Sonntag, 29. Juli 2007

Stifter & Corduroy

There's a Stifter story called Aus dem Bairischen Wald, and when I think of it now, it reminds me of the Corduroy story, A Pocket for Corduroy, which was a favorite when I was little.

Courduroy the bear becomes lost in the laundromat as he's in search of a pocket. He ends up in a snowpile of detergent and then in a cage, which he hates. Eventually he is found, and he finally acquires a pocket with a card which has his name in it, in case he should ever be lost again. He also ends up in a bag of someone else's laundry, which he mistakes for a cave in the dark. Nothing like getting mixed up in someone else's laundry by mistake, I think. In the Stifter story, the main character gets lost in a snowstorm, and is eventually packed up and sledded out, and has a lovely homecoming. One thing the two share is how being lost in foreign landscapes, or a landscape which was once familiar but foreign under different circumstances (a snowstorm, night), can throw all ideas of identity and belonging into question. The endings are about restoring identity. I think that Stifter would have loved the laundry element of Corduroy, with his (Stifter's) extensive discussions of Waesche.

Dienstag, 10. Juli 2007

Snow

Hah, here's one for doing comp. lit.
I've been finding Stifter everywhere I look lately.

The most recent thing has been Orhan Pamuk's Snow.

The very first chapter chronicles a poet on a journey from Istanbul to Kars, into a blizzard.

Two things: the name "Kars" also evokes the Berg "Gars" of the Bergkristall, the site of a blizzard.

Aus dem bairischen Wald also seems relevant here, but I need to keep reading.


With more time and funding than exists, I think it would be fun to do a diss entirely about "Snow in German lit." What a blast that would be. Those winters over there in Deutschland have to be good for something, why not appropriate them for all the pain they give people.