Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box RICHARD E. SCHADE U NIVERSITY OF C INCINNATI The images on the dust jacket of Günter Grass’s Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten (2008) 1 depict the author’s drawings of an Agfa box camera (front) and of a lively female figure in profile, arms extended, legs dancing even while snapping a photo (back). The two images coupled with the title citation and author’s name partake of an intermedial dialog, one suggesting that the act of photographic representation is linked to narration. The black and white words on the printed page of the published text describe a segment of reality just as the image framed by the camera’s viewfinder documents the world. In a sense, the text is but a photograph. The first sentence opens with the formula of folktales and the subsequent paragraphs set the scene: «Es war einmal ein Vater, der rief, weil alt geworden, seine Söhne und Töchter zusammen […] Um einen Tisch sitzen sie nun und beginnen zu plaudern: jeder für sich, alle durcheinander, zwar ausgedacht vom Vater und nach seinen Worten» (Box 7). The eight adult children are named as they settle in for a meal cooked by the father, Günter Grass. None of their mothers is present. One daughter has brought photos along - «die sie zu ordnen versucht» (Box 8). A microphone is switched on, and the conversations of the children, which were actually composed by the father, commence, imparting order to past memories. Their reminiscences center on their father, who sits among them listening, and the ventriloquised conversations make up the nine chapters of Grass’s Dunkelkammergeschichten, an introductory chapter plus one for each child. Die Box is an idiosyncratic memory text and sequel to Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (2006). 2 In that controversial bestseller Grass admitted to having been motivated by a confessional urge - «Und auch dieser Grund sei genannt: weil ich das letzte Wort haben will» (Zwiebel 8), one that might generate verifiable truth - «niedergeschrieben klingt sie glaubhaft und prahlt mit Einzelheiten, die als photogetreu zu gelten haben» (my emphasis), but one that also tests the limits of truth: «Was vor und nach dem Ende meiner Kindheit geschah, klopft mit Tatasachen an […] will mal so, mal so erzählt werden und verführt zu Lügengeschichten» (Zwiebel 9-10). For Grass, autobiographical writings are situated somewhere between photographic verisimilitude («pho- CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 169 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 169 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 170 Richard E. Schade togetreu») and untruths («Lügengeschichten»). Like the first memoir, Die Box is a creative amalgam of the factual and fictional. Having said as much, in this paper I explore these three categories - photography, family, fiction - more completely, for it is my sense that scholars have overlooked, even trivialized Die Box. While Stuart Taberner’s article 3 (to this date one of the only exhaustive discussions) has not done so, his attempt to subsume the work under an overarching notion of private and public shame largely diverts interpretive attention from Grass’s apparent intent to link his memory text, an Alterswerk, to diverse motifs and issues long present in his writings. I. This literary instrumentalization of photography is hardly a singular instance in Grass’s Gesamtwerk. Most famously, Oskar Matzerath commenced his autobiographical project with sufficient paper, a fountain pen and photo album: «Zehn Blatt zählte ich ab, der Rest wurde im Nachttischchen versorgt, den Füllfederhalter fand ich in der Schublade neben dem Fotoalbum: Er ist voll, an seiner Tinte soll es nicht fehlen, wie fange ich an? » 4 The answer to this rhetorical question comes in a chapter titled «Das Fotoalbum» (Blechtrommel 56-71). Oskar had rescued the treasured album as he fled Danzig at the end of the war, and it now serves him as a record of his past, as a visual reminder as he sets pen to paper: «Was auf dieser Welt, welcher Roman hätte die epische Breite eines Fotoalbums? » Oskar queries (Blechtrommel 56). For page after page of the chapter, Oskar describes fading and tattered snapshots, photographs tracing his lineage, to include a snapshot of himself as an infant lying on a polar bear pelt (Blechtrommel 59). In this instance, the novel’s text links Oskar directly to Grass, for it describes the first photo of the author himself. 5 Fiction reflects autobiography and the photographic medium supports the literary message. More recently, the linkage of photography to documentation of the past was thematized in Mein Jahrhundert (1999). 