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“The Nonsense that You Cannot Write Poetry After Auschwitz”: Jean Améry, the Interrupted Writer

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Jean Améry

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Abstract

This chapter explores a lesser-known part of Jean Améry: Améry the novelist. Why, after a promising attempt in prewar Vienna, did Améry only twice return to the fictional form, and to little success? The present chapter explores these questions by looking at Améry’s novel-essay Lefeu, as well as his unpublished novelistic fragments written in the immediate post-war period. The picture that emerges suggests an intimate relationship between the historical events that shattered Améry’s life, and his upended vocation. The chapter explores the implications of this connection, in particular, the close affinity it establishes between Améry and a philosopher he loved to hate: Theodor W. Adorno.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an example of Améry’s criticism of Adorno, see Améry, J. (2004). Jargon der Dialektik. In Werke, Band 6. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

  2. 2.

    The German word Dichter is used indiscriminately for poets and novelists, and it is in this sense that I use it here.

    Likewise, for Adorno, “poem [Gedicht]” stands not only for literature broadly speaking, but ultimately for any artistic creation (see below, and my discussion of the Diktum in Silberbusch, O. (2018)).

  3. 3.

    Jean Améry to Ernst Mayer. 17.1.1975. Fonds Jean Améry, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, HS.2002.0083.

  4. 4.

    Jean Améry to Inge Werner. 3.3.1975, Fonds Jean Améry, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, 86.784a/58.

  5. 5.

    Jean Améry to Ernst Mayer, 26.1.74. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach.

  6. 6.

    Jean Améry to Ernst Mayer, 16.11.71. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach.

  7. 7.

    This part of the plot is—like most others—based on Améry’s life. His wife died of a heart attack in 1944, which he found out only after months of uncertainty. See Heidelberger-Leonard, I. (2004).

  8. 8.

    Heimatliteratur is a genre of pastoral, often nationalistic literature of Germany and Austria that came into vogue at the end of the nineteenth century and was later enlisted by the National-Socialist blood-and-soil movement.

  9. 9.

    Twenty years after Journey around Death, Améry will denounce the stylization of horror in a review of Michel Tournier’s critically acclaimed novel The Ogre, calling out the book’s “aestheticism of barbarity” and accusing the author of “conveying exotic charm to the morally unbearable” (Améry 2003a, pp. 174–175). While Améry’s early attempts to bring his own suffering to paper have admittedly little in common with Tournier’s tableau of horrors, the ‘estheticization of barbarity’ seems to have played a role in his struggle.

  10. 10.

    Jean Améry was born Hans Mayer. After the war, he translated the German Hans into Jean and turned Mayer into the French-sounding anagram Améry.

  11. 11.

    Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.). Grenzwanderungen. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  12. 12.

    Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.). Der Schierlingstrunk, Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  13. 13.

    Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.). Fritz Griebner und die Mühsal des Sterbens. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach.

  14. 14.

    See Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.) Beate, Die Eingemauerten, Grenzwanderungen, Fritz Griebner und die Mühsal des Sterbens, Eine europäische Tragödie, Prosa o. T., or as “Prisoner of war Nr. 172364” in Die Selbstmörder. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  15. 15.

    Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.). Pierre 172364, A la recherche du temps perdu, In: Filmskript o. T., Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  16. 16.

    Mayer H. [Améry, J.] (n.d.). Heinrich Greyt, Dornenkrone der Liebe. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  17. 17.

    In German, schöne Literatur used to designate what in English is simply called literature. The term emerged in the nineteenth century, as a translation of the French “belles lettres” and as a way to distinguish literature from scientific literature and nonfiction. Today, the term is dated.

  18. 18.

    Améry, J. (1973), “Leben mit Büchern”. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1275.

  19. 19.

    Frühwirth, P. [Améry, J.], “Beim Einbruch der Nacht” in Die Brücke, Mai 1934. DLA Marbach. 81.1354.

  20. 20.

    Mayer, H. (n.d.) Ein Brief ins Ungewisse. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1349.

  21. 21.

    ∗ in French in the original.

  22. 22.

    Letter to Rudolf Hartung, 12.12.1973. Fonds Jean Améry, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, 81.1593.

  23. 23.

    Reich-Ranicki, M. (1974). Schrecklich ist die Verführung zum Roman. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1.6.1974.

  24. 24.

    No Author (1974). “Trümmerhaufen der Ideen”, in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10.7.1974.

  25. 25.

    Henschen, H. (1974). Auf der Suche nach dem Roman. In Die Zeit, 21.6.1974.

  26. 26.

    Wolken, K. (1974). Leben und Sterben des Malers Lefeu. In Die Welt, 12.9.1974.

  27. 27.

    Kraus, W. (1974). Der Tod des Glasperlenspielers. In Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 23.6.1974.

  28. 28.

    Altwegg, J. (1975). “Jean Améry schrieb einen Roman-Essay in zwei Sprachen”, in Tages-Anzeiger, Nr. 186, 08/14/1975.

  29. 29.

    Bettinger, S. (1974). Nein-Sagen oder Kompromisse? In Tribüne 13 (1974), 5799.

  30. 30.

    Herzog, S. (1974). Lefeu oder Der Abbruch. In Rias Berlin, 18.9.74.

  31. 31.

    Wallmann, J. (1974). Zwischen den Stühlen. Jean Améry’s “Bilanz der eigenen Existenz”. In Rheinischer Merkur, 19.4.1974.

  32. 32.

    Günther, J. (1974). Jean Améry: Lefeu oder der Abbruch. In Neue deutsche Hefte 21, 598.

  33. 33.

    Reich-Ranicki, M. (1974). Schrecklich ist die Verführung zum Roman. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1.6.1974.

  34. 34.

    This puts him in the company of not only his creator Améry, but also of Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Jerzy Kosinski, Piotr Rawicz, Tadeusz Borowski, and Bruno Bettelheim, to name but a few (well-known) survivors who committed suicide.

  35. 35.

    Jean Améry to Rudolf Hartung, 30.1.1971. Fonds Jean Améry, DLA Marbach, 81.1591.

  36. 36.

    Henschen, H. (1974). Auf der Suche nach dem Roman. In Die Zeit, 21.6.1974.

  37. 37.

    Reich-Ranicki, M. (1974). Schrecklich ist die Verführung zum Roman. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1.6.1974.

  38. 38.

    Wolken, K. (1974). Leben und Sterben des Malers Lefeu. In Die Welt, 12.9.1974.

  39. 39.

    Gerhard Scheit speaks rightly of Améry’s “gratitude” to positivism (Scheit 2004, p. 607), which “remained all his life the reference point of his thought” (ibid., p. 613).

  40. 40.

    The statement was first made by Ludwig Wittgenstein, then taken up by the Viennese Circle, which explains that it is often falsely attributed to Carnap, Mach, or Schlick (see Wittgenstein 2001, p. 79).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Scholar, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Oshrat C. Silberbusch

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  1. Oshrat C. Silberbusch
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tel-Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, Israel

    Yochai Ataria

  2. Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Amit Kravitz

  3. Tel-Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, Israel

    Eli Pitcovski

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Silberbusch, O.C. (2019). “The Nonsense that You Cannot Write Poetry After Auschwitz”: Jean Améry, the Interrupted Writer. In: Ataria, Y., Kravitz, A., Pitcovski, E. (eds) Jean Améry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28095-6_15

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