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Ja
"Nadgledati one u Službi dok ispunjavaju svoje zadatke, nadgledati one koji nadgledaju, pažnja koju ovi što nadgledaju moraju da obrate na neizbežne sopstvene misli, svesni da ih nadgledaju... nadgledati san... nadgledati da li je u snu zaspalo samo 'ja', dok se za to vreme nadgledanje dosledno sprovodi. Iako je ta misao zvučala ludački, cilj Službe bio je da sve... "ja" je reklo: sve!, pomislio je... da bez izuzetka sve učini saradnicima Službe. Tako da svako može svakoga da nadgleda - jedino je takva bezbednost zasluživala to ime. - Ne, misao nije bila nova... samo što tada Služba nije bila samo za pojedinca, nego je bila Služba za sve."
"Dok je vatra ugalj pretvarala u pepeo, ložač se pretvarao u pisca koji je za stolom za kojim je provodio pauzu pisao tekstove koji se danas ubrajaju u svetsku književnost."
Mihael Opic
"Dok je vatra ugalj pretvarala u pepeo, ložač se pretvarao u pisca koji je za stolom za kojim je provodio pauzu pisao tekstove koji se danas ubrajaju u svetsku književnost."
Mihael Opic
339 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
12 people are currently reading
478 people want to read
About the author
Wolfgang Hilbig
36 books51 followersWolfgang Hilbig was born on 31 August 1941 in the small town of Meuselwitz in Saxony, Germany, about 40 kilometers south of Leipzig. Hilbig’s childhood in Meuselwitz, a target for Allied bombings during World War II and later the site for a thriving brown coal industry (much to the detriment of the environment) during the East German era, has had an influence on much of the writer’s work. Hilbig grew up with his mother and her parents in Meuselwitz, never having known his father, who was reported missing in 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad.
At first Hilbig favoured poetry, but his works
remained unpublished in the GDR. He received attention from the West however, as a result of his poems in the Anthology 'Cries For Help From The Other Side' (1978). His first volume of poetry, Absence (1979) was published by S. Fischer Verlag in Frankfurt am Main. For this, Hilbig was fined.
At the end of the 1970s, Hilbig gave up his day job and began to work exclusively as a writer. With the support of Franz Fühmann, a few of his poems were printed in a GDR newspaper for the first time. His prose anthology, Unterm Neomond (1982) was published by S. Fischer, followed by Stimme Stimme (1983), a prose and poetry anthology published by Reclam in Leipzig
In 1985 Hilbig gained a visa for West Germany valid until 1990. During this time he published not only further poetry and prose, but also his first novel, Eine Uebertragung (1989), which was received well by literary critics.
Even after reunification, the main themes of his work remained the dual-existence of working and writing in the GDR and the search for individuality. His further works include: his second novel, Ich (1993); his collections of short stories, such as Die Arbeit an den Oefen (1994) and Die Kunde von den Bäumen (1996); and his third novel Das Provisorium (2000). Autobiographical themes are often prevalent.
Awards
1983 Hanau Brothers-Grimm-Prize
1989 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
1993 Brandenburg Literature Prize
1997 Fontane Prize (the Berlin Academy of Arts)
2002 Georg Büchner Prize
At first Hilbig favoured poetry, but his works
remained unpublished in the GDR. He received attention from the West however, as a result of his poems in the Anthology 'Cries For Help From The Other Side' (1978). His first volume of poetry, Absence (1979) was published by S. Fischer Verlag in Frankfurt am Main. For this, Hilbig was fined.
At the end of the 1970s, Hilbig gave up his day job and began to work exclusively as a writer. With the support of Franz Fühmann, a few of his poems were printed in a GDR newspaper for the first time. His prose anthology, Unterm Neomond (1982) was published by S. Fischer, followed by Stimme Stimme (1983), a prose and poetry anthology published by Reclam in Leipzig
In 1985 Hilbig gained a visa for West Germany valid until 1990. During this time he published not only further poetry and prose, but also his first novel, Eine Uebertragung (1989), which was received well by literary critics.
Even after reunification, the main themes of his work remained the dual-existence of working and writing in the GDR and the search for individuality. His further works include: his second novel, Ich (1993); his collections of short stories, such as Die Arbeit an den Oefen (1994) and Die Kunde von den Bäumen (1996); and his third novel Das Provisorium (2000). Autobiographical themes are often prevalent.
Awards
1983 Hanau Brothers-Grimm-Prize
1989 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
1993 Brandenburg Literature Prize
1997 Fontane Prize (the Berlin Academy of Arts)
2002 Georg Büchner Prize
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 11, 2018
Bir Künstlerroman
Ben, bildungsroman türünün bir türü olan künstlerroman. Kafkaesk,aşırı freudyen, klostrofobik okunması zor olduğu kadar yorumlanması da son derece derece meşakkatli. En temelinde soğuk savaş sonrası, 1980'li yıllarda Stasi ajanlarının halk üstünde yaydığı korkuyu anlatan ve bu anlatıyı Baudrillard'ın Simulasyon Kuramı üstünden kurguluyan bir kitap.
Kitap üç bölümden oluşuyor ve açıkcası bir 280 sayfa neyin anlatıldığını anlamaya çalışıyorsunuz. Kitabın kısaca konusu Charter, W, C adlarında olan yazar olmayı hayali kuran, fakat dönemin koşullarından dolayı Stasi ajanı olarak Firma adı verilen yerde çalışmasını konu alıyor diyebilirim.
Başarılı olan 3 kısım
Birincisi, dönemsel paranoyayı, korkuyu, Doğu Almanya ve Batı Almanya halkının Hitler sonrası umutsuzluğunu, halkın tarihiyle hesaplaşmasını çok iyi veriyor.
İkincisi, felsefe alt metinleri doğal olarak, sistem eleştirisini, politik yapılanmalar içinde Baudrillard gönderimi üstünden devam ettirmesi bu anlatım esnasında Beckett'e son derece zekice gönderimlerde bulunması. Akabinde, soğuk savaş öncesinde Thomas Mann, Brecht gibi yazarlara atıflar yaparak, II. Dünya Savaşı Alman halkının çaresizliğini çift yönden gösterebilmesi.
Sonuncusu ise, Baudrillard Simulasyon kuramın üstünden oluşturduğu karakterin, gerçeklik algısını dualist bakış bakış açısıyla parçalara ayırabilmesi.
Sonuç:
Ben, uzun zamandır listemde beklentiğim bir kitaptı. Özellikle, Simulasyon Kuramının edebiyatta nasıl işlendiğini okumanın heyecanıyla almıştım. Fakat, yazar görgüsüzce bu durumu okurun gözüne sokması, bunun yanında kitabın finalini herhangi 3. sınıf bir edebiyat okur gibi bitirmesi bu heyecanı darmadağın etti. Altını çizdiğim çok yerler oldu, fakat bu daha çok bana bir düşünsel edebiyat ya da bu türler içine girebilecek bir deneyim vermedi, aksini diktalar halinde yazarın duyguların aforizmaların genişletilmesi halini okuyor hissi yaşattı.