6 In chapters 1939-1945, the history of World War II is told from the vantage point of former war correspondents, one of them a photographer. They have gathered at the North Sea resort Sylt in February 1962 for a three-day reunion. Grass fashions their putative musings and altercations: «Wir kannten uns seit einundvierzig […] Seine Wüstenfotos und meine Berichte […] wurden im ‹Signal› groß rausgebracht und fanden ziemlich Beachtung» (Jahrhundert 148). That the unnamed narrator and his associate, identifiable as Paul K. Schmidt (1911-1997), had their work published in Signal, mark them as contributors to the Nazi propaganda magazine modeled on LIFE, a high quality, richly illustrated popular pub- CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 170 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 170 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 171 lication sponsored by Ribbentrop’s Aussenministerium for dissemination in countries conquered by German armies. - And elsewhere, a photographer identifiable as Heinrich Jöst, the soldier whose images of life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto - «‹Aber am berühmtesten ist auch nach dem Krieg ein Foto geworden […] Im Vordergrund ein süßer kleiner Judenbengel mit verrutschter Schiebermütze›» (Jahrhundert 154-55) - illustrated the so-called Stroop-Bericht, complains that he was never honored as a witness to history. - Finally, the elder Tulla Pokriefke of Im Krebsgang (2002) 7 is said to lament the loss of her parents and familial photos in the wintertime 1945 sinking of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff: Tulla Pokriefke sollte das Fotoalbum und ihre Eltern nie wiedersehen. Das schreibe ich [her son Paul] in dieser Reihenfolge auf, weil mir sicher zu sein scheint, daß der Verlust des Fotoalbums für Mutter besonders schmerzhaft gewesen ist, denn mit ihm sind alle Aufnahmen, geknipst mit der familiären Kodak-Box, verlorengegangen. (Krebsgang 109) These few examples from Grass’s writings illustrate the relevance of the photography motif to his literary imagination, 8 a characteristic somewhat analogous to his life-long fascination with film - «Doch im Grunde meines zelluoidsüchtigen Herzens bin ich schwarzweiß imprägniert. Kino ist für mich eine in unendlich vielen Grautönen abgestufte Offenbarung.» 9 In the current context, however, it is particularly significant that he recognizes photography as a medium crucial to the fashioning of his self-image, a fact thoroughly documented in the pages of Fünf Jahrzehnte. Ein Werkstattbericht (2004). 10 The coffee-table volume presents a variegated panopticum of Grass’s life in 471 pages, and the entire spread opens with a grainy snapshot of Grass in Düsseldorf in 1948 and closes with a full-page photograph of him and his wife Ute in 2004. The carefully constructed image of the earnest twenty-yearold presents him as a stonemason, a trade central to Germany’s postwar recovery, while the latter photograph is of a pleasantly satisfied husband and wife at rest in the sunshine. It is an altogether fitting pose for the end of the Werkstattbericht, a volume featuring some eighty photographs of him interspersed throughout the book. Grass is pictured in all manner of surroundings, public and private. He is shown surrounded by family, writing, typing, reading, drawing in his studio, sketching and painting out of doors, engraving plates for printing, sculpting clay, consulting with his publisher about book design, engaged in political discussion, performing on stage, and speaking in public. One even depicts him wielding a camera (Werkstattbericht 445). The author ages, to be sure, but the advancing years are linked to a steady stream of accomplishments as writer, public intellectual and artist. The photographs depict his entire life as a dynamic work in progress. Taken together they con- CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 171 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 171 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 172 Richard E. Schade stitute a pictorial (auto-)biography. As such, the volume is very much a photo album. A significant portion of the Werkstattbericht is devoted to Grass’s collaboration with a photographer. He writes, «Zwischendurch entstand aus Zusammenarbeit mit der lebenslänglichen Freundin Maria Rama das Buch ‹Mariazuehren›. In Photos hineinzeichnen, ein Vergnügen» (Werkstattbericht 83). Published in 1973, Mariazuehren was a visually striking record of their artistic collaboration. 11 The 78-line prose poem in honor of Rama traced the photographic act - «Dein Lichtmesser schlägt aus […] Deine wechselnden Blenden […] Maria knips mal […] Akwakolor Akwakolor» - and also referenced Grass’s artistic participation in the exercise - «den Steinbutt (in Dill) [/ ] nachdem er belichtet, mit raschem Pinsel getuscht» (Grass/ Rama 1). His drawings on her photographs incorporated portraits of the writer alone (Grass/ Rama 6-7, 14-15, 33-35, 38, 61, 64, 68-69, 7-83) as well as Grass with his wife and children (Grass/ Rama 38, 41-44). The poem’s text is scrawled on and around the images, visually embracing, describing and interpreting both the photographs and graphic artwork. Mariazuehren celebrated Grass’s person and their art. It is intriguing at best, cryptic at worst, but first and foremost an intermedial project with a decidedly autobiographical slant - Günterzuehren, if you will. Small wonder, then, that Die Box was posthumously dedicated to Maria Rama (1911-1997). 