The Storyteller (19 page)

Introduction:
Walter Benjamin and the Magnetic Play of Words

1
See: Walter Benjamin,
Gesammelte Schriften VII, Nachträge
, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag), 846–8.

2
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death', in
Selected Writings 2.2, 1931–1934
, ed. Howard Eiland, Michael Jennings and Gary Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 794–818.

3
Among other references see Walter Benjamin, ‘One Way Street', in
Selected Writings 1, 1913–1926
, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 450–5; Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility', trans. Michael W. Jennings,
Grey Room
39 (Spring 2010): 11–37; Walter Benjamin,
Berlin Childhood around 1900
, trans. Howard Eiland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 42–4.

4
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller: Observations on the Works of Nikolai Leskov', in
Selected Writings 3, 1935–1938
, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 143–62.

5
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Experience and Poverty', in
Selected Writings 2.2, 1931–1934
, 731–5.

6
Ibid., 732. This wording is echoed almost verbatim in Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller', 144.

7
Benjamin, ‘Experience and Poverty', 731.

8
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Karl Kraus', in
Selected Writings 2.1, 1927–1930
, 433–58.

9
Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller', 147. The irony that the newspaper is, for the most part, the forum in which Benjamin's literary efforts appear is not lost on him.

10
Sigrid Weigel, ‘Zu Franz Kafka', in
Benjamin Handbuch, Leben – Werk – Wirkung
, ed. Burkhardt Lindner (Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 2011), 543.

11
Walter Benjamin, ‘Imagination', in
Selected Writings 1, 1913–1926
, 281.

12
Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller', 144.

13
See: Rolf Tiedemann's editorial remarks in Walter Benjamin,
Gesammelte Schriften VII
, 635.

14
Walter Benjamin,
The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin (1910–1940)
, ed. Gershom Scholem and Theodor W. Adorno, trans. Manfred R. Jacobson and Evelyn M. Jacobson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 31.

15
See: Benjamin,
Correspondence
, 189.

16
See: Tillman Rexroth's editorial remarks in Walter Benjamin,
Gesammelte Schriften IV, Kleine Prosa/Baudelaire Übertragungen
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991), 1074.

17
Benjamin,
Correspondence
, 401 [translation altered].

18
As Tiedemann notes, a number of writings from this period – apparently itemised in an unpublished note – appear to have been lost. They include
Bettlergeschichte, Jenaer Geschichte, John-Heartfield-Geschichte, Das Erste Beste, Der Bettler als Käufer, Sevilla-Geschichte, Sotto Lefronde di Limone, Weinberggeschichte, Kapitalgeschichten (Der abgehängte Wagen, Der gewohnte Nachmittagsspaziergang, Das Testament auf dem Amtsgericht, Der denunzierte Bankier), Henkergeschichte, Nimbus, Anna Czyllac und der Astrolog, Weingeschichte, An der Mole, Die Fahrt der Heimdal
and
Warum es mit der Kunst, Geschichten zu erzählen, zu Ende geht
.

19
Walter Benjamin, ‘A Glimpse into the World of Children's Books',
Selected Writings 1, 1913–1926
, 442.

20
Benjamin, ‘Imagination', 281.

21
Eli Friedlander, ‘A Mood of Childhood in Benjamin', in
Philosophy's Moods: The Affective Grounds of Thinking
, ed. Hagi Kenaan and Ilit Ferber (Heidelberg: Springer Dodrecht, 2011), 47.

22
See: Heinz Brüggemann,
Walter Benjamin über Spiel, Farbe und Fantasie
(Würzburg: Konighausen und Neumann, 2006).

23
Walter Benjamin,
Träume
, ed. Burkhardt Lindner (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008). Many of the dreams that appear in Lindner's volume are taken from
One Way Street, Berlin Childhood
and
Berlin Chronicle
. However, the present collection focuses only on previously untranslated texts written in the first person.

