LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM THAT NEVER HAPPENED

VISIONARY SPACE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES AND BRUNO SCHULZ

by

Lauren Benjamin

A thesis submitted to

Sonoma State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTERS OF ARTS

m

English

Dr Thaine Steams Chair

Dr Anne Goldman

Date

Copyright 2013

By Lauren Benjamin

11

Authorization for Reproduction of Masters Thesis (or Project)

I grant permission for the print or digital reproduction of this thesis in its entirety without further authorization from me on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship

Stgnahlebull

iii

LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM THAT NEVER HAPPENED

VISIONARY SPACE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES AND BRUNO SCHULZ

Thesis by Lauren Benjamin

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores visionary experience and mythic landscape in the work of Bruno Schulz By highlighting Schulzs use of sensory perception the written word and evocative landscapes-as well as a semi-autobiographic narrator prone to visionary episodes-I posit that Schulz speaks to the larger question of ones connection to the past and the (in)ability to render the ineffable in verbal form In Schulzs tales the historical past primordial myth and present each appear in tum This amalgamation serves to raise the stakes for Schulzs fantastical narratives In creating an alternative world replete with visionary elements and mythic landscapes Schulz simultaneously allows for an alternate tract of existence I argue that these features are fundamental elements of Schulzs work and suggest that such exploration will illuminate not just hidden aspects of Schulz but will serve also to further our understanding of automythographies of all kinds

Chapter 1 A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body synthesizes Martin Bubers theories of the ecstatic vision and Michel Serres philosophy of des corps metes (mingled bodies) in the context of Schulzs tales of Ksiljga (The Book) In this chapter I argue that Joseph is a visionary seeker much like medieval visionaries of Bubers collection Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) Chapter 2 utilizes Walter Benjamins work in Passagen-Werk (translated as The Arcades Project) to discuss Josephs relation to the mythic landscape in Schulzs story Sklepy Cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops) I posit that the landscape facilitates Josephs visionary experiences and serves as a vessel of the past in the present or what Benjamin calls the dialectical wish-image

Signature

MA Program English Sonoma State University Date

Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom this work would not be what it is Firstly many thanks are due to my generous advisors Thaine Steams and Anne Goldman who have seen the project from its humble beginnings through many incarnations and somehow never seemed bored Thanks also to Sonoma State faculty with whom I have discussed this project and who have acted as a support including Brantley Bryant Mira-Lisa Katz Cathy Kroll Scott Miller Christine Renaudin and Suzanne Toczyski

Karen Underhill at the University of Illinois-Chicago Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan and David Goldfarb at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York have all given me much fodder for my discussions here both in person and in print thank you for inculcating me with the wide world of Schulzania

Thank you to all of my Sonoma State colleagues in particular Emily Hostutler who helped plot the direction of this thesis (probably without knowing it) and Loriann Negri who managed to keep me sane Beetle Squirrel Goose and Bear also participated in managing my sanity

I am grateful to my parents and in-laws for clapping for me through this even if they werent particularly sure what they were clapping for And to Aleta Drummond and the kickstarter community who helped fund the research that fueled this project

I also owe an immense amount of gratitude to Reh Irwin Keller and Rabbi Ted Feldman Thank you for your kind talks your honest words and your understanding hearts

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For Adam obviously

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Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

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Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

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living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

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to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

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elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

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1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

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Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

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(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

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maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

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Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

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role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

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Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

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economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

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childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

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Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

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Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

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creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

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imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

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something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Copyright 2013

By Lauren Benjamin

11

Authorization for Reproduction of Masters Thesis (or Project)

I grant permission for the print or digital reproduction of this thesis in its entirety without further authorization from me on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship

Stgnahlebull

iii

LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM THAT NEVER HAPPENED

VISIONARY SPACE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES AND BRUNO SCHULZ

Thesis by Lauren Benjamin

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores visionary experience and mythic landscape in the work of Bruno Schulz By highlighting Schulzs use of sensory perception the written word and evocative landscapes-as well as a semi-autobiographic narrator prone to visionary episodes-I posit that Schulz speaks to the larger question of ones connection to the past and the (in)ability to render the ineffable in verbal form In Schulzs tales the historical past primordial myth and present each appear in tum This amalgamation serves to raise the stakes for Schulzs fantastical narratives In creating an alternative world replete with visionary elements and mythic landscapes Schulz simultaneously allows for an alternate tract of existence I argue that these features are fundamental elements of Schulzs work and suggest that such exploration will illuminate not just hidden aspects of Schulz but will serve also to further our understanding of automythographies of all kinds

Chapter 1 A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body synthesizes Martin Bubers theories of the ecstatic vision and Michel Serres philosophy of des corps metes (mingled bodies) in the context of Schulzs tales of Ksiljga (The Book) In this chapter I argue that Joseph is a visionary seeker much like medieval visionaries of Bubers collection Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) Chapter 2 utilizes Walter Benjamins work in Passagen-Werk (translated as The Arcades Project) to discuss Josephs relation to the mythic landscape in Schulzs story Sklepy Cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops) I posit that the landscape facilitates Josephs visionary experiences and serves as a vessel of the past in the present or what Benjamin calls the dialectical wish-image

Signature

MA Program English Sonoma State University Date

Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom this work would not be what it is Firstly many thanks are due to my generous advisors Thaine Steams and Anne Goldman who have seen the project from its humble beginnings through many incarnations and somehow never seemed bored Thanks also to Sonoma State faculty with whom I have discussed this project and who have acted as a support including Brantley Bryant Mira-Lisa Katz Cathy Kroll Scott Miller Christine Renaudin and Suzanne Toczyski

Karen Underhill at the University of Illinois-Chicago Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan and David Goldfarb at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York have all given me much fodder for my discussions here both in person and in print thank you for inculcating me with the wide world of Schulzania

Thank you to all of my Sonoma State colleagues in particular Emily Hostutler who helped plot the direction of this thesis (probably without knowing it) and Loriann Negri who managed to keep me sane Beetle Squirrel Goose and Bear also participated in managing my sanity

I am grateful to my parents and in-laws for clapping for me through this even if they werent particularly sure what they were clapping for And to Aleta Drummond and the kickstarter community who helped fund the research that fueled this project

I also owe an immense amount of gratitude to Reh Irwin Keller and Rabbi Ted Feldman Thank you for your kind talks your honest words and your understanding hearts

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For Adam obviously

VI

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

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Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

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childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

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imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

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something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

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Authorization for Reproduction of Masters Thesis (or Project)

I grant permission for the print or digital reproduction of this thesis in its entirety without further authorization from me on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship

Stgnahlebull

iii

LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM THAT NEVER HAPPENED

VISIONARY SPACE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES AND BRUNO SCHULZ

Thesis by Lauren Benjamin

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores visionary experience and mythic landscape in the work of Bruno Schulz By highlighting Schulzs use of sensory perception the written word and evocative landscapes-as well as a semi-autobiographic narrator prone to visionary episodes-I posit that Schulz speaks to the larger question of ones connection to the past and the (in)ability to render the ineffable in verbal form In Schulzs tales the historical past primordial myth and present each appear in tum This amalgamation serves to raise the stakes for Schulzs fantastical narratives In creating an alternative world replete with visionary elements and mythic landscapes Schulz simultaneously allows for an alternate tract of existence I argue that these features are fundamental elements of Schulzs work and suggest that such exploration will illuminate not just hidden aspects of Schulz but will serve also to further our understanding of automythographies of all kinds