Fakat, Hilbig, “Ben” in içinde, gerçek kimliğin parçalanmasına ve nihai çözülmesinin, sahte devletin ve devletciliğin de çöküşünü ve Charter'de bu benlik yıkımını çok başarılı bir şekilde anlatıyor.
İlgi duyanlara!İyi okumalar
5/3
Ben, bildungsroman türünün bir türü olan künstlerroman. Kafkaesk,aşırı freudyen, klostrofobik okunması zor olduğu kadar yorumlanması da son derece derece meşakkatli. En temelinde soğuk savaş sonrası, 1980'li yıllarda Stasi ajanlarının halk üstünde yaydığı korkuyu anlatan ve bu anlatıyı Baudrillard'ın Simulasyon Kuramı üstünden kurguluyan bir kitap.
Kitap üç bölümden oluşuyor ve açıkcası bir 280 sayfa neyin anlatıldığını anlamaya çalışıyorsunuz. Kitabın kısaca konusu Charter, W, C adlarında olan yazar olmayı hayali kuran, fakat dönemin koşullarından dolayı Stasi ajanı olarak Firma adı verilen yerde çalışmasını konu alıyor diyebilirim.
Başarılı olan 3 kısım
Birincisi, dönemsel paranoyayı, korkuyu, Doğu Almanya ve Batı Almanya halkının Hitler sonrası umutsuzluğunu, halkın tarihiyle hesaplaşmasını çok iyi veriyor.
İkincisi, felsefe alt metinleri doğal olarak, sistem eleştirisini, politik yapılanmalar içinde Baudrillard gönderimi üstünden devam ettirmesi bu anlatım esnasında Beckett'e son derece zekice gönderimlerde bulunması. Akabinde, soğuk savaş öncesinde Thomas Mann, Brecht gibi yazarlara atıflar yaparak, II. Dünya Savaşı Alman halkının çaresizliğini çift yönden gösterebilmesi.
Sonuncusu ise, Baudrillard Simulasyon kuramın üstünden oluşturduğu karakterin, gerçeklik algısını dualist bakış bakış açısıyla parçalara ayırabilmesi.
Sonuç:
Ben, uzun zamandır listemde beklentiğim bir kitaptı. Özellikle, Simulasyon Kuramının edebiyatta nasıl işlendiğini okumanın heyecanıyla almıştım. Fakat, yazar görgüsüzce bu durumu okurun gözüne sokması, bunun yanında kitabın finalini herhangi 3. sınıf bir edebiyat okur gibi bitirmesi bu heyecanı darmadağın etti. Altını çizdiğim çok yerler oldu, fakat bu daha çok bana bir düşünsel edebiyat ya da bu türler içine girebilecek bir deneyim vermedi, aksini diktalar halinde yazarın duyguların aforizmaların genişletilmesi halini okuyor hissi yaşattı.
Fakat, Hilbig, “Ben” in içinde, gerçek kimliğin parçalanmasına ve nihai çözülmesinin, sahte devletin ve devletciliğin de çöküşünü ve Charter'de bu benlik yıkımını çok başarılı bir şekilde anlatıyor.
İlgi duyanlara!İyi okumalar
5/3
October 21, 2016
Sometimes I feel like it's not worth trying to read hard novels, and I should just read things I'm comfortable with. Then someone like Hilbig comes along, and reminds me the only novels worth reading, in a very real sense, are the difficult ones. But difficult like his, not other people's.
Step one: find a premise that lets you be meta-literary, but in a way that makes it clear that being meta-literary is really unimportant compared to actual, real, human life. 'I' is about a writer who is kind of sort of employed by the Stasi to spy, particularly on artists and writers. Thinking about literature is important, but not as important as, you know, massive state-sponsored repression.
Step two: find a style that hasn't been done to death, and then do it so well that someone would have to be stupid to copy you. 'I' combines, implausibly, gorgeous, Proustian, descriptive sentences with Celine's broken syntax and constant ellipses. It's not easy reading, but holy hell is it effective.
Step three: be intelligent. Don't just write about the ideas that everyone else is writing about. As you'd expect from a book called 'I,' this is largely about the eponymous informant's sense of self, his subjectivity. Most contemporary writers who have ambitions to write about selfhood and subjectivity will, say, write guff about how narrative helps us to keep your sense of self together, or write guff about how keeping your sense of self together is just an oppression forced on you by the capitalist psychoanalytic international. Hilbig will have none of the former pap--stories, here, are just as effective at undermining the informant's sense of self as others would say they are at building that sense of self up. Nor will he have any of the latter palaver--the disintegration of the self might sound really hip and revolutionary in the capitalist west, but in fact disintegration is usually the result of external forces. There are some glorious passages in here about what the post-structuralists sounds like, when read in a Western, but totalitarian, society. In short: like twits.
Is it so hard to think about literature, while also thinking about the world, and to have something really smart to say about both, and to say it in a style that's fascinating, original, and suited to the subjects about which you are writing?
Yeah, it is. Really freaking hard. But Hilbig does it.
Step one: find a premise that lets you be meta-literary, but in a way that makes it clear that being meta-literary is really unimportant compared to actual, real, human life. 'I' is about a writer who is kind of sort of employed by the Stasi to spy, particularly on artists and writers. Thinking about literature is important, but not as important as, you know, massive state-sponsored repression.
Step two: find a style that hasn't been done to death, and then do it so well that someone would have to be stupid to copy you. 'I' combines, implausibly, gorgeous, Proustian, descriptive sentences with Celine's broken syntax and constant ellipses. It's not easy reading, but holy hell is it effective.
Step three: be intelligent. Don't just write about the ideas that everyone else is writing about. As you'd expect from a book called 'I,' this is largely about the eponymous informant's sense of self, his subjectivity. Most contemporary writers who have ambitions to write about selfhood and subjectivity will, say, write guff about how narrative helps us to keep your sense of self together, or write guff about how keeping your sense of self together is just an oppression forced on you by the capitalist psychoanalytic international. Hilbig will have none of the former pap--stories, here, are just as effective at undermining the informant's sense of self as others would say they are at building that sense of self up. Nor will he have any of the latter palaver--the disintegration of the self might sound really hip and revolutionary in the capitalist west, but in fact disintegration is usually the result of external forces. There are some glorious passages in here about what the post-structuralists sounds like, when read in a Western, but totalitarian, society. In short: like twits.
Is it so hard to think about literature, while also thinking about the world, and to have something really smart to say about both, and to say it in a style that's fascinating, original, and suited to the subjects about which you are writing?
Yeah, it is. Really freaking hard. But Hilbig does it.
September 23, 2018
I was lost to literature, I had no more business with it nor it with me, my only business now was with security...
The late Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007), via Isabel Fargo Cole's magnificent translations is fast becoming one of my all time favourite authors, with the Two Lines Press publications of the short-story collection The Sleep of the Righteous [original 1994], and the novellas Old Rendering Plant [original 1990] and The Tidings of the Trees [original 1992] all brilliant 5 star reads for me.