12 The person artistically rendered on the dust jacket wielding the Agfa box camera is Rama, and each of the nine chapters is fronted by Grass’s sketch of her wielding the camera in often contorted poses. In a chapter fittingly titled «Schnappschüsse,» her technique is described - «Hat draufgehalten, vom Bauch weg oder aus der Hocke raus, egal ob bei Regen oder Sonne, zwei, manchmal drei Filme nur […] ‹Schnappschüsse› nannte sie das. Danach gings ab in die Dunkelkammer» (Box 154). Her art is dynamic engagement with unposed subjects, unlike the documentary photographs of her beloved late husband, Hans (1906-1997), a one-time war correspondent and professional portraitist working with technically sophisticated cameras (Box 18-19). 13 That she works with a box camera reflects the informal nature of her art; she is all but a member of the family, not an artist. Even as Grass’s children reminisce over her snapshots from their childhood and youth, she is the subject of the children’s conversations: Also über Mariechen red ich. Fing wie ein Märchen an, etwa so: War mal ne Fotografin, die von einigen die alte Marie, von Taddel [Grass’s son] manchmal die olle Marie, von mir Mariechen genannt wurde. Sie gehörte von Anfang an zu unsrer zusammengestückelten Familie. Immer war Mariechen dabei, erst in der Stadt, dann auch bei euch auffem platten Land, auch mal hier mal da während der Ferien, weil sie - war nun mal so - wie ne Klette an Vater hing und womöglich … CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 172 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 172 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 173 Aber genauso an uns, weil, wenn wir uns was wünschten … Sag ich ja: von Anfang an, als wir erst zwei, dann drei, dann vier waren, hat sie uns fotographiert oder geknipst, wenn Vater sagte: «Knips mal, Mariechen! » (Box 11) She documented their various mothers (Box 11-12) and the disintegration of the father’s first marriage in the chapter «Kuddelmuddel.» She collaborated with their father artistically - «Mit der, nur mit der Box ging sie für Vater auf Motivsuche, was er so brauchte für seine Einfälle» (Box 12). Indeed, much of the memoir’s text is given to her, not to Grass, and she is cast as a goodnatured protagonist, as a welcome voyeur, as an interlocutor frequently cited. Grass’s fortunes as an artist and writer subsequent to the publication of Die Blechtrommel until the Nobel Prize ceremony, 1959 to 1999, are chronicled in the ventriloquised conversations, and Rama is even depicted as being linked to the moment of inception of the various literary works, for example of Die Rättin: «Jedenfalls hat die Ratte […] den Alten [Grass] zum Schreiben gebracht […] und gleich darauf ist unser Mariechen mit ihrer Agfa auf Motivsuche gegangen» (Box 179). The novel - along with the writer’s grotesque prints featuring the rodents (Box 183) - become the focus of the reminiscences, with the result that by way of this fictive projection of Maria Rama, she comes to assume the guise of a collaborative muse - «Und dann hat er noch gesagt: ‹Mariechen knipst für mich, was ich grad brauche oder mir wünsche›» (Box 123). In privileging her person in the conversation of the children, Grass memorializes her lovingly and implicitly underlines his understanding of the interplay between photographic and literary creativity - a point to which I will return in the concluding section of this article. II. The caption of an official photograph of Grass at the Nobel Prize ceremony says it all: «Der Patriarch in seiner liebsten Rolle, umgeben von Familie» (Biografie 426). Other images surrounding the event in Stockholm capture him arm-in-arm with his eldest sons (Werkstattbericht 409) or dancing with his daughter Helene (Biografie 423; see also Box 200). In the pages of Mariazuehren he is posed more casually with his first wife Anna and children, alone with his daughter Laura, and wandering along the banks of the Elbe River with his twins Franz and Raoul (Grass/ Rama 38, 41, 44, respectively). A double portrait of Anna, his sketch of her juxtaposed to Rama’s snapshot of her and one of the sons, gives visual testimony to conjugal accord (Grass/ Rama 42-43), just as a group shot of the family dated to 1969 defines Grass’s apparently congenial familial allegiances for all to view (Werkstattbericht 120). In privileging his offspring repeatedly, he defines his role within the growing family for an interested public. CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 173 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 173 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 174 Richard E. Schade The family unit matters, whether it be the various generations traced in Die Blechtrommel: from Oskar’s grandmother and missing grandfather Joseph to his mother Agnes and his father (either Jan or Alfred); whether from him to his putative