Chapter 1 A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body synthesizes Martin Bubers theories of the ecstatic vision and Michel Serres philosophy of des corps metes (mingled bodies) in the context of Schulzs tales of Ksiljga (The Book) In this chapter I argue that Joseph is a visionary seeker much like medieval visionaries of Bubers collection Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) Chapter 2 utilizes Walter Benjamins work in Passagen-Werk (translated as The Arcades Project) to discuss Josephs relation to the mythic landscape in Schulzs story Sklepy Cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops) I posit that the landscape facilitates Josephs visionary experiences and serves as a vessel of the past in the present or what Benjamin calls the dialectical wish-image

Signature

MA Program English Sonoma State University Date

Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom this work would not be what it is Firstly many thanks are due to my generous advisors Thaine Steams and Anne Goldman who have seen the project from its humble beginnings through many incarnations and somehow never seemed bored Thanks also to Sonoma State faculty with whom I have discussed this project and who have acted as a support including Brantley Bryant Mira-Lisa Katz Cathy Kroll Scott Miller Christine Renaudin and Suzanne Toczyski

Karen Underhill at the University of Illinois-Chicago Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan and David Goldfarb at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York have all given me much fodder for my discussions here both in person and in print thank you for inculcating me with the wide world of Schulzania

Thank you to all of my Sonoma State colleagues in particular Emily Hostutler who helped plot the direction of this thesis (probably without knowing it) and Loriann Negri who managed to keep me sane Beetle Squirrel Goose and Bear also participated in managing my sanity

I am grateful to my parents and in-laws for clapping for me through this even if they werent particularly sure what they were clapping for And to Aleta Drummond and the kickstarter community who helped fund the research that fueled this project

I also owe an immense amount of gratitude to Reh Irwin Keller and Rabbi Ted Feldman Thank you for your kind talks your honest words and your understanding hearts

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For Adam obviously

VI

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

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Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

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Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

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creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

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imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

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something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

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LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM THAT NEVER HAPPENED

VISIONARY SPACE HAUNTED LANDSCAPES AND BRUNO SCHULZ

Thesis by Lauren Benjamin

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores visionary experience and mythic landscape in the work of Bruno Schulz By highlighting Schulzs use of sensory perception the written word and evocative landscapes-as well as a semi-autobiographic narrator prone to visionary episodes-I posit that Schulz speaks to the larger question of ones connection to the past and the (in)ability to render the ineffable in verbal form In Schulzs tales the historical past primordial myth and present each appear in tum This amalgamation serves to raise the stakes for Schulzs fantastical narratives In creating an alternative world replete with visionary elements and mythic landscapes Schulz simultaneously allows for an alternate tract of existence I argue that these features are fundamental elements of Schulzs work and suggest that such exploration will illuminate not just hidden aspects of Schulz but will serve also to further our understanding of automythographies of all kinds

Chapter 1 A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body synthesizes Martin Bubers theories of the ecstatic vision and Michel Serres philosophy of des corps metes (mingled bodies) in the context of Schulzs tales of Ksiljga (The Book) In this chapter I argue that Joseph is a visionary seeker much like medieval visionaries of Bubers collection Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) Chapter 2 utilizes Walter Benjamins work in Passagen-Werk (translated as The Arcades Project) to discuss Josephs relation to the mythic landscape in Schulzs story Sklepy Cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops) I posit that the landscape facilitates Josephs visionary experiences and serves as a vessel of the past in the present or what Benjamin calls the dialectical wish-image

Signature

MA Program English Sonoma State University Date

Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom this work would not be what it is Firstly many thanks are due to my generous advisors Thaine Steams and Anne Goldman who have seen the project from its humble beginnings through many incarnations and somehow never seemed bored Thanks also to Sonoma State faculty with whom I have discussed this project and who have acted as a support including Brantley Bryant Mira-Lisa Katz Cathy Kroll Scott Miller Christine Renaudin and Suzanne Toczyski

Karen Underhill at the University of Illinois-Chicago Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan and David Goldfarb at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York have all given me much fodder for my discussions here both in person and in print thank you for inculcating me with the wide world of Schulzania

Thank you to all of my Sonoma State colleagues in particular Emily Hostutler who helped plot the direction of this thesis (probably without knowing it) and Loriann Negri who managed to keep me sane Beetle Squirrel Goose and Bear also participated in managing my sanity

I am grateful to my parents and in-laws for clapping for me through this even if they werent particularly sure what they were clapping for And to Aleta Drummond and the kickstarter community who helped fund the research that fueled this project

I also owe an immense amount of gratitude to Reh Irwin Keller and Rabbi Ted Feldman Thank you for your kind talks your honest words and your understanding hearts

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For Adam obviously

VI

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

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Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

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Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom this work would not be what it is Firstly many thanks are due to my generous advisors Thaine Steams and Anne Goldman who have seen the project from its humble beginnings through many incarnations and somehow never seemed bored Thanks also to Sonoma State faculty with whom I have discussed this project and who have acted as a support including Brantley Bryant Mira-Lisa Katz Cathy Kroll Scott Miller Christine Renaudin and Suzanne Toczyski

Karen Underhill at the University of Illinois-Chicago Benjamin Paloff at the University of Michigan and David Goldfarb at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York have all given me much fodder for my discussions here both in person and in print thank you for inculcating me with the wide world of Schulzania

Thank you to all of my Sonoma State colleagues in particular Emily Hostutler who helped plot the direction of this thesis (probably without knowing it) and Loriann Negri who managed to keep me sane Beetle Squirrel Goose and Bear also participated in managing my sanity

I am grateful to my parents and in-laws for clapping for me through this even if they werent particularly sure what they were clapping for And to Aleta Drummond and the kickstarter community who helped fund the research that fueled this project

I also owe an immense amount of gratitude to Reh Irwin Keller and Rabbi Ted Feldman Thank you for your kind talks your honest words and your understanding hearts

v

For Adam obviously

VI

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

vu

Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

For Adam obviously

VI

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

vu

Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction The Secret Stays in A Tangle 2

I A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body 11

II Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image 33

Epilogue 5 5

Works Cited 59

vu

Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Tief ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit Sollte man ihn nicht nennen bodenlose Deep is the well of the past Should we not call it bottomless]

-Thomas Mann Die Geschichten Jaakobs (The Tales of Jacob)

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Introduction The Secret Stays in a Tangle

In 2004 Benjamin Palo ff published an article in the Boston Review entitled Who

Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The focus of the article is

as tricky as its title suggests in it Palo ff recounts the 200 I discovery of Polish-Jewish

author and artist Bruno Schulzs frescos in modem-day Ukraine and their controversial

removal to Jerusalem by Yad Vashem The debate that erupted over Schulzs true

homeland pitted Jews against Poles and sparked a controversy over who exactly has the

right to Schulzs legacy 1 Y ad V ashem s actions which culminated in the destruction of

portions of the artwork suggest that Poles [and Ukranians] are not worthy stewards of

their own Polish-Jewish heritage while Poles who wish to claim Schulzs art as

exclusively Polish run the risk of ignoring his Jewish identity as well as the forced

circumstances of his murals production (8) Each side is not without its merits as Paloff

rightly notes but neither are they without their blind spots

Perhaps equally interesting are the comments Palo ff s article received on the

Boston Review website in 2011 proving that this heated debate is far from closure many

years after the articles original publication One commenter offering resounding

evidence for Paloffs claim that both sides of the debate cannot disentangle themselves

from their individual politics chastises the author for his misunderstanding of Polish

culture suggesting that he seeks to blame Poles for the fact that there are few Jews

1 Ultimately the Ukrainians agreed to gift the murals to Y ad V ashem after the fact however this did not stop Ukrainians from repeatedly referring to the murals as stolen when I visited Drohobycz in June of 2012

