The Absurd and Storytelling in Uwe Timm’s Johannisnacht and Rot

This essay explores the connection between Uwe Timm’s work and Albert Camus’s notion of the absurd. Camus characterizes the absurd as a divorce from a perceived unity with the world that, when the divorce comes to consciousness, leads to a feeling that life is meaningless and thus potentially not worth living. Camus describes how illusions about the importance of our tasks and activities can dismantle themselves and create a sense of futility. This essay asserts that Timm acknowledges the Camusian divorce in theory and fiction. However, like Camus, he views artistic creation as a confirmation of life’s meaning. For Timm, then, telling stories represents a response to the absurd and the nostalgia for unity that it leaves behind. In Johannisnacht and Rot Timm narrates stories that embrace the redemptive power of everyday living to reinforce life’s meaning in the act of storytelling.