son Kurt by his father’s second wife Marie. Complex family relationships are the stuff of fiction: the narrative thread of Im Krebsgang (2002) is bound up with three generations of one family, the mother and grandmother Tulla Pokriefke also being a holdover from previous works. Indeed, familial considerations may generate text. Speaking of Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (1972) in an interview, Grass summarized a principle impetus for the inception of the campaign journal: und ich - umgeben von vier Kindern und meiner Frau - war über einen längeren Zeitraum permanent unterwegs auf Wahlkampfreise. Ganz abgesehen von meinem Roman mußte ich meinen Kindern erklären, warum ich immer abwesend war. Ich mußte ihnen in einfachen Worten sagen, warum ich Wahlkampf machte, was schwer war - das Buch spiegelt dies. 14 And it is this issue that becomes a topic of passing conversation among the children gathered over a meal of goulash: «Doch Vater war nur noch da, wenn er nicht für die Espede [SPD] auf Wahlkampfreise ging.»/ «Handelt vom Wahlkampf, aber auch von den Juden, wie sie aus seiner Heimatstadt vertrieben wurden. Alle vier kommen wir im Schneckenbuch vor» (Box 79, 86; see also 65). Family matters in Grass’s fiction and autobiographical writings; family is both a structural element and a literary motif. Whatever the topics and settings of the conversations in Die Box - Berlin, Hamburg, Freiburg, Kassel - each gathering of Grass’s children 15 is defined by what is served: he fixes them lentils and lamb, they serve spaghetti, pizza, goulash, vegetarian fare, and grilled sardines at the various gatherings. The motif of food and meals is, of course, a constant factor in Grass’s literary Gesamtwerk - one inevitably recalls the chapter «Karfreitagskost» from Die Blechtrommel, eels from sea to soup, 16 or the nine chapters of Der Butt, a Weltchronik featuring cooks from all eras, not to mention the sumptuous culinary happenings attending the disputes and readings of Baroque poets in Das Treffen in Telgte (1979). In Die Box, food and meals - unpretentious comfort food at its best - underline the importance of family culture, as well as defining the identity of each individual: «Mit reich bestückter Käseplatte, Oliven und Walnüssen, dazu vielerlei Brot, hat Lena den Tisch gedeckt. Paulchen entkorkt Weißweinflaschen. Alle acht, die jetzt nicht mehr erwachsen sein mögen, wollen zugleich beginnen» (171). The food establishes the individual ambience of each chapter, it frames the relaxed repartee of the narrative - «wollen zugleich beginnen» refers both to eating, drinking and talking, mouthing the cheese as well as words. A recent study explored every facet of CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 174 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 174 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 175 the topic in Grass’s texts and artworks, concluding that «Essen bei Grass ist immer gesellig […] Im Kochen und Essen nehmen wir die condition humaine jedesmal an.» 17 In a word, each reader is seated at the table alongside the respective narrators; readers become sympathetic listeners to the table-talk, if not actual interlocutors. For chapter after chapter of Die Box, the various children tell of Maria Rama’s documentary task, of her voyeurism at the behest of father Grass. They refer, for example, to the photographs of «Kippen von seinen Zigaretten» - «Absolut alles hat sie geknipst» (Box 34), an essentially innocuous motif, that, however, picks up on Mariazuehren (Grass/ Rama 56-57, 76), the Werkstattbericht (176) and the writer’s voluminous artistic output as such, 18 not to mention his obsessive habit. Even as they speak of events from their childhood years, such as of crawling across green and yellow glazed floor tiles (Box 100; also 157, 203), the minor detail recalls photographic images of such flooring pictured in Mariazuehren (Grass/ Rama 56-57, 62-63, 68-69). Grass, the ventriloquist, consciously referenced his earlier art work as well as their alleged memories. An extended reminiscence on the preparation of eels, of «Aalschlachten» as an all too memorable process, recalls their father’s scene from Die Blechtrommel and his graphic artworks (severed eel heads standing upright - [Grass/ Rama 45 and Grass/ Ohsoling 62-65]), as it does the fact that the child relating the tale dates the choice of his career as a professional photographer to these stomach-churning events (Box 124-27). And the speakers refer frequently to their father’s ongoing literary endeavors - «Stimmt! Ging los mit der Knipserei, als Vater mit seinem Buch, das er damals in der Mache hatte und das von Hunden und Vogelscheuchen handelte [i.e., Hundejahre]» (Box 16) 19 - with the result that the siblings’ rambling conversations take on the quality of a highly personal and anecdotal literary history keyed to his literary output from Hundejahre (1963) to Ein weites Feld (1995). Their conversations further his legacy as a writer, albeit in a manner that Grass preferred, as he explicated in a television interview. He opted not to list his achievements in Die Box, since it would have been predictable and boring. Instead, the various novels were woven into the fabric of the extended conversations, rendering the texts a status reflecting the interplay of familial and creative experiences. 