2

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

living there [in Poland] today (8-9) Another claims that [Schulzs] religion makes no

difference as he was a Polish citizen and created his masterpieces in the Polish

language in Poland (9) Following this a posting entitled One of the Loathome [sic]

and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered expresses

extreme dissatisfaction with what the author labels as a deJewification of Schulz

(9) In a surreal twist of reinterpretation it seems that for some readers Paloffs

concentration on Polish ties was not enough for another it is so central as to be offensive

Brian R Banks author of the Schulz study Muse amp Messiah comments that the only

current [Schulz] sought was art but that he chose Polish and thus his identity (9)

This quick and easy solution to the debate is perhaps a bit too neat can one really choose

an identity in the same way one chooses a brand of toothpaste or college major Is it

simply a matter of what Schulz chose I posit that identity is bound up in things seen

and unseen both chosen and inherited Schulzs identity is not simply a matter of what

Schulz intended or believed nor is it a case of nationality or religion above all Rather

each untangling of the threads of Schulzs life and art only reveals more knots In an

artful commentary on modem life Schulz presents a constant push and pull between the

quotidian and the mythic to the degree that the modem world is figured as irrevocably

tied to the unconscious past

Born in 1892 Schulz lived in an Eastern European town with constantly shifting

borders At the time of his birth Drohobycz was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

and a seat of newly emerged Hassidic Judaism by the time of his death in 1942 it had

weathered the collapse of the empire its reintegration into the Second Polish Republic

and ultimately Nazi and Soviet rule Each of these elements can be explored with relation

3

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

to Schulzs work but none can be said to be the center Schulzs work is a meeting point

of many disparate centers although his stories would bend to almost any critical reading

the larger truth is the confluence of existences and interpretational possibilities The town

of Schulzs narrator Joseph resembles the authors hometown ofDrohobycz as much as

Joseph resembles Schulz but it would be too neat to call these tales a roman a clef tout

court Rather they play with history memory tradition modernity and identity in the

same perplexing way that Schulzs biography does Embracing everything they embrace

nothing

In truth determining the strange interlacing of history identity and selfbood is a

much more onerous task than Paloff s commenters on The Boston Review website would

suggest Much like art the task of the critic and reader is not to answer the question of

the work so to speak but to follow one question-which ideally only leads to more

questions-among many For his part Schulz notes that art (and I would add art

criticism) does not resolve that secret [of breaking down insights into meaning]

completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany]2 The knot the soul

got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the

contrary it draws tighter (Letters 111 101) Given Schulzs predilection for

uncertainties Paloff notes that questions about Schulzs identity-not to mention the

interpretive possibilities of his writings and drawing-have become subsumed in usshy

versus-them polemics that Schulz himself would most likely have found wholly absurd

(7) Paloff adds that Schulzs identity-in life and in death-has been malleable

Full of aporias and ambiguities Schulzs biography has become a compelling example

2 Literally It remains inchoate

4

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

of how the gaps in real history become occasions for invention speculation and

appropriation Intriguing perplexing moving and elusive Schulz could belong to

everyone by belonging to no one ( 4) Likewise the temptation to uncover the real

Schulz-via critical apparatus or categorization-often proves too strong The same

holds true for Schulzs fiction which has been claimed at various turns for modernism

postmodemism the fantastical and autobiographic None of these categories can

encompass what it means to read Schulz even the author-identified term of

autobiographical narrative (powie8f autobiograficznq) comes up short (Letters 114

103) Rather than trying to explain Schulzs artistic or personal identity we should

instead endeavor to rid ourselves of the notion that the true Schulz is found so simply

Whatever true Schulz there is he is more than merely Jewish or Polish or modem or

post-modem and is indeed as complex and real as his work

Such questions explicitly or not are at the heart of this thesis How best to

understand Schulz Can one discern a critical apparatus suited to the untangling of these

threads How much weight should be given to Schulzs Jewishness Does one run the

risk ofdeJewification while focusing on Schulzs Western ties and influences In the

many twists and turns this scholarship has taken I have tried to move toward what I

believe will be most illustrative of Schulzs work Although this seems self-evidentshy

what kind of literary scholar does not seek to illuminate the dark spaces of art-I have

found that the temptation to find the answer to Schulzs work has proven for me much

like the Boston Review commentators very strong Ultimately I have instead sought to

illuminate aspects of Schulzs work by way of comparison In placing Schulzs work up

against the work of others I believe that what is unique to Schulz finds resonance

5

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

elsewhere while still remaining singular for comparison is never simply a mere

categorization of similarities and differences It is as WJT Mitchell notes in

Comparisons Are Odious the dialectic between similarity and difference the process

of finding differences between things that appear to be similar and of finding similarities

between things that appear to be different (321-322) This process has been one of

challenging my assumptions about what Schulz does or does not mean a similarity

here or difference there only serves to illuminate another passage of the labyrinth of

meamng

This thesis takes on two separate aspects of Schulzs work the visionary

experience and the relationship between landscape and memory My first chapter A

Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

explores the relationship between Schulzs stories of The Book (Ksi~ga) and Martin

Bubers 1909 collection of mystical texts Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic

Confessions) This chapter was born as a seminar paper in Prof Niklaus Largiers Spring

2012 seminar on medieval visionary literature at UC Berkeley Initially though I had

committed to writing a thesis on Schulz it did not occur to me that there was a

connection to be made between Schulz Julian of Norwich et al Perhaps I had in mind

too rigid a definition ofcomparison-the kind that WJT Mitchell decries--and

couldnt imagine what medieval Christian visionaries could lend to a discussion of

Schulz Little by little as Professor Largiers course discussions progressed I came to see

that a pronounced parallel was emerging eventually I came to view Joseph as a sort of

visionary figure one whose visions are mediated by sensory experience and the written

word

6

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

1broughout this work the term visionary experience refers to occasions of

otherworldly insight obtained by a divine agent These moments often involve a vivid

depiction of something that is not actually present (ie angels or bursts of light) and a

written account that attempts to in effect say the unsayable Since these visionary

moments are I argue a synesthetic experience the writers struggle with the act of

depiction often expressing their defeat in the face of the unexplainable In Schulzs tales

centering around The Book Joseph experiences bursts of light and color that threaten

to devour him he also sees visions of words turning to flocks of birds and creates art

while trembling in ecstasy ( 15) In Chapter One I argue that looking to medieval

ecstatic texts-which Martin Buber defines as those texts describing an experience of

unity with God-can help illuminate Schulzs sensory-heavy depiction of Josephs

experiences In utilizing the philosophy of Michel Serres I argue that these visionary

experiences are centered in a mingled body (un corps mete) working in tandem with

the soul In this way the visionary exists both within (the body) and without (the

otherworldly or soul) in the case of both Joseph and Bubers visionaries the connecting

tissue though fraught with ambiguity is the written word

My second chapter Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and

the Dialectical Myth-Image deals with the depiction of landscape in Schulzs story

Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) and its relation to a mythic past Although

ostensibly revolving around a simple plot-a family goes to the cinema the father sends

his son home to fetch his forgotten wallet boy gets lost in the process-the city that pulls

Joseph into a labyrinth of mythic images and events is more of what Benjamin terms a

wish image than mere plot detail In discussing wish images in this chapter-which

7

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Susan Buck-Morss helpfully defines as a cultural memory reservoir of myths and

symbols from a more distant ur-past ( 116)-I utilize Walter Benjamins Arcades

Project parts of which discuss the potential for the past to be written on the present in the

form of a landscape Although it may seem self-evident it is worth defining exactly what

I mean by landscape In the strictest sense a landscape is a pastoral scene of rural

imagery either in nature or in (usually painted) representation Here though I am

utilizing the second part of this traditional definition in a rather unorthodox way I see

