Thought Paper

Maggie Stanley

 

Florian Vassen & Christoph Zeller on Rolf Dieter Brinkmann’s Rom, Blicke

 

Vassen opens his essay by defining Brinkmann’s hatred of Rome as a relative anomaly in the European literary context, but the theme of the city--Gegenstand Stadt (82)—as a unifying force in the context of Brinkmann’s oeuvre.  For Vassen, Rom, Blicke is unique among Brinkmann’s city works “in der lakonischen Kombination von Stadt als Objekt und Blick des Subjekts” (82).  Brinkmann robs Rome of time, particularly through the use of the montage.  According to Vassen, the montage—as Vassen classifies the “stillgestellter Nebeneinander” (82) of Brinkmann’s writing—is the means by which the ruined (zerfallend) reality of Rome is destroyed (zerfällen).    Vassen draws upon Henri Lefebvre’s words “Das Stadtgewebe beginnt zu wuchern…” to visualize Brinkmann’s fragmented city of Rome disintegrating into something without form, thus creating a parallel between view of city and the product of writing.  (Thus, Vassen later elides the ruin and loss of form in the city with the end and impossibility of the novel form, not just its destruction but its total negation.)  Further Vassen argues Brinkmann goes beyond critiquing Rome to “die Negation der Metropole als einer leblosen, künstlichen Scheinwelt” ( 83).  Object and subject become interchangeable. 

 

Vassen posits two ways of seeing in Rom, Blicke:  First, a distanced look that is fragmentary and cold and a second sort of looking that is almost panicked in nature; it is ravenous and engulfing.  Curiously (and perhaps inadvertently), Vassen employs the language of the camera to describe both types.  “Der kalte Blick” records like a “Kamera-Auge” (camera eye) and “der gefrässige Blick” concerned with “blitzlichtartige Ekstasen” (flashbulb-like frenzies).    Vassen does  not really explain the functioning of these types nor does he provide examples, but states instead that Brinkmann uses types of looking without awareness: “gelingt es Brinkmann jedoch nicht, einen Blick auf seinen Blick zu werfen” (84).  This idea informs Vassen’s final discussion of genre, which does little to account for Brinkmann’s use of ‘real’ images. 

 

The transition to Zeller’s essay on “Unmittelbarkeit” seems to offer more promise in terms of addressing the photographs, maps and other visual material Brinkmann incorporates.  Zeller opens with a detailed description of the collage on page seven:  With its partially opened door, train station in moonlight and caption “What are you waiting for?” it is “romantisch, nicht wenig bemüht und aufdringlich” (43).  All of this “wäre da nicht der Text” (43).  This lone address of the visual in Zeller serves to stage his main point, that is, the tension between image and text makes Brinkmann unreadable:  “zu einer Erkundung des Ungewissen” (43).  Image functions “als Antagonismus zum Geschriebenen” (43). 

 

Dividing his essay into four parts (Abschied/Gegenwart/Sinnlichkeit/Künstlichkeit), Zeller spends much more time contextualizing Brinkmann’s Rom, Blicke in the literary-historical.  While Vassen sees Rom, Blicke as united with Brinkmann’s earlier work through the thematic of the city, Zeller is more careful to chart the changes from Brinkmann’s writing in the 1960s (when he was one of the “heimlichen Stars” of the student movement) (45) to that post-1970 (when with his political distance and changing portrayal of the individual came accusations of “faschistoide Züge”) (46).  Not unlike Vassen, Zeller also discusses ideas of disintegration and form.   Where Vassen equates the falling apart of the city to the destruction of the novel form, however, Zeller uses form more broadly, suggesting that “die Auflösung des Subjekts … bedingt die Auflösung der Form” (58).    

 

Finally, Zeller explains how “Unmittelbarkeit” functions.  Brinkmann writes, it is “die Augen aufzumachen und zu begreifen, jede Einzelheit auf einmal” (RB 36).  So Zeller, “Sehen und begreifen stehen ... in unmittelbarem Zusammenhang, begründen den Transfer des Objekts von der imaginären Bearbeitung zur buchstäblichen Begrifflichkeit und zur Schrift“ (55).  Still, I’m not sure this accounts for the ability to perceive many details in one moment of looking, an idea that reappears often in Rom, Blicke and also seems to have to do with the relationship between looking and time.  For example, Brinkmann writes:  “Ist Dir schon mal aufgefallen, wie irrsinnig zerstückelt die Gegenwart ist, wenn man einen Augenblick auseinandernimmt in seine einzelnen Bestandteile und sie dann neu zusammenfügt?“ (14).

 

Vassen uses the term montage to describe the way in which Brinkmann writes.  Zeller uses montage to describe one of Brinkmann’s many pages of collected visual material.  Do we agree with these descriptions?  In particular, is Vassen’s description of the montage as a way in which Brinkmann renders Rom “zeitlos” an effective one?  Is the relationship between image and text as antagonistic as Zeller describes it? 

 

 

Articles:

 

Vassen, Florian.  “Die zerfallene Stadt - der "zerfällende" Blick. Zu Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns wuchernder Großstadtprosa ‘Rom, Blicke’.” La ville: du réel à l'imaginaire. Colloque du 8 au 10 novembre 1988. Jean-Marc Pastré, ed.  Publications de l'université de Rouen, Nr. 162. Rouen: 1991, 81-89.

 

Zeller, Christoph. “Unmittelbarkeit als Stil. Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns ‘Rom, Blicke’,” Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik 2 (2001): 43-62.