20 Referring to Der Butt (1977), for example, the conversation encapsulates the familial and literary in a single sentence: «Und mein Vati, der jetzt auf dem Land viel ruhiger war, sogar wie früher lachen konnte und nun endlich sein dickes Buch fertig hatte, wollte endlich, daß die olle Marie von dem Extraschuh, den Paulchen schon vor der Operation links tragen mußte, ein Foto mit ihrer Box machte» (Box 130). The reader learns of Grass’s retreat from Berlin to rural Wewelsfleth in 1972, a move occasioned CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 175 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 175 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 176 Richard E. Schade by the separation from his first wife Anna; of resultant improved spirits; of completion of Der Butt; of his son’s foot condition and of Maria Rama’s photography. Such an idiosyncratic approach is intentional; it is not designed to be the stuff of transparent, reader-friendly autobiographical writing, let alone valid literary history. Grass’s self-reflexive, self-centered approach is manipulative, as Taberner has argued in a reading that borders on an indictment of Grass, the Familienvater. He views the appropriation of his children’s memories as «exploitative,» «colonizing,» even «vampiristic» (Taberner 514-15) and ultimately connected to his overall sense of shame (Taberner 506-07). In interviews with the author by Ulrich Wickert and Denis Scheck, however, Grass made clear that he involved his children in the writing of Die Box. They read the manuscript and critiqued it; all eight of them met with him as a group, a session that resulted in revisions sensitive to their concerns. 21 If we are to believe him, then, Grass’s statements correct the scholar’s quasi-psychiatric indictment of the author. No matter the case, of course, as a writer he was free to frame his autobiography Günterzuehren or as the children (and the ventriloquist author) admit even as they paraphrase their father: «Sagt er doch selber, wenn man ihn fragt: ‹Wer sucht, findet mich in kurzen und langen Sätzen versteckt […]› Kann schon sein, daß in jedem Buch von ihm etwas Egomäßiges rauszufinden ist» (Box 183). Blatantly self-centered or not, family matters. Grass’s 1996 watercolor portrait of his three daughters embraced by a scrawled poem titled «Für Laura, Helene, Nele,» honors them and his trip with them to Italy. The three are modern-day graces encountering paintings of their counterparts in Florence’s Uffizi Galleries and taken together they are his muse - or so he wrote, «Im Frühjahr 1996 mischten sich kurz nach einer Reise mit meinen drei Töchtern nach Umbrien (und vielleicht freigesetzt durch diesen privaten Dreiklang) Worte ins Aquarell» (Werkstattbericht 378-79). Indeed, the familial event was so gratifying to the author that he memorialized it yet again: Doch die alte Maria schwärmte richtig, wenn sie uns sah. «Trau meinen Augen nicht: die drei Grazien! » So wie unser Väterchen viel später zu Lena, Nana und mir gesagt hat, «Meine drei Grazien«, als er mit uns auf «Töchterreise» in Italien war und mit ihm in Museen Bilder angeguckt haben, auf denen man manchmal gemalte Grazien sehen konnte. Und genau so hat die alte Marie uns alle drei vor ihre Box gestellt, immer wieder. (Box 90-91) Furthermore, he had dedicated Der Butt to Helene and his illustrated catalog of terracotta art to Nele. It was her sister Laura who encouraged him in that art form, a medium in which he sculpted busts of his children - «Zwischendurch […] nahm ich Gelegenheit für Porträts: Ute, die Söhne Hans und Bru- CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 176 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 176 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 177 no, später die Töchter Helene und Nele. Als Laura zum ersten Mal schwanger ging, wurde sie mir für Rötelziechnungen und in ganzer Figur Modell» 22 - artistic activities detailed in passing in Die Box (129, 176). And it is telling that Fünf Jahrzehnte. Ein Werkstattbericht was dedicated to his beloved firstborn daughter Laura - in short, «Er ist ein Tochtervater» (Jürgs 163). Family matters. Even those pages given to ventriloquised conversations about his separation and divorce from his first wife Anna - to whom he had, after all, dedicated Die Blechtrommel - testify ex negativo to the centrality of family as a motif in Die Box (73-95). As self-serving as his take on marital dysfunction may be, Grass, the patriarch, ultimately pleads from a position of intellectual honesty - «‹Kuddelmuddel gehört zum Leben! › [ …] Jetzt hofft der unzulängliche Vater, daß die Kinder ein Einsehen haben» (Box 94-95), even though the narrative driven by and