Chapter Ten: Walter Abish's How German Is It
Introduction
In this chapter, we will make a few brief introductory remarks about Walter
Abish's How German Is It as a guide to your reading of the novel. We will
then ask you to look at two readings which deal with the novel in more depth
before moving on to the review questions.
The text
To begin with, we would like to say something in general about the detective
genre, and then to examine the narrative in these terms.
The detective genre
The detective-story genre usually concerns social norms and the law along
with their "interpretations," transgressions from these, and how
the guilty (transgressors) are caught and punished. The detective is usually
concerned with three things: motive, means and opportunity. In other words,
the detective must discover or sort out from sets of imbricated data who
did it and why. But in order to do this, he or she needs to determine a
clear motive (revenge, jealousy, temporary insanity, business advantage),
some sort of means (the murder weapon or the hit-man), and the opportunity
(e.g. if the murder was committed in person, the suspect's alibi must be
penetrated; if the murder was done by someone else then some connection
must be made with the suspect). The narrator of How German Is It is concerned
with all three (motive, means and opportunity) and the suspect is Germany
itself.
The title: How German Is It
One of the ways in which How German Is It can be read is as a kind of detective
novel with the narrator playing the role of a sort of tour-guide (he provides
much of his descriptions of Germany in the fashion of a tour-guide brochure)
and detective (he interrogates everything as he goes). However, although
the guide-detective asks all sorts of questions, he does not answer many.
The reader is left up in the air, so to speak. This process is evident in
the title itself, which at one level appears to outline the central problem
the narrator has set himself: how German is it? However, we are not told
what the "it" refers to, and the title appears to be missing a
question mark.
Does the "it" refer to certain activities or behaviour? Is the
question focusing on Germany now? Sometime in the past? Both? Perhaps the
question refers to the notion of what it means to be German (that is, to
the idea that there is a German essence-as the German philosopher Brumhold
believes (5)-which makes German people what they are); or perhaps the question
is asking whether what happened during the Second World War was an aberration
which the Germans have overcome.
Does the alibi hold up?
In a detective story, as one might expect, a good deal of the detective's
time is taken up with checking out alibis and talking to witnesses or people
who provide information about motive, means and/or opportunity. The detective's
game is to unravel disinformation (intentional or otherwise) and to establish
a clear "interpretation" of the facts. In this, and the analogy
has been made many times, the detective is very much like a reader or critic.
In all this, the detective relies heavily on analytical and/or forensic
reason. Our guide-detective appears to be involved in these kinds of activities.
However, nobody, least of all the suspects, are expected to tell the truth.
Even the detective is allowed a "porky" or two if it helps out
his case. Moreover, the detective is often forced to go down false trails
in order to discover the "truth." It's the detective's job to
sort all these "false" leads out, and the intensity and interest
of any detective story may hinge on just how interesting these false leads
are. We as readers know that the "revelation" or exposure of the
criminal (including motive, means and opportunity) is left more-or-less
to the last minute although this revelation is often made in a way that
makes it seem that it should have been obvious all along.
It's up to you
In How German Is It, the guide-detective sifts and weighs a great deal of
evidence in the course of his narrative, tracks down many false leads ("Nothing
can be ruled out" 7), and interrogates various characters and practices
("Answer. Answer immediately" 15). What we discover, however,
is that, having convinced us that he is a detective with its implied promise
that he will eventually provide all the relevant answers, the guide-detective
leaves us not knowing who did it or why. It is as if, as with most detective
novels, the reader is asked to go on a quest with the narrator (that is,
we also sift evidence, follow false trails, and so on). However, when we
get to the moment of revelation, the detective leaves the room and says:
it's up to you. What this suggests is that there is more significance in
the evidence than we might have first allowed, even though there may not
be a definitive answer to the question. In other words, we may in fact learn
a great deal simply by sifting the evidence. This is one way to read How
German Is It; another is that the narrator is simply pulling our leg (see
Tony Schirato's reading below).
