Lies

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The lies stories by Martin Walser were published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 1964 and are divided into nine short stories . The foreword of the work describes Walser's work as follows:

“Nine stories, nine suggestions for experiencing reality, both public and twisted. Walser mistrusts everything that is taken for granted, approaches him with language. Doubting is tried out in his stories - on people, things, situations. They are called falsehoods because, instead of imitating them, they fool the world: its possibilities. "

In connection with tales of lies , narratives are often used, but Walser clearly distances himself from this term for his work. Lies are not narratives, but stories because they tell exemplary things. A story leaves out the ground of reality, it does not retold, but is an imitation of reality in various ways. It can be polemical, critical or parodistic. “There are stories [...] which reality does not allow to happen because reality becomes too clear in them; these stories have to be told !! [...] So, lies! ”. So the truth should be disguised as a lie in order to be able to speak it. The story, which Walser likes to draw from his own experiences and then enter into literature, remains hidden as an invention.

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My huge problem

The first story, My Giant Problem, is about a giant named Josef and his companion, who appears in the form of the narrator. He wants to sell his giant and describes him for potential buyers: Josef loves to eat sweets, otherwise he gets sad, he is often homesick, is rather dumb and shy, and maybe a bit stupid. He is actually rather useless and has snapped at his companion, but the giant takes care of him when he is sick. Josef is ambitious when you ask a little of him and especially likes to play with plum stones. This giant is now to be sold, preferably in the next few days, but the offer is always there, the main thing is that it is sold at all. The narrator tries to advertise Josef and waits for offers, because if nobody wants to buy him, he has to lead him to the butcher. At the same time, the narrator claims that it is very difficult to let your giant go once you have him because he looks at you so lovingly.

Obituary for Litze

The story Obituary for Litze is about the journalist Litze, his friend the narrator and their relationship to one another. As the title suggests, Litze is dead and the narrator, who also works as a journalist, reveals a lot about Litze's life and thus creates an obituary. The narrator reports that he is expecting a call from Litze, but Litze never calls. Together with his sister Helga he speculates about the reasons and tries to meet him on the street, but this also ends unsuccessfully. So he visits him at home and the two talk to each other. Litze made him the offer that he should write the obituaries in the local press from now on. One day he visits Litze again, but Litze behaves in an unusual way and appears to be ill. Litze died the next time he visited. He hanged himself. However, the reader does not learn of any motives for this act. The narrator speaks of Litze's death as a sacrificial death as people benefit from it.

Contribute to my end

Participation in my end tells of the visit of a brittle young man named Mozart, in front of whom the host feels inferior. Apparently it is a business meeting, as the visitor analyzes the house, the garden and the host himself and speaks of “his subject”. At first, the host tries to play the older ones in order to exude superiority, but the visitor impresses him so much that he feels insecure in every respect. He describes his four children as a wild horde of six to seven children, as it must probably have that effect on Mozart. The host does not like the presence of the little ones and so he strictly sends them out of the room to appear authoritarian. The meeting is characterized by situations in which the host feels uncomfortable and inferior due to Mozart's judgment. So he often blushes, apologizing here and there for his behavior and for his suddenly talkative neighbor. The story ends with Mozart's departure and the self-reflection of the unusual behavior.

Bolzer, a family life

In Bolzer, a family life is about a married couple, which is always observed Sunday evening of onlookers from the area. They are all standing at the fence on Bolzer's property without knowing each other or speaking to one another. You always observe the same scene: Mr. Bolzer beats his wife with a kind of whip. At first it is unclear whether he beats the woman against her will, but then she takes the whip and also beats her husband. When the two let go of each other and sat down, many spectators seem disappointed and leave the fence.

Cane sugar

Cane sugar begins with the request of a man named Grübel, who would like to be called August Cane Sugar. The whole time his wife shouts: “Nausea, nothing but nausea” when it becomes clear that raw sugar is dead in the coffin and the story tells his confused and almost embarrassing funeral procession. Frau Rohzucker, as she suddenly calls herself, cannot believe her husband's death and harasses the pallbearers. The hustle and bustle of the family, Rohrzucker's predilection for fat blond women and the quarrel between his mother and his wife are described in detail. His mother keeps calling "Horridooo" during the funeral march. Altar servants who "wipe the snot under their noses with agile tongues", as well as stumbling blondes and the dissatisfied mother are described. The deceased cane sugar realizes the whole situation, seems to be thinking and answering, but nobody reacts to him. At the end of the story, it appears that Cane Sugar's mother is going to be buried as well.

A duty in Stuttgart

The short story A Duty in Stuttgart is about a man who actually only stays in Stuttgart because he has to change lanes there. When he stands on the station square and sees a woman packed with shopping falls, he quickly helps her and orders a taxi to take her home. Once there, he is introduced to her friends, only one of whom is named, Hansi or Mecklin. The reader learns that the woman's name is Ursula and that she is married to an architect named Finno Ruckhaber. Ursula seems to be the only one who can talk to Finno about architecture, as she often reads through his plans and specialist magazines at night. Finno is not happy about this, however. Ursula probably talks so much more often that she can spoil entire afternoons. However, the man who helped her at the train station stayed in the villa for nine months without knowing the exact reasons for his stay. All he knows is that Ursula is one of the reasons. Ursula falls ill in February and she drinks tea with him. He secretly pours her powder and rum into the tea so that she passes out. He carries her into the kitchen, where he also turns on the gas tap and leaves the house. The next time he sees Finna and Hansi again at Ursula's funeral. Finally he leaves Stuttgart.