centered on the family is fiction. As such, the truth is at least once removed from Grass’s actual life story. III. Throughout the text, the memories of Grass’s children «ausgedacht vom Vater» (Box 7) are verified or rendered plausible by photographs. Like both Maria Rama and Grass, Mariechen’s actual box camera had survived a bombing late in the war, a conflagration that consumed an archive of photographs and negatives (Box 18-19, 123). Furthermore, the instrument’s survival had magically endowed it with the ability to represent past, present and future - «Jedenfalls konnte Mariechen mit ihrer Box nicht nur in die Vergangenheit, sondern sogar in die Zukunft gucken» (Box 42). At times, she playfully documents the wanderings of the family dog on its exploration of Berlin, thereby fulfilling the fantasies of the children («Wünschdirwasbox»), or in an angry fit of pique she photographically banned family members to the stone age (Box 144-45), a motif foreshadowing images of their eventual cannibalism of their father (Box 190-91). She mused about Grass’s blissful first years of marriage as well as a current «Scheidungsfoto» (Box 115), and when he moved into a new home, images of the past are conjured, revealing that a one-time owner of the residence had been Hans Bohrdt (1857-1945) (Box 163), the painter famed for «Der letzte Mann» (1915), possibly the single most popular World War I propaganda image. 23 Maria’s snapshot documents his former presence: Davor stand der Maler mit ner Palette und Pinseln in den Händen. Dahinter sah man das große Fenster von Vaters Atelier. Ob ihrs glaubt oder nicht, daneben stand jemand, der ne Uniform mit viel Lametta dran trug, dazu einen gezwirbelten Bart … Und von diesem Typ hat Mariechen, als wir sie fragten, «Wer issen das? », gesagt, «Das is olle Wilhelm, der Kaiser von damals.» (Box 162-63) CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 177 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 177 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 178 Richard E. Schade As in various chapters of Mein Jahrhundert - those for 1900, 1905 and 1911 - here Kaiser Wilhelm is imagined as putting in an appearance. More importantly, however, subsequent photographs magically document the World War II fire bombing of the selfsame atelier (Box 164). In that fire, Bohrdt’s paintings were destroyed, an interesting parallel to the fate of Hans Rama’s photo archive (as mentioned above [Box 18]). Through the magical lens of Mariechen’s box camera Grass fictively creates historical linkages between himself and his century, a narrative trajectory continued in the memory text when Grass and family members, the tale goes, were strolling along the Berlin Wall. Mariechen snapped photos of them. When she developed them, the series documented the fall of the Wall long in advance of the actual events of 1989, photographs, furthermore, that allegedly generated Grass’s novel «von der kaputten Mauer und einem weiten Feld dahinter» (Box 166). In this fantastic scenario, then, camera-wielding Mariechen emerges as a sort of muse inspiring his novel Ein weites Feld (1995). Grass’s idiosyncratic autobiography - a tale spoken by his children but written by him about his own life and works - relies on fictionalizing strategies, proof perfect that «life writing emphasizes the performance of identity through story-telling.» 24 In truth, Mariechen’s box camera is the embodiment of Grass’s concept Vergegenkunft, that compound neologism formed of Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft, a term he explained to Harro Zimmermann: Im Laufe der Jahre hat sich immer mehr herauskristallisiert, was ich später «Vergegenkunft» genannt habe: die Schreibenentdeckung, Schreibererfahrung, wie sehr wir im Korsett der Chronologie gefangen sind, wie gut es ist, sie notfalls aufzuheben und dabei nicht bloß mit der Rückblende zu operieren, sondern die Präsenz der Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart und das Vorlappen der Zukunft in die Gegenwart hinein deutlich zu machen. Two follow-up questions - «Hat das auch einen Zusammenhang mit der für Sie typischen Rollenprosa? […] Ist vielleicht der experimentelle Grad von Rollenprosa höher als der autobiographische Erzählzugang? » - elicited a response that cut to the quick, even as it linked autobiography to the narrative modes of literary fiction. Grass responded, «Ich könnte gar nicht autobiogaphisch schreiben, weil ich sofort ins literarische Lügen geriete. Ich bringe mein Ich ins Spiel ein und bin mir dabei bewußt, daß ich in diesem Moment […] zu einer aktiven Figur werde. Das ist auch der Reiz der Sache» (Grass/ Zimmermann 38). Here Grass would seem to define the intriguing and tempting («Reiz») notion of literariness activated in Die Box. It is a fictional autobiography in the sense that he, like his children, is a protagonist active in the generation of their speech, active in the representation of self, active in the creation of the text. And Vergegenkunft, a notion central to the literary CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 178 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 178 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 179 imagination, is represented by Mariechen’s box camera. She is not only his muse, she stands for his imagination. The observation that Mariechen’s time-bending photography signifies Grass’s creative imagination is verified by an episode in Die Box. The children relate how he and several of them had driven to modern-day Telgte, 25 the Westphalian community that served as the setting of Grass’s Das Treffen in Telgte (1979), an Erzählung portraying the fictive meeting of Baroque poets assembled to read from their works and debate political issues, even as the Treaty of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was being hammered out nearby. 26 The opening statement of the story - «Gestern wird sein, was morgen gewesen ist» (Telgte 699) - itself a playful temporal conflation, signaled the relevance of past happenings for the present, as much for 1647 as for 1947. The episode focusing on Grass’s visit to Telgte thematizes just such a warping of time. Mariechen loaned the Grass figure her box camera; his persona melds with hers. He snaps photos of a present-day paved parking lot where, as the story goes, the alleged meeting place of the Baroque poets had stood - «‹genau hier,› hat er [Grass] gesagt - ‹vor rund dreihundert Jahren der Brückenhof stand, der Ort des Geschehens sein wird›» (Box 135). The ensuing conversation summarizes the plot of Das Treffen in Telgte, to include an oblique reference to the constitutive parallel between 1647 and Gruppe 47 as well as an explanation of the Thirty Years War. The seventeenthcentury origins of the song «Maikäfer flieg, der Vater ist im Krieg,» one all too familiar to Grass’s children, is explained. All in all, then, the fictive conversation between Grass and his children bends time, and his snapshots, once developed, live up to expectations. He does not show them the finished photos, but he assures them that «Der Brückenhof soll […] genau zu erkennen gewesen sein» (Box 138). Not only that, but a central figure of Das Treffen in Telgte, the Wirtin Libuschka - that is, the Courasche-figure, the fictive autobiographer of a novel composed by Grimmmelshauen - appears on one of the photographic prints. The Telgte episode nimbly negotiates the time warp implicit in the concept Vergegenkunft. As such, the autobiographical imperative central to Die Box was realized in the telling of a fictive tale by Grass’s fictional projection of himself. Grass’s autobiographical «Lügengeschichte» regarding the generation of Das Treffen in Telgte, itself a genial tale set in the distant past and centered on the nature and function of literary creativity, defines fiction in terms of the photographic medium. The magical box camera he wielded in Telgte is a metaphor for his imagination. Its lens is the author’s mind’s eye, that nonexistent human organ of fictional creativity, be it in the past, present or future. To that extent Günter Grass’s Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten neatly de- CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 179 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 179 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 180 Richard E. Schade velops and effectively amalgamates the themes of photography, family, and fiction in the service of autobiography. Notes 1 Günter Grass, Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten (Göttingen: Steidl, 2008). Citations are henceforth documented parenthetically as Box, page number(s). Grass’s dust-jacket drawing of the camera has a decidedly anthropomorphic visage - viewfinder eyes, lensopening nose, Agfa-label as pursed lips. 2 Günter Grass, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (Göttingen: Steidl, 2006). Citations are henceforth documented parenthetically as Zwiebel, page number(s). 3 Stuart Taberner, «‹Kann schon sein, daß in jedem Buch von ihm etwas Egomäßiges rauszufinden ist›: ‹Political› Private Biography and ‹Private› Private Biography in Günter Grass’s Die Box (2008),» The German Quarterly 82.4 (2009) 504-21. The citation in Taberner’s title is from Die Box 183. Citations are henceforth documented parenthetically as Taberner, page number(s). 4 Günter Grass, Die Blechtrommel, Werke, Bd. 3 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2007). Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Blechtrommel, page number(s). 5 For the image see Michael Jürgs, Günter Grass. Eine deutsche Biografie (München: Goldmann, 2007) 24. Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Biografie, page number(s). 6 Günter Grass, Mein Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Steidl, 1999). Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Jahrhundert, page number(s). 7 Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang (Göttingen: Steidl, 2002). Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Krebsgang, page number(s). 