Indeed I commented in my review of the latter that Hilbig has assumed the mantle of the must-read writer in translation previously held by writers such as Saramago, Sebald, Marias, Bolano, Lispector and Krasznahorkai amongst others, and that the great news is there is plenty of Hilbig's work left to translate. And The Females [1987] is indeed due out shortly, the first of the linked series of novellas with Old Rendering Plant and The Tidings of the Trees.
But the first of his works to be translated into English by Fargo Cole was this 'I', the novel titled »Ich« in the original published in 1993.
The English edition comes with both an afterword by Fargo Cole but also with (a translation) of Hilbig's own proposal in 1992 to his publisher's explaining the novel, and together these are very helpful in providing context to the English language reader.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, and when the files of the Stasi were opened, many citizens of the GDR were revealed to be 'unofficial collaborators' (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, IMs) for the secret services, among them some prominent writers including Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller (see https://www.thenation.com/article/chr... for a review by Katy Derbyshire, another excellent German-English translator, of Wolf's own account).
Perhaps more significantly, the Prenzlauer Berg underground literary scene in East Germany turned out to have been heavily dominated by Stasi IM's, in particular the poet Sascha Anderson (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sascha_...). What the west had taken as a key source of dissident art was actually under the direction of the security services, who ensured its output was more artistically than politically challenging.
Hilbig himself was one of those spied on rather than those that informed, but in the novel he puts his narrator in the position of a IM and the 'disturbing' question he sets out to answer is: 'To what extent can the work of an informer be compared with the literary work of a writer? ... Perhaps I said to myself the loss of the 'I' experienced by a collaborator, who works in secret on an image of reality, can be compared with that experienced by a writer, who in the course of his work is confronted more than once with the question: Who or what does the thinking within me?'
In the novel the narrator is a writer, primarily a poet, who goes by various names - Cambert, W, C.W., M. [which is his real name, which his alias, is unclear], and indeed his narration also switches from first to the third person as he writes about himself, or at least the identity he assumed.
Originally working (as did Hilbig) as a stoker in a distant town and a member (as was Hilbig) of the Railway Workers' Literary Working Group, he is first recruited by the local security services, framed for fathering a child with a women friend who he didn't even sleep with, then, as they force him to become increasingly shunned by his fellow workers, encouraged to transfer to Berlin where his new handler encourages him to join, and report on, the literary underground scene.
The narrative is far from straightforward: as well as dropping into the third person, his tale spirals back and forth in time. When he, as often, refers in one section of historic narrative to a particular episode that occured some time later, he describes it as: .a peculiar episode which thoroughly deranged my sense of time once again. But allow me to treat things in their proper order...: needless to say that resolution doesn't survive long.
In another passage, he muses about how the German language uniquely permits tortuous thoughts - it is to Isabel Fargo Cole's credit that her English rendition rather refutes that uniqueness:
Such hysteresis of the genitives probably wasn't even possible in a language other than German. In this mental language you were reduced to taking one step at a time, only you still weren't at the goal and had to take another step: if at last you did arrive at the goal of the sentence, you already felt so entangled, and perfectly interpolated in a conspirative sequence, and possibly for ever, that you could only look back, obliterated, in infinite fatigue, to where you once had started - as though hoping for escape you'd keep chasing the end of the sentence, but this end had only revealed the full extent of the impasse.
The urban Berlin setting in theory should differ from the industrially polluted mines and quarries of the Old Rendering Plant and The Tidings of the Trees, but in practice the narrator spends much of his time literally underground, roaming through the connected cellars and basements beneath the streets. And as he spies on others, his own language and identity as a writer, as the quote that opens my review suggests, starts to dissolve:
Most of W’s perceptions were acquired by looking from outside into the interior of lighted dwellings; what he saw was filtered through double panes and veiling curtains . . . while he, outside, was in a different atmosphere, the fog-swirled atmosphere of the dark where all movement within the living rooms’ inward light seemed unreal to him, shoddy fictions. He didn’t understand the words that were spoken in there; when not completely inaudible they assumed an utterly different meaning in the glow of the light-bulbs, the violet phosphorescence of the television screens. . . . No, of these utterances’ meanings he knew nothing, he sought their probable sense in the gestures meant to underline the words, he sought to follow the movement of the speakers’ lips and to read off syllables, finally he began imitating the interplay of the lips’ forms to get at the words, the phrases . . . without knowing, of course, how they were received, these sounds, by those who showed him only the backs of their heads. He almost played the role of a person trying to follow the conversation of deaf-mutes. . . . No, his role was that of a deaf-mute, tracking down the secret of those adept in speech. Rarely did he succeed in deciphering a serviceable sentence, or even a few intelligible words. . . . Only one single fact could be assumed with certainty: if more than one person was present behind the window, the capacity for speech was exercised at least once each evening. It was a capacity from which he was cut off, now that he had taken his place in the darkness outside the windows. He had no recourse but to replace the unheard words from inside the rooms with ones from inside his head.
Initially, of course, he’d tried to make out what was actually said . . . as he later found, one could very well agree that what was actually said didn’t matter at all. What was actually said tended to be buried under one or more layers of banal drivel anyway. Didn’t this suggest that the essential thing was to know the completely trivial statements people made? You had to follow the everyday, interchangeable conversations, the mindless gibberish, the offhanded routines, to be able to reflect on the mood of the people. . . . In fact, maybe you had to practically ignore the so-called substantive statements, which might merely be repeating the word supply from TV broadcasts or printed paper, at best reversing its meaning; in other words, these statements were worthless! The people’s other speech supply, the banal, interchangeable talk, that could just as well be invented . . . if you had an expert to do it. Probably you’d have to check now and then to see whether it changed over the years . . . which was improbable: in his experience it stayed the same from the time people learned to talk to the time of their death.
...
During this time he’d felt he was learning a completely new language . . . or at least relearning the existing language from the ground up. Since now he no longer took in phrases for the sake of their messages, instead seeking hidden meanings in a dark realm behind them, and at the same time was forced to consider the language of gestures that carried each phrase (probably only falsifying it still further!), for him all speech had gradually become a conspiracy. And the more he attempted to penetrate this conspiracy, the more urgently a suspicion rose within him: everyone made themselves understood by means of language, everyone but him. . . . He didn’t know these means, these means that lay behind the message, which itself emerged banal and pointless. Suddenly all phrases had turned impenetrable . . . precisely because the words in them clove together by such force of habit that they kept repeating the same trivia. More and more he lived with the sense of having to break through a wall to arrive at the same understanding that came easily to everyone sitting behind this wall (behind the wall understanding was interrupted only occasionally by the jitter of the refrigerators). All his life he had talked just like them . . . he’d only written differently; he hadn’t even noticed what he’d been doing there. Now he’d been declared a writer, and suddenly the language he had once cohabited had become a room from which he was shut out.
Perhaps the key message of the novel to me was how the surveillance state achieved its ultimate goal - of having everybody watching everyone else, and even spying on themselves, so that the 'Ich', the 'I' dissolves:
Perhaps there was no significance to such a thought becoming known? Actually he had to admit that the service he was in quite naturally engendered reflections of this kind. And this led logically to the necessity .. definitely even the primary necessity ... of watching the collaborators in service: security was the adherence to an infinite logical consistency! To watch those in the service as they performed their functions, to watch the watchers, to maintain watchfulness towards the watchers' inevitable thoughts of their own through the knowledge that they were being watched ... to watch over sleep ... to watch that in sleep all that drowned was the I, while the watch went on following its logic.