Now let's look in more detail at the opening section of the text: "The
edge of forgetfulness."
"The edge of forgetfulness"
An arrival: "Ihren pass, bitte"
From the opening words of the novel, the narrator appears to be interrogating
someone: "What are the first words a visitor from France can expect
to hear upon his arrival at a German airport?" (1). He immediately
answers his own question, but also as a question: "Bonjour? or, Guten
Tag? or Ihren Pass, bitte?" In our haste to get into the story, we
might overlook the significance of these possibilities. If the German official
opens with "Bonjour," this might suggest that the Germans are
an open, friendly, welcoming sort of people. This might also apply in the
case of "Guten Tag," except speaking in German to a French visitor
suggests a certain nationalist, even parochial, pride. Opening with "Ihren
pass, bitte," however, brings back memories of times when officials
were very powerful in that every person in Germany, citizen or other, had
to have a pass which could be checked at any time. Failure to produce an
appropriate pass could have serious consequences. It is significant that
the narrator does not resolve this question, but moves on to another.
The narrator wonders whether Ulrich Hargenau, who, we soon find out, is
a German returning after some time in France, will be remembered by the
officials, both for his aristocratic connections and for his involvement
in "a maniacal attempt to overthrow the democratic government of the
Bundesrepublik" (1). The narrator then reassures us that "Ulrich
has nothing to fear," and suggests that the best answer to give when
asked the purpose of one's visit is "pleasure." Apparently, the
German officials understand this answer for it implies that the visitor
is going to admire German "castles, churches, cathedrals."
The tour guide
The narrator then shifts his mode, for he provides a kind of tour-guide
brochure (why not visit the Rhine, and enjoy a music festival or two, and
so on). Then he shifts mode again, this time as a sort of omniscient narrator
where he answers a question he has not asked (i.e. why do people visit Germany?):
They come to peer into their past, to look up their relatives or the places
where their parents were born. They come to rediscover their German roots.
They also come to visit the grave of Goethe and to walk in a German forest
and absorb that spiritual attachment to nature that underlies all things
German. (2)
Compare this with the description the narrator provides a short time later
about the philosopher Brumhold's quest of the German essence:
Brumhold might well ask of his metaphysical quest, which is rooted in the
rich, dark soil of der Schwarzwald, rooted in the sombre, deliberately solitary
existence that derives its passion, its energy, its striving for exactitude
from the undulating hills, the pine forests, and the erect motionless figure
of the gamekeeper in the green uniform. (5)
We could almost say that what the visitor wants, Brumhold wants-that is,
to ascertain the "essence" of being German.
This issue turns out to be significant in the context of the novel but a
false lead at this point in the story, for the only character introduced
so far, Ulrich, is himself German, and as the story progresses, visitors
to Germany feature in none but the first chapter, and then only in the abstract.
Moreover, why all this changing of modes (interrogator, tour-guide, detective)?
Why this apparent apologia for even thinking of going to Germany? Why treat
Ulrich as a visitor when he is not? Perhaps we as readers are the visitors
the guide-narrator is addressing. If we are, we have already learnt not
to trust the guide-detective for the answers he provides are not the answers
to the questions he has asked.
In a sense, the guide-detective makes the reader work for understanding.
For instance, he goes on to mention (after all the discussion about visitors)
that Ulrich's return to Germany is taken for granted anyway as he is a German
with a "respectable" German name: "He is free to come and
go. France? Why not? A fondness for all things French is not unusual. It
does not invite criticism. The past has been forgotten" (2).
The first lie: The past has not been forgotten
Here the narrator tells his first direct lie. The past has not been forgotten,
least of all by the guide-detective. He has been busy reminding us about
it in all sorts of ways, and will continue to do so for the rest of the
section (and the novel). The characteristics he reminds us of are those
identifiable "German" stereotypes associated with even the most
cursory familiarity with Germany. Our guide-detective "reminds"
us by asking what we would notice on our arrival:
Undoubtedly the cleanliness. The painstaking cleanliness. As well as the
all-pervasive sense of order. A reassuring dependability. A punctuality.
