PETER
WEISS
229
an interior monologue with assigned voices or if they really are
three
persons: that is one and the same thing and the reader can decide
for himself. One can actually divide it very nicely into three roles.
I did this once but it is not absolutely necessary and one can have
some fun with it if one wants.
ROLOFF:
What impressed me particularly was the solution you found for
narrating these three similar as well as dissimilar, intimately related
stories practically simultaneously, not, as is the custom, one story after
the other, or sections of three stories set off against one another.
WEISS:
Well; I actually did not arrive at this solution. It simply was
this way. I have noticed that the mind works in this manner, at
least in my case, and I assume also in the case of other people. A theme
crops up and something else is added to it and suddenly the same
theme reappears and one asks oneself: is this really the way
it
was,
wasn't it different? And I don't find that particularly origjnal either.
ROLOFF:
I suppose once one has the right solution one isn't surprised
by its originality, and if one is surprised, then ...
WEISS:
Yes. That is the reason for the book's fragmentary nature, be–
cause I wanted to keep it absolutely clear at the end of the book that
the conversation can go on and that what has been said up to that
point has been hints, and perhaps what has been said is right and
perhaps it isn't and everything that is said is constantly taken back
and one is always
in
doubt about what one has said. Everything that
has been said exists within the realm of the possible but it could also
have been different, but one has had something to do with these
matters and they constantly dissolve and disintegrate again and can
be given a new meaning, interpreted differently, but it could also very
well go on and it is by no means impossible that one day I will
continue this conversation. And this idea actually did not occur to
me on my own. Enzensberger told it to me after he had read the book.
I thought he had stated that very well when he said that the book's
fragmentary nature consisted of its being possible to continue the
conversation where I had left off, after ten years' time, in accordance
with new aspects, and that is right.
ROLOFF:
And also because the fantastic, the exaggerated, the "tall tale"
quality permits new aspects to be introduced.
WEISS:
Yes, yes.
It
also interested me from the dramatic point of view.
For example, to what extent the different persons tell stories to each
other and amuse each other and are capable of deceiving and outdoing
each
other, how far one can push something like that, the art of im–
provisation. But at the same time also looked at with a critical eye:
how far can one go, to what extent does it still partake of the possible
