Shane Peterson

Thought Paper � Rilke

12 Sept 2007

In a letter to “his former lover and lifelong confidante, Lou Andreas-Salomé,” Rilke characterizes himself as a “photographic plate that has been exposed too long” (Harris 121). Harris extends the comparison, viewing Rilke’s novel as a “photographic plate that continues to inscribe images and yet can never be complete because the shutter never closes” (135). This relentless recording of images prevents the “editing of the documents into a full and meaningful whole” (135). Because of its “ceaseless opening to the present,” the photographic plate/image—as a metaphor for the novel as a whole—is pitted against the work’s very project: that of recording memories which, like artworks, are “atemporal and transcendant” (125).

Utilizing Kracauer’s distinction between a memory image and a photographic image, Harris posits that the novel is not what it appears. Though Rilke’s Aufzeichnungen is at first glance a collection of memories, the incessant, photograph-like recording of images prevents memory because it distracts with its countless iterations (136). With regards to detail, the memory image arbitrarily “dispenses with extraneous detail” for the sake of comprehensibility (“a cohesive and coherent network of reference”) (139). Meanwhile, the photographic image “remains open to the ongoing data stream and the external, visual trappings of the moment” such that it contains “visual residue” which can obscure “the ‘transparency’ of truth emanating from the memory image” (139). Because Malte’s images are precise but cannot be ordered, they are essentially photographic in nature (139). In this sense, photographic detail is a two-edged sword indicative of a greater problem of modernism: never before has one simultaneously known so much and so little about oneself (139). Photographic detail provides exactness and opulent visual recordings, but this visual inundation obscures understanding due to its lack of selectivity and organization (139). Since the shutter never closes on this literary photographic plate, there is never the opportunity to order and edit experience into a coherent story or memory. Hence, the writer must find new modes of expression since “the traditional modes [of storytelling] rely on memory” which is incompatible with the modern, photographic experience (143). In other words, “Rilke’s text not only registers the loss of the intelligible fullness of experience but performs this very loss through the recording mechanism of the text itself” (144).

Whereas Harris views this mode of incessant photographic inscription in literary form as both a hindrance to (and a performance of that inability to form) traditional stories and memories, Arndal argues for viewing Rilke’s Aufzeichnungen as inherently binocular with their very fragmented nature leading to richer, fuller “Ganzheitserlebnis” (119). Central to her arguments is the supposition that Rilke’s novel is more indebted to art (and specifically painting) than photography for its mode of construction. Arndal asserts that Rilke’s novel was “wesentlich geprägt” from the author’s relationship with Cézanne (121). Besides inserting several of Rilke’s Briefe über Cézanne into the novel with only minor revision, Rilke’s emphasis on seeing also reflects the influence of his art (121) while his Aufzeichnungen bear resemblance to Cézanne’s notable privileging of the foreground and surface of his painting (124-25). Seeing a multiplicity of images is in this case not disorienting but rather the means of creating a more complete view: “Gegenstände treten mit besonderer Plastizität hervor” (119). As parallel lines appear to merge in the distance (115), multiple images gel together to form a unitary vision (119). Like Cézanne, Rilke “geht nicht analytisch vor, mit wanderdem Blick Punkt für Punkt fixierend, sondern bestrebt sich meistens, die Gemälde mit einem das Ganze simultan umfassenden Schauen zu begreifen” (120). By neglecting depth, Cézanne intentionally juxtaposed his work to that of the impressionists in offering a stable reality (124). In Arndal’s reading, the incessant photographic recording of unordered and unedited images does not prevent the formation of a stable memory, but rather creates—like the paintings of Cézanne—a higher level of reality which improves rather than inhibits memory and navigation of the modern, urban experience.

Are memories really atemporal or are they, in fact, more like the photographic plate than Harris admits? That is, are memories ever really complete or are they constantly being rewritten through new layers over time? Does detail distract from or aid memory and comprehension of one’s situation in the modern world? Does a barrage of stimuli prevent or facilitate vision? Is the comparison of Rilke’s novel to the photographic plate or to Cézanne’s painting more convincing?

Works Cited

Arndal, Steffen. “‘Ohne alle Kenntnis von Perspektive’? Zur Raumperzeption in Rainer Maria Rilkes Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift Für Literaturwissenschaft Und Geistesgeschichte. 76.1 (2002): 105-37.

Harris, Stefanie. “Exposures: Rilke, Photography, and the City.” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies 99 (2006): 121-49.

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