A nice win

A nice victory addresses the narrator's relationship with Mr. Benno. The narrator runs a men's outfitter for sweaters, jackets and shirts, i.e. everything up to the waistline. Mr. Benno is new in town and also opens a men's outfitter, but he sells trousers. The narrator sees Mr. Benno as an enemy, he tries to ignore him first and breaks off contact with any friend who speaks of Mr. Benno. Everyone talks about him so well that the narrator leaves all clubs and friends. Now he only has his wife. He comes up with a way to possibly get rid of Mr Benno: He advertises him so that he gets into higher political offices such as councils and consulates, so that he becomes unsympathetic to the people and the mayor. This does not work either because Mr. Benno does not use his power. He panics and wants to avoid his wife talking about him, so he distracts her and tries to keep her at home. But when his wife wants to go back to town and comes into contact with Mr. Benno, it becomes too much for the narrator. He rips the clothes of his shop out of the store and replaces them with trousers, as Mr. Benno leads them. He comes running into the shop, is happy and hugs the narrator. The narrator's wife also enters the shop, covers up all the mirrors, and approaches them. Mr. Benno takes her hand and she addresses him by the name of the narrator. At that moment the narrator can escape. He can finally escape from the city, with the help of his wife he has outwitted Mr. Benno. In the new town he is opening a gentleman's outfitter again and regularly makes sure that Mr. Benno doesn't open a shop near him.

An unheard of opportunity

The story An Unheard of Opportunity is about a young man who tries to build a circle of friends in Stuttgart. Before that he lived in Göttingen , where he randomly chose friends by addressing many people. When he brought them together, however, they did not get along because all friends had different characters, views and hobbies. Now he wants to do everything better in Stuttgart and uses a different system when looking for friends. He aligns all interests with one another, but has to deny his own past and claim to various friends that he has different professional activities. When he makes a few friendships, however, he quickly realizes that he can never bring them together either, as he is exposed as a liar because he tells everyone different things about himself. One day one of those friends asks him to come over to his house for dinner to introduce him to his acquaintances. As luck would have it, they are exactly the same ones he has just met. He says yes to his friend, but he knows full well that there is no way he can come to dinner. Later that day a war breaks out in Korea and he sees this event as a sign to flee and drives to Munich. There he rents a room from Mrs. Hotz, whose son Gerold went missing during the Second World War. At first rather seldom, but then more and more often she forces him to wear Gerold's things and to live his life. She even speaks to him as Gerold.

After Siegfried's death

After Siegfried's Death is about a group of messengers who meet in the corridor of the workplace a few days after the death of their colleague. You are standing in a semicircle and one is giving a speech that consists entirely of questions. The tone of voice at work as well as the rights and possible obligations of the messenger are discussed. Often the director and the HR manager, i.e. the two management positions, are mentioned. Ironically, those two appear during the speech and cross the semicircle of the messengers. Their spokesman greets them and mentions that the messengers answer revolutionary questions. The director takes this positively. The next day the messengers received a message that from now on they could discuss their revolutionary questions in the company's large meeting room. The messengers also respond positively to this news; their spokesman asks what more they want.

Reviews

One of the greatest critics of Martin Walser's lies seems to be Marcel Reich-Ranicki , who calls this work a “failure”. He not only attacks Walser's talent, which could not really develop in any of his books, but also the individual short stories in the volume. So he criticizes the end of my giant problem . Walser presented a mere description of the giant and, according to Reich-Ranicki, could not find a conclusion that ended the story satisfactorily. In Bolzer too , family life is missing the punchline and a duty in Stuttgart seems to be just a laborious invention. Reich-Ranicki laments the lack of “psychological finesse”, “stylistic flexibility” and generally the reader expects imagination, but is disappointed with the average and banality. According to Reich-Ranicki, Walser shies away from including the historical context. The work evades the present and the historical past, such as the Second World War and the east-west situation . He critically describes this silence as Walser's insecurity, the book as a retreat or almost surrender, as could also be found in other artists' works after 1945.

Rainer Hagen, on the other hand, wrote a short defense for Martin Walser and the title already suggests that he does not agree with Reich-Ranicki. There are some stories that he really likes. So he describes Bolzer, a family life as a successful story about dealing with privacy, which is fictitious, but at least true and has a punch line. A duty in Stuttgart is also a lie, but for Hager the story is told realistically. After Siegfried's death , for him, there is no mere stringing together of questions, but rather a vent, which is expressed through the stylistic means of rhetorical questions . The will and yet the fear of the revolution are represented by it. Hager likes some short stories, not least because of Walser's way of writing. With his uniformly soft and ironic tone, he adds charm to any situation, no matter how terrible, and this is a special quality in literature.

