Books: My Life and My Efforts
K >>
Karl May >> My Life and My Efforts
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 | 16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23
Muenchmeyer had become a regular caller of ours. In Blasewitz, he
had rented some kind of a bachelor's apartment, to be able to
spent his Saturdays and Sundays more comfortably with us. He also
came in the evenings of other days, and almost always, he brought
his brother along and very often other persons as well. Though he
wished that, by no means, I should allow this to disturb me in my
work, he could not keep me from being the master of my apartment,
and then, when this had become impossible to me, I did not
hesitate to give the apartment up and to move away from Blasewitz,
to the city. My new apartment was in one of the most quiet and
most remote streets, and my new landlord, a very forceful owner of
a castle and a manorial estate, did not permit any disturbing
noise and generally nothing he deemed unnecessary in his house.
This was the very thing I had been looking for. There, I found
the internal and external quiet and concentration I needed.
Muenchmeyer came a few more time, than he stayed away. Instead, I
do not know why, we received invitations from Mrs. Muenchmeyer, to
accompany her on her Sunday walks through the forest and the
heath. She had been advised to take these walks by a physician,
who had prescribed deep breaths of fresh air for her. Whether I
liked it or not, I had to take part in them, because this was my
wife's wish, whose reasons I unfortunately was unable to
appreciate. She did not get used to the seclusiveness of our
present apartment; she got into an argument with the landlord. I
had to terminate the lease. We moved out, to a noisy apartment of
the American quarter, which was right above a public bar, so that
I could not work. Then, she became ill. The physician advised
her to take very early walks in the "Large Garden", the
world-famous park of Dresden. Such prescriptions of a physician
have to be obeyed. I had no reason to prevent these walks, which
started between four and five o'clock in the morning and lasted
for about three hours. I did not know that Mrs. Muenchmeyer had
also been ill and that she, too, had been instructed by her
physician to go on early morning walks in the "Large Garden".
Only after a long, very long time, I found out what had happened
during those walks. I had not just lost touch with my wife's
soul, but I had also lost her in business matters. Every day,
early in the morning, the two ladies sat together in a cafe of the
"Large Garden" and practised a kind of housewife's business
politics, the effects of which I did not get to feel until much
later. I put an end to it and moved away from Dresden, to
Koetzschenbroda, the outermost point of the periphery of Dresden's
suburbs.
Even before this, I had managed to finish my last novel for
Muenchmeyer. I had written five of them for him, in a time of
only four years. In regard to the later allegations in court that
I had not been working hard for Muenchmeyer, but had been lazy,
just name me an author who has coped with a larger workload and
has, at the same time, been working for other publishers as well.
With this, let me put an end to my "time at the colportage" for
today. - - -
VII. My Literary Work
When I am talking about my literary work here, I am referring to
those books the critics have been or still are devoting their
attention to. Those books the critics have ignored, no matter
whether it happened intentionally or unintentionally, may also be
skipped here. Among these are my humorous short stories, my
village-tales from the Ore Mountains, and a few other things which
still lie hidden in the newspapers, without being collected in
books. I could also list my "Thoughts of Heaven" among those,
since no critic seems to dare to touch them since Mr. Hermann
Cardauns happened to cause such a wondrous embarrassment for
himself by them. As we all know, he wrote: "But as a lyrical
poet, we have to say `no' to him", though the entire collection
does not contain a single lyrical poem! I also do not have to
discuss my so-called "Union or Spemann"-volumes [a] here, because
they have not been attacked anywhere, though I am only attacked in
my capacity as an author for young people, and these are the only
things I have written for the young generation. So, I will only
deal with the "traveller's tales", published by Fehsenfeld, and
the "trashy novels", which had been published by Muenchmeyer; the
latter I will discuss in the next chapter.
[a] This refers to a series of stories which were first published
in a magazine for boys, published by Wilhelm Spemann, and
were later collected in several books, which were published
by a company called "Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft".