An almost obsessive punctuality. Then, of course, there is the new, striking
architecture. Innovative? hardly. Imaginative? Not really. But free of that
former sombre and authoritative massivity. (2-3)
Here our guide-detective provides a catalogue of stereotypes: the Germans
are not just clean but painstakingly so, and they are obsessively punctual.
They love order (which is why officials are so powerful). They are well-mannered,
well-behaved and (even) friendly to foreigners (4).
The architecture reflects their character-sombre, inward, needing an authoritarian
hand to keep them in control, or to control their passions:
True, now and then-it could happen anywhere else-this smooth and agreeable
surface is broken by a sudden boisterousness, an unexpected violence, an
outburst punctuated by the pounding of beer mugs on a table until they shatter,
not to mention the broad, red-faced, meaty anger that is thrust aggressively
forward and made to appear, with its accompanying black leather coat and
black leather gloves, more menacing than it actually might be. (3)
Like the glass surface of the skyscrapers which reflect the carefully re-constructed
pre-war buildings, the veneer of the friendly German our guide-detective
has portrayed so far is also surface. Lurking beneath this surface is the
old Germanness-red-faced, meaty anger dressed in menacing black leather.
What the visitor sees, then, is what the guide-detective doesn't explicitly
show. Nonetheless, under the guise of pointing out the new Germany's new
surfaces and gleaming cars, he continually apologises for a past which he
is determined we shall not forget.
Assurance as foreboding
In this context, the guide-detective's constant assurances that everything
is perfectly OK ("It is possible to arrive in Germany without the slightest
fear of an imminent clash with someone in authority. No, there is no reason
to fear the Germans any longer" 4) work, in effect, as remembered forebodings.
For instance, when he says that to fear the Germans is "preposterously
unrealistic," that it represents "a deeply buried desire to retain
the image of the Germans as collectively dangerous and destructive, bent
on destroying and eradicating anything that might remotely be considered
a threat to their existence," we begin to feel a little anxious that
we ever decided to come on the tour at all. Even the guide-detective's positive
assurances that Germany is now a stable post-industrial society which has
learned to accept foreigners in that it has allowed some foreign words into
its language is made in a threatening tone, for we are told that Brumhold
is keeping an eye on the language because he believes that it is the key
to the German soul (5).
Such metaphysical significance cannot be taken lightly for we are told that
the "Einzieh group" of left-wing radicals had organised their
first acts of public disobedience in Würtenburg (where Ulrich has come),
a comment which is immediately followed by an image of the tourist strolling
about taking in the sights of Würtenburg, drinking coffee at the cafes
and eying off the German pastries (i.e. violence could strike the unsuspecting
tourist at any time).
"Nothing can be ruled out"
The narrator immediately warns us: "Nothing can be ruled out"
(7), a statement he immediately qualifies by saying: "The question
remains, do the Germans still expect to be asked embarrassing questions
about their past and about their present and what, if any, ideas they may
have about the future?" (7). Again, our guide-detective does not answer
this question, but goes on to tell us that the Germans do have a reverence
for the past (even if the past comes in the form of replicas) and the ideals
that it represents, suggesting, perhaps, that the past will influence the
future. The narrator notes that the Germans lack the flair of the French,
"despite all their theories on aesthetics," which suggests that
the obsession with the past is the cause.
The first section of the novel, predictably given the guide-detective's
performance so far, ends with a list of questions which he "forgets"
to answer (e.g. "What is well known? What is not known? What is surmised?
What is omitted? . . ." 8). What we have worked out about our guide-detective
by the end of this section is that he asks a lot of questions which he isn't
prepared to answer, that he provides answers to questions that he hasn't
asked, that he is determined not to let us forget that which he says we
no longer need to worry about, that he is very selective in the "evidence"
he does present, and that he has a penchant for sending us down false or
misleading trails. Hardly the sort of guide one would want on any kind of
tour.
