Quest by Supposition: Johnson's Mutmassungen ÜBer Jakob
1967; Routledge; Volume: 42; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19306962.1967.11754679
ISSN1930-6962
Autores ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 The exception is Hermann Kesten who considers Johnson a “hilflosen Supermanie- risten.” Die Welt, Nov. 25, 1961.2 According to Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Johnson's first novel was “Ingrid Babendererde,” written in East-Germany. It was not accepted for publication there and remains un- published to date. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Deutsche Literatur in West und Ost (Mün- chen, 1963), p. 231–32.3 Reich-Ranicki, p. 231.4 Franz Schonauer, “Uwe Johnson,” Schriftsteller der Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Nonnen- mann (Ölten & Freiburg im Breisgau, 1963), p. 186.5 Reich-Ranicki, p. 237–38.6 Reich-Ranicki, p. 243.7 Gotthart Wunbeig points out that the narrator and the reader align themselves with the figures in the novel in their speculations about Jakob. Gotthart Wunberg, “Struktur und Symbolik in Uwe Johnsons Roman ‘Mutmaßungen über Jakob,‘” Neue Sammlung, II (1962), 445–46.8 Robert Detweiler, ” ‘Speculations about Jacob': The Truth of Ambiguity,” Monats- hefte für deutschen Unterricht, LVIII (1966), 27.—Firstly, Detweiler incorrectly identifies Jakob's place of work as Dresden, which is mentioned once in the novel. Rohlfs attempts to reconstruct for Gesine why Jonas left Berlin after having given a subversive speech: “Irgendwelche nützlichen Hinweise auf Arbeitsstellen hätte er nur von seinen Freunden bekommen können, die hätten versucht ihn wieder unter- zubringen vor meinen sehenden Augen, er aber fuhr zu Jakob, Dresden ist auch eine schöne Stadt. Was wollte er von ihm.” Uwe Johnson, Mutmaßungen über Jakob (Frankfurt/Main, 1959), p. 242 [all subsequent references are to this edition]. The implication is: If Jonas’ purpose for the trip had been to find a new position, he would have not gone to Jakob's city. If there had been no special reason for seeing Jakob, he might as well have gone to Dresden, which is not a bad city either.— Proverbially Dresden is referred to as an exceedingly beautiful city: Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander, Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon (Darmstadt, 1964), I, 697.—We cannot read the text otherwise because we know Jakob's city is 150 kilometers from the Baltic (p. 39), whereas Dresden is more than twice that distance from the coast.— Furthermore, Detweiler has Gesine work in West-Berlin. It is possible that she did so formerly, when she met Jonas. But in October-November 1956 she lives in the Rhineland. As Jakob visits her there–he does not travel to West-Berlin, Detweiler's third error–he meets her as she comes home from work. The route of the bus she uses is along the Rhine (p. 275).–Finally, Detweiler intimates that Jakob returned to the GDR because he was disillusioned with the West. Gesine, however, insists that he never meant to stay in the West (p. 280).—Detweiler's carelessness, though offset some- what by a perspicacious treatment of the political aspects of Mutmaßungen, is evident throughout his essay. One example: Following Wunberg, he sees Mutmaßungen in terms of the labyrinth image. Wunberg warns against pressing the analogy too far, i.e., against applying the labyrinth myth to Mutmaßungen allegorically (Wunberg, p. 444). Detweiler ignores Wunberg's advice: “Somewhere within the labyrinth that Daedalus constructed for King Minos was the monster, the minotaur who devoured those who came to search him out. Somewhere in the autonomous state is the destructive power, born of untruth, that destroys the individual who seeks to encounter it” (Detweiler, p. 30). Detweiler first of all is confused about the details of the myth. Only Theseus searched out the Minotaur. The others were put into the labyrinth by Minos. The Minotaur searched them out and devoured them. Furthermore, Detweiler's argumenta- tion is faulty. He relates his version of the myth to Mutmaßungen by using allegory and symbolism in an inadmissible admixture. If the events in Mutmaßungen were allegorical, Jakob should seek out Rohlfs, who would be hiding in the labyrinth of the state. Clearly, the opposite is true. Rohlfs searches out Jakob. If, on the other hand, the contents of Mutmaßungen are merely symbolized by the labyrinth image, which is Detweiler's stated premise, as borrowed from Wunberg, he may not twist them to accommodate the labyrinth myth–i.e., his version of it–allegorically.9 For a detailed analysis of the role of the narrator in Mutmaßungen, see Wunberg, p. 442–44.10 Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Frauenstädt (Wiesbaden, 1949), II, 234.11 Günter Blöcker, Kritisches Lesebuch (Hamburg, 1962), p. 193.12 Compare Walter Höllerer, “Die Bedeutung des Augenblicks im modernen Romanan- fang,” Romananfänge: Versuch zu einer Poetik des Romans, ed. Norbert Miller (Ber- lin, 1965), p. 344–77 —Mutmaßungen, according to Höllerer, makes use of the “Tat- sachenbericht” as a basis. The events, he holds, are epiphanically permuted in “Augenblicksdarstellung” to maintain their independence of systematization in terms of theoretical presuppositions (p. 369–70; 372). Even the facts in themselves, then, may in Höllerer's perspective be understood as corroborating the notion that our search is not for hard and fast answers, for “Wissen,” but for open end possibilities.13 Significantly, her father claims that she does not want any part of the Americans either. Cresspahl wishes to think of his daughter as being independent of either ideology (p. 124).14 Detweiler, p. 28, is not justified in stating: “[Jakob's] whole existence is run by schedules, tickets, registration offices … . Jakob and his friends function almost as robots in a mechanical world.”15 Wunberg attributes to Jakob's crossing of the tracks an astonishingly intricate sym- bolical meaning: He crosses them as his personal demarkation of the boundary.— “Nachvollzug der Grenze für ihn selbst” (p. 448).—The boundary is to Jakob a measuring device to indicate where things are better: in the West, and where they are worse: in the East. After his return from the West, where matters are not really any better, he is run over, i.e., the measuring device has lost its meaning.—Wunberg's argument is to a large extent predicated on the direction of the tracks as running East-West: “Es ist für den Symbolcharakter der Schienen nicht ohne Bedeutung, daß Jakob sie bewacht [sie] … . Die Schienen laufen vertikal zur Grenze. Die Grenze schneidet sie durch” (p. 447–48). In fact, however, the route controlled by Jakob runs North-South: “Über die Elbe aber … lief seine Strecke weit hinter den nebelweichen Horizont immer an der Westgrenze des Staates entlang” (p. 21). Although Jakob's line seems to merge with the East-West route under his tower to cross the Elbe, the tracks actually form a cross. This oversight of Wunberg's raises questions as to the validity of his argument.
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