Overall, perhaps, for the English reader, a less universal book than the short stories and novellas of Hilbig I have read, rooted as it is in a particular time and place, and somewhat, deliberately, tortuous to read but neverthless highly worthwhile.
The late Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007), via Isabel Fargo Cole's magnificent translations is fast becoming one of my all time favourite authors, with the Two Lines Press publications of the short-story collection The Sleep of the Righteous [original 1994], and the novellas Old Rendering Plant [original 1990] and The Tidings of the Trees [original 1992] all brilliant 5 star reads for me.
Indeed I commented in my review of the latter that Hilbig has assumed the mantle of the must-read writer in translation previously held by writers such as Saramago, Sebald, Marias, Bolano, Lispector and Krasznahorkai amongst others, and that the great news is there is plenty of Hilbig's work left to translate. And The Females [1987] is indeed due out shortly, the first of the linked series of novellas with Old Rendering Plant and The Tidings of the Trees.
But the first of his works to be translated into English by Fargo Cole was this 'I', the novel titled »Ich« in the original published in 1993.
The English edition comes with both an afterword by Fargo Cole but also with (a translation) of Hilbig's own proposal in 1992 to his publisher's explaining the novel, and together these are very helpful in providing context to the English language reader.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, and when the files of the Stasi were opened, many citizens of the GDR were revealed to be 'unofficial collaborators' (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, IMs) for the secret services, among them some prominent writers including Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller (see https://www.thenation.com/article/chr... for a review by Katy Derbyshire, another excellent German-English translator, of Wolf's own account).
Perhaps more significantly, the Prenzlauer Berg underground literary scene in East Germany turned out to have been heavily dominated by Stasi IM's, in particular the poet Sascha Anderson (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sascha_...). What the west had taken as a key source of dissident art was actually under the direction of the security services, who ensured its output was more artistically than politically challenging.
Hilbig himself was one of those spied on rather than those that informed, but in the novel he puts his narrator in the position of a IM and the 'disturbing' question he sets out to answer is: 'To what extent can the work of an informer be compared with the literary work of a writer? ... Perhaps I said to myself the loss of the 'I' experienced by a collaborator, who works in secret on an image of reality, can be compared with that experienced by a writer, who in the course of his work is confronted more than once with the question: Who or what does the thinking within me?'
In the novel the narrator is a writer, primarily a poet, who goes by various names - Cambert, W, C.W., M. [which is his real name, which his alias, is unclear], and indeed his narration also switches from first to the third person as he writes about himself, or at least the identity he assumed.
Originally working (as did Hilbig) as a stoker in a distant town and a member (as was Hilbig) of the Railway Workers' Literary Working Group, he is first recruited by the local security services, framed for fathering a child with a women friend who he didn't even sleep with, then, as they force him to become increasingly shunned by his fellow workers, encouraged to transfer to Berlin where his new handler encourages him to join, and report on, the literary underground scene.
The narrative is far from straightforward: as well as dropping into the third person, his tale spirals back and forth in time. When he, as often, refers in one section of historic narrative to a particular episode that occured some time later, he describes it as: .a peculiar episode which thoroughly deranged my sense of time once again. But allow me to treat things in their proper order...: needless to say that resolution doesn't survive long.
In another passage, he muses about how the German language uniquely permits tortuous thoughts - it is to Isabel Fargo Cole's credit that her English rendition rather refutes that uniqueness:
Such hysteresis of the genitives probably wasn't even possible in a language other than German. In this mental language you were reduced to taking one step at a time, only you still weren't at the goal and had to take another step: if at last you did arrive at the goal of the sentence, you already felt so entangled, and perfectly interpolated in a conspirative sequence, and possibly for ever, that you could only look back, obliterated, in infinite fatigue, to where you once had started - as though hoping for escape you'd keep chasing the end of the sentence, but this end had only revealed the full extent of the impasse.
The urban Berlin setting in theory should differ from the industrially polluted mines and quarries of the Old Rendering Plant and The Tidings of the Trees, but in practice the narrator spends much of his time literally underground, roaming through the connected cellars and basements beneath the streets. And as he spies on others, his own language and identity as a writer, as the quote that opens my review suggests, starts to dissolve:
Most of W’s perceptions were acquired by looking from outside into the interior of lighted dwellings; what he saw was filtered through double panes and veiling curtains . . . while he, outside, was in a different atmosphere, the fog-swirled atmosphere of the dark where all movement within the living rooms’ inward light seemed unreal to him, shoddy fictions. He didn’t understand the words that were spoken in there; when not completely inaudible they assumed an utterly different meaning in the glow of the light-bulbs, the violet phosphorescence of the television screens. . . . No, of these utterances’ meanings he knew nothing, he sought their probable sense in the gestures meant to underline the words, he sought to follow the movement of the speakers’ lips and to read off syllables, finally he began imitating the interplay of the lips’ forms to get at the words, the phrases . . . without knowing, of course, how they were received, these sounds, by those who showed him only the backs of their heads. He almost played the role of a person trying to follow the conversation of deaf-mutes. . . . No, his role was that of a deaf-mute, tracking down the secret of those adept in speech. Rarely did he succeed in deciphering a serviceable sentence, or even a few intelligible words. . . . Only one single fact could be assumed with certainty: if more than one person was present behind the window, the capacity for speech was exercised at least once each evening. It was a capacity from which he was cut off, now that he had taken his place in the darkness outside the windows. He had no recourse but to replace the unheard words from inside the rooms with ones from inside his head.
Initially, of course, he’d tried to make out what was actually said . . . as he later found, one could very well agree that what was actually said didn’t matter at all. What was actually said tended to be buried under one or more layers of banal drivel anyway. Didn’t this suggest that the essential thing was to know the completely trivial statements people made? You had to follow the everyday, interchangeable conversations, the mindless gibberish, the offhanded routines, to be able to reflect on the mood of the people. . . . In fact, maybe you had to practically ignore the so-called substantive statements, which might merely be repeating the word supply from TV broadcasts or printed paper, at best reversing its meaning; in other words, these statements were worthless! The people’s other speech supply, the banal, interchangeable talk, that could just as well be invented . . . if you had an expert to do it. Probably you’d have to check now and then to see whether it changed over the years . . . which was improbable: in his experience it stayed the same from the time people learned to talk to the time of their death.
...
