BETTY FALKENBERG
277
wonder that the rash of Kaspar Hauser plays and films has hit
Germany so markedly of late.]
In
Bernhard plays, the sparse texts
appear as vertical blocks, like stone slabs, unevenly hewn, with lots of
space between.
In
the novels, the horizontal reigns; pages shed mar–
gins; paragraph indentations disappear.
In
terms of his own dialectic,
it is all the same. An empty room can be as claustrophobic as a
Biedermeier parlor. Or, in the words of Pascal, as quoted in the motto
to
Verstorung,
"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies
me." And wherever one is, one is alone.
Author's note: Since the writing of this essay,
Korrektur
has been
published in English by Alfred
A.
Knopf under the title
Correction.
The translation is by Sophie Wilkins.
