Two Novels: The Stony Heart and B/Moondocks

by Arno Schmidt, John E Woods (Translator)

Taking place in 1954, The Stony Heart concerns a man gathering documents for a study of a historian, and in the course of his search he gets involved with a woman who is married to a man who is involved with a woman, etc.

B/Moondocks has parallel stories, one played out in a rural German town in the late 1950s, and the other on the moon in 1980 (the book was first published in German in 1960).

At the heart of both is an absolute commitment to two things: freeing language from its commonplace prose functions, and Schmidt's ongoing savage attack on the German mind-set and attitude that gave us two world wars in this century.

Genres: Fiction, Germany, Literature, German Literature

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh…” Ezekiel 11:19
The Stony Heart (Das steinerne Herz) is a highly erudite postmodern novel stylized to the romanticism of the first half of the nineteenth century – I even believe that it may be considered as a contemporary counterpoint to Das steinerne Herz by E. T. A. Hoffmann from his cycle Nachtstücke (The Night Pieces). I’ve specially reread this story… “I must stay alone, not a single human heart must incline toward me, everything that is capable of love and friendship bounces off my stony heart.”
In his tale, E. T. A. Hoffmann even mentions the weaver Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, whom Arno Schmidt also used in his title Bottom's Dream (Zettels Traum).
In Arno Schmidt’s novel a coldhearted collector of rare books, pursuing his own selfish and highly mercantile interests, arrives in Ahlden and rents a room in the house of the people he wants to use. But his relationships with these ordinary people trigger an unexpected inner process in his psyche and his heart of stone begins to transform slowly into a heart of flesh…
Being a romantic novel The Stony Heart shows quite a few unexpected adventurous twists and being a postmodernistic novel it becomes a labyrinth of cultural, historical, social, political and literary reminiscences… 

It's quite clear: an outsider can, on principle, only value foreign literature that translates well; the truly great artists of language and the fecund experimenters are inaccessible to him; are usually unknown to him in fact!

One can remain human only if one manages to keep his heart of flesh intact.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Yeah well nevermind nowhere nohow. You won’t be reader enough for Schmidt.

But in case I’m wrong, and taking my position here as the self-appointed Expert On All Things Schmidt (qua Anglo-phone on gr and not a step beyond ! ;; I bow in abject humility before our Resident True Expert, Friend Michael, who has beheld the very presence of Schmidt, the remnants of his very Self as residually available in Bargfeld) I would say, yes, these Two Novels are both somewhat emergent early Schmidt. Stoney Heart, with its book=counter-fitter protag, is perhaps the one more congenial to myself, despite its more meager scope vis-a-vis the wider ranging (from the Earth to the Moon, from the Boonies to the (M)oonies) of KAFF (caps please). BUT, and this is where you should pay attention, --; and really, I have to confess that I don’t advocate, in a general sense, the entry into the WORK of any master via his/her smaller shorter minorer works --; I would, as entry point to the work of this MASTER, suggest his magnificent School for Atheists: A Novella = Comedy in 6 Acts which is muchmuch shorter than the gargantuan (and forthcoming auf Englisch!) Bottom’s Dream which you will be drulling over any day now. Don’t miss the fact that School is available for seriously little $money$.

And as to that ‘reader enough’ comment. Well. Honestly. I said something about Canadian Jeff Bursey not having written a thing that is hermetically Canadian. BUT I do suspect that there is perhaps something, at least more than the occasional trace, hermetically Deutsch about Schmidt (and, as Hegel said about the Egyptians, The secrets of the Germans are also secrets for the Germans themselves). And to make matters worse, what’s German about him isn’t the war=era we all pretend to know about, but about reconstruction and rearmament (looking at you Merkel!), which I’m almost certain is not much discussed in all those books we read about that one really famous guy. It’s an era of German/European history I can’t claim to be familiar with, much. Reading Schmidt one discovers that it was a thing to live through.

But if you want to experience how fiction can still be written post-Joyce, you will want some Schmidt on your shelf.

So but, just a more or less random sample from Stony Heart, this found on page 60, and yes, I am more than happy to have stumbled upon a potty joke.

The dry jakes : was stuck onto the outside, 30 by 30; and cramped my figure, I mean, folks, not fair. The university of the common man; and pitch-dark; I risked a match : but clean. (Only after I had sat and produced did it occur to me : no paper !).

