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The Spatiaiization of Time in Narratives by Thomas Bernhard, Wo lfgang Hildesheimer, Jürgen Becker, Sten Nadohy and Christoph Ransmayr by Anke Maria Uebel A thesis submitted to the Department of German Language and Literature in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada August, 1998 copyright O Anke Maria Uebel, 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale u*I ofCanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Weaington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Libfary of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distri-bute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othenÿise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Unlike the relationship of "ExzWeit" and "erzahlte Zeit," aspects of literary space and spatiality are generally examined in isolation, bot. fiom each other, and from the closely related temporal structures of texts. While one school of thought concentrates on represented space, the other considers spatiality a structuring element of modem novels. To demonstrate the dynamic interdependence of narrative space and narrated space in the production and reception of texts, this dissertation synthesizes several aspects of literary spatiality and applies them to eight disparate novels which are each centrally concerned with space and tirne. The first chapter reviews the critical history of literary spatiality and introduces the three main aspects that will be examined in the texts: narrative space, narrated space, and the space of the reading process. In the second chapter, Thomas Bernhard's Das Kalkwerk is examined as a self-reflective late-modernist work where the narrative space is dominant, inhibiting the progressive linear movement of the story, and producing a stasis containing a potentidly endless motion of language, withdrawn fiom a world that is essentially mhowable. in the third chapter, Jürgen Becker's Erzühlen bis Ostende, and Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Tynset, Masante, and Marbot, show a transitional movement away from the tendency expressed in Bernhard's novel. in Becker's text a fkagrnented, spatialized discourse reflects the unstable, pluralistic story space, while Hildesheimer's novels gradually abandon such discursive experimentation for an apparently conventional, but relativized, form. Finally, in the last two chapters, Sten Nadolny's Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit, and Christop h Ransmayr's Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die ietzte Wek are found to occupy the opposite end of the spectrum from Bernhard's novel, while continuhg and developing its themes on a different level: the discourse appears conventional, but the spatialization of time and the potentially infinite motion of language are expressed as explored narrated space. No longer withdrawing kom an inaccessible reality into uifinite language, the characters now venture into a world which is itself cornposed of a collection of texts. Spatiality and temporality, the basic organizing categories of perception and representation, are seen to be keys to the relationship of reality and texts, and it is in this relationship that the continuity between these novels can be seen. For Jochen Dickbertel Acknowiedgments 1 would like to acknowledge the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the financial assistance 1 received during the vvriting of this thesis. 1would also like to thank Dr. P. J. O'Neill for his supe~sion.FUiaIIy, my thanks go to Julia Stevenhaagen, Ruediger Mueller, Maria Uebel and Hanns Uebel for their help and moral support. Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter II: Thomas Bernhard's Das Kalkwerk Chapter III: Jürgen Becker's Eniihlen bis Ostende and Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Tynset Chapter N: Christoph Ransmayr's Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternir and Sten Nadolny's Die Entdeckung der Langsam keit Chapter V: Christoph Ransmayr's Die Zetzte Welt Conclusion Works Cited Vita Chapter 1: Introduction ~ookXVI of bis Laow,Lessing distinguishes the linguistic fiom the visual arts according to their affinity to time and space, respectively. His argument, despite its Uitemal contradictions, still resonates in considerations of literary temporality and spatiality. Lessing posits that "Malerei" and "Poesie" use different means for achieving mimesis: "jene n-lich Figuren und Farben im Rame, diese aber artikulierte Tone in der Zeit." Since the signs must have "ein bequemes Verhaltnis ni dem Bezeichneten," sequential signs can only express sequential objects, and CO-existingsigns CO-existing objects. Consequently, the plastic and the visual arts each possess a specific range of appropnate subject-matter: Gegenstiinde, die nebeneinander oder deren Teile neben-einander existieren, heiBen Korper. Folglich sind Korper mit ihren sichtbaren Eigenschaften die eigentlichen Gegenstkde der Malerei. Gegenstihde, die aufeinander, oder deren Teile aufeinander folgen, heiBen überhaupt Handlungen. Folglich sind Handlungen der eigentliche Gegenstand der Poesie. (244) The contradictions which arise fiom this argument begin already on the following page, when Lessing asserts that "Homer malet nichts als fortschreitende Handlungen [italics mine]"; nevertheless, since Laokoon critics have echoed the argument that literature is an essentially temporal art, as opposed to spatial arts like painting and sculpture, and have continued to base this argument on the sequential nature of language as a succession of sounds or as written symbols on a page. Whether time and space can be so neatly separated, however, is doubtfil. Their mutual dependence begins at the most fimdamental level, where they function as the bais of perception. Kant articulates the realization that spatiality is necessary to al1 knowledge: Der Raum ist eine notwendige Vorstellung, a prion, die allen auOeren Anschauungen zum Grunde liegt. Man kann sich niemals eine Vorstellung davon machen, daB kein Raum sei, ob man sich gleich ganz wohl denken kann, daB keine Gegenstmde darin angetroffen werden. Er wird also als die Bedingung der Moglichkeit der Erscheinungen, und nicht als eine von ihnen abh-gende Bestimmung angesehen. (67) A few pages later, he says vimially the same thing about the, thereby making space and tirne equally essential and simultaneously present in al1 acts of perception. And, while a distinction must certainly be upheld between physical and metaphysical conceptions of space and time and their appearance as literary elements, the shift that has occurred in the understanding of these categories since Einstein has had a general cultural effect: even in the popular imagination, space is seen as existing only in relation to time and vice-versa. The two can no longer be said to exist independently of each 0ther.l Since Kant, the and space have been seen as the fundamental categories of perception, through which any observing subject accumulates and organizes knowledge of the world. Impressions of reality are perceived and ordered according to spatio-temporal structures. In this way, a comprehensive picture of the world is formed and diverse 1 See Capek, The Concepts of Space and Time, especially H. Minkowski's essay "The Union of Space and Tirne" (339-52). impressions gain an additional dimension of meaning. In a literary or histoncal text, these categories are needed both by the author (to present a fictional or histoncal reality through the narrative), and by the reader (to perceive it and relate it to physical reality). The text presents a reflection of the process of both constituting and comprehending a world, and the categories of temporal and spatial organization are essential to this process. The question of the and space concerns, then, not only the epistemological question of how we know the world, but also the ontological relationship between textual and extra- textual realities. In narrative fiction, this relationship can become particularly cornplex, especially if both fictional and non-fictional elements are combined or if the distinction between them becomes blurred. Many discussions of narrative spatiality have been limited by the tendency to see this concept solely as the opposite of temporality, thereby overlooking the mutual dependence of time and space in the apprehension of reality. Ernst Cassirer notes the inevitable presence of the two categories in any consideration of perception: "Raum und Zeit [...] bilden innerhalb des architectonischen Baues der Erkemtnis die beiden Grundpfeiler,