Kundic dishes

Kundisches Tableware is a short story by the German writer Arno Schmidt (1914–1979), which he wrote in May 1962. In 1964 it appeared in the anthology Kühe in Halbtrauer , which was published by Stahlberg Verlag. A reprint appeared in 1970 in a Fischer paperback called Orpheus . In 1987 it was published in the Arno Schmidt Foundation's work edition by Haffmans Verlag (Bargfelder edition) in the Rural Stories Collection .

content

A visit to the countryside is reported. The narrator is a writer and translator, (Carl-mit-C), who has traveled with a couple of friends (Karl-mit-K and his wife Ida) in the car to visit the wealthy homeowner Martin. At the time of this visit, a young relative of Martin, Fräulein Seidel, a budding psychoanalyst, who is writing her dissertation on the subject of "The unconscious depiction of physical stimuli in literature", is living in Martin's house. After a morning conversation for two, Carl and Fraulein Seidel eavesdrop on Karl and Ida who have stayed in the car. You hear Karl tell of a dream in which he tried in vain to get onto a vacant space on the rear bumper of an old car. At breakfast together, Karl repeats his dream, which Ida interprets as an expression of Karl's wish to visit an old aunt who lives near Dresden on her (today's) birthday. On a walk, Miss Seidel (when asked for her opinion) interprets the dream as a representation of Karl's unconscious desire to coit with his aunt a tergo. The walkers find a balloon that has gone up during a competition in Holland. When they return home, Karl and Ida urge them to leave because they feel irritated by Fraulein Seidel's presence. Carl joins them to escape the erotic fascination that emanates from the androgynous psychoanalyst. Carl leaves Fraulein Seidel his portable typewriter with a brief greeting. After a while, Fraulein Seidel sent him the prize of the balloon competition: two dolls in Dutch costume. The sender's note informs him about the correct spelling of the name A. Seydel.

people

• The narrator, Carl-mit-C, is a writer and translator, a man of many knowledge on the threshold of the resigned third age, who describes the events with aloof irony.

• Karl-mit-K is a gardener and is portrayed as clumsy and uneducated. Carl and Karl form a complementary unit, like the two "half-old men" from "Cows in Half Mourning", which are to be thought of as split-off partial existences of a "full circle".

• Karl is married to Ida, who, in her bourgeois, mendacious manner ("very little mouthful = smooth tongue") is the perfect complement to Karl's lack of need. Karl often fiddles with secateurs from the pre-war company “Kunde & Sohn”, which means a lot to him.

• Martin, the rich house owner, is said to have an old journeyman mentality. He lives from the fact that from time to time he sells properties in Hamburg that he owns.

• Fräulein Seidel is a psychoanalyst in training, an "orphan", daughter of "some distant former cousin" who is allowed to live with her uncle Martin while her dissertation is being written. Her appearance is repulsive ("the face!: Broad & red marbled"), her mind is quick and sharp, Carl-mit-C rates her as mentally equal and feels something like fascinated disgust towards her. Their performance is equated with the "high-performance tool", the secateurs in Karl-mit-K's hand. “She was probably the most important of us. At least the most powerful CUSTOMER DISHES Everything steeled "In addition, she is bisexualized by repeated masculinizing attributes, a feminine suffix is ​​added to a masculine basic word (" Zeitgenössin "," Klare Köpfin "," The idol with the iron hand "," Judicatrix "etc.)

• The four elders went to school together for 9 years and haven't seen each other for nine years. The pregnancy number “9” mentioned twice means that the persons are to be understood as a unit that comes from the womb. The names of the people are linked to the author Arno Schmidt through anagrammatic relationships: the letters of their names are predominantly taken from the name Arno Schmidt. For Fräulein Seidel, this only becomes apparent at the end of the story, where her correct name is “A. Seydel "is given, a name whose first letter AS corresponds to the abbreviated name" Arno Schmidt ". In Sitara, Schmidt describes Karl May's process of creating people: “Because MAY had probably joined two imaginary companions throughout his life; (more correct: 2 characters = partners split off, personified, and then, according to ancient poetic custom, fattened them with their own blood); "

Themes and motifs

The dominant theme of the conversations between Fraulein Seidel and Carl-mit-C is "The unconscious depiction of body stimuli in literature". This is what Fräulein Seidel's dissertation is about to deal with, and the dream reported by Karl-mit-K fits perfectly into Seidel's research project, since, according to her interpretation, it was triggered by a physical stimulus. The entire story seems to be conceived by Arno Schmidt as a prime example of this "depiction of body stimuli", since the narrator hides his affection for the young woman in unconsciously controlled verbal approaches, which are reciprocated by the same approximate responses from the psychoanalyst. The rapprochement culminates in the exchange of presents, carried out from a safe distance: Carl-mit-C gives Miss Seidel his portable typewriter, he in turn receives from her the prize of the "Ballonwettstrijds", the two little dolls in Dutch costumes. The details of the symbolic representations of the unconscious wish in the dream are discussed in detail between Carl-mit-C and Fraulein Seidel. Individual motifs that are repeated in variations do not appear in expressive words, but only as representational elements, for example the “gap” (on the rear bumper of the old car in the dream), as open scissors, as a comma in a row of names, as a “space bar "On the typewriter when Y in the name" A. Seydel ”etc. Another obscured theme is gender ambiguity, the presence of male and female tendencies in a person. This topic is discussed in the tomcat “Conte Fosco”, in Karl-mit-K's secateurs, the “Kundischen crockery”, in the form of the psychoanalyst, in the balloon ascended in the Netherlands that the walkers find in the forest and in those mediated by him two dolls shown in Dutch costume.