No paper ? ! ! : My hands raced about me; clambered into all my pockets, trousers : ? -- what a situation this was ! : Should I cut off my hair and try it with that, in my watch-case lay a red egg-sized felt disk : for dabbing ? -- oh hell : handkerchief ! And tear off some of my shirt, sure. -- (But then finally I found another notebook, and used every single page : what madness ! How could they possibly not hang something up? !)

Bellowing Karl : “Wellnow, my boy : ain’t no such thing as toilet papah heah ! Didn’t y’ notice from the newspapah : how scahce it is ? !” And I had thought I was going to shop for cheap typing paper in the East! Maybe even some good white cardboard; for the Hanover file. : “But the East used to be the forestry and paper belt !” “Suah, used t’ : used t’ “ he retorted loftily; and she muttered something like < Silesia > : so first you just have to learn bit by bit what the good buys are, and what aren’t.

________________
KAFF auch Mare Crisium pen’d by Arno, transcribulated unto Anglisch by that most honorable and inimitable master of the art, John E. Woods, as M/Boondocks. We used to call it ‘butt=fuck nought noone nowhere ne’er!’

Nought Noone Nowhere Ne’er!

Are you reader enough for KAFF?

Hmmmyes. You’ll want to know. Four Star (I swear I’d seen Five!) ::
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
et Ein einzelnen Stern ::
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I suspect they both have it right ; I mean the review accumpanying -- I’ve a bad habit of consistunt high starrage, at least ‘had’ back in the day when I still wished upon the stars.

Und to bring it all into completionistic paradise :: Single Star’d -- “nach 60 seiten wurde mir klar, dass der autor mich nur verarschen möchte. das buch wurde aus dem hause verbannt, wird im frühjahr zu humus verarbeitet, damit wenigstens irgendetwas praktikables daraus wird.” and Single Star’d again (that makes THREE) -- “Weird, too weird to read.” and FIVE STARS! for the win -- “Fucking great!”

That’s a little review Round=Up! I wanted to do for your convenience be=cause the rest remainder of this screed/review will probably not interest uny of yous. You may move on with your day, your reading ;; permission to by=pass that Like button down there, inflict this thing on the rest of us.

Why knot?

Knot.

Babble like a little brook (it’ll come to Bach!). Left to mumbling really is all nothing knot nohow where?

The Stony Heart: Historical Novel from Anno Domini 1954 is also bound in this volume of TWO novels and I’ll maybe having nought to say about that one either. What is this nought=saying?

Schmidt. Arno Schmidt. One of those Greats. One of those, well, one of those what? Nought never=heard. I know I no!!! It’s really just too much some times. Too much what? What are you trying to be told? Is there a thought in this sentence.

This isn’t really about Schmidt. It’s about me. Always about me. Ever have that?, My tongue got twisted? Cat got it, experiences? I just don’t know what it is here I’m saying either. I’ll blame our Author. I don’t know if he’s therapeutic or harmful. What does Wotan say on these occasions? < The spear that wounds is the spear that heals. >

Tom tells me right now, God hates us all! I asked him once about this and he smiles at me and declares, “God doesn’t hate.” Wotan?

It’s a dangerous time to be in love. Your beloved ; it’s not a matter of reciprocity. The fantasy of making love and vibrating with the cosmos is over. No, the cosmos sees how ugly your beloved is. You’ll have to live with this fact. Your beloved is ugly and they know it. Does love conquer this? Does love endorse this? Does love care? Can love escape into that cosmos? Can love speak?

Sense escaped? Do you follow my thought here? No what I mean.

When your review is owned by amazon, do you do product reviews? You don’t get paid --; do you do book reviews? You’re surrounded by exo=teric folks, why not garbl’dee=gook. Used to be money in that.

What’s it all for, hmmm? God’s dead. Or he hates us all. Either way. What do you do it for? In techno-sprach, that-for-the-sake-of-which? Still with me?

Next paragraph.

You will tell me what I am saying. You understand my words. Feed them back to me. In their true form ;;; their inverted form? Are they still true? still false. Shall I get out of the way in order. In order to allow the book to speak. Or is it me. me! Just imagine, someone would want to hear me! instead of where best to next place their dollors. Donated to amazon. The forrest is dying.

Move on.

.....moving on. --Several days later. Are you still feeling it? I’m hear to say a word or two. About this book. And even with these several days intervening between then and now I still come back. Come back to this question, Are you reader enough for this book? It’s no idle question.