As mentioned before, my "traveller's tales" have to rise among the
Arabs from the desert up to the Jebel Marah Durimeh and among the
American Indians from the jungle and the prairie up to the Mount
Winnetou. On this path, the reader shall develop from a low
anima-person up to the realization of what it means to be a nobly
spirited person. At the same time, he shall experience how the
anima transforms on this path into a soul and a mind. Therefore,
these tales start in the first volume in the "desert". In the
desert, i.e. in the nothingness, in complete ignorance about
everything which concerns the anima, the soul, and the mind.
Stepping out into the desert and opening his eyes, the first thing
my Kara Ben Nemsi, the first person narrator, the "self",
mankind's great question, gets to see is a strange, little fellow,
who is riding towards him on a large horse, has invented a long,
famous name for himself, and even maintains that he was a Hadji,
though he finally has to admit that he has never been to one of
the holy cities of Islam, where the honourable title of a Hadji is
obtained. You see, that I am dressing up a genuinely German, and
therefore domestic, psychological riddle into a foreign, oriental
garment, to make it more interesting and to be able to solve it in
a more understandable manner. This is what I mean when I maintain
that all of these traveller's tales have to be interpreted as
parables, i.e. figuratively or symbolically. There is no
mysticism or anything similar involved. My symbols are so clear,
so transparent, that nothing mystical can hide behind them at all.
This Hadji, who calls himself Hadji Halef Omar and adds even his
father and grandfathers' names with the title Hadji to his own,
symbolises the human anima, which pretends to be the soul or even
the mind, without even knowing what a soul or a mind really is.
This is a daily occurrence among us, not just in ordinary life,
but also among learned people, but there such a blindness towards
this mistake that I have to resort to Arabian characters and
Arabian conditions to let the blind eyes see. Therefore, I send
this Halef to Mecca in one of the very first chapters, which
transforms his lie into the truth, because he is now really a
Hadji, and then, immediately afterwards, I let him get acquainted
with his "soul" - - - Hannah [a], his wife!
[a] This is a misspelling in the original text. The character
is actually called Hanneh.
I hope that this example, which I take from my very first volume,
says clearly what I want and how my books have to be read, to get
to know their real contents. Let me follow it up with a second
example: Kara Ben Nemsi is with the Persian tribe of the Jamikun.
This tribe is to be destroyed by the people of the Sillan. Then,
the ustad, the leader of the Jamikun, sends a messenger to the
shah, to ask him for help. This messenger has not even reached
the shah yet, when he meets with the shah's hosts, who are telling
him that they have been sent by the shah to help the Jamikun.
Thus, the shah had granted the ustad's request, even before it has
reached him. But the shah represents God, and thus, I interpret
by this tale the Christian teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:8:
"Your father knows what you require, before you ask him!"
Furthermore, the ustad is nobody else but Karl May, and the people
of Jamikun are his readers, which are to be destroyed by the
Sillan. So, I am telling purely German events in a Persian
disguise and render them by these means understandable for friends
and enemies alike. Is this not a parable? Not symbolic? It
certainly is! And could it be mystic? Not in the very least! It
is so obviously a parable and so little mystic that, to be honest,
everybody who would deny the former and suppose the latter would
seem to me like a person who would deserve a name which I do not
want to mention. Whoever does not go about reading my books with
unconditionally hostile intentions and is honestly willing will,
without much of an effort, find that their contents consist of
almost nothing but parables. And to him who has once reached this
realization, the numerous fables of heaven will quite surely not
remain unnoticed, which are strewn all over these parables and
which have to form the actual, deepest contents of my traveller's
tales. These fables are also the material out of which I will
have to develop my real life-work in the end of my final days.
After all, even my very first character, Hadji Halef Omar, is
already a fable, the fable of the lost human soul, which can never
be found again, unless it finds itself. And this Hadji is my own
anima; yes, he is the anima of Karl May! By describing all the
flaws of this Hadji, I disclose my own faults, and thereby, I make
a confession the likes of which was probably never made before
thus comprehensively and thus honestly by any author. I may very
well maintain that I do not deserve in the least certain
allegations which are being made by my opponents. If, for a
change, these opponents would dare to talk thus openly about
themselves as I talk about myself, then this so-called
Karl-May-problem would have reached that state a long time ago,
which it eventually has to reach, whether they like it or not.