Bruno Schulz-via Josephs perception-landscaping the world through verbal imagery

and in this way the landscape represents that which is external to Joseph 3 In other

words the spaces and places that Joseph traverses are all landscapes of Schulzs design

even if they are urban rather than rural settings

The landscapes of Cinnamon Shops are emblematic of the type of places that

blend historical memory personal past and mythic remnants In conjuring the streets of a

mythic Drohobycz Schulz invites the landscape to grow and change with Josephs

experiences and perceptions With Benjamin as our guide I argue that we can begin to

understand the physical landscape of Schulzs fiction as a multi-layered character it is as

once a function of Josephs (and Schulzs) landscaping of the external environment as it

is an actant facilitating Josephs visionary experiences One gets the sense that such

adventures are not possible anywhere but exactly where they take place I argue that this

is as much a function of Schulzs childhood in Austro-Hungarian Empire as it is the tale

itself For in truth landscape is a function of an individual consciousness an act of

perception that is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock

3 See WJT Mitchells introduction to Landscape and Power where he suggests that we begin to change landscape from a noun to a verb (1)

8

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

(Schama 7) No aspect of the external landscape is free from such a push and pull with

each new adventure the ground beneath Josephs feet shifts to reveal different aspects of

the mysterious land of Drohobycz-a land that for Schulz could only be truthfully

rendered in this form of auto-mythology In cataloguing the effect of the external

environment on Joseph I propose an understanding of Schulzs landscapes as purveyors

of a historical memory overlaid on a mythic present

It is no accident-and certainly should not be overlooked--that each of these

experiences are mediated through a narrator in the throws of a messianic childhood His

world is in the stuff of dreams and visions and nowhere are these aspects mere

allegories Like Joyces Stephen Dedalus Joseph sees the world through a childs eyes

but with an adults capacity for expression It is a re-entrance into childhood as an adult

with all the tricky baggage of stored up memories and intellectual self-awareness As

Schulz notes

After all the kind of art I care about is precisely a regression childhood revisited If it were possible to reverse development to attain the state of childhood again to have its abundance and limitless once more that age of genius [genialnej epoce] those messianic times promised and sworn to us by all mythologies would come to pass My ideal goal is to mature into childhood That would be genuine maturity for you (Letters 126 113-114)

It may not be possible to re-enter childhood it may not even be possible to describe it

without bending the truth to our present-day whims But Schulz makes an attempt to re-

view the world in this way and in the process remake it with what he calls a certain

recipe for reality (Letters 113) In Schulz the detritus of everyday lifo-the tables and

chairs a dilapidated building or stamp album-is enfolded into a mystical consciousness

evoking just such a return to childhood fantasy I have tried to bring this child-like

9

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

maturity-and wonder-to my discussions of Schulzs visionary moments and haunted

landscapes In each case I hope to have found threads that are worth (un)tangling I take

comfort in the questions that have arisen for me in writing this which are innumerable

and thankfully only lead to more tangles

10

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Chapter I

A Sensory Vision of the Word Bruno Schulz Martin Buber and The Ecstatic Body

But is the myth a phantasm Is it not a revelation of the ultimate reality of being ls not the experience of the ecstatic a symbol of the primal experience of the universal mind Are not both a living inner experience

We listen to our inmost selves-and do not know which sea we hear murmuring

-Martin Buber Ecstasy and Confession (Ecstatic Confessions 11 )4

In the Schulzs stories revolving around a mystical and varied text-Ksi~ga

(The Book) Genialna Epoka (The Age of Genius 5) and Wiosna (Spring-

boundaries are confronted crossed and sometimes even entirely erased One page

presents the narrator Joseph as a typical provincial child fawning over a colleagues

stamp album while the next casts his character in the glow of messianic aspirations In

this chapter I shall explore the visionary quest of Schulzs semi-autobiographical

narrator Joseph and the ways in which this character interacts with what Martin Buber

terms the ecstatic As we will see Schulzs use of a visionary landscape to situate the

narrators return to an age of genius bears a strong resemblance to medieval writers of

mystical literature both in the Jewish and Christian traditions My argument focuses on

the Christian tradition because of its unique relationship to the body which parallels the

4 Hereafter references will be listed as EC All translations from the German are Esther Camerons 5 Genialna Epoka is perhaps better rendered as The Brilliant Epoch or The Wondrous Era but I have decided to honor Celina Wieniewska s translation for consistencys sake I have used Wieniewskas translations throughout except where otherwise noted and have included the Polish original where there is some inconsistency or nuance not contained in the translation Page citations refer to English version first and the Polish second

11

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

role of Josephs sensory body in his visionary experiences6 By understanding Schulzs

link with these mystical visionaries I hope that we can better understand the relationship

between the sensory perception and visionary experience in Schulzs work I assert that

these visionary experiences create a rift in the quotidian facilitated by the visionary and

sensory body allowing for an alternative tract of existence particularly visible in

medieval mystical literature In these narratives the sensory body acts in tandem with the

visionary experience in order to surpass the visionarys everyday existence and gesture to

the divine in this world In this way Josephs body becomes a conduit for the visionary

experience and in actively participating in the visionary experience ceases to be a mere

allegorical figure for the visionary

In particular I will situate Schulzs work within the context of Martin Bubers

Ekstatische Konfossionen (translated as Ecstatic Corifessions) a collection spanning

several centuries of multi-denominational writings on the subject of what Buber def mes

as the ecstatic visionary experience Published in 1909 Bubers collection of texts

exerted a powerful influence on the readers and thinkers of his day indeed similar

threads ofecstatic mystical testimonies can be found in many of Schulzs interwar

contemporaries most notably Rainer Maria Rilke Thomas Mann and Robert Musil 7

Bruno Schulzs narratives of visionary space in the tales written under the sign of the

6 Interesting explications of Schulzs ties to the Jewish mystical tradition abound elsewhere See for example Dieter De Bruyn and Kris Van Heuckeloms collection of essays (Un) Masking Bruno Schulz New Combinations Further Fragmentations Ultimate Reintegrations New York Rodopi 2009 7 See Paul Mendes-Flohr s editors introduction and notes in EC It should most certainly be noted that Rilke and Mann were perhaps Schulzs greatest influences (See Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz)

12

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Book8 mirror the ways in which medieval visionaries utilized the sensory experience of

what Michel Serres has called a mingled body (un corps mele) to evoke a living word

both in the vision itself and in the mind of the reader Bubers philosophical ruminations

on ecstasy in his introduction to the collection both reflect and help to elucidate

Schulzs own belief expressed in his oft-cited essay The Mythicization of Reality

(Mityzacja rzeczywisto5ci) of a primordial word In both sets of visionary texts

(Schulzs and those included in Bubers collection) the allegory for seeing a vision or

feeling the presence of the divine comingles with experiences of physiological seeing

and feeling Moreover for Schulz Buber and Serres language remains the common link

between spiritual insight and sensory experience In attempting to describe the ineffable

it becomes possible for these authors to gesture to a sacred divine and primordial word

An Epoque of (Visionary) Genius

By the time Schulzs period of artistic creation reached its height in the early

1930s the land of his birth had undergone significant changes not the least of which was

its incorporation into a restored Republic of Poland This region of Galicia which is now

located in Ukraine was the site of tremendous upheaval in World War I and has

historically endured a precarious existence dominated at turns by Germany and Russia

In the late 19th century however when Schulz was still a child Galicia was home to a

wide array of cultures and nationalities including Ukrainian Polish Jewish and

Armenian peoples Galicia at the turn of the century was in some ways a stagnant

8 This is Jan Blonskis phrase as expressed in On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture

13

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

economic backwater rife with extreme poverty but it also experienced an emerging and

proud nationalism founded on cultural difference (Bideleux and Jefferies 294)

