Orthographic Nonchalance

It suits Nana that she finds her own pleasure in something as tasteless and as narrowly constrained by genre conventions as the Simenon crime novels. She recognizes the lustful author within the grave Maigret avatars. This is a philological passion.

Simenon’s psychology was inventive within the respective genre framework—unless women were involved. Then he became crudely simplistic. I see Nana at an antique institute desk, ancient trees outside the window, leafing through a hefty tome while an academic reputation rolls ahead of her like thunder. This browsing is part of her freedom. Of Beckett it is said that in the end he read nothing but detective novels.

Dmitry Medvedev revealed “the Russian view of Europe’s civilization when he called out to the Balts and ultimately to all Europeans: ’That you are free is not your achievement, but our failure.’” Quoted from Michael Thumann’s alarmist analysis Revanche:How Putin Created the World’s Most Dangerous Regime.

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In an early analysis of English class society (Culture and Anarchy), Matthew Arnold described the rulers of his time as “barbarians.” Arnold distinguishes them according to a simple scheme. There are “heavy” barbarians and “light” barbarians. Some love sovereign distinctions, others sporting honors. The bourgeois camp fares no better with Arnold. In a climate of bigoted narrowness, century-defining writers such as George Sand and George Eliot always exist close to scandal. With Eliot this is also evident in the many names she used for herself. She begins her march to fame after her third renaming as Marian Evans. Marian Evans Lewes enters into a wild marriage with her married colleague George Henry Lewes. SeeThe Physiology of Everyday Life. The lawful wife tolerates the arrangement. The couple lives for a time in Weimar. Under the pseudonym George Eliot, Marian Evans achieves worldwide literary fame. She dies respectably as Mary Ann Cross.

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“The life story of George Eliot reads like a novel by George Eliot.” Hans Mayer

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“Eliza Lynn Linton never forgot ... her self-created self.” George Eliot

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“By the way, I have hardly any judgment of Uhland’sPoems. I took the volume in hand with the best intentions, but immediately encountered so many weak and gloomy poems that I was put off continuing.” Goethe to Eckermann

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“Usually the work is attributed to the one who put the final touch to it. Thus a clod so often carries off the prize if he is clever enough to fashion a defective bow for a violin.” Ludwig Börne

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“In the twilight I spent half an hour with Goethe.” Eckermann, Saturday, October 25, 1823

Admirers from the Spirit World

Biblically grounded Latin and Gothic script are the insignia of a special religious service. For centuries, copies of important works of Christianity were produced in the scriptoria of monasteries in a practice codified down to the last dot. The copyists performed corvée labor of the mind.

Under the pressure of the printing press, medieval culture of transmission transformed. Improved methods of papermaking displaced parchment and increased the reach of educational goods.

In this field of tension, Erasmus of Rotterdam grew up as the illegitimate son of a priest. His father ensured the earliest possible literacy of the illegitimate offspring in a society without compulsory schooling. Erasmus was initially taught in the generally neglected mother tongue. Orthography and grammar were not subject to any formalization. The written use of Dutch was often limited to guild matters. Above all, the focus was on the reading ability of future craftsmen. The common people chopped wood. Few demands were placed on teachers.

Nana lectures. She presents as if in an examination setting. She explains herself before an academic Alpine summit. She bows to the genius of the language master Goya von Pechstein. His favor flatters her. She shares with him a philological passion that spills over into the genital. She moves him with words as he moves her with words. Now he accelerates her genital pulse, and she is beautifully surrendered to this empowerment. Together they enjoy the terrace flair on a hotel roof. At the horizon line, sky and sea differ dramatically.

Trace elements of lead, gold, and radium—that is what remains of us, apart from carbon. We are stars. Like other stars, we are made of solar dust. Humanity comes from the stellar forge. We are all children of the universe.

Why have we forgotten this?

Every sublimation increases desire. The pleasure of presenting oneself in beautiful clothes, of dressing imaginatively, combined with a love of words—these are her ingredients of pleasure. Nana imagines Goya as an adolescent—his bashful ardor; the coarse simplicity of the others. Out of nothing, an admirer from the spirit world materializes in the shape of a drunken student. Only Nana can see his mantle of light. He returns to invisibility, but remains present.

Nana avoids alcohol. In a bar she allows herself a cocktail only if it fits her script. If it is necessary for the performance, she smokes. Otherwise she considers cigarettes a terrible poison. But what belongs to a presentation never does harm. On the way to the Greifswald Bodden she smokes on a platform. Eventually Nana and Goya end up on a rock in the sea. The island of Oie was used for forestry until the last century. The couple strolls among ash, oak, beech, and elm trees of sometimes bizarre growth. This is what a fairy-tale, enchanted forest looks like. I provide an additional perspective. From above, Oie looks like a small Newfoundland one flies over on the way to New York.

On another day in the familiar surroundings of Ederthal

Nana in a black velvet dress, the red lace of her bra illuminating the neckline. Tight above, it falls like a curtain over her backside. Goya follows her into the living room. The furnishings recall a princely cabinet of bygone times ... a setting for noble séances and aristocratic pendulum oracles.

The couple over coffee in the public living room of the neighborhood, run by a Greek family. Nana is completely overdressed in the Greek neighborhood asylum. It is a place somewhere between a warming shelter and a kindergarten—a public living room for the precarious neighborhood.