During this time he’d felt he was learning a completely new language . . . or at least relearning the existing language from the ground up. Since now he no longer took in phrases for the sake of their messages, instead seeking hidden meanings in a dark realm behind them, and at the same time was forced to consider the language of gestures that carried each phrase (probably only falsifying it still further!), for him all speech had gradually become a conspiracy. And the more he attempted to penetrate this conspiracy, the more urgently a suspicion rose within him: everyone made themselves understood by means of language, everyone but him. . . . He didn’t know these means, these means that lay behind the message, which itself emerged banal and pointless. Suddenly all phrases had turned impenetrable . . . precisely because the words in them clove together by such force of habit that they kept repeating the same trivia. More and more he lived with the sense of having to break through a wall to arrive at the same understanding that came easily to everyone sitting behind this wall (behind the wall understanding was interrupted only occasionally by the jitter of the refrigerators). All his life he had talked just like them . . . he’d only written differently; he hadn’t even noticed what he’d been doing there. Now he’d been declared a writer, and suddenly the language he had once cohabited had become a room from which he was shut out.
Perhaps the key message of the novel to me was how the surveillance state achieved its ultimate goal - of having everybody watching everyone else, and even spying on themselves, so that the 'Ich', the 'I' dissolves:
Perhaps there was no significance to such a thought becoming known? Actually he had to admit that the service he was in quite naturally engendered reflections of this kind. And this led logically to the necessity .. definitely even the primary necessity ... of watching the collaborators in service: security was the adherence to an infinite logical consistency! To watch those in the service as they performed their functions, to watch the watchers, to maintain watchfulness towards the watchers' inevitable thoughts of their own through the knowledge that they were being watched ... to watch over sleep ... to watch that in sleep all that drowned was the I, while the watch went on following its logic.
Overall, perhaps, for the English reader, a less universal book than the short stories and novellas of Hilbig I have read, rooted as it is in a particular time and place, and somewhat, deliberately, tortuous to read but neverthless highly worthwhile.
Read
February 20, 2022Ready to come to the page/girl finally, having everything sorted, putting the pen to the paper like you are getting ready to put your head inside her, but then… Nothing happens… You are confronted with the blank canvas even though you have so many thoughts that are racing, but nothing coherent can make its way out, your racing thoughts are like your pent-up desire and you are doomed to have them stay inside you, this fever, not being able to act and do the next thing, her eye glazes over… so you return to the ash, soot, dirt, grime…
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/ynrcrTFzoMA
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/ynrcrTFzoMA
May 16, 2018
Read this thinking it's just this excellently written literary exercise in unreliable narrators, neuroticism, ambiguous subjectivity, and experimentation of tropes. But turns out it's also deeply rooted in real events that happened in East/West Germany before the unification. Read the afterword, it's fascinating; I guess I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this part of history. Usually things that sound like conspiracies are just that, but in this case they were actually happening and happening to real writers I've heard of like Christa Wolf.
March 29, 2018
I kept wondering how this book became suggested to me, but I am so glad I dove in. Its paranoid story of the DDR in the secret underground writing scene, really was fascinating. The shift in perspective and narrator, and the way the past would bleed into the present and the ability to mask truth and lies really captivated me. I absolutely loved the underground meanderings, the decrepit basement passages and strange liaisons held so much. I'm so glad I found this book, however it slipped into my reading list. It's incredibly special and an easy read even with the shifts and doubts, which really reinforce the narrative.
January 13, 2020
This book is certainly something. Unreliable streams of consciousness in which everyone seems to lose their identity, gloomy depression and the paranoia of aimless spies. Confusing and dark, but well worth the read
February 10, 2016
WOLFGANG HILBIG, Yazar-Şair, ALM: 1993, TR: 2012, Sel Yayın, Çeviren: Sabir Yücesoy, 325 sf.
-YOLDA OLMAK benim özüm. ...KÜÇÜK ADIMLAR denilen şeye yatkınlık benim özümün bir parçası; diyebilirim ki ne pahasına olursa olsun amacına ulaşan insanlardan değilim BEN.
-Bu dünyanın GÜÇ SAHİPLERİNDEN kendine olabildiğince çok şey KOPARIP alabilmek için en hızlı yolun ONLARLA BİRLİK olmaktan geçtiğini bana çok önceden öğretmişlerdi. Şunu anlamak gerek: Rızalarını alacak değildin, onları ONAY VERMEYE ZORLAYACAKSIN. Varsın kendilerini aldatılmış, dolandırılmış hissetsinler, daha da çok gururları okşanacaktır, çünkü kendin için talep ettiğin her avantaj ONLARDA OLAN BİR ŞEYİ İSTEMEK demektir. Ellerindeki ufak bir ayrıcalığı alınca, sahip oldukları şeyler onurlandırılmış olur.
ARZULAYAN BAKIŞLARINI bu şeylere çevirenler olmasa belki böyle bir onur olmayacaktı.
TEHDİT altında bulunduklarına inanmak, güç sahiplerinin kendilerini EN İYİ hissettikleri durumdur. Ortada bir SARAY DARBESİ ya da SOKAK AYAKLANMASININ hiçbir belirtisi yoksa, bunları KENDİLERİ İCAT EDERLER.
-"Her stratejik sürecin yürütülmesiyle ulaşılan sonuçların tam kesinlikle değerlendirilmesini temel alarak uygulanacak muhalifleri bastırma önlemlerinin belirlenmesi."
Herhalde böyle bir tamlamalar histerezisi ALMANCAdan başka hiçbir dilde görülebilecek bir şey değildi. Bu DÜŞÜNCE DİLİNDE her adıma bir başkasını ekleyebilirdiniz ve bu sadece hala hedefe varmadığınızı ve bir adım daha atmak gerektiğini saptamaya yarardı: Sonunda cümlenin amacına ulaşıldığında kendinizi bir komplolar dizisine öyle dolanmış, belki de SONSUZA kadar kalmak üzere TAKILMIŞ hissederdiniz ki, TÜKENMİŞ halde ve sonsuz bir yorgunluk içinde başladığınız yere geri bakarsanız -sanki bir ÇIKIŞ YOLU BULMA UMUDUYLA durmadan cümlenin sonuna varmaya çalışmışsınızdır da, cümlenin sonu size ASLINDA BİR ÇIKIŞ OLMADIĞINI gösterivermiştir.
-(Berlin-Tren İstasyonu) ...akşamüstüne doğru tünelin dışarı fırlattığı İNSAN YIĞINLARI akıl almaz sayılara ulaşıyor, çıkanlar geniş kaldırımda her zamanki gibi DAĞILIYORDU.
Birden TOPLANIVERSELER, DAĞILMASA- LAR ve birden CADDEYİ İŞGAL ETSELER ne olurdu acaba? Yeterince kalabalıklardı, başkentin etraflarında akıp giden hareketini kolayca durdurmaya yeterdi sayıları... ÇABALARININ AMACI OLAN YAŞAMIN GİDEREK DEĞERSİZLEŞTİĞİNİ birden FARK EDİP onu görmezden gelmeye kalksalar ne olurdu? VE ARTIK BİR DAHA HİÇ DAĞILMASALAR?