This golden-tinged time in Galician history poised between periods of

geopolitical instability is the autobiographical backdrop against which Schulzs

fantastical narratives are written Schulzs childhood undoubtedly had a profound impact

on his art The stories of Cinnamon Shops (translated into English as The Street of

Crocodiles) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass9 transcend the confining

reality a purely socio-historical reading would imply but nevertheless these tales indeed

form a sort of mythical roman a clef Io As Schulz notes in a letter to poet Julian Tuwin

praising a reading in Drohobycz

At that time I harbored in my mind a sort of utopia about an age of genius [genialnej epoce] that supposedly existed in my life once upon a time not in any calendar year but on a level above chronology an age when everything blazed with godly colors and one took in the whole sky with a single breath like a gulp of pure ultramarine (Letters 51 46)

For Schulz this age of genius (genialnej epoce) expresses itself as somewhere beyond

reality and yet also with a very direct correlation to it As such the boy narrator of

Sanatorium and Cinnamon Shops both is and is not Schulz himself just as the town the

narrative inhabits both is and is not the Drohobycz of the authors past In both cases

more than passing resemblances are easily noted-for example the narrators father

figure is aging and unwell much like Schulzs father was for the majority of his

9 Hereafter referred to as Sanatorium Io David Golfarb convincingly argues that Schulzs obsession with childhood was not necessarily exclusive to his own childhood but rather a state of Kantian ecstasy owing more to metaphysics than nostalgia for there could be no biographical materials on the utopian childhood Schulz describes (28)

14

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

childhood and the Street of Crocodiles of Cinnamon Shops is almost directly lifted

from a commercial district in Drohobycz II However such parallels can only take us so

far as the narratives of Schulzs tales quickly reveal a clear break with realism as such In

order to present the reader with an age of genius viewed through the landscape of his

youth Schulz takes on the language of a visionary tale rife with elements of fantastical

mythology12

The Book centers on an eternal authentic text that exceeds the narrators

capacity to describe it It is important to note that there are two words for book in

Polish ksiqtka refers to any book while ksi(lga the title of Schulzs story refers to a

holy or otherwise precious book such as the Bible Appropriately then Schulzs narrator

even notes that his act of naming it The Book (Ksiflga) is preceded by a silent

capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental [nieobj(ltnosciq transcendentu] of

a thing without a name (115) The Book is something concrete yet ultimately

unknowable-a text with the power to extend beyond its existence and gesture to the

sublime In light of this Josephs first encounters with The Book are recounted with

appropriate reverence

Sometimes my father would wander off and leave me alone with The Book the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise And as the windswept pages were turned merging the colors and shapes a shiver ran through the columns of text freeing from among the letters flocks of swallows and larks Page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness [sycila barwnosciq] (115-116 104)

11 In his painstakingly crafted biography of Schulz Jerzy Ficowski even suggests that Schulzs written description of the sun in several stories corresponds with the actual experience of walking through the Drohobycz market square (93-95) 12 See Schulzs 1934 letter to Tadeusz Breza in Ficowski ed Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz in which he expresses a desire to show [Breza] Drohobycz and its surrounding and see the landscape of my youth afresh through [his] eyes 53

15

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Clearly this object-if it can be called that-is no mere book At once alive and variable

The Book has the ability to both reflect and challenge the everyday reality of language

and the nature of things Shortly after this description of a landscape brightened by The

Book the narrator notes that he may have forgotten The Book forever had it not been

for a certain night and a certain dream (116) This dream we soon learn is the stuff of

the Book itself fluttering magically beneath Josephs closed eyelids For weeks

afterwards he searches and searches only to find one clumsy falsification (nieudolny

falsyftkat) after another until he spots a large folio page in the hands of the family

maid Adela (118 106) This folio is once again The Book

In The Age of Genius Schulz replaces the authentic book with the authentic

creation as Joseph brings these visions to the page they subsequently come alive in

bursts of color and movement Here Joseph is compelled to draw wildly and

feverishly ( w pospiechu w panice) in the margins of old newspapers and magazines

zigzags that knotted themselves suddenly into anagrams of vision ( 131-13 2 120) As if

in a fever Joseph creates and creates ultimately showing his drawings to a shifty relative

named Shloma who deems them amazingly accurate and final and [which] like

lightning illuminate the very center of things (139) For Schulz such primordial

mystical illuminations clearly bear repeating as they reassert themselves again and again

in these fantastical narratives

Gradually the act of seeing a vision gives way to the language of physical

sight and Schulz literalizes the allegorical vision In Spring the third story in

Sanatorium The Book reemerges as a coveted stamp album owned by Josephs friend

16

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

Rudolph Upon viewing the album for the frrst time the narrator experiences what he

calls the revelation the vision of the fiery beauty [rozplomienionej pi~knosci] of the

world (150 138) In the stamp album-and a stamp of Franz Joseph I in particular-

Joseph glimpses an outside world that exists as he sees it and soon comes to believe

himself the only true owner

Many signs seemed to point to its [the album] holding a message and a personal commission for me There was for instance the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album not even Rudolph He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of color Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages (35)

The pages of the text shine and are filled with a gamut of color that imprints itself on

Josephs face much like The Book marks itself on his eyelids the fateful night before it is

rediscovered Similarly in The Book colors and shapes emerge from the pages

and the landscape is saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) (116 105) Far

from an inconsequential bystander Josephs body becomes an active participant in the

mystical experience through its capacity to see and be imprinted upon

In these experiences physical sense is rendered instrumental in establishing a

relationship between an internal world and the external world of the vision The visionary

nights of Spring for example are accompanied by the scent of jasmine and lilac while

the hand-drawn birds of The Age of Genius imbue the landscape with cherry red

sweetness and air scented with lavender (powietrze pelne lawendy) (135 124)

Elsewhere the glare of [Gods] wisdom [spreads] a super-scent [nad-aromatem] and

The Book is turned with trembling fingers (1521121 140) Indeed the fever of

17

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

creativity itself which serves as the stabilizing event in what is dubbed the Age of

Genius is accompanied by a full bodily experience of smells sights textures tastes

It was toward the end of winter The world had dissolved in puddles but sudden waves of heat seemed full of fire and pepper The honeysweet pulp of day was cut into silvery furrow into prisms filled with colors and spicy piquancies Noonday collected within a short space the whole fire of these days and all the moments that glowed [wszystkie godziny palajqce i pelne ognia] At that hour unable to contain the heat the day shed its scales of silvery tinplate of crunchy tinfoil and layer after layer disclosed its core of solid brightness [litego blasku ] (130 118)

Here time itself is represented with a body its qualities are marked by such tactile images

as pulp scales and silvery tinplate while its flavors are honeysweet and filled

with a heat that seems full of fire and pepper One would be hard pressed to discover a

more synesthetic verbal experience indeed the reader is pulled along with Joseph

tasting and smelling as the visions emerge Schulz goes on to note that [a]s if this were

not enough chimneys smoked and billowed with lustrous steam underscoring the

impossible fullness of the sensory landscape (130) Bursting with these colors and

flavors time regresses into a Schulzian space filled with solid brightness (litego

blasku) and in this apex of sensuality visionary travel becomes possible

Somewhat paradoxically a similar disavowal of the body-much akin to that of

an ascetic monk-also accompanies these visionary experiences Joseph is so enraptured

with his vision of The Book that burning with quiet ecstasy he forgets to eat (134)

