Final Reflections on Hölderlin's Poltergeists (A Drama for Voices by Síomón Solomon)

(Peter Lang, 2020)

 

 

I. 

 

Astute readers may have noticed that whilst I published a quintet of posts last month on the supplementary writings contained within Síomón Solomon's study Hölderlin's Poltergeists,* I didn't actually comment on the highly original adaptation of the radio play which is at its heart. 

 

This was due to the fact that although Nietzsche may figure prominently in my intellectual background, I simply do not feel qualified to do so: I am not a German literature scholar and not only have I never studied Hölderlin, but I hadn't even heard of Stephan Hermlin or his 1970 audio drama, Scardanelli, before reading Solomon's book. 

 

Further, whilst I've read a lot of novels and seen a lot of films, my knowledge and appreciation of plays is shamefully underdeveloped. I don't know why, but watching plays unfold on stage, or listening to them on the radio, has always filled me with a kind of performance anxiety. I even find reading plays troubling. 

And so, I'm perfectly happy to accept Dan Farrelly's estimation of Solomon's work as a "beautiful, free and creative translation" which "opens access to an extraordinarily creative poet who is superbly served by the playwright and his translator" [1]. 

 

Happy also to reproduce below remarks made by Solomon in his introduction, which give a fascinating insight into his thinking and working method ...    

 

 

II. 

 

According to Solomon, although his adaptation is rooted in "an exhaustive attentiveness to the minutiae" [2] of Hermlin's original German text, he has nevertheless seen fit to take a transmorphic approach in accordance with which he has made "a host of minor and major infidelities to the mother script, from compensations (moved text), borrowings (untranslated language items), tweaked directions, insertions and elisions to new dramatis personae and whole scenic re/writings" [3]. 

 

Solomon continues:

 

"As a result, the source text - already, of course, a seething intertext implicating a range of semiotic fields (Classical/Romantic poetics, early European psychiatry, Franco-German revolutionary politics, epistolary erotics, etc.) - has been both critically trimmed and lavishly enhanced. Our clamorous ark of thirty-five speakers [...] through twenty-eight scenes - roughly doubling Hermlin's quantities in each case and all doing their many varieties of violence to Hölderlin's voice - has been accordingly relaunched as a keening vessel of ventriloquized voices, in which ill-starred poets, idealist philosophers, literary editors, hamstrung employers, pious relatives, mortified lovers, political tyrants, ghoulish voyeurs and anonymous critics collide and collude." [4] 

 

In consequence: Solomon calls his work a 'remix', "aiming as it does to offer a musical variation on a pre-existent artistic matrix" [5]. 

 

And in sum: "Hermlin's play has been treated playfully, with a passionate recklessness or irreverent love" [6] that some might term abusive fidelity. 

 

Notes

 

[1] Dan Farrelly, Senior Lecturer in German (retired), University College Dublin. I am quoting from the blurb provided by Farrelly for the back cover of Hölderlin's Poltergeists.

 

[2] Síomón Solomon, 'Translator's Introduction', Hölderlin's Poltergeists, (Peter Lang, 2020), p. 13. 

[3] - [5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., p. 14.

 

* The quintet of earlier posts inspired by Hölderlin's Poltergeists are: 

How Fascism Makes Killers Of Us All (With Reference to the Case of Stephan Hermlin)

 

There is No Tongue That is Not Forked: Notes On Síomón Solomon's Fantasia of Translation 

 

A Brief Note on the Life and Work of Stephan Hermlin 

 

What's in a Name? Quite a Lot When That Name is Scardanelli 

 

We Are Transmitters: Reflections on Síomón Solomon's Audiopoetics 

 

 

Existence is Elusive 1: In Memory of Irmgard Keun and The Artificial Silk Girl

Irmgard Keun (1905-1982)
Photo: Ullstein Bild / Getty Images

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but there doesn't seem to be any similar kind of objection to judging a work by its title and Irmgard Keun's 1932 novel has such an absolutely fabulous title - Das Kunstseidene Mädchen - that I immediately ordered a copy on Amazon.

In part, The Artificial Silk Girl was inspired by Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) - a work that created a literary sensation at the time and which is still regarded today as one of the most important works of German modernism. Keun had met Döblin at a literary event in Cologne and he encouraged her to write, rightly recognising that her narrative skills and extraordinary powers of observation would bring her success as an author.

However, it's important to also acknowledge the influence of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925). Keun was determined to write the German equivalent to this bestselling American novel and to create a strong female character to rival the young flapper Lorelei. In Doris, who heads to the Big City wearing a stolen fur coat and a pair of knickers held together with seven rusty safety pins in order to become a movie star, I believe she did so. The book was an instant smash.

Unfortunately, the Nazis were not impressed and not amused by The Artificial Silk Girl. Not only did they ban its sale, but they destroyed every copy they could lay their paws on. Joseph Goebbels and friends at the Reich Chamber of Culture thought the work degenerate and un-German; a prime example of what they termed asphalt literature filled with low-life characters who deserved to be placed in concentration camps rather than made sympathetic.

Amusingly - and to her immense credit - Keun didn't take this lying down; she attempted to sue the Nazi regime for loss of income. Sadly, she was unsuccessful in this and, in effect, the Nazis had terminated her career as a writer. She left Germany - and her Hitler supporting husband - in 1936, and spent the following years drifting around Europe in search of a new start. Alas, despite having many famous friends and lovers in the literary world, a life of anonymity, alcoholism, and homelessness followed.

In 1966, Keun was committed to the psychiatric ward of Bonn State Hospital, remaining there until 1972. It was only after an article appeared in Stern magazine in 1977, that the public rediscovered her and new editions of her books were published. By this time, however, she was too old and too ill to really care.

Keun died of lung cancer in 1982.

Note: a sister post, in which I review the novel in more detail, can be read by clicking here.