24
See: Theodor W. Adorno,
Dream Notes
, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge: Polity, 2007).

25
Walter Benjamin Archive, Berlin, manuscript 1709.

26
Benjamin,
Träume
, 44; Benjamin,
Gesammelte Schriften IV
, 423.

27
Benjamin,
One Way Street
, 444.

28
Theodor W. Adorno,
Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life
, trans. E.F.N. Jephcott (London: Verso, 2006), 29.

29
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Little History of Photography', in
Selected Writings 2.2, 1931–1934
, 510.

30
See: Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Letter to Walter Benjamin, 02.08.1935', in
Aesthetics and Politics
, ed. Ronald Taylor (London: Verso, 1977), 113.

31
Walter Benjamin, ‘Dream Kitsch', in
Selected Writings 2.1, 1927–1930
, 3.

32
Ibid.

33
Walter Benjamin, ‘Berlin Chronicle', in
Selected Writings 2.2, 1931–1934
, 621.

34
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘May–June 1931', in
Selected Writings 2.2, 1931–1934
, 471.

35
Walter Benjamin,
The Arcades Project
, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 518.

36
Ibid.

37
Walter Benjamin, ‘Opinions et Pensées: His Son's Words and Turns of Phrase', in
Walter Benjamin's Archive: Images, Texts, Signs
, ed. Ursula Marx, Gudrun Schwarz, Michael Schwarz and Erdmut Wizisla, trans. Esther Leslie (London: Verso, 2007), 109–49.

38
Walter Benjamin, ‘Funkspiele Dichter nach Stichworten', in
Südwestdeutsche Runfunk-Zeitschrift
VIII/3 (1932), 5.

39
See: Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser's editorial remarks in Walter Benjamin,
Gesammelte Schriften I
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974), 851.

40
Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility' (2nd version), in
‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility' and Other Writings on Media
, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Bridget Doherty and Thomas Levin, trans. Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 45.

41
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Russian Toys', in
Walter Benjamin's Archive: Images, Texts, Signs
, 107.

42
Ibid., 73.

43
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Toys and Play',
Selected Writings 2.1, 1927–1930
, 117–21.

44
Ibid., 118.

45
Walter Benjamin, ‘Moscow', in
Selected Writings 2.1, 1927–1930
, 27.

46
Walter Benjamin, ‘Program for a Proletarian Children's Theatre', in
Selected Writings 2.1, 1927–1930
, 202.

47
See: Walter Benjamin, ‘Lily Braun's Manifest an die Deutsche Schuljugend', in
Gesammelte Schriften III
, ed. Hella Tiedemann-Bartels (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1972).

48
Ibid., 11.

49
Benjamin,
The Arcades Project
, 514 [translation altered].

50
Ibid., 855–6 [translation altered].

51
Ibid., 515 [translation altered].

52
Ibid., 497 [translation altered].

53
Walter Benjamin, ‘On the Image of Proust', in
Selected Writings II, 1927–1934
, 240.

Chapter 3:
The Hypochondriac in the Landscape

1
‘Morgenrot, Morgenrot, leuchtest mir zum frühen Tod.'

2
A neologism coined by Benjamin which plays on the word
Bazille
, meaning ‘germ' or ‘bacteria'.

Chapter 7:
Dreams from Ignaz Jezower's

1
Carl Sternheim (1878–1942) was an expressionist playwright and short-story writer.

Chapter 9:
Ibizan Dream

1
Fromms Akt was a brand of condoms invented by Julius Fromm, a chemist and inventor of a process for making condoms from liquefied rubber. Mass production started in 1922.

Chapter 14:
Letter to Toet Blaupot ten Cate

1
Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel.