It is Nought Noone Nowhere Ne’er! no=idle question. I’ve been through some rough stuff in my days. This one is rough. No honest fan will tell you otherwise. And this one is rough in that conventional sense.

Do you like this guy? Is there a story here?

< I don’t care. > you might de=clare. I like the punctuation.

Sometimes somedays somewheres punctuation is enough. Just some punctuation. Pleasant punctuation. Othertimes otherdays otherwheres you want a guy you don’t despise. WHY?

And what the hell is going on up there on the moon? Somekind anykind of science-fick=shun? A political portrait of our once future political sit=you=a=shun? Probably. Do you remember < hüsker dü > the 1950’s? Post=war, wasn’t it. Two behemoths rise and we lived with them for many years. So many years that even today we find that we can get along quite not=well at all without two behemoths. Hammers and Sickles may have passed into our past, but Uncle Sam is as belly=cose ; belligerent as ever. God and cuntry they still preach. God and cuntry.

It’s not off course the Other one need fear. It’s them up there and over next to you, the self same who make ourselves We only because we’ve cuntstructed They over there. Ugly. Tell me you won’t tell me they are ugly. When we have sufficient mirrors in supply to inform ourselves about ourselves. I wouldn’t look either!!

Barbarians! --; --; ? --; -----;; “Mirror mirror!” quoth Coover.

Hmmyes. “Guilty!” Now there’s a fine verdict! As you like. We are well informed about the reading of that verdict. The evidence convicts us straight through our hardt! And for that reason of course we’ve got thicker skin that you estimated!! For they --; “We” though isn’t it? --; know nought. Nor no they what they do. What we don’t, that’s what They do and where mostly we should absolutely be most concerned. Because again that mirror mirror ----/; no, we won’t want to look in there. What we see anyways we know already against.

It could go on like this. And promise me though that you won’t blame Schmidt. Promise. I’ll stake all this claim about how it’s not Schmidt it’s me. Knot=you. It might be you. It won’t be me, until next time again.

Where’s my Ned?

At any rate, you maybe now have laid on some kind of diagnosis. The tool=kit is full of it. The question though as always -- isn’t it?; -- perhaps the patient, lying waiting patiently, is the tool your kit is missing? Is itself already the means of diagnosis, anticipates your mastery of it ; brings out the thick-skin in you. Because which is Patient and which is Master. Be careful here. Analysis and diagnosis are probably already done for you. But, listen! Yes perhaps listen! Listen!

< In clear and sparkling water.... > Hmmyes they want to say to me my memory is crooked and < Across a clear brook gentle > is as they tell me I ought to have recalled. But < In einem Bächlein helle >. Fine. I do like mine. I hated it for years. Didn’t you? Ohrwurm worstens extrem! Is singing no=longer required in our edg=you=cashion=all programs? Music? Even literacy gets a second seat these days does it not.

Remember parents complaining about daughters listening to Darling Nikki masturbating with a magazine in some hotel lobby and now that is called Sex Positive. But if the reactionaries (parents! most of them) hadn’t voted against funding --; “TAX”es!!! they call it! ---: education, instead those daughters perhaps maybe had been singing themselves about our trout in her stream. Resenting it of course! but still, becoming cultured. And she would have become a composer! And we would be overrrrun by composers!, composing! MUSIC!!! !!!MUSIC!!! ---; instead we get yet another facile crop of “singer=songwriters” ;; can’t sing, can’t write. Johnny either.

And John Williams ; John f’in Williams is the Composer of our Age!!! O tempora! O mores!

Where’s my Nhed? Yes. Who is N’head? nathandjo!

......-; so here we’ve found ourselves finally again. No neatness. No polish. You do like realism, yes? or do you like it scrub’d a bit, corners and edges rounded? Or ‘grit’ and ‘transgressive’? I just dunno. But let me say real quick=like ; reality is boring. Let me tell you of the way it is in reality. Truth? No, just the bland reality. For truth we’ll have to work a bit. Not too much. But yes we’ll have to bite the bullet, take the bull by the horns, face down ______ in all its unpleasantness and ugliness and ungraspability.

But I feel ya. We want truth. I do. But where to find it? Look here ; truth’s name is Pietà.

Truth’s name is Finnegan.

Truth’s name is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.

Truth’s name is Mona Lisa.

This here, this Schmidt, this Roh Mann Tick!! this is nought noone nowhere ne’er!