The reader assumes that The Book provides the only nourishment necessary rendering

physical needs irrelevant Again in the midst of furious creation and prey to [his]

inspirations Joseph does not notice Adela when she brings him food despite the fact

that she is dressed in her Sunday best and smells of spring (134) Amidst the flurry of

18

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

imagination sight smell and taste are subsumed Instead Joseph becomes a sort of

automaton by which the drawings of his age of genius are committed to paper

I stood rigid as a signpost with outstretched elongated fingers pointed in anger in fierce concentration hand trembling in ecstasy My hand guided me alien and pale and pulled me after it a stiff waxen hand like the large votive hands in churches like angels palms raised for an oath (130)

Joseph here rigid as a signpost still retains the use of his body but exists as a conduit

through which the visionary experience flows He barks curses in an alien voice and

creates as if by a foreign hand ( 131 ) The sense of touch and the use of his hand are

crucial but so is a retreat from the physical realm

Schulzs explorations of vision throughout these stories manifest in an uneasy

tension both affirming and denying the body In one sense Joseph explores the visionary

world with his body and sensory perception becomes a crucial element of discovery He

produces a bodily engagement with the visions themselves which manifests in the

language of the senses On the other hand though Joseph becomes a saintly

disembodied figure comparable to an angelic statue through which the mysteries of vision

are transmitted

Toward the Ecstatic Vision

In each of these cases Josephs visions of the authentic Book are also rife with

examples of the type of ecstasy Martin Buber traces in his volume Ecstatic

Confessions In his introduction to the first edition published by Eugen Diederichs a

publisher of esoteric texts most prolific at the turn of century Buber expresses an interest

in his collections collective expression with the placing outside [ie the written text] of

19

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

something inward [ie the visionary experience] despite the ineffability of such an event

(3) Ecstasy he notes stands beyond the common experience It is unity solitude

uniqueness that which cannot be transferred It is the abyss that cannot be fathomed the

unsayable ( 6) lhls unsayable experience is then paradoxically rendered in written

form in an attempt to understand the ecstatic vision

Such concerns of the mystical tradition are appropriately placed in any discussion

of Schulz for despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence that Schulz read these

texts mystical visionary literature was an important intellectual currency exchanged

within the interwar Jewish milieu in which Schulz lived13 As David Goldfarb notes

although Schulz may not have had direct knowledge of a mystical tradition it would

have been difficult to avoid absorbing their [in particular the Zohar and Talmud] style

and fragments of their substance from the conversation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in

Galicia (265) Similarly Jerzy Ficowski notes that in spite of the fact that Schulzs

family was not religious he was nonetheless not indifferent to myths or sacred rites

(35)

Moreover an interest in the type ofecstatic confessions that Martin Buber

collected in his 1909 volume-if not with this collection specifically-flourished during

Schulzs brief period of artistic creation The interwar period itself was a key juncture in

the history of Eastern European Jewry in spite of repeated threats to their religion

personhood and claim to rights the newly emerging Polish state was what Harry M

Rabinowicz calls a period of religious renaissance for the Jews

13 It should be noted though that the vast majority of Schulzs correspondence and close to the entirety of his library has been destroyed or lost thus there is little concrete evidence of anything Schulz read

20

It marked a reemphasis on Torah and the reemergence of a Shulchan Aruch Jew for whom the Torah was all-embracing and all-sufficient It was hard to be a Jew but it was compensatingly good to be a Jew In an age of systematic persecution and licensed persecution the Jew managed to retain a spiritualjoie de vivre (12)

In this fruitful environment Jewish modernism surfaced as well and Schulzs work bears

the mark of this tradition14 Hassidic fables religious texts and a new interest in

mysticism all helped structure an emerging Jewish artist Martin Buber a proponent for

an individual religiosity divorced from dogma published several influential collections

that helped further this tradition including Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman (The

Tales of Rabbi Nachman) in 1906 Die Legende des Baalschem (The Legend of

Baalschem) in 1908 and Die Erzahlungen der Chassidim (Tales of the Hasidism) in

1949 However Bubers interests much like Schulzs were not exclusively tied to the

Jewish faith and this allowed his works influence to extend beyond Jewish

communities His admiration of non-denomination mystical literature as evidenced in

EC both reflected and furthered an emerging European artistic tradition toward the inner

experience of ecstasy Not the least significant of these artists to engage with this

tradition is Rainer Maria Rilke whose works of precision and purity Schulz described

as so influential to his artistic development (Letters 133) As Niklaus Largier notes

Rilkes readings might give a nice picture of a reading list of mystical texts in the early twentieth century As we know he read Angelus Silesius in 1903 Meister Eckhart in 1905 Mechthild of Magdeburg Teresa of Avila Katharina of Siena in 1910 Heinrich Seuse in 1913 and John of the Cross in 1926 Rilke himself was

14 Schulzs decision to write in Polish rather German or Yiddish as many of his colleagues did should be noted For an excellent explication of Schulzs relation to Jewish modernism see Karen Underhills Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity

21

perceived by some of his contemporary critics as a mystic eg in an essay by Wilhelm von Scholz published in 1904 with the title Mystiker (2)

At the very least Schulzs admiration for Rilke places him in contact with this tradition

as does his geographic locale In Bubers collection too there exist some parallels that

are certainly worth noting and exploring not the least of which is a recurring concern

with bodily sensation which elicits marked resonances to Schulzs depiction of Josephs

visionary landscape

Like Schulz many medieval mystics evoked the language of sensory perception

in descriptions of visionary ecstasy Christian visionary literature of the Middle Ages-

the period from which the bulk of EC is drawn-is rife with expressions of bodily

sensation Although one may be inclined to imagine the medieval mystic as an ascetic

man or woman with little need of the physical senses we actually see that in their written

texts the artificial evocation of taste touch and smell form a sphere of exploration and

education of the senses and passions in a specific way (73-91) In Bubers anthology for

example Mechtild Von Magdenburg speaking from the voice of God compares the soul

to the taste of a grape the fragrance of balsam and the radiance of the sun (EC 52)

Angela Di Foligno refers repeatedly to the eyes of the soul and Julian of Norwich

opens a spiritual eye (99 95) Again in a text by Alpais of Cudot the authors soul

trembles much like Josephs hand trembles when it is possessed by a mystical creativity

in The Age of Genius In fact the texts included in Ekstatische Konfessionen refer so

frequently to the language of sight the fragrances of spiritual love and the touch of God

that a catalogue of the many instances here would be repetitious What is important to

note are the ways in which this language is applied and to what ends

22

A long history of sensual and religious experience tells us that the two are

interconnected but what is particularly germane is the conflation of an allegorical

sensory experience and a physical one Many critics trace a long religious tradition of an

engagement with the senses back to the Greek exegetic practice of the five spiritual

senses the invention of which allowed for the creation of a space of experience

exploration and amplification of the emotional as well as the sensory life of the soul

(80) That the soul has senses is an assertion with a specific set of consequences not to be

taken lightly These senses are analogous to our physical five senses but they also

traverse the boundaries of the corporeal world Echoing this several texts in Ekstatische

Konfessionen reference an inward and outward vision or a sort ofsecond sense

Consider for example this passage from Hildegard Von Bingen

But from my childhood since before I grew strong in bones and nerves and veins I have constantly beheld this vision in my soul And when I see this in such a manner of my soul I also perceive it according to the changes of the layer of clouds and other created things Yet I do not hear it with outward ears nor receive it in the thoughts of my heart nor with any contribution of my five senses but rather in my soul alone while my outward eyes are open so that I never suffer in them the weariness of ecstasy but gaze upon it waking by day and in the night (EC43-44)

