Second through Brain

by Melchior Vischer, David Vichnar (Translator), Tim König (Translator)

Proclaimed as the “first Dada novel” & the “literary equivalent of Cézanne,” Melchior Vischer’s Sekunde durch Hirn (Second Through Brain, 1920) is composed as a series of disconnected vignettes that flash through the mind of one Jörg Schuh as he falls from the scaffolding of a 40-storey construction site. With its boldly idiosyncratic technique, Vischer’s novel is a major document of the Zürich-Prague-Berlin Dada axis. Largely forgotten after World War II, Sekunde durch Hirn is an important rediscovered landmark of the inter-war European avant-garde, here translated into English for the first time.

Genres: Fiction, German Literature

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it solely for the language and it’s slick and altogether sexy. And that’s it.

You don’t expect me to seek significance in a piece which is considered the first “DADA-novel”, do you?



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[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much Joycean as Dadaist, but Dadaist novels that aren't just mediocre romans-a-clef are few and far between, so Vischer (who the extensive introduction describes, essentially, as an opportunist and poseur at Dadaism, as well as briefly denoting his later career as a Nazi historian), deserves some credit for an interesting ride, if not one as strictly novel as the marketing material for this book might suggest. Also, an interesting addition to the small number of English language translations of Dadaist material by writers who later favored fascism, if that's of interest to you, dear reader.

Like Joyce without joy but with loads of smirking, a dying worker's fall from a building has the mental flights of his final moments documented, first a fragmented telling of his own (idealized?) life, then flitting from (imagined?) lives of various others. Some of the racial language is insensitive though I'm sure in 1920 it was considered almost dangerously egalitarian, and the displayed attitudes towards women are much more Neanderthal. For all its flaws, intense and engaging in ways that demonstrate the modernist avant garde's strong influence on the denser postmodernist novelists.

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unendlich gedehnt der Raum, auf winzige Stücke gepresst die urgewaltige Sprache, so lässt der Prager Avantgardist Vischer seinen unfreiwilligen Romanhelden ohne Rast durch seine eigene Lebensgeschichte stürzen, die zur gleichen Zeit die Lebensgeschichte der Menschheit ist. Klappt man das Buch zu, meint man einen starken Traum erlebt zu haben: Die Inhalte unter kritischer Beleuchtung in ihren Details sicherlich zu vernachlässigen, aber die Intensität und Energie, mit denen sie sich blitzend und krachend ereignen, vergisst man so schnell nicht - Ein Traum eben.

[Frau Blücher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Großartig! Wahrlich schnelldrehend, komplett bescheuert und am Schluß doch einen Sinn enthüllend, und dabei ein Hochvergnügen im konsequent respektlos-kreativen Umgang mit der Deutschen Sprache :D

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not light reading, but fascinating nonetheless. The first Dada novel essentially tells the life story of Jorg Schuh as he plummets 40 stories to his death. His life flashes through his brain in his last second. Vischer was born in what is now Teplice, then moving to Prague, which he lambastes in this book. There are few books like this, that's for sure.

Making my living as a translator, I read all books, or at least those that are the results of translations, with a critical eye not only for the story itself and the way it is told, but also for the way it is interpreted by the translator. And this deserves special mention, because the translation is fantastic. It must have been very difficult, though probably also interesting for the translators. Dada is by definition absurd and irrational and thrives on wordplay, linguistic experimentation and the subversion of traditional forms. Vischer created new words, which the translators had to somehow make understandable to English readers. They were very successful. Kudos to them!

[Meghan McGlone · Rating 2 out of 5]

sexism is the fall of man i suppose (pun intended)

[Jeronym · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second through Brain is both an interesting story and a dada manifesto/programme, as well as a linguistic experiment, an attempt at making language, together with the narrative, to “torque freakily high.” It is a text that forges its own peculiar idiom, lexically and morphologically, as well as grammatically and syntactically. The text reminds us that only such aesthetic programme is revolutionary that seeks (to paraphrase Marx) not only to describe its own present condition and medium, but to change them. That mere parody and caricature—with economic gains in mind moreover—can never bring about a change in and of themselves. That fiction, if it is to keep pace with the general acceleration of civilisation, has a lot of catching up to do. That fiction immersed in opportunism and commercialism need not be opportunist and commercial itself. The author reminds us that radical artistic tendencies do not easily translate into radical socio-political positions; that they can actually flip into their opposite when geared up to organised political praxis; that “molluscan” times breed “molluscan” characters. This translation comes at the opportune moment of the 100th anniversary of the founding of dadaism in Zurich, reminding us of the strong cultural axis, in the 2os&3os, between Prague and the epicentres of Western European avant-garde. The "second" it portrays speaks not only of its own time, but also anticipates much of the following century and our own time, and the "brain" it passes through—even a hundred years after it “spritzed on the asphalt, broke forth into yolk, mixed-in slimily with the muck & expired” (98)—is still well worth an attempt at resuscitating.

[Herzog Herzog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible that this has never been translated before. Hugely overlooked. It reminded me a lot of the Oulipo writers (Perec's "W" in shorthand).