8 See Günter Grass, Grimms Wörter. Eine Liebeserklärung (Göttingen: Steidl, 2010), for a prose poem commenting on photographs - «Jetzt schreiben wir fotogen, fotoscheu. [/ ] Fast alles wird fotografiert, erfaßt fürs Archiv. [/ ] Festgenagelte Augenblicke …» (229) - as well as a narrative on photographic portraiture: «Aber auch mit wechselnden Frauen geknipst. Ich [Grass], mal lang-, mal kurzhaarig zwischen mehr, immer mehr Kinder gestellt» (231). 9 Günter Grass, «Schwarzweiße Kinoträume,» Werke (Göttingen: Steidl, 2007) 12: 427-28. 10 Günter Grass, Fünf Jahrzehnte. Ein Werkstattbericht, ed. G. Fritze Margull (Göttingen: Steidl, 2004). Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Werkstattbericht, page number(s). For a more complete consideration of the Werkstattbericht see Richard E. Schade, «Günter Grass and Art,» The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass, ed. Stuart Taberner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009) 166-79. 11 Günter Grass, Mariazuehren (München: Brückmann, 1973). Citations henceforth parenthetically documented as Grass/ Rama, page number(s). 12 The Akademie der Künste in Berlin holds approximately 6000 negatives and prints of Grass and associates by Maria Rama as well as their correspondence; see <http: / / www. adk.de/ de/ archiv/ archivbestand/ literatur/ index.htm? hg=literatur&we_objectID=297> and for a complete list of the images see <http: / / www.adk.findbuch.net/ php/ m>ain. php? ar_id=3661&action=open&kind=b&id=171&source=linker>. 13 For a selection of the highly stylized works of Hans Rama see http: / / www.sk-kultur.de/ tanz/ rama_b.htm. CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 180 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 180 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06 Photos, Family, Fiction: Günter Grass’s Die Box 181 14 Günter Grass and Harro Zimmermann, Vom Abenteuer der Aufklärung. Werkstattgespräche (Göttingen: Steidl, 2000) 125. Citations henceforth documented parenthetically as Grass/ Zimmermann, followed by page number(s). 15 No matter the names given the children in Die Box, Grass’s children by Anna Schwarz/ Grass are the twins Franz and Raoul (born 1957), Laura (1961), Bruno Thaddäus (1965); by his present wife Ute Grunert/ Grass, Helene (born 1974), and the stepsons Hans and Malte Grunert; by an affair with Ingrid Krüger, Nele (born 1978). 16 See Richard E. Schade, «From Sea to Soup: Teaching the Image of the Eel,» Approaches to Teaching Grass’s The Tin Drum, ed. Monika Shafi (New York: Modern Language Association, 2009) 116-24. 17 Volker Neuhaus, «Über Menschen als Tiere, die kochen können. Kulinaristik bei Günter Grass,» Essen und Trinken im Werk von Günter Grass, ed. Volker Neuhaus and Anselm Weyer (Frankfurt: Lang, 2007) 14. 18 For numerous etchings of the motif see Günter Grass Catalogue Raisonné. Die Radierungen, ed. Hilke Ohsoling (Göttingen: Steidl, 2007) 66-67, 76-77, 116-17. Prints henceforth documented parenthetically as Grass/ Ohsoling, followed by page number(s). 19 It is worth noting that the oldest of Grass’s children were but toddlers during the writing of Hundejahre. 20 See his interview with Denis Scheck of ARD 1 on September 14, 2008 (http: / / www. youtube.com / watch? v=GX_0ihLunwc) where he specified that he intentionally avoided a straightforward chronological narrative. The children are in awe of his output - or so he says for them: «Weiß wirklich nicht, wissen wir all nicht, wie er das jedesmal hingekriegt hat: ein Bestseller nach dem anderen, gleich was die Zeitungsfritzen darüber zu meckern hatten» (Box 154). 21 Ulrich Wickert’s interview was conducted on September 9, 2008 (http: / / www.youtube. com/ watch? v= EyNYMY8 vkmA); see also Note 19 above. Of interest are various print reviews of Die Box (http: / / print.perlentaucher.de/ buch/ 30182.html) and see especially an extended review published on August 25, 2008 by Lothar Müller of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (http: / / www.sueddeutsche.de/ kultur/ guenter-grass-die-box-die-zustimmungs maschine-1.705211). 22 Günter Grass, Gebrannte Erde (Göttingen: Steidl, 2002) 12. For the portraits mentioned see 64-69, 83. 23 Grass references the image (Box 162). See it and a brief commentary (http: / / germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ print_document.cfm? document_id=212). 24 Anne Fuchs, Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse. The Politics of Memory (New York: Palgrave, 2008) 162. 25 See Claudia Mayer-Iswandy, Günter Grass (München: DTV, 2002), 155-56 for Grass and the town of Telgte. 26 Günter Grass, Das Treffen in Telgte, Werke, vol. 6 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2007). - Citations are henceforth documented parenthetically as Telgte, page number(s). It is germane here that Grass, the writer-artist, imagined several of the poets in sketches while composing Das Treffen in Telgte (see Werkstattbericht 218-20). CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 181 CG_42_2_s097-192End.indd 181 23.12.11 22: 06 23.12.11 22: 06