you he said perfunctorily. Late twenties and already completely bald : along with that offensive behavior characteristic of officers down through the ages.”

Arno Schmidt detested anything smacking of a military mentality, especially those men in charge barking out orders. One of Arno's frequently quoted lines: “A decent human being is ashamed at being somebody's boss!”

“Swung himself back up : wonderful shoes, US-made with thick rubber soles : Uncle Adolf had never been in the running : bye-bye.”

Arno has absolutely no loyalty or allegiance to anything related specifically to the German nation. This more worldly valuation extended to literature – two of his favorite authors were Americans: Edgar Allan Poe and James Fenimore Cooper.

"What a wild West store : where you can buy simply everything, a co-op. I waited patiently in the sultry yellow lamplight, sings, ads, Knorrs soup cubes; margarine as weighed out in ounces, to the dram. “A loaf of bread” I said (hard as Germany's youth; ah well; it'll keep longer.)”

Co-ops and food rationing were a common experience during those post-WWII years. And you gotta love Arno's view of German youngsters who became the hardheaded Hitler youth carrying their Hitler daggers, a theme much developed in his Scenes from the Life of a Faun.

“For instance, last night, as the window panels shimmered a yellow-gray, hours on end, light acreeping up there it seemed, it occurred to me to rite a literary essay : “The First Page”; how they set out to “grab” the reader : has something like that been done before ?”

Throughout the tale, Arno continually makes references to writing and himself as a writer.

“They ran be ragged : Grete especially had her bit of erudition touchingly together, and I made the deepest impression (I consider “intellectual” a title of honor : it is after all man's most distinguishing characteristic ! If everybody was one, at least brawls would be fought with pens, or with mouths. Would be a considerable improvement !).”

Arno, a man living the life of the mind, doesn't have a high regard for those men who spend much of their off hours as barhopping drinkers and fighters.

“Why can't you connect other people's brains onto your own, so that they can see the same imagines, flashes of memory, that you do ? (But then there are the bastards who would).”

Actually, isn't this the wish of many war veterans? To somehow be able to share a direct experience with civilians of what it was like, really like, to be a soldier fighting in a battle. But, but, but...if a technology of this variety existed, those in power would surely employ such a sophisticated gadget for mind control.

“Art for the people ? ! : leave that slogan to the Nazis and Communists : it's just the opposite : the people (everyone !) are obligated to struggle their way to art !”

You tell 'em, Arno! True art is anything but easily digestible. Arno Schmidt knew his writing would only appeal to a small number of intelligent readers, readers willing to make a heroic effort to fully appreciate his books.

“I couldn't help it : I closed my hand around her sturdy ankle and she smiled a mocking and kindly smile : even in that regard I would be content. - (Has got herself new stockings on the cuff). - I gazed at her, for a long time, had to let me head drop, and joined my left hand around hers. From there I breathed slow and hard, until she laid her head against mine, and our long hair mingled in the wind for a good while, brown and ashen; and was woven anew : ashen and brown.”

I included the full paragraph here to show Arno's poetic voice. Likewise, how Arno did have an emotional bond, of sorts, with the two ladies.

“As a young man : I was 16 when I resigned from your club. What bores you : Schopenhauer, Wieland, the Campanian Valley, Orpheus : is axiomatic happiness to me; what you find so wildly exciting : swing, films, Hemingway, politics : pisses me off.”

Forever an individualist and loner, Arno Schmidt knew from an early age he would be at odds with his society and culture.

“...but it's all too long : you know no more about the characters after 300 pages than you already knew about 100; I call that overdeveloped, or more simply stated : too much pointless chatter. Hachoo !”

Beautiful, AS! A slam against the pop novels of his day. We can only wonder what Arno would make of John Grisham thrillers or the shitshow doorstops of Tom Clancy.

“With ringlets : it's a painful enough spectacle when individuals can't grow old gracefully : how much worse with nations ! Hitler's German already offered one such unseemly show; Its Soviet zone now offers it anew, in sufficiently exaggerated and grotesque form : in the last analysis Europe itself does.”

Arno Schmidt refused to be pigeonholed into ANY political ideology. As a singular, solitary literary artist, his had one simple request; “Leave me in peace!”


Brand's Heath is part of Nobodaddy's Children, magnificently translated by John E. Woods and published by Dalkey Archive Press.