Reality quotes

Many of the details in the narrative are taken from the author's everyday life. The 8th chapter in the “Marbach Catalog” deals with Schmidt's relationship to the worlds of things in his surroundings under the title “Sublime = petty everyday things” and describes the adoption of such things in the narrative context of Schmidt's works. The most significant of these quotes from reality in “Kundisches Crockery” is Karl-mit-K's dream, which Arno Schmidt took over into the narrative from his own dream protocols with just a few changes of words and names.

A sign with the inscription “ANGELN VERBOTEN / H. SINGER RÄDERLOH”, as mentioned in the story, really existed in the area around Bargfeld, as photos from the 1960s show. The balloon also has a model in reality, as the letter from the “Ring Verkoop System” to “De Jongheer Arno Schmidt” found in Arno Schmidt's estate attests. Karl-mit-Kas secateurs must have had a real role model, because the company "Kunde und Sohn" still exists today as a manufacturer of high-performance gardening tools. The two dolls in Dutch costume were also kept in Schmidt's household.

reception

Reinhard Finke made a first approach to the narrative. He tries to identify motifs from Greco-Roman mythology, especially the Isis-Neith theme, which Arno Schmidt has also dealt with in other works, in the story. Ralf Georg Czapla has continued and expanded these attempts . Ulrich Goerdten polemicized against these views and interpreted his essay “Issis zu believ?” As an alternative based on a different understanding of the narrative. He regards the narrative as a psychographic painting of a fundamental fact of the author. He avoids a comprehensive overall interpretation, limits himself to the investigation of the motivic overdetermination and interweaving of scissors, name (Seidel / Seydel) and figure and calls for new attitudes and methods of investigation, without which all interpretation and interpretation would be "negligent and subaltern" in his opinion.

literature

• Reinhard Finke: "Kundisches dishes" - no concept? A contribution to the use of mythical patterns by Arno Schmidt. In: text and criticism 20 / 20a. 3rd ed. Munich 1977, pp. 33-47.
• Reinhard Finke: "The Lord is an Author" : The connections between literary and empirical self in Arno Schmidt. Edition Text + Criticism, München 1982.
• Ralf Georg Czapla: Myth, Sex and Dream Game . Arno Schmidt's prose cycle “Cows in Half Mourning”. Igel Verlag Wissenschaft, Paderborn 1993. (Literature and media studies 15.) Darin S. 188-208: The Egyptian Isis myth in Kundisches dishes .
• Marius Fränzel: "It's human." . An approach to Kundian crockery . In: Zettelkasten II . Essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers 1992. Ed. Martin Lowsky. Bangert & Metzler, Wiesenbach 1992, pp. Xx-xx.
• Ulrich Goerdten: Issis too believable? About a motif connection in Arno Schmidt's story "Kundisches Crockery" . In: Bargfelder Bote Lfg. 100, 1986, p. 25ff. Also in Goerdten: Arno Schmidt's "Rural Stories" . Six interpretations. Bangert & Metzler, Wiesenbach 2011, pp. 67–103 ( series of publications by the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, Volume 9).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arno Schmidt: Rural stories. Bargfelder edition, group of works 1, vol. 3. Haffmans, Zurich 1987, p. 374
2. ↑ Ibid., P. 373
3. ↑ Ibid., P. 37
4. ↑ Ibid., P. 37
5. ↑ Ibid., P. 391
6. ↑ Arno Schmidt: Sitara and the way there. A study of the nature, work and effects of KARL MAY. Bargfelder issue III / 2, p. 176.
7. ^ Arno Schmidt: Rural stories. Bargfeld edition, group of works 1, vol. 3. Haffmans, Zurich 1987, p. 375
8. ↑ “Arno Schmidt? - Of course! ”An exhibition by the Arno Schmidt Foundation Bargfeld in the Schiller National Museum in Marbach am Neckar. Marbach: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 2006, pp. 183-202
9. ↑ Arno Schmidt: If my grandmother had wheels. Dream, (January 22nd, 1962, towards morning). In: Traumflausn. Collected and provided with an afterword by Bernd Rauschenbach. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp 2008, pp. 114–118
10. ^ Arno Schmidt: Rural stories. Bargfeld edition, group of works 1, vol. 3. Haffmans, Zurich 1987, p. 387
11. ↑ Der Rabe, No. 12, pp. 74–75. Apparently also a popular collector's item for Schmidt enthusiasts.
12. ↑ Der Rabe, No. 12, p. 126
13. ^ "The Dutch doll, the prize in the balloon competition. Photographed in 1967 by Jörg Drews". In: Arno Schmidt (1914–1979). Catalog of life and work. Compiled by Axel Dunker with the help of the Arno Schmidt Foundation. Munich: edition text + kritik 1990, p. 102
14. ↑ Reinhard Finke: “Kundisches Crockery” - No concept? A contribution to the use of mythical patterns by Arno Schmidt. In: text and criticism 20 / 20a. 3rd ed. Munich 1977, pp. 33-47
15. ↑ Ralf Georg Czapla: Myth, Sexus and Dream Game. Arno Schmidt's prose cycle “Cows in Half Mourning”. Igel Verlag Wissenschaft, Paderborn 1993. (Literature and media studies 15.) Darin S. 188-208: The Egyptian Isis myth in Kundisches dishes
16. ↑ Ulrich Goerdten: Issis too believable? About a motif connection in Arno Schmidt's story "Kundisches Crockery". In: Bargfelder Bote Lfg. 100, 1986, p. 25ff. Also in . Goerdten: Arno Schmidt's “Rural Stories”. Six interpretations. Bangert & Metzler, Wiesenbach 2011, pp. 67-103. (Series of publications by the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, Volume 9)
17. ↑ Ibid., P. 102