For this Karl-May-problem is also a parable. It is nothing else
but that great, general problem of mankind, which countless
millions have already endeavoured to solve, without achieving any
tangible result. Just the same, they have already, for several
decades, endeavoured to work on me, without producing more than
this pathetic caricature as which I live in the brains and the
writings of those who feel called upon to solve problems, but
always do this just there where there are none.
Let me furthermore name the fable of "Marah Durimeh", the soul of
mankind, the fable of "Shakara", that noble soul of a woman, sent
by God, this woman whom I have described with the features of my
present wife. And then there are the fables of the "redeemed
devil", the "immured God", the "petrified prayer", the "calcified
souls", the "Beit-Ullah's columns of roses", the "jump into the
past", the "jemma of the living and the dead", the "battle at the
Jebel Allah", the "Lake Mahalama", the "mountain of the royal
tombs", the "mir of Jinnistan", the "mir of Ardistan", the "city
of the deceased", the "Jebel Muchallis", the "watershed of El
Hadd", and many, many more. Considering these mentally and
spiritually so significant, yes even hard, contents of my novels,
it would be incomprehensible how they could be described as
"literature for young people" and I as an "author for young
people", if we would not know that all who commit this mistake
have either not understood them or have not read them at all.
Even "Winnetou", which seems to be so easy to read, requires, when
it approaches its end in the fourth volume, a reflection and
understanding, which would surely be asking too much from a
seventh-grader or a teenaged girl! When some people nevertheless
continue using these expressions "literature for young people" and
"author for young people", I have to describe this as an
intentional misrepresentation, which is beneath every decent and
serious critic.
But once the admission is made, honestly and according to the
truth, that my "traveller's tales" have not been written for the
young generation, the foundation of the nowadays commonplace
supposition that they were harmful has been removed. Let them
only be read by those to whom they are not harmful; I would not
force anybody else to do so! What is the reason and purpose of
all these allegations, I am now confronted with in hundreds of
newspapers? As soon as one takes a closer look at these
allegations, they lose all of their worth. I used to be praised;
now, I am disapproved of. This has become the current fashion and
will, like every fashion, turn into its opposite again. But this
fashion is not just a fashion, but a scheme! Even if now my books
were no longer read by anybody, this could not worry me in the
least, for I know that this scheme will be found out very soon,
resulting in the appropriate reaction. Moreover, if had fed my
readers with nothing but entertainment, I would have to disappear
from the scene, never to reappear again, and would be
understanding enough, without having to be told so, to submit to
this fate. But _during_my_"life_and_my_efforts"_I_have_committed_
_mistakes,_which_were_just_too_many_and_just_too_severe,_for_me_
_to_be_allowed_to_perish_and_to_disappear_forever_just_like_that._
_I_have_to_undo_the_damage!_ Whatever a mortal has sinned, he has
to repent and atone for, and blessed is he who is granted an
opportunity by heaven not to take his guilt with him beyond death,
but to pay already for it here. I want to do this; I may do
this, and I will do this! Moreover, I boldly state: I have
already done this! I have already given to the law of man
everything it had a right to demand from me a long time ago; I do
not owe it anything any more! And what extends beyond those
articles of the law created by man, I will settle by dedicating
all that I am still going to write to this great creditor, who
knows very well, whether I owe more than those others who think
themselves better than May.
I am convinced that my sins, as far as I am to blame for them, are
only in the area of my personal life, but not in my literature;
in the latter area, I not conscious of any misdeeds. What I have
achieved through my "traveller's tales", will be revealed only
after my death by the thousands of letters I have received, but
even then, only my biographer will get to see them; they will not
be published. These works used to be praised and adored, until
one day, a certain unscrupulous person had nothing better to do
than to state in public that I had also written other things aside
from them, but that those were "abysmally" indecent. Even if this
had been true, it could not have changed the "traveller's tales",
neither their inner contents nor their external form.
Nevertheless, from this day on, they were first regarded with
suspicion, then they were slandered more and more, and finally
they were even declared to be perfectly harmful and were expelled
from the libraries, where they used to be welcomed before. Why?