Chapter 25:
Review: Franz Hessel

1
Franz Hessel,
Seven Dialogues
, with seven etchings by Renée Sintenis, Berlin, 1924.

2
Franz Hessel,
The Widow of Ephesus: Dramatic Poem in Two Scenes
, Berlin, 1925.

Chapter 33:
Fantasy Sentences

1
The German
Feder
can mean ‘feather' or ‘quill'.

Chapter 34:
Fantasy Sentences

1
Aquarius is Wassermann in German. Jakob Wassermann (1873–1934), a German Jewish novelist, is pictured.

2
S. Fischer refers to the head of the publishing house, S. Fischer Verlag. Samuel Fischer (1859–1934) is pictured.

3
The German for springtime is Lenz. Leo Lenz (1878–1962) was also the name of an Austrian playwright of the period.

4
Hermann von Wedderkop (1875–1956) was editor of
Die Querschnitt
, a rather highbrow cultural magazine. He is pictured.

5
Rudolf Grossmann (1882–1941) is the illustrator.

6
Ludwig Fulda (1862–1939) was a playwright and poet. He is pictured.

7
Julius Bab (1880–1955), dramatist and theatre critic, is referenced here. Neustadt (Dosse) is known primarily for horse breeding.

8
The German word for cornfield is Kornfeld. Paul Kornfeld (1889–1942), a native of Prague, was a Jewish playwright and drama theorist who wrote in German and worked in an Expressionist idiom; he also wrote satire and sexual comedies.

9
Depicted in the scales are two cultural sensations from 1926: Lulu, the sexually liberated and ultimately tragic figure from Wedekind's play, which was performed in Berlin, and General Gneisenau, a military figure who was the subject of a military history drama by Wolfgang Goetz, which was performed in Berlin and was praised as a masterpiece depicting German military bravery.

10
Siegfried Jacobsohn (1881–1926) was an influential theatre critic and editor of the theatre journal
Die Weltbühne
. Carl Sternheim (1878–1942) was a playwright and short-story writer. Jacobsohn is pictured.

11
Arno Holz (1863–1929) was a poet and dramatist. Carl Heinrich Becker (1876–1933) was a scholar of the Orient and Prussian minister of culture, with whom Holz had run-ins in relation to the formation of the Prussian Academy of the Arts. Wilhelm Külz (1875–1948) was interior minister of the Weimar Republic in 1926–7. He is performing the balancing act.

Chapter 35:
Riddles

1
The word for guilders, a type of coin, is transformed to a word meaning ‘wait patiently' by the addition of two letters.

T
he texts were translated by Sam Dolbear, Esther Leslie and Sebastian Truskolaski, except for ‘Nordic Sea', which was jointly translated by Sam Dolbear and Antonia Grousdanidou. Although the editors checked one another's drafts, each text acknowledges its principal translator. Thanks to Ursula Marx at the Walter Benjamin Archiv. In addition, Sam Dolbear would like to thank the following people for their invaluable assistance in preparing and refining the drafts: Koshka Duff, Miriam Gartner, Robin Kreutel, Magda Schmukalla, and Cat Moir. On the whole, as editors, we concentrated on previously untranslated work, but included a handful of previously translated pieces for the sake of internal consistency.

Self Portrait
, 1911.

A Klee drawing named ‘Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the Angel of History. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

– Walter Benjamin, Thesis IX, ‘On the Concept of History'

I
n
1921, Walter Benjamin purchased Paul Klee's
Angelus Novus
, the drawing that opens this book, which became one of his most prized possessions. Remarkable for their simplicity, humor and fantastical nature, Klee's illustrations here bring to life Benjamin's stories.

P
AUL
K
LEE
(1879–1940) was a Swiss-German painter and an important figure in the development of modern art, known for his explorations in color and line in his work. His extensive writing on color theory and lectures while a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1921 to 1931 were collected as
Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre)
, published in English as the
Paul Klee Notebooks
, and are considered a foundational text in the understanding of modern art. In 1937, more than a hundred of Klee's works were labeled as ‘degenerate art' and seized from public collections in Germany by the Nazis.