Der Blick vom Turm: Fabeln von Günther Anders
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Authors
Anders, Günther
Weber, Andreas Paul
Issue Date
1968
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
Anders was born as Günther Stern in 1902. This book of 104 pages has ninety-six fables a la Anders, with twelve black-and-white illustrations from lithographs by Weber. Weber is the right illustrator for Anders. His pictures are often perfect, as in the case of Kainz und das P.P. Publikum (12). Besides traditional fables, there are all sorts of genres here: didactic narratives, satires, aphorisms, and mixed prose forms. Anders composed these pieces between 1932 and 1968. The titles often give a clue as to the perenniel problems of those difficult times: freedom, truth, progress, betrayal, solidarity, common sense, humanity, faithlessness, and grounds for war. Characters in these fables a la Anders include animals, men, figures from Greek mythology, and everyday objects like a can, a pebble, coal, or a diamond. I read these fables in the summer of '07 in Mannheim and found them very good if often a step or two away from Aesop. In the very first fable, Der Blick vom Turm (7), a woman looks down and sees her son run over in the street. She refuses to go down. Down there I would be in despair! Distance gives her the ability to resist tragic reality. In the second story, a mosquito says to a rooster about the lion He buzzes strangely. The rooster responds Buzz? He cackles, but he cackles strangely. Everyone translates experience into his or her own terms. Auch er (13) tells of one of the captives in the cave of Plato's Republic who believed he was bitten by the shadow of a mouse. He broke free into reality. This was not a noble path to truth, but what counts is whether or not one arrives. Anders' last fable gives a sense of how he sees Aesop working. For him, Aesop starts not with an insight but with a picture. The picture betrays that it means something, but it never -- at least not immediately and not to me -- reveals what it means. Aesop then sets himself to the task of figuring out and translating what it means. The allegorist turns an insight into a picture. Aesop transforms a picture into an insight. I left notes in my copy of the original publication of 1968 from Büchergilde Gutenberg.
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Publisher
Verlag C.H. Beck
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Identifier
6425 (Access ID)