[Ronald Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

ZT-Day came upon quicker than anticipated. I honestly thought the release was slated for like October or November, and then all of a sudden I'm getting a shipping notice from Amazon late last week. I had wanted to have read more Schmidt stuff by now, but this year has been weird, and my reading has tanked for a while. But, ZT is on its way (literally on a truck in route to my house as I type this) so I figured I'd at least knock another one of these off.

So, Two Novels. The first - The Stony Heart - would feel right at home with the three works contained within Nobodaddy's Children; in fact, much of what I wrote about it (here) applies; the Woods quote about Schmidt's punctuation usage remains relevant and a prudent reminder/disclaimer/balm to trepadative readers of Schmidt. And yeah, I know that’s not a word. But. Stony Heart. The setting and voice both feel reminiscent of Scenes from the Life of a Faun, and, as with it, there is a (for me at least) period of orientation where the reader has to find their balance in the atypical rhythms of Schmidt’s prose. But, place found, the novel clips along at a brisk pace. The general feeling I got reading this – as noted already – is that Schmidt is doing his own thing, but it is a thing familiar having read Nobodaddy's Children already; his playfulness with words and dialect and punctuation are thrilling in the way that experimental fiction at its best is thrilling, but it did feel like something I’d already read from him.

B/Moondocks shifted that for me though. It’s still obviously and distinctly Schmidt, but the story itself becomes slightly more experimental – the other works I’ve read feel like prosaic fiction written with experimental language, while this begins to feel a bit more like he’s experimenting with more than just language, but also form – and it feels like his writing is in the process of taking a next step. The novel is set in rural Germany (the late 50’s per the Dalkey blurb), and those portions are left aligned on the page (with small indentation along the right-hand side of the page); within those portions a story is being told about a colony on the moon in the 80’s (date range provided in the very amusing notice that opens the novel) which is right aligned (with a small indentation on the left-hand side of the page). This alignment is incredibly helpful, as otherwise there are certainly paragraphs and sections where I would have struggled to firmly place the scene. The “story” portion is directly informed by the interactions of the narrator and listener in the 1950’s portion, with humorous interplay between the texts, and a nice meta-level commentary on storytelling and storybuilding. I had thought through the first third of the novel that Schmidt’s prose had become a bit more constrained in the time between this novel and the other 4 I’d read, but everything becomes delightfully more anarchic in the latter sections, with his subversion of language and complex wordplay becoming prevalent.

I still need to circle back and read the rest of the Schmidt stuff sitting on the shelves at home; this was another great piece of experimental literature: fun and funny. Hopefully ZT is waiting for me when I get home though, and I doubt I’ll let it wait for long.

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say, when my wife and I went to the Strand a thousand years back in September, the day winded down, the stars appearing like thieves in trench-coats, we were astonished to find the complete Woods translationtetraology = for a sum of something like $23.89, including an obscure hardcover, mint condition, Nobodaddy's Children {Ay Schmidtschnapps! Rungring! To Blake!} and while I took these texts around with me awhile, I found myself in a month-long period of literal insanity each time I opened any of the texts. Something seemed hollow. An amplified hollow. I was not reading well enough. I erectionmend one begins with Schmidt's Leviathan, novella, if to begin anywhere. It is not so much gripping, to begin, or enticing, or zwcantlkuyteorjningfastasdfuaweoaweuired, yet it does not require literal focus all the way. Snow, Hitler, Schopenhauer, Apocalypse. Evening Edged In Gold rubbed me the wrong way. I'm rubbed the wrong way to reconsider it. What I'm saying is that Schmidt is an awful lot like anal sex: The horror, the horror! On paper. Yet from both male and female point(s) of view, there is much pleasure attained, intergalactic pleasure, seismic breakdown pleasure, spontaneous nerve-combustion, as the spinal chord snapped in half results in orgasm anyhow, I heard, and with effort, one attains plateaus dodged in even the most famous of universities. Schmidt's work is post-WWII's anal orgasm. < Joyce unveiled Molly = M(a/o)ma > Schmidt reigns superior post Hitler and sets forth the barback calamitylanguages of it twam=all. Note to Mr. O'Brien from Dalkey - Thank you for writing me back and letting me know Bottoms Dream is on hold. I assume you've forgiven me for our tiff o'er my gpeniusramumbles. Or you forgot. I never knew anyway, and cared less. Start slow with Schmidt. Work it up. Loose. Tolerance. Comprehension. A paper bag and the sun. Die with a smile on your face after all. Firstly, live and write however the fuck you please. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::