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BETTY FALKENBERG
past twenty years of German literature, one can fairly say that every
stylistic novum has had its spokesman, if not in fact its originator, here.
Very often the most perceptive criticisms corne from other authors.
Giinter Grass and Martin Walser not only listen with an almost voracious
attentiveness, they are among the most critically articulate members of
the Group. Immediate, spontaneous criticism is an art in itself, and
while one can admire the brilliance of formulation and the seeming
sureness of these quick judgments, the dangers are all too evident.
The first day's readings were almost as depressing as the Princeton
crop. Reinhard Lettau coined the phrase "Mutmassung Stil" (Let's
suppose ... ) to describe the most frequently used technique. One could
equally have termed it ''Gantenbein Style" - it is the closest Germany
has come to the antinovel, although qualitatively it rarely measures up
to its French model. In the hands of a mediocre craftsman, it is tedious
beyond words - endless details and speculations linked together in a
purely additive fashion.
By far the most striking (in a two-fold sense, both visually and
acoustically) reading was given by the red-haired, Lilith-eyed Renate
Rasp. Miss Rasp has just completed her first novel, a nightmare tale of
the misguided efforts of the parents of a child raised as a tree. One thinks
of Arcimboldo, or of Alfred Kubin at his most gruesome. What Miss
Rasp read was poetry of obsession, at times confession, but always
objectivized and always cut down in statement to a bare minimum. The
"alienation" effect is achieved mainly through an uncompromising use
of infinitive constructions. It is a curious coincidence that Miss Rasp
shares so many obsessions with the late Sylvia Plath. Her brothel for
women with mechanical dolls instead of men recalls "The Applicants";
her white meat on the butcher's board makes one think of "I am red
meat"; and even her poem about insatiability recalls Plath's "And I
eat men like air."
In a poem about a village exhibitionist, Miss Rasp achieves a
dazzling effect by juxtaposing the horror of his long dangling penis, by
which the village children pull
him
around the yard, with his aura of
respectability - indeed by making him the very emblem of cleanliness: he
is the owner of two laundries.
This was the starkest, most uncompromising verse heard in these
parts in a long time. Miss Rasp's debut at the Group was celebrated
as the sensation it was. Whether her range will prove as broad as her
themes are intense seemed doubtful even to
the
most enthusiastic
critics. But obsession is by definition exclusive.
The Prize of The Group 47 was awarded to Jiirgen Becker for
readings from a new work called "Rander" (
Margins).
Becker has read
at the Group before, with varying response. Three years ago he received