-(Berlin) İnsan kitleleri arasındayken, onlardan kaynaklanan ÇEKİM GÜCÜ, ihtiyaç duyduğum mesafeyi korumamı güçleştirirdi genellikle: Karşımdakiler on kişiden fazlaysa, insanları doğru değerlendirme yetim kesinlikle köreliyordu, ayrıntıları algılayamaz oluyor, seslerini ayırt edemiyordum, kısa süre sonra sanki KORO halinde konuşmaya başlıyorlardı... hatta koro halinde düşünüyorlar, bakışları birleşip TEK BİR BAKIŞA dönüşüyor, hepsi aynı yönde hareket eder oluyordu... heyecanları sizi de sarıyordu kolayca, ister istemez aralarına katılıyordunuz ve bu ferahlatıcı bir şeydi. Herhalde onları BİR ARADA TUTAN ŞEYİN emirler değil, KORONUN MELODİSİ olmasından kaynaklanıyordu bu durum.
-TOPLUMDIŞI konumdaki kişiler, iyi pozisyonlardaki vatandaşlara kıyasla DAHA DÜRÜST olmak zorundaydı, KÜÇÜK BİR HATALARI bile bütün YASAMA ORGANINI çıkarabilirdi karşılarına. Öyle süpermarkette hırsızlık filan olması gerekmiyordu bu hatanın, yanlışlıkla banka hesabından fazla para çekmeleri yeterliydi.
-(Doğu Almanya) ...ülkede ÇOK DENENMİŞ BAŞARILI BİR YÖNTEM bu: Ortaya çıkan ÇATIŞMALARI ÇÖZMEZSİN, bırakırsın ESKİSİNLER, iyice yaşlanıp ÖLÜP GİTSİNLER sonunda.
-GERÇEKTEN SÖYLENEN ŞEY zaten genellikle sıradan laf kalabalığının oluşturduğu bir veya daha fazla ÖRTÜNÜN ALTINA gizleniyordu. Peki ama insanların söylediği ÖNEMSİZ SÖZLERİ bilmenin en çok GEREKEN şey olduğu sonucu çıkmaz mıydı bundan? İnsanların RUH HALİ üzerine akıl yürütebilmek için biri diğerinin yerine geçebilen GÜNDELİK şeylerin, GEVELENEN şeylerin, ALIŞKANLIKLA araya KARIŞTIRILAN sözlerin izini sürmek gerekirdi... evet, tam da ASIL KONUYA ilişkin ifadeleri olabildiğince bir kenara bırakılmalıydı, çünkü bunlar TELEVİZYONDA ya da BASILI YAYINLARDA geçen şeylerin TEKRARLANMASINDAN ibaretti, en iyi ihtimalle bunları TAM TERSİNE çeviriyorlardı, yani bu ifadelerin değeri yoktu.
-...KONUŞMALARIN da DEDİKODULAR GİBİ YAYILDIĞINA dair bir kanıya sahipti; bir yerlerde, YÜZÜN MAHREM BİR BÖLGESİNDE ÜRETİLİYOR, sonra belki de konuşurken yapılan şiddetli EL KOL HAREKETLERİ yüzünden oradan SIÇRAYIP fırlıyor veya yelken açıyorlar, BİTİŞTİRİLMİŞ MASALARIN meydana getirdiği bir adadan diğerine geçiyorlardı; anlaşılmaz nedenlerle orada kalamıyor, neredeyse kovalanıyorlar, savrula savrula dolanıp sonunda bir başka grubun (göründüğü kadarıyla tamamen bağımsız bir konuşma ortamının) BİTİŞTİRİLMİŞ MASALARININ, yükselen yoğun DUMAN bulutları ve BİRA kokuları ya da çok sayıda konuşmacının şiddeti giderek düşmekte olan sesleri arasında tutunabiliyorlar, yeniden alevleniyorlardı.
-Bir YAZAR nedir Batı'da? MEDYA TOPLUMUNUN PİYASAYA BAĞIMLI BİR TEDARİKÇİSİ! Kuaför gibi bir şeydir yazar orada, daha fazlası değil... müşterilerinin düşünme alıştırmalarına eşlik eden ve bazen de bunları teyit eden bir KUAFÖR, müşterilerinin başını her şekilde yıkar ama onlara ilişmez, ne müşterilere ne de onların düşünmelerine ve konuşmalarına.
-(Doğu Almanya) NEFRET bu topraklarda filizlenmiş, günlük yaşamın can sıkıcı kabuğu altında serpilmişti... nefret her şeyden önce SONSUZ BİR İLGİSİZLİKTE gösteriyordu kendini ve DEPRESYON halinde çiçek (zehirli) açıyordu.
-(Doğu Almanya) Belli ki bu ülkedeki meseleler hep bunlardı...bütün konuşmalar tek bir konunun vesilesinden ibaretti: BİRİLERİ ÜLKEYİ TERK ETME NİYETİNDE Mİ, DEĞİL Mİ? Bir insan VAROLUŞUNU DEĞERLENDİRMENİN TEMEL ÖLÇÜTÜ olmuştu bu. Niyete yönelik bu soru (KALMAK VEYA KALMAMAK) genel bilince hakim olmuş, üzerine düşünmek bütün bir halkın biricik ortak özelliği haline gelmişti. Bir HAYALET gibi her yerde, toplumun her katmanında hep aynı soru dolanıyordu -tuvaletçi kadının bekleme yerinden Halk Meclisi'ne kadar.
-(Doğu Almanya-Polis şefi Feuerbach) "...ortam TOPLU HAREKETLER denilen gruplara bir hayli yaklaşmış sayılırdı; bunlar SANAT VE EDEBİYATLA SINIRLI ÖLÇÜDE İLGİLİ, öte yandan EKOLOJİ veya ASKERİ HİZMETİ REDDETME gibi konulara yoğunlaşmış ve bunun dışında pek dikkat çekmeyen gruplardı. ...ortamda herhangi bir DİRENİŞİ elle tutulur bir ÖRGÜTE dönüştürebilecek ya da hiç olmazsa aynı çizgide BİRLEŞTİRECEK stratejiye sahip hiç kimse bulunmuyordu. Hem diğerlerini peşinden sürüklemeyi bilen küstah bir ÖNDER, bir guru eksikti, hem de HİÇ BİRİ böyle bir şarlatanın PEŞİNE DÜŞECEK kadar BUDALA DEĞİLDİ. Zaten bana SEMPATİK gelmeleri de bu yüzden!"
(Doğu Almanya-Polis şefi Feuerbach) "...BİRDEN ORTAYA ÇIKIVERMİŞTİ bu ORTAM denen şey, AYNI ANDA BİRÇOK YERDE, kentlerin tamirat için parayı sağlayamayan bölgelerinde; YABANİ OTLAR gibi yıkıntılar arasında büyümüştü, bir an için BAKIŞLARIN YÖNELMEMİŞ OLDUĞU HER NOKTADA. Temel özellikleri ORGANİZASYON YOKSUNLUĞU, KARŞIT GÖRÜŞLÜLERİN EŞİT HAKLARA SAHİP OLUŞU ve HER TÜRLÜ DÜŞÜNCEYE KAYITSIZLIKTI; denebilirdi ki, İDEOLOJİNİN TÜM BİÇİMLERİNE KARŞI İLGİSİZLİK bütün ortamların ortak paydasını oluşturuyordu."
-GÖRMENİN EN İYİ YOLU KARANLIKTAN AYDINLIĞA BAKMAKTIR. Ters Yönde değil.