The visionary experience is dependent on the metaphor of vision and simultaneously

incorporates a clear link with the physical sense Though this vision exhibits a clear

grounding in the material world-it is perceived according to the changes of the layer of

clouds and other created things-there is a break with reality as such when the narrator

of these visions transcends her corporeal being and sees with inward eyes that do not

fatigue the outward ones Similarly Mechtild Von Magdeburg notes that [i]n the

greatest strength she [the visionary] comes out of herself and in the greatest blindness

23

she sees with the greatest clarity (52) This paradoxical experience of seeing offers a

unique metaphor for the intertwining of spiritual and physical sight

The language of the body is crucial to the depiction of the visionary place but

coexists with a disavowal of the corporeal world Like Schulzs visionary Joseph the

experience of ecstasy in Bubers collection is often accompanied by a lack of physical

nourishment A nun from Elsbet Stagels Sister-Book notes that except for her bodily

needs she [the visionary] ate and slept a little (85) Another author in the same sistershy

book notes that in her visionary state she had no hunger nor thirst nor desire for sleep

(85) The spirit breaks with the bodys need for external sustenance at the same time it is

able to feel pain see touch taste and hear in order to chart the visionary experience In

this way the uneasy Cartesian mind-body split is worked out through a kind of mingled

secondary body-soul in order to accomplish the visionary task the body works itself

inward and merges with the soul in order to produce an existence that relies on the

language of the physical-if in name only-as much as it does the spiritual According to

Buber this self-liberating soul has no need for nourishment and no poison can touch

it It experiences itself as a unity because it has submerged itself entirely in itself has

plunged down to the very ground of itself is kernel and husk sun and eye carouser and

drink at once (2) Interestingly enough the same sister who had no hunger nor thirst

nor desire for sleep awakens from her visionary state to feel for the first time that I

had a body (85) Such a descent into the self is not one that is merely a descent from the

physical rather its absorption of sense into soul is a crucial component of inward

authenticity

24

Elsewhere this mingled selfhood often manifests as the burning light of

revelation In Schulzs text the entire collection of Sanatorium begins with an invasion

of brightness (inwazja blasku) brought on by The Book (115 103) By rubbing the

pages with a wet fingertip the narrators father causes The Book to come alive whereby

ones eyes turned toward a virgin dawn of divine colors toward a miraculous moistness

of purest azure (w dziewiczy sectwit botych koor6w w cudownq mokrosc najczystszych

azurow) (115 103) This inward movement of the eye toward a divine sight recalls the

inner visions ofMechtild Von Magdeburg and Julian of Norwich all three utilize the

language of vision to describe an inner light This equating of light and brightness with

the revelation of the authentic text continues throughout the collection with The Books

emergence the landscape becomes saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) and

continues to burn in the narrators memory with a bright flame while he also notes that

pages of drawing in The Age of Genius glowed brightly in the sun and breathed

brightness (115-116134 103) This emission ofbrightness (barwnosciq) is it seems

the stuff of the visions themselves and appears to be the cause of Josephs visionary

experience The descent into The Age of Genius accompanies a landscape rife with fire

and brightness as the curtains stood in flames smoking in the fire Askew on the

carpet lay a quadrilateral of brightness that could not detach itself from the floor ( 131 )

The narrator notes that this bar of fire (slup ognisty) gives him a sense of being ill at

ease presumably because he is overwhelmed with the visionary experience that this

brightness exemplifies How can I face the flood alone he immediately wonders aloud

How can I all alone answer the million dazzling questions that God is swamping me

with (131 120) The connection between light and God is by no means a unique one

25

just as Joseph knows to connect the light of the book to demands from God so too did

Christian confessions of ecstasy abound with visions of Gods light

This beatific brightness-most commonly viewed as the antithesis of Hells

darkness-is a common medieval trope that appears with great frequency in the visionary

texts of the Middle Ages In Bubers collection of ecstatic confessions an explosion of

light often manifests as the light of God either inhabiting the visionary or pulling the

visionary toward the ecstatic experience Gerlach Peters a mystic from the Netherlands

describes her vision as light itself remarking Now I see I see the light that shines in the

darkness (EC 96) And Sofia von Klingnau a nun writing in Elsbet Stagels Sistershy

Book records a sisters visionary experience as seeing a light beautiful and blissful

beyond measure which surrounds her and then enters her body to illuminate and

transform her (83) Von Klingnaus text continues to describe the experience of seeing

ones bright soul in a way that transcends mere metaphor though it presents itself as a

parable It was a round beautiful and illuminating light like the sun and was of a

gold-colored red and this light was so immeasurably beautiful and blissful that I could

not compare it with anything else And it seemed to me that a splendor went out from

me that illuminated the whole world and a blissful day dawned over the whole earth

(83) Here we see an excellent example of what Buber terms the unity of the soul with the

world By virtue of a divine brightness the visionary experiences the macrocosm of the

external writ on the soul

This experience blissful though it may be is also terrifying for Schulzs Joseph

as he equates the bar of fire with a host of metaphysical questions After noticing that

his friends and neighbors cannot assist him with the answers he answers with creation

26

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

A long history of sensual and religious experience tells us that the two are

interconnected but what is particularly germane is the conflation of an allegorical

sensory experience and a physical one Many critics trace a long religious tradition of an

engagement with the senses back to the Greek exegetic practice of the five spiritual

senses the invention of which allowed for the creation of a space of experience

exploration and amplification of the emotional as well as the sensory life of the soul

(80) That the soul has senses is an assertion with a specific set of consequences not to be

taken lightly These senses are analogous to our physical five senses but they also

traverse the boundaries of the corporeal world Echoing this several texts in Ekstatische

Konfessionen reference an inward and outward vision or a sort ofsecond sense

Consider for example this passage from Hildegard Von Bingen

But from my childhood since before I grew strong in bones and nerves and veins I have constantly beheld this vision in my soul And when I see this in such a manner of my soul I also perceive it according to the changes of the layer of clouds and other created things Yet I do not hear it with outward ears nor receive it in the thoughts of my heart nor with any contribution of my five senses but rather in my soul alone while my outward eyes are open so that I never suffer in them the weariness of ecstasy but gaze upon it waking by day and in the night (EC43-44)

The visionary experience is dependent on the metaphor of vision and simultaneously

incorporates a clear link with the physical sense Though this vision exhibits a clear

grounding in the material world-it is perceived according to the changes of the layer of

clouds and other created things-there is a break with reality as such when the narrator

of these visions transcends her corporeal being and sees with inward eyes that do not

fatigue the outward ones Similarly Mechtild Von Magdeburg notes that [i]n the

greatest strength she [the visionary] comes out of herself and in the greatest blindness

23

she sees with the greatest clarity (52) This paradoxical experience of seeing offers a

unique metaphor for the intertwining of spiritual and physical sight

The language of the body is crucial to the depiction of the visionary place but

coexists with a disavowal of the corporeal world Like Schulzs visionary Joseph the

experience of ecstasy in Bubers collection is often accompanied by a lack of physical

nourishment A nun from Elsbet Stagels Sister-Book notes that except for her bodily

needs she [the visionary] ate and slept a little (85) Another author in the same sistershy

book notes that in her visionary state she had no hunger nor thirst nor desire for sleep

(85) The spirit breaks with the bodys need for external sustenance at the same time it is

able to feel pain see touch taste and hear in order to chart the visionary experience In

this way the uneasy Cartesian mind-body split is worked out through a kind of mingled

secondary body-soul in order to accomplish the visionary task the body works itself

inward and merges with the soul in order to produce an existence that relies on the

language of the physical-if in name only-as much as it does the spiritual According to