Arno Schmidt, 1913-1979

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wenn es so etwas wie Gerechtigkeit auf dieser Welt gäbe, dann würde auf die Frage nach deutscher Nachkriegsliteratur ein Name zuallererst genannt: Arno Schmidt!
Mögen die Liebhaber (sie zuerst) und dann die Fachleute streiten, ob das schönste / beste / bedeutendste Buch nun LEVIATHAN, BRAND´S HAIDE, DIE UMSIEDLER, SCHWARZE SPIEGEL oder DAS STEINERNE HERZ ist.
Mich jedenfalls bewegt kein anderer nachkriegsdeutscher Autor so sehr wie Arno Schmidt. Und was BRAND´S HAIDE im besonderen angeht, so hat niemand die Verletzungen und Verheerungen, die der Krieg angerichtet hat, so präzise dargestellt und zugleich hochliterarisch verabeitet: Einerseits wütet der Leviathan, andererseits lebt der Geist der Romantik im widerständigen Individuum fort. Eine wunderbare, eigensinnige Mischung und allergrößte Literatur.
Romantik heißt nun allerdings nicht, dass hier die Liebe alle Hindernisse überwindet, ganz im Gegenteil: Kriegserfahrung und Notwendigkeiten fordern Opferbereitschaft. Man könnte vielleicht gar von deutschem Existenzialismus sprechen (auch wenn Schmidt an einer Stelle anmerkt, dass er Sartres Philosophie nicht leiden kann).
Wer tiefer einsteigen will, dem seien vor allem Tagebücher der Jahre 1948/49 empfohlen (Arno Schmidt hat sehr, sehr viele Details aus seiner Nachkriegszeit im Cordinger Mühlenhof in den Roman eingebracht, die von seiner Frau eckermannsgetreu aufgezeichnet wurden) und das Handbuch Lore, Grete & Schmidt: Ein kommentierendes Handbuch Zu Arno Schmidts Roman " Brand's Haide ".

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

1946 als Kriegsheimkehrer kehrt ein Mann heim aus dem Krieg – genauer aus dessen Gefangenschaft durch die Briten –, findet sich im titelgebenden Ort in der Heide(sic!), dort in einer Baracke sowie in Nachbarschaft zweier Frauen, die da wohl schon des Längern zugange sind, wieder. Der Mann entpuppt sich als Wort=Schmidt ; also Schriftsteller mit Namen: Schmidt. Nun gibts derlei natürlich viele in Schland, abba der Schmidt in der Geschichte ist Fouqué=Forscher, will über diesen schreiben, also genau wie DER Schmidt, welcher die Geschichte schrieb. Von dieser Erkenntnis ausgehend darf man wohl von einer Semi-Selberlebensbeschreibung sprechen.

Lore, eine der Damen (die andere Grete), hat es m Schmidt angetan ; in beiderlei Hinsicht. Schmidt zu Lore = Fabian zu Battenberg (nur dass der Regissör hier ein Mexikaner und Schmidt, anders als Fabian, ein Schwimmer ist ; wenn ihr versteht, was ich meine).

Lore und Schmidt jedenfalls treibens unterm Abfelbaum wie ihrerzeit Eva und Adam, auch wenn das Ganze als Abfelklau kaschiert wird (wir sind ja auch pubilkationsmäßig noch in den 50ern).

So weit, so gut, so viersternig. Brand's Haide (mit Schmidtschem Oberstrich) kam mir beim Lesen zutraulicher vor, als das Leben des Faun's, das ich als erstem Schmidt las. Jedoch! - - Da sind Ausschweifungen im Mittelteil, wo Schmidt den Damen beim Barackenlampenschein vorliest, und die waren für mich Unbedarftem [lass mich gerne eines Besseren belehren!] zu Viel des Guten. Hätte (sollte?) man kürzen (lassen?) können ; also leidiglich drei Sterne. N'bisschen schade.



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[Iván Ramírez Osorio · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

Qué libro más difícil de digerir. No tengo claro qué podría decir en este espacio. Si alguien lo lee, por favor cuénteme qué le ha parecido.

[Anna Strue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mein Herz tut weh nach dieser Lektüre. Das ist gut.

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

La lettura di Schmidt riempie di umiltà... Che genio! (Mi viene quasi il dubbio di aver trovato non "lo scrittore preferito", ma "l'eroe", il modello di vita; però no, non potrò mai disinteressarmi alla politica.) Non commento, ma mi limito a qualche citazione, sperando di non aver scelto troppo male (be', una l'ha scelta Pinto, credo, e anche la citazione di Grass ne conferma l'importanza): http://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arno_Sch.... Ho scritto anche qualche nota a margine: possibile che ci siano errori di stampa in questo libro?

[Hairo Jorge Paitan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arno pierde fuelle

[Fish on Earth · Rating 1 out of 5]

For uni

Literally didn’t get a lot of this book :( one more book done for uni. On to the next