PETER WEISS
227
cation of each of these experiences so that intensities are set off against
each other.
WEISS:
Yes, that is right.
It
is a very subjective book because the various
experiences are highly subjective. And because this was the case the
form became very important: one brings everything into this form, and
that is why this great closed block is so important as the main form;
also the manner in which the themes are treated and varied, that
certain themes recur, that certain situations keep recurring. As far
as I was concerned, the book was very carefully planned and worked
out, also from the subjective point of view, thinking of it as a whole,
a closed composition with very definite themes and a very definite
development of individual themes, relationship to the father figure,
mother figure, relationship to sexuality, relationship between artistic
work and personal life . . .
ROLOFF:
And also the relationship to what might have been had one
not emigrated.
WEIS S :
Yes, that too is a theme.
ROLOFF:
One which recurs in
Fluchtpunkt,
and I look upon
Fluchtpunkt
as the story of a man's very consciously willed self-isolation, an extreme
form of withdrawal,. that is if I may read the book as an autobiography.
I am not sure to what extent I may do so.
WEISS:
Yes. Of course one can't write about something one hasn't ex–
perienced .oneself. But I made the attempt in
Fluchtpunkt
to develop
a very particular figure of the time and to embody in this figure what
I felt was typical of that time.
ROLOFF:
A very particular type of emigrant then, one who withdraws
entirely from any sort of engagement, in contrast to several other
figures who are dedicated, or were at one point but who, once they
are in emigration, commit suicide, perhaps because they have staked
too much on their political hopes, whereas this man actually relied
only on himself.
WEISS :
Yes. Despite the fact that this
is
also shown to be a weakness,
that is, that lack of engagement is also felt as a deficiency. That is sup–
posed to become evident.
ROLOFF:
Yes. One can hardly say of this man that he was merely a
misfit and did not get along in the society of other men. He withdraws
from it completely.
WEISS:
What mattered to this man was self-realization and nothing else,
to battle against outside resistances, to do only that which he felt
corresponded to his inner self. And actually this book was intended
as a trilogy.
Fluchtpunkt
is the first two volumes and in Volume Three
