User:Blablubbs/Schnurre

General:
 * Rubble literature
 * Themes:
 * Guilt(!)
 * Death
 * Remembering and forgetting
 * Violence


 * Less present in public discourse than other important writers
 * Blencke lists a number of possible factors (ibid. ff.)


 * Stories widely read, included in school books, (e.g. Lesebuch 65)


 * Never joined a party
 * Not political agitation, but "moral-ethical activation of the reader"
 * Schnurre: Büchner-Preis Speech:

"Wiewohl ich ansonsten der Ansicht bin, daß der Literat, im Interesse der Ausgewogenheit seiner Geschichte, kein Recht hat, Probleme zu lösen. Er hat sie wahrzunehmen, aufzureißen, seine Akteure hineinzustoßen. Although I am otherwise of the opinion, that the author, in the interest of the balance of his story, does not have the right to solve problems. He has to perceive them, rip them open, push his actors into them."


 * PEN-member from 1958-1961
 * Successful and "exceptionally" frequent public readings (schools, universities, foreign, domestic, varied audience), explicit intention of addressing "average" and young readers


 * Additional literature see


 * Writing as Engagement (de) (cf. "Engagierte Literatur)


 * sees three phases:
 * "Elfenbeinturm"-Phase, see 76ff.
 * Begin c. 1947, term originates with Schnurre himself ("Auszug aus dem Elfenbeinturm")
 * Debate with Manfred Hausmann (writer) 1946-1947:
 * Hausmann accuses German youth of failing to stand up to the Nazis in "Jugend zwischen gestern und morgen" (article, Aufbau, July 1946) and wants them to actively participate in politics and reconstruction of society and not retreat to art, cynisism, nature
 * Schnurre rejects this as an attempt of the "old" to meddle in young people's process of coping with own guilt (open letter, "Jugend und Schuld", Horizont, 1946), sees escape and abstinence from party politics as justified, speaks of "lost self". Counter-accusation: "Und daß Ihr jetzt, da es vorbei und zu spät ist, den Finger hebt gegen uns, die wir damals auf ein Zeichen von Euch warteten." (and that now, when it's over and too late, you lift the finger in our direction, we, who were waiting for a sign from you back then)
 * Publizistische Phase
 * Literarische Phase


 * War experience: "...im Grunde genommen nur aus Angst und dem Wunsch zu desertieren besteht" (Hüfner/Maiwald 1983 (->R))
 * War as a catalyser, but not as the origin of the impulse to write
 * "dessen fundamentales Schuldgefühl zum entscheidenden Schreibantrieb wurde"
 * Individual guilt as driving force
 * Memory as main source of literary material


 * Short stories claim to fame


 * Never joined a party
 * Not political agitation, but "moral-ethical activation of the reader"

Unlike other authors of his time, Schnurre, who never joined a political party, did not intend for his writings to function as a vehicle for political agitation, but primarily as a means for "moral-ethical activation of the reader". He wanted to "write as a contemporary", and explicitly intended for his stories to be read by "average" and young readers. In his acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner Prize of 1983, he stated stated:

"... ich ansonsten der Ansicht bin, daß der Literat, im Interesse der Ausgewogenheit seiner Geschichte, kein Recht hat, Probleme zu lösen. Er hat sie wahrzunehmen, aufzureißen, seine Akteure hineinzustoßen. ... I am otherwise of the opinion, that the author, in the interest of the balance of his story, does not have the right to solve problems. He has to perceive them, rip them open, push his actors into them."

Das Begräbnis
In Das Begräbnis (the Funeral), Schnurre tells the story of a man who unexpectedly receives a letter containing an obituary that informs him of God's death. He decides to attend the funeral; there are only seven other people in attendance, including two gravediggers and a priest who struggles to recall the name of the deceased, calling him "Klott or Gott or something like that" ("Klott oder Gott oder so etwas"). Schnurre employs colloquial language and uses ellipsis and parataxis as literary devices, making short, simple sentences that are strung together without use of conjunctions. Das Begräbnis, whose central themes are guilt and the loss of faith and hope during world war two, was completed in 1946 and first published in the magazine Ja. Zeitung der jungen Generation ("Yes. Newspaper of the young generation.") two years later. According to his own account, Schnurre had "written the story at night on an upturned crib", with revisions resulting in a total of twelve to thirteen different versions. It was read both at the first and the last meeting of the Gruppe 47.


 * Both the first and last book read at G47 meetings (Bauer, P=?)
 * Trümmerliteratur (Bauer)
 * Ja. Zeitung der jungen Generation (Bauer, Blencke)

Ein Unglücksfall
In 1981, Schnurre published Ein Unglücksfall ("A Misfortune", "An Accident"). The story takes place in 1959 and is written from the perspective of Berlin rabbi Lovinski who accompanies German glazier Goschnik on his deathbed after the glazier has an accident while working on a mizrah window as part of the reconstruction of a destroyed synagogue; the Rabbi had helped him get the job. While inserting the window, his thoughts had wandered to Avrom and Sally Grünbaum, a Jewish couple who had served as his substitute parents during his childhood. During the Second World War, he had hidden them in his basement to protect them from persecution. After being drafted into the Army and deserting, he had returned and found the couple dead by suicide. Goschnik feels guilty for their deaths and realises that he had tried to redeem himself by working for the synagogue. The realisation that this is a futile effort made him disgusted with his own reflection in the window glass; he smashed it and fell to the ground. He recounts this to the Rabbi on his deathbed, believing that Lovinski is in fact Avrom Grünbaum. Upon Goschnik's death, the Rabbit is also plagued by guilt for playing along and pretending to be Grünbaum, and feels that he is responsible for the death because he had employed Goschnik. The guilt drives him to give up his job as a Rabbi and – in a parallel to Schnurre – write down his thoughts.

While he had made eight previous attempts at writing novels and published contiguous short story collections like Als Vaters Bart noch rot war (subtitled "a novel in stories"), Ein Unglücksfall was Schnurre's only published novel. – In stark contrast to the positive critical reception of Der Schattenfotograf,