Had they changed? No! Had the bibliographical customs, the laws
of morality changed? No! Had the needs of the readers become
different? This is not it either! But what other reason was
there? This was simply because of this circle of people from the
realm of trashy literature and colportage, who were determined to,
as they themselves used to put it, "destroy me". But is it
humanly possible that such a circle of people could gain such an
extensive and incomprehensible influence on the world literature
and its critics? Unfortunately yes! I will have to write about
this in the next chapter. This mob does not even stop at casting
their own sins and literary crimes upon me and at presenting
themselves as spotless! There are so-called critics which have
been staining my reputation for as long as ten years with all
kinds of slander on account of the novels I wrote for Muenchmeyer,
but have not blamed the publisher a single time in even the
slightest extent. I call this a disgrace!
It has been said that our publishers of trashy literature annually
make fifty million marks from the German people. This is
terrible, though this estimation is still far too low. A single
trashy novel which is a so-called hit can cost the people more
than five or six million, and there are catalogues in which, for
instance, just the single company Muenchmeyer is offering
fifty-eight - read it and be amazed - fifty-eight of these novels
at the same time! You can figure it out; do the multiplications!
What a loss! What an immense amount of poison and mischief! How
many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are busy creating and
distributing this poison! And now, open your newspapers,
magazines, and books to see who is held responsible for all this,
who is publicly accused, who is despised, jeered at, and
slandered! Karl May, Karl May, again and again Karl May, and only
and only Karl May! Where can ever another name be seen and read
than just this one? Whatever have I done to be counted among the
trash at all? Where are those two thousand real trashy authors,
who restlessly make sure, year after year, that in Germany and in
German-speaking Austria there will never be a shortage of trash?
In court, in "scientific" writings, in the meetings of
commissions, in public speeches by writers, editors, teachers,
ministers of the church, professors, artists, psychiatrists, at
all fitting and unfitting occasions where the "moral degradation
of the youth" is being discussed, Karl May is mentioned again and
again! He is to blame, only he! He is the archetype of those who
poison the youth! He is the father of all those ruthless
characters like Captain Thuermer, Nick Carter, and Buffalo Bill!
My God, do these gentlemen really not know what they are doing?
What a sin they are committing? How they are talked about among
those who know better? Let them name just a single case where it
has been really proven in court, that someone has been corrupted
by one of my books! Hundreds of trashy stories of the most
morally corrupting kind have been read by such a boy, and also one
volume or several volumes by Karl May. This one is known, but not
the others; therefore, he must be the one to be singled out and
to named as the perpetrator! Week after week, newspaper offices
are sending me fifty, sixty, or seventy newspaper clips, where I
am being executed instead of all those German trashy authors and
trashy publishers. This is inhumanly cruel! They pile up their
disgrace all over me, but tip their hats to those who are really
guilty. Why are their names never mentioned? Why are these not
nailed to the cross? There are hundreds of publishers and writers
who have been punished for distributing indecent material. And
even larger is the number of those who, with the full intent,
publish filth for the youth, only to make money. Why are their
names not given? Why are their crimes against the youth and the
people ignored to the point of becoming guilty of being an
accomplice? Why are they not attacked, but only me, the scapegoat
for the entire mob of literature? The answer is very simple: It
is a scheme, nothing but a scheme! And it can be nothing but a
scheme, because no single person could possibly commit so many
wrongdoings as I am charged with! I will have to shed some light
on this with more details in the next chapter.
The accusations, which are being raised against me, have always
been nothing but unsubstantiated statements. Not for a single one
of them, a real proof has been given. On account of these
accusations, I asked countless readers of my books, in letters and
in personal conversations, whether they would be able to name one
of my traveller's tales or one passage from them, which might be
described as having a harmful effect. No one has been able to
name just a single line, to which this would apply. Even my most
unrelenting opponent, the newspaper called "Koelnische
Volkszeitung", has been compelled to give me the following
attestation: "Everything which is offensive to the youth _has_
_been_carefully_avoided,_ though May's works are _not_at_all_only_
_targeted_at_them;_many_thousands_of_adults_ have already obtained
a rich measure of recreation and information from these colourful
images!" This attestation alone proves the current "scheme",
because my books have remained entirely unchanged since that time,
and the same gentleman who had attested this in public, was the
first who has fallen victim to this scheme and has since then
never been able to rise from this fall again.
