NOTES FROM GERMANY
"This countryside is too romantic; I can't take it," said
Wolfgang Hildesheimer to Giinter Eich as they walked' over the wooden
bridge to the Pulvermiihle (Powder Mill), a big bam of an inn hidden
away among the rocky woodlands of Franconia. It was here that
Wackenroder walked with Tieck 175 years ago. Their conversations,
later recorded in letters, are among the first documents of German
Romanticism. And it was here that Group 47, who met in 1966 at
Princeton, New Jersey, and the year before at Sigtuna, Sweden, was
holding its twentieth anniversary meeting.
Hildesheimer's remark could be taken as a barometric reading of
the "Kahlschlag" (starting from scratch) generation's attitude of rejec–
tion of the whole German romantic movement, a reaction which is to
be understood politically as well as aesthetically. Just how far German
literature has moved from the emotionalism and irrationalism of that
movement, and from the dire excesses to which they led, could not be
better measured than on the texts that were read at the Pulvermiihle
during the three-day Group session.
The procedure today is the same as it was twenty years ago. Hans
Werner Richter, Group initiator and presiding officer, calls on writers
who have brought along manuscripts to read. (Suggestions about read–
ings can be made by other Group authors, publishing-house editors, or
the writers themselves can apply
to
Richter directly.) There is no
priority in the selection and no one knows in advance who will be
called on to read. All texts read' at the sessions must be unpublished.
After each reading (roughly 10-20 minutes) there follows a period
of discussion (roughly
Y2
to
%
hour). The Group's Golden Rule is that
the author himself is allowed no further word. Texts are supposed to be
judged on the basis of literary merit alone. For one thing, how close do
they come to the authors' own intention. The Group does not represent
any
literary "school" -
its
most representative members have
virtually
nothing in common stylistically - yet at the end of any given three-day
session certain marked trends are apparent, and looking back over the