Jost Nolte also comments on Walser's lies and goes into Reich-Ranicki's thesis, which Walser calls a realist who disregards the rules of realistic storytelling. According to Nolte, these rules are observing reality, using language as an instrument and finally perceiving literature as a teaching about life. According to Nolte, these rules were disregarded in lying stories and so he criticized cane sugar as foolish, since the focus is not on the food cane sugar, but on a funeral as a train of fools. He also finds the other stories in this work to be abstruse and even the title, which suggests stories of supposed lies, cannot save the work, because lies pretend untruths as truths. Nonetheless, Nolte begins to reflect on realism and whether it can be produced in different ways than previously assumed. In this way, the realist can observe reality, become aware of it, and a chain reaction of narratives ensues that produces the truth and the untrue as well as the essential and the inessential. After all, he concludes rather positively that the story is a "pleasure in the moment, a feat with moments" and why people are actually outraged by stories of lies and old rules are used.

Reviews from other authors are also mixed. Günter Blöcker writes pensively about Walser: “You only know that he has talent; Talent and little success ”. Positive voices like those from Hermann Bausinger praise the “fantastic, contemporary lies”. Max Frisch wooed the author with the words “exciting writer”, who hid surprises from sentence to sentence and wrote in a way that was not easy to unravel. The tension in the lies and the high level of legibility draw the reader under Walser's spell.

Some critics have compared falsehoods to A Plane Above the House , Walser's first book publication from 1955, which contains the short story Templone's End , which was awarded by Group 47 . Franz Kafka's influence was very dominant in Walser's debut . For some of the lies, however , Rainer Hagen suggests a relationship to ETA Hoffmann , a romantic writer , as ghosts also appear in this one. But at Walser these occur in the form of powerful neighbors and weird rival businesses. Social criticism, as Reich-Ranicki values ​​it in literature, can hardly be found in stories of lies . Reich-Ranicki's comparison with An airplane over the house is to the disadvantage of the lying stories , since they lack conclusive images and symbols.

expenditure

  • Martin Walser: Stories of Lies. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1964. (first edition)
  • Martin Walser: Stories of Lies. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-518-00081-0 .
  • Martin Walser: Stories of Lies. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-38236-5 .

Secondary literature

  • Hermann Bausinger : Realist Martin Walser Laudation on the occasion of the awarding of the Schiller Prize on November 10, 1980 , online, PDF (September 24, 2015).
  • Hermann Bausinger: Laudation for Martin Walser , online (September 24, 2015).
  • Günter Blöcker : Literature as participation. Critical orientations to the literary present . Argon, Berlin 1966.
  • Heike Doane, Gertrud Bauer Pickar: Reading experiences with Martin Walser. New contributions to his texts . 9th edition Fink, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7705-2973-1 .
  • Ulrike Hick: Martin Walser's prose. Possibilities of the contemporary novel taking into account the claim to realism. Appendix: Conversation with Martin Walser, May 4, 1977 . Heinz, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-88099-130-8
  • Rainer Hagen: Small defense for Martin Walser. "Lies" with hidden punchlines . In: Sunday paper, October 18, 1964.
  • Jörg Magenau : Martin Walser. A biography . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-24772-9
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki : Signs of deep uncertainty . In: Die Zeit , September 18, 1964, online (September 16, 2015).
  • Jost Nolte : chain reaction of storytelling. Martin Walser's "Lügengeschichten" - On the errors about an author. In: Die Welt der Literatur 16 (1964), p. 505.
  • Klaus Siblewski : Martin Walser . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-38503-8 .
  • Anthony Waine: Martin Walser . Beck, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-406-07438-3 .
  • Anthony Waine: 'Templones Ende' and Walser's arrival . In: Parkes, K. Stuart; White, John J. (Eds.): The Gruppe 47, fifty years on. A re-appraisal of its literary and political significance . Rodopi, Amsterdam 1999, ISBN 90-420-0677-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Walser: Stories of Lies . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 2.
  2. ↑ Jörg Magenau: Martin Walser. A biography . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-24772-9 , pp. 196–197.
  3. ↑ Martin Walser: Stories of Lies . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 57.
  4. ↑ Martin Walser: Stories of Lies . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 67.
  5. ↑ a b Marcel Reich-Ranicki: Signs of a deep uncertainty . In: Die Zeit , September 18, 1964, online .
  6. ^ A b Rainer Hagen: Small defense for Martin Walser. "Lies" with hidden punchlines . In: Sunday paper , October 18, 1964.
  7. ↑ Jost Nolte: Chain reaction of storytelling. Martin Walser's "Lügengeschichten" - On the errors about an author. In: Die Welt der Literatur 16 (1964), p. 505.
  8. ^ Günter Blöcker: Literature as participation. Critical orientations to the literary present . Argon, Berlin 1966.
  9. ^ Hermann Bausinger: Realist Martin Walser Laudation on the occasion of the awarding of the Schiller Prize on November 10, 1980 , online, PDF . See also: Klaus Siblewski: Martin Walser . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-38503-8 .
  10. ↑ Jörg Magenau: Martin Walser. A biography . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-24772-9 , pp. 199-200.