The section finishes by switching to first person. Ulrich says: "I
am returning from the edge of forgetfulness" (9). This raises the possibility
that the guide-detective is really Ulrich (he is a writer, after all); this
issue, like so many others, is not resolved by the end of the novel. Ulrich's
comment does question the integrity of the alibi the guide-detective has
carefully constructed and undermined in this first section: does the alibi
of forgetfulness stand up to scrutiny? Probably not. The connection between
the purpose of both the visitors' and Brumhold's project is not accidental:
the gap between the "edge of forgetfulness" (9) and the embracing
of a memory is as slim as the difference between the facade of surface order
and meaty anger lurking beneath. The guide-detective is carefully establishing
that Germans have the means, the motive and the opportunity for recidivism-that
is, very little stands between the Bundesrepublik and the Third Riech except
a kind of cultivated forgetfulness. What we have, then, is a narrator who
is unreliable despite his apparent omniscience.
As the novel progresses, we discover that the guide-detective refuses to
answer the question the philosopher Brumhold has asked and spent a life-time
trying to answer: what makes Germans German? Nonetheless, the suggestion
being made is that what the Germans have done, others also have done; the
narrative draws specific attention to the Americans and their involvement
with Vietnam. Consequently, the novel also shows that the question "how
German is it" could easily be rewritten "how German it is"
or "How European Is It" (it is) or "How American Is It"
(it is)? In any event, by focusing on the "re-rebuilding" of Germany,
the novel (with its numerous architectural metaphors) highlights the tensions
between constructing sameness (re-building Germany as a replica of the past
whilst leaving out the unpleasantness of WWII and Nazism) and recognising
difference (showing how the tensions between the economic infrastructure
and the cultural superstructure are repressed for the sake of the former,
and how this repression is an originary gesture of fascism).
Readings
Please now read Tony Schirato's and Dieter Saalmann's discussions of How
German Is It in the Resource Materials book (Readings 13 and 14).
Tony Schirato argues that the "apparently omniscient narrator"
of Walter Abish's How German Is It appears determined to prove "that
Nazism and its related tendencies constitute, not a kind of historical aberration
but, instead, the essence of Germanness" ("The Politics of Writing"
69). This means that the novel undermines the view that the Nazis were an
historical aberration, partly because it is a "comic deconstruction"
of this "fiction of contemporary German innocence" (69), and partly
because it, in Rene Girard's words, denies "'the sovereignty of the
individual more radically than either god or destiny'" ("The Politics
of Writing and Being Written: A Study of Walter Abish's How German Is It"
Novel 24.1 (1990): 69.) Do you agree with Schirato's assessment of the
novel?
Review questions
10-1 What do you think the (guide-detective) narrator is up to? How do you
respond to his repeated questions?
10-2 What role does Franz play in the novel (especially his matchstick rebuilding
of the concentration camp)?
10-3 What do you make of Brumhold's "quest" (e.g. 5, 19, 25)?
10-4 What is the significance of the repeated references to Ulrich's father
(e.g. 11, 34)?
10-5 Ulrich makes "use" of those he meets for his own books (e.g.
46). Bearing this in mind, do you see any parallels between Ulrich and the
narrator (e.g. an interviewer says to Ulrich: "One reads your books,
always feeling as if some vital piece of information is being withheld"
52)?
10-6 What do you make of "the idea of Switzerland" (see 52-53)?
10-7 What is the significance of the section "The purpose of the antiterrorist
film" (241-242), and how could you relate this to the narrative itself?
Works cited
Schirato, Anthony. "The Politics of Writing and Being Written: A Study
of Walter Abish's How German Is It." Novel 24.1 (1990): 69-85.
Siegle, Robert. "On the Subject of Walter Abish and Kathy Acker."
Literature and Psychology 33.3&4 (1987): 39-57.