Category Archives: Reading Zettel’s Traum

Reading Zettel’s Traum Suspended

Posted on July 6, 2016 by The Untranslated

I started reading Arno Schmidt’s legendary magnum opus about a year ago.  I knew quite well that it was an enormous challenge not least because German is the weakest of my reading languages, although the “germanness” of Schmidt’s language in … Continue reading →

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Reading Zettel’s Traum: Week 27, pp. 337-350

Posted on July 5, 2016 by The Untranslated

Wilma talks disapprovingly about Pagenstecher’s eremitical existence, calling it “TIMON=Dasein”, invoking the rich Athenian from Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens who ends up living in a cave after squandering his fortune on the manipulative friends and various hangers-on. Daniel is bluntly … Continue reading →

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Reading Zettel’s Traum: Week 26, pp. 317-336

Posted on May 17, 2016 by The Untranslated

“The intricacy of the universe is drifting, it seems, towards a new maximum”. Thus begins the third part of Zettel’s Traum, which is called Dan’s Cottage (A Diorama). This statement could refer both to the expansion of the universe we … Continue reading →

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