To refute the allegations which are being raised against me, I
feel compelled to risk committing an indiscretion by publishing
the following letter, an indiscretion which this gentlemen, whom I
esteem highly and honestly, will probably forgive. Doctor Peter
Rosegger wrote to me on July the 2nd of this year from Krieglach.
"Dear Sir!
"The note I published in the Heimgarten is based on the judicial
hearing in Charlottenburg, and as soon as, once again, a court
will decide in your favour, I will, with great pleasure, take note
of this.
"As a colleague, your case does concern me personally, and being
your colleague, I also would like to take the liberty to give you
my opinion on what would be the best manner for you to refute
these allegations.
"In your place, I would ignore all the polemics which do not refer
to the accusations in a factual manner. What you have confessed
yourself from the time of your youth, should thereby be also taken
care of, and hardly any person with a legal mind would still hold
this against you, unless the court does so. That your travel
accounts are not based on personal experiences, that they are just
stories told in the first person, this also cannot be regarded as
an objectionable act on your part by any man of literature. Thus,
the only thing that is left is to finally come forward with the
factual proof that those frequently mentioned obscene passages
were not written by you, but edited in by the publisher. As far
the plagiarisms are concerned, you have been accused of, experts
ought to be able to decide to which extent these might be
plagiarisms or to which extent they are only rewritten subject
matters and thoughts. Based on the first editions, comparing them
with the new editions, it ought to be possible to determine,
whether the manner, the train of thought, and the style of the
newly added sentences organically fit with your style and the book
or not. I think, you should now concentrate all of your defence
to such realities and push incessantly for these things to be
finally decided in court. All other articles written by your
friends, who are just talking in general about your works'
outstanding qualities, which are by no means disputed, could not
possibly have any special effect on this embarrassing affair as
such.
"So, set all means in motion to arrive at a vindication in court.
Should this be unsuccessful, absolute silence will be the best
course of action, and should this be successful, even that part of
the press which supports your presents opponents will also have to
accept the court's exoneration and spread the word among the
people.
"Sickness has delayed this letter. Forgive this openness, which
comes from honest benevolence, and let me greet you
"yours truly
Peter Rosegger."
Krieglach, 7/2/1910.
That Peter Rosegger, the distinguished, sensitive, and humanely
thinking aristocrat of the mind, regards what he has mentioned
concerning my youth as finished and done away with, goes without
saying. Only lowly developed persons can wade through such dregs
and residues. I myself have also, a long time ago, erased this
chapter of my life, and thus I have to judge everyone who talks or
writes about me by the same standards which I here find in
Rosegger's letter. He who does not forgive, will not be forgiven
either; this is the just law of heaven and of earth.
As far as the "obscenities" are concerned as well as the proof
that they were not written by me, I will have to discuss this
subject in the next chapter, but let me make one remark, which I
deem necessary, right here and now. This is that I am not the one
who has to prove that these indecent passages were not written by
me, but rather they will have to prove to me that I am the author.
This is just as self-evident as it is correct. No judge of our
times would even consider dragging me back to the times of
thumb-screws and the "Spanish maiden", when the accusor was not
required to prove anything, but the accused was the one who had to
prove his innocence. This simply had to be impossible in most
cases. For strategic reasons in the course of a lawsuit, I have
been falsely accused of having written the "Book of Love" for
Muenchmeyer. How can I prove that this is untrue? Let's suppose
Muenchmeyer's lawyer had come up with the insane idea to assert in
court that Peter Rosegger had written the notorious "Temple of
Venus". Would Rosegger supply the proof that this was a lie? Or
would he say that the truth of this assertion would have to proven
to him? I am convinced, he would do the latter. And I do so as
well. I demand that my original manuscripts are brought in as
evidence. There can be no other proof.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 | 16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23