"Ich schreibe, also bin ich": Schreibweisen bei Barbara Frischmuth ed. by Anna Babka, Silvana Cimenti, and Peter Clar (review)

This charming and informative volume is quite similar to the 2016 volume on Barbara Frischmuth, Im Liegen ist der Horizont immer so weit weg, also edited by Anna Babka and Peter Clar. The present volume also has a third editor, Silvana Cimenti. Both books are imbued with affection and esteem for Frischmuth, the person and the author, as well as her books and literary theories. The two volumes are physical twins in terms of size, cover design, organization, and contents featuring intriguing colored photographs (although the second volume includes an additional essay, "Traum der Fotografie—Fotografie des Traums" by Aleksandra Pawloff). Both feature poems, creative prose pieces, and diverse essays by many authors. Over a dozen writers contributed articles or creative pieces to both books. The two interrelated projects exert a unique appeal by embedding scholarly essays in the context of more creative and personal pieces. Both volumes also are based on and named for conferences, this one held in Mürzzuschlag in 2017. Another source of pieces in this volume was the "Fest für Barbara Frischmuth" at the Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden, also in 2017. In the foreword of this collection, the editors comment on the two volumes: "Beide Bände verstehen sich ganz grundsätzlich als einander ergänzend mit dem Ziel der Impulsgebung und Erschreiben neuer Zugänge und Lektüreverfahren" (7–8). They extend thanks to Frischmuth herself, "für die, über die und mit der wir alle an diesem Buch geschrieben haben" (8). Not only an overview of Frischmuth's life and writings, but also the spirit of the project, establishing a connection to the living author herself, is conveyed in the first article, authored by editor Anna Babka, titled "Laudatio für Barbara Frischmuth: 'Nicht nur als Beschriebene, sondern als Schreibende …' eine biobibliographische Würdigung" (9).

Many aspects of the concept named in the title, "Schreibweise," are addressed throughout the book. In the foreword the term is defined as "Poetik(en)" and the "besonderen écritures, die das Werk kennzeichnen" (7). This broad term opens up consideration of issues facing Frischmuth and many other authors: relationships between dream or fantasy and reality, whether conceived as autobiography, mimesis or otherwise, and stances on the significance of language and writing, as well as connections to other arts, other authors and genres, and, particularly in her case, contrasting and interacting genders, cultures, peoples, and homelands. Editor Peter Clar, in his opening article, considers Frischmuth's poetics as explicated in her Munich lectures, asserting that she does not advance a theory of poetics in terms of rules for writing. Rather, she emphasizes crossing borders and weaving various influences together. Clar also highlights the importance of the powers of language to Frischmuth and the multifaceted associations of literature and dreams in her fiction. Likewise, Thomas Stangl explores language as "Schrift" and the medium of expressions of possibility as well as realms of dream, reality, and perception, the worldly and otherworldly in several of Frischmuth's novels. Dreams are featured in other studies in the collection as well. In her article, Silvana Cimenti identifies "das Traumhafte" as a significant point of access to Frischmuth's "Schreibkosmos" and cites examples of "Traumsequenzen, Traumberichte, Alpträume," and "Traumentwicklungstendenzen." Using developmental psychological theories, she interprets the dreams of a number of young girls in Frischmuth's fiction. In another study, Almut Tina Schmidt explicates "Traumkommunikation" in Frischmuth's novel Das Verschwinden des Schattens in der Sonne.

Several of the essays collected here concern Frischmuth's early publications, and they take a variety of pertinent approaches. The earliest texts, the stories "Otter" and "Und ich sah, und siehe, eine weiße Wolke," are analyzed in an essay by the author Julian Schutting. Stefan Krammer contributed a study of "Poetik der Iteration. Ritual und/als Performanz" in Frischmuth's breakthrough publication, Die Klosterschule. (1968). Three essays discuss Das Verschwinden des Schattens in der Sonne. (1973). In addition to...