Buber this self-liberating soul has no need for nourishment and no poison can touch

it It experiences itself as a unity because it has submerged itself entirely in itself has

plunged down to the very ground of itself is kernel and husk sun and eye carouser and

drink at once (2) Interestingly enough the same sister who had no hunger nor thirst

nor desire for sleep awakens from her visionary state to feel for the first time that I

had a body (85) Such a descent into the self is not one that is merely a descent from the

physical rather its absorption of sense into soul is a crucial component of inward

authenticity

24

Elsewhere this mingled selfhood often manifests as the burning light of

revelation In Schulzs text the entire collection of Sanatorium begins with an invasion

of brightness (inwazja blasku) brought on by The Book (115 103) By rubbing the

pages with a wet fingertip the narrators father causes The Book to come alive whereby

ones eyes turned toward a virgin dawn of divine colors toward a miraculous moistness

of purest azure (w dziewiczy sectwit botych koor6w w cudownq mokrosc najczystszych

azurow) (115 103) This inward movement of the eye toward a divine sight recalls the

inner visions ofMechtild Von Magdeburg and Julian of Norwich all three utilize the

language of vision to describe an inner light This equating of light and brightness with

the revelation of the authentic text continues throughout the collection with The Books

emergence the landscape becomes saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) and

continues to burn in the narrators memory with a bright flame while he also notes that

pages of drawing in The Age of Genius glowed brightly in the sun and breathed

brightness (115-116134 103) This emission ofbrightness (barwnosciq) is it seems

the stuff of the visions themselves and appears to be the cause of Josephs visionary

experience The descent into The Age of Genius accompanies a landscape rife with fire

and brightness as the curtains stood in flames smoking in the fire Askew on the

carpet lay a quadrilateral of brightness that could not detach itself from the floor ( 131 )

The narrator notes that this bar of fire (slup ognisty) gives him a sense of being ill at

ease presumably because he is overwhelmed with the visionary experience that this

brightness exemplifies How can I face the flood alone he immediately wonders aloud

How can I all alone answer the million dazzling questions that God is swamping me

with (131 120) The connection between light and God is by no means a unique one

25

just as Joseph knows to connect the light of the book to demands from God so too did

Christian confessions of ecstasy abound with visions of Gods light

This beatific brightness-most commonly viewed as the antithesis of Hells

darkness-is a common medieval trope that appears with great frequency in the visionary

texts of the Middle Ages In Bubers collection of ecstatic confessions an explosion of

light often manifests as the light of God either inhabiting the visionary or pulling the

visionary toward the ecstatic experience Gerlach Peters a mystic from the Netherlands

describes her vision as light itself remarking Now I see I see the light that shines in the

darkness (EC 96) And Sofia von Klingnau a nun writing in Elsbet Stagels Sistershy

Book records a sisters visionary experience as seeing a light beautiful and blissful

beyond measure which surrounds her and then enters her body to illuminate and

transform her (83) Von Klingnaus text continues to describe the experience of seeing

ones bright soul in a way that transcends mere metaphor though it presents itself as a

parable It was a round beautiful and illuminating light like the sun and was of a

gold-colored red and this light was so immeasurably beautiful and blissful that I could

not compare it with anything else And it seemed to me that a splendor went out from

me that illuminated the whole world and a blissful day dawned over the whole earth

(83) Here we see an excellent example of what Buber terms the unity of the soul with the

world By virtue of a divine brightness the visionary experiences the macrocosm of the

external writ on the soul

This experience blissful though it may be is also terrifying for Schulzs Joseph

as he equates the bar of fire with a host of metaphysical questions After noticing that

his friends and neighbors cannot assist him with the answers he answers with creation

26

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

she sees with the greatest clarity (52) This paradoxical experience of seeing offers a

unique metaphor for the intertwining of spiritual and physical sight

The language of the body is crucial to the depiction of the visionary place but

coexists with a disavowal of the corporeal world Like Schulzs visionary Joseph the

experience of ecstasy in Bubers collection is often accompanied by a lack of physical

nourishment A nun from Elsbet Stagels Sister-Book notes that except for her bodily

needs she [the visionary] ate and slept a little (85) Another author in the same sistershy

book notes that in her visionary state she had no hunger nor thirst nor desire for sleep

(85) The spirit breaks with the bodys need for external sustenance at the same time it is

able to feel pain see touch taste and hear in order to chart the visionary experience In

this way the uneasy Cartesian mind-body split is worked out through a kind of mingled

secondary body-soul in order to accomplish the visionary task the body works itself

inward and merges with the soul in order to produce an existence that relies on the

language of the physical-if in name only-as much as it does the spiritual According to

Buber this self-liberating soul has no need for nourishment and no poison can touch

it It experiences itself as a unity because it has submerged itself entirely in itself has

plunged down to the very ground of itself is kernel and husk sun and eye carouser and

drink at once (2) Interestingly enough the same sister who had no hunger nor thirst

nor desire for sleep awakens from her visionary state to feel for the first time that I

had a body (85) Such a descent into the self is not one that is merely a descent from the

physical rather its absorption of sense into soul is a crucial component of inward

authenticity

24

Elsewhere this mingled selfhood often manifests as the burning light of

revelation In Schulzs text the entire collection of Sanatorium begins with an invasion

of brightness (inwazja blasku) brought on by The Book (115 103) By rubbing the

pages with a wet fingertip the narrators father causes The Book to come alive whereby

ones eyes turned toward a virgin dawn of divine colors toward a miraculous moistness

of purest azure (w dziewiczy sectwit botych koor6w w cudownq mokrosc najczystszych

azurow) (115 103) This inward movement of the eye toward a divine sight recalls the

inner visions ofMechtild Von Magdeburg and Julian of Norwich all three utilize the

language of vision to describe an inner light This equating of light and brightness with

the revelation of the authentic text continues throughout the collection with The Books

emergence the landscape becomes saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) and

continues to burn in the narrators memory with a bright flame while he also notes that

pages of drawing in The Age of Genius glowed brightly in the sun and breathed

brightness (115-116134 103) This emission ofbrightness (barwnosciq) is it seems

the stuff of the visions themselves and appears to be the cause of Josephs visionary

experience The descent into The Age of Genius accompanies a landscape rife with fire

and brightness as the curtains stood in flames smoking in the fire Askew on the

carpet lay a quadrilateral of brightness that could not detach itself from the floor ( 131 )

The narrator notes that this bar of fire (slup ognisty) gives him a sense of being ill at

ease presumably because he is overwhelmed with the visionary experience that this

brightness exemplifies How can I face the flood alone he immediately wonders aloud

How can I all alone answer the million dazzling questions that God is swamping me

with (131 120) The connection between light and God is by no means a unique one

25

just as Joseph knows to connect the light of the book to demands from God so too did

Christian confessions of ecstasy abound with visions of Gods light

This beatific brightness-most commonly viewed as the antithesis of Hells

darkness-is a common medieval trope that appears with great frequency in the visionary

texts of the Middle Ages In Bubers collection of ecstatic confessions an explosion of

light often manifests as the light of God either inhabiting the visionary or pulling the

visionary toward the ecstatic experience Gerlach Peters a mystic from the Netherlands

describes her vision as light itself remarking Now I see I see the light that shines in the

darkness (EC 96) And Sofia von Klingnau a nun writing in Elsbet Stagels Sistershy

Book records a sisters visionary experience as seeing a light beautiful and blissful

beyond measure which surrounds her and then enters her body to illuminate and

transform her (83) Von Klingnaus text continues to describe the experience of seeing

ones bright soul in a way that transcends mere metaphor though it presents itself as a

parable It was a round beautiful and illuminating light like the sun and was of a

gold-colored red and this light was so immeasurably beautiful and blissful that I could

not compare it