-YOLDA OLMAK benim özüm. ...KÜÇÜK ADIMLAR denilen şeye yatkınlık benim özümün bir parçası; diyebilirim ki ne pahasına olursa olsun amacına ulaşan insanlardan değilim BEN.
-Bu dünyanın GÜÇ SAHİPLERİNDEN kendine olabildiğince çok şey KOPARIP alabilmek için en hızlı yolun ONLARLA BİRLİK olmaktan geçtiğini bana çok önceden öğretmişlerdi. Şunu anlamak gerek: Rızalarını alacak değildin, onları ONAY VERMEYE ZORLAYACAKSIN. Varsın kendilerini aldatılmış, dolandırılmış hissetsinler, daha da çok gururları okşanacaktır, çünkü kendin için talep ettiğin her avantaj ONLARDA OLAN BİR ŞEYİ İSTEMEK demektir. Ellerindeki ufak bir ayrıcalığı alınca, sahip oldukları şeyler onurlandırılmış olur.
ARZULAYAN BAKIŞLARINI bu şeylere çevirenler olmasa belki böyle bir onur olmayacaktı.
TEHDİT altında bulunduklarına inanmak, güç sahiplerinin kendilerini EN İYİ hissettikleri durumdur. Ortada bir SARAY DARBESİ ya da SOKAK AYAKLANMASININ hiçbir belirtisi yoksa, bunları KENDİLERİ İCAT EDERLER.
-"Her stratejik sürecin yürütülmesiyle ulaşılan sonuçların tam kesinlikle değerlendirilmesini temel alarak uygulanacak muhalifleri bastırma önlemlerinin belirlenmesi."
Herhalde böyle bir tamlamalar histerezisi ALMANCAdan başka hiçbir dilde görülebilecek bir şey değildi. Bu DÜŞÜNCE DİLİNDE her adıma bir başkasını ekleyebilirdiniz ve bu sadece hala hedefe varmadığınızı ve bir adım daha atmak gerektiğini saptamaya yarardı: Sonunda cümlenin amacına ulaşıldığında kendinizi bir komplolar dizisine öyle dolanmış, belki de SONSUZA kadar kalmak üzere TAKILMIŞ hissederdiniz ki, TÜKENMİŞ halde ve sonsuz bir yorgunluk içinde başladığınız yere geri bakarsanız -sanki bir ÇIKIŞ YOLU BULMA UMUDUYLA durmadan cümlenin sonuna varmaya çalışmışsınızdır da, cümlenin sonu size ASLINDA BİR ÇIKIŞ OLMADIĞINI gösterivermiştir.
-(Berlin-Tren İstasyonu) ...akşamüstüne doğru tünelin dışarı fırlattığı İNSAN YIĞINLARI akıl almaz sayılara ulaşıyor, çıkanlar geniş kaldırımda her zamanki gibi DAĞILIYORDU.
Birden TOPLANIVERSELER, DAĞILMASA- LAR ve birden CADDEYİ İŞGAL ETSELER ne olurdu acaba? Yeterince kalabalıklardı, başkentin etraflarında akıp giden hareketini kolayca durdurmaya yeterdi sayıları... ÇABALARININ AMACI OLAN YAŞAMIN GİDEREK DEĞERSİZLEŞTİĞİNİ birden FARK EDİP onu görmezden gelmeye kalksalar ne olurdu? VE ARTIK BİR DAHA HİÇ DAĞILMASALAR?
-(Berlin) İnsan kitleleri arasındayken, onlardan kaynaklanan ÇEKİM GÜCÜ, ihtiyaç duyduğum mesafeyi korumamı güçleştirirdi genellikle: Karşımdakiler on kişiden fazlaysa, insanları doğru değerlendirme yetim kesinlikle köreliyordu, ayrıntıları algılayamaz oluyor, seslerini ayırt edemiyordum, kısa süre sonra sanki KORO halinde konuşmaya başlıyorlardı... hatta koro halinde düşünüyorlar, bakışları birleşip TEK BİR BAKIŞA dönüşüyor, hepsi aynı yönde hareket eder oluyordu... heyecanları sizi de sarıyordu kolayca, ister istemez aralarına katılıyordunuz ve bu ferahlatıcı bir şeydi. Herhalde onları BİR ARADA TUTAN ŞEYİN emirler değil, KORONUN MELODİSİ olmasından kaynaklanıyordu bu durum.
-TOPLUMDIŞI konumdaki kişiler, iyi pozisyonlardaki vatandaşlara kıyasla DAHA DÜRÜST olmak zorundaydı, KÜÇÜK BİR HATALARI bile bütün YASAMA ORGANINI çıkarabilirdi karşılarına. Öyle süpermarkette hırsızlık filan olması gerekmiyordu bu hatanın, yanlışlıkla banka hesabından fazla para çekmeleri yeterliydi.
-(Doğu Almanya) ...ülkede ÇOK DENENMİŞ BAŞARILI BİR YÖNTEM bu: Ortaya çıkan ÇATIŞMALARI ÇÖZMEZSİN, bırakırsın ESKİSİNLER, iyice yaşlanıp ÖLÜP GİTSİNLER sonunda.
-GERÇEKTEN SÖYLENEN ŞEY zaten genellikle sıradan laf kalabalığının oluşturduğu bir veya daha fazla ÖRTÜNÜN ALTINA gizleniyordu. Peki ama insanların söylediği ÖNEMSİZ SÖZLERİ bilmenin en çok GEREKEN şey olduğu sonucu çıkmaz mıydı bundan? İnsanların RUH HALİ üzerine akıl yürütebilmek için biri diğerinin yerine geçebilen GÜNDELİK şeylerin, GEVELENEN şeylerin, ALIŞKANLIKLA araya KARIŞTIRILAN sözlerin izini sürmek gerekirdi... evet, tam da ASIL KONUYA ilişkin ifadeleri olabildiğince bir kenara bırakılmalıydı, çünkü bunlar TELEVİZYONDA ya da BASILI YAYINLARDA geçen şeylerin TEKRARLANMASINDAN ibaretti, en iyi ihtimalle bunları TAM TERSİNE çeviriyorlardı, yani bu ifadelerin değeri yoktu.
-...KONUŞMALARIN da DEDİKODULAR GİBİ YAYILDIĞINA dair bir kanıya sahipti; bir yerlerde, YÜZÜN MAHREM BİR BÖLGESİNDE ÜRETİLİYOR, sonra belki de konuşurken yapılan şiddetli EL KOL HAREKETLERİ yüzünden oradan SIÇRAYIP fırlıyor veya yelken açıyorlar, BİTİŞTİRİLMİŞ MASALARIN meydana getirdiği bir adadan diğerine geçiyorlardı; anlaşılmaz nedenlerle orada kalamıyor, neredeyse kovalanıyorlar, savrula savrula dolanıp sonunda bir başka grubun (göründüğü kadarıyla tamamen bağımsız bir konuşma ortamının) BİTİŞTİRİLMİŞ MASALARININ, yükselen yoğun DUMAN bulutları ve BİRA kokuları ya da çok sayıda konuşmacının şiddeti giderek düşmekte olan sesleri arasında tutunabiliyorlar, yeniden alevleniyorlardı.
-Bir YAZAR nedir Batı'da? MEDYA TOPLUMUNUN PİYASAYA BAĞIMLI BİR TEDARİKÇİSİ! Kuaför gibi bir şeydir yazar orada, daha fazlası değil... müşterilerinin düşünme alıştırmalarına eşlik eden ve bazen de bunları teyit eden bir KUAFÖR, müşterilerinin başını her şekilde yıkar ama onlara ilişmez, ne müşterilere ne de onların düşünmelerine ve konuşmalarına.
-(Doğu Almanya) NEFRET bu topraklarda filizlenmiş, günlük yaşamın can sıkıcı kabuğu altında serpilmişti... nefret her şeyden önce SONSUZ BİR İLGİSİZLİKTE gösteriyordu kendini ve DEPRESYON halinde çiçek (zehirli) açıyordu.
-(Doğu Almanya) Belli ki bu ülkedeki meseleler hep bunlardı...bütün konuşmalar tek bir konunun vesilesinden ibaretti: BİRİLERİ ÜLKEYİ TERK ETME NİYETİNDE Mİ, DEĞİL Mİ? Bir insan VAROLUŞUNU DEĞERLENDİRMENİN TEMEL ÖLÇÜTÜ olmuştu bu. Niyete yönelik bu soru (KALMAK VEYA KALMAMAK) genel bilince hakim olmuş, üzerine düşünmek bütün bir halkın biricik ortak özelliği haline gelmişti. Bir HAYALET gibi her yerde, toplumun her katmanında hep aynı soru dolanıyordu -tuvaletçi kadının bekleme yerinden Halk Meclisi'ne kadar.
-(Doğu Almanya-Polis şefi Feuerbach) "...ortam TOPLU HAREKETLER denilen gruplara bir hayli yaklaşmış sayılırdı; bunlar SANAT VE EDEBİYATLA SINIRLI ÖLÇÜDE İLGİLİ, öte yandan EKOLOJİ veya ASKERİ HİZMETİ REDDETME gibi konulara yoğunlaşmış ve bunun dışında pek dikkat çekmeyen gruplardı. ...ortamda herhangi bir DİRENİŞİ elle tutulur bir ÖRGÜTE dönüştürebilecek ya da hiç olmazsa aynı çizgide BİRLEŞTİRECEK stratejiye sahip hiç kimse bulunmuyordu. Hem diğerlerini peşinden sürüklemeyi bilen küstah bir ÖNDER, bir guru eksikti, hem de HİÇ BİRİ böyle bir şarlatanın PEŞİNE DÜŞECEK kadar BUDALA DEĞİLDİ. Zaten bana SEMPATİK gelmeleri de bu yüzden!"
(Doğu Almanya-Polis şefi Feuerbach) "...BİRDEN ORTAYA ÇIKIVERMİŞTİ bu ORTAM denen şey, AYNI ANDA BİRÇOK YERDE, kentlerin tamirat için parayı sağlayamayan bölgelerinde; YABANİ OTLAR gibi yıkıntılar arasında büyümüştü, bir an için BAKIŞLARIN YÖNELMEMİŞ OLDUĞU HER NOKTADA. Temel özellikleri ORGANİZASYON YOKSUNLUĞU, KARŞIT GÖRÜŞLÜLERİN EŞİT HAKLARA SAHİP OLUŞU ve HER TÜRLÜ DÜŞÜNCEYE KAYITSIZLIKTI; denebilirdi ki, İDEOLOJİNİN TÜM BİÇİMLERİNE KARŞI İLGİSİZLİK bütün ortamların ortak paydasını oluşturuyordu."
-GÖRMENİN EN İYİ YOLU KARANLIKTAN AYDINLIĞA BAKMAKTIR. Ters Yönde değil.
May 12, 2021
'I' takes place during the span of the 70's and 80's in East Germany. The wall hadn't come down yet, but postmodernism had already invaded from the west. Its seed of viewing all foundational ideologies with skepticism took root and slowly grew into what seemed to be the highest ranks of the government; its own totalitarian system stood by passively watching while the postmodern infection (so to speak) took hold. It had certainly infected the protagonist W. (or C., depending), an underground writer (as Hilbig was) and a Stasi informer charged with spying on the "unofficial," or underground, East German literary scene, and his handlers. It also, more consequentially, had infected the literary scene itself, which evidently was a topic near and dear to Hilbig's heart.
Bleak and absurd in equal measures, 'I' is both a unique historical document portraying the dissolution of the East German nation from its "true" perspective, and a work of art that has mapped its own territory, if I may put it that way. Not to be missed.
Bleak and absurd in equal measures, 'I' is both a unique historical document portraying the dissolution of the East German nation from its "true" perspective, and a work of art that has mapped its own territory, if I may put it that way. Not to be missed.
January 11, 2026
A hypnotic, meta-textual dissolution of the self. Not quite a roman à clef, Hilbig explores a sympathetic view of an informer, blackmailed with an invented offense by the Firm, who must infiltrate an underground literary scene to sniff out dissent and defection.
This was quite a long read for me, at just under 300 pages. “Ich” requires careful reading, and re-reading, to fully contextualize time and temporal planes as our unreliable narrator slips between his own life and the reports he writes for his seniors.
This is easily among the most enjoyable and challenging fiction I’ve read in the past few years.
This was quite a long read for me, at just under 300 pages. “Ich” requires careful reading, and re-reading, to fully contextualize time and temporal planes as our unreliable narrator slips between his own life and the reports he writes for his seniors.
This is easily among the most enjoyable and challenging fiction I’ve read in the past few years.
May 24, 2022
This is an incredibly interesting book, I'm so glad I picked it up, I found it amazing. It is, however, very dense with information on every page and, while I loved it, I wish I had picked it up at a point in time that I wasn't so generally exhausted because *boy* did it take a lot of brain power to get through.
January 27, 2022
Izuzetno neprijatna i naporna knjiga za čitanje. Stiče se utisak da je teskoba koju stvara glavni cilj. Beskonačni niz reči, bez početka i kraja. Tri stotine strana ničega, baš kao i izveštaji dostavljani tajnoj službi.
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June 15, 2021Ulideligt kedelig!
December 18, 2021
Smart but awfully unengaging.
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March 24, 2016"Wolfgang Hilbig’s novel, appropriately titled I, addresses the question of individual responsibility during fascist regimes and many similarly knotty quandaries of the human psyche, though within the relatively milder historical epilogue known as the German Democratic Republic. Hilbig’s novel can seem impenetrable. The story follows no conventional sense of chronology and relies entirely on the mental meanderings of a bombastic and unreliable narrator in the middle of a profound existential crisis aggravated by a nonstop bender." - Kristi Steffen
This book was reviewed in the March 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
This book was reviewed in the March 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
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March 4, 2018It's sort of the opposite of hard-boiled; the spy's fractured self is not an absence but an unmanageable stacked palimpsest, and it seems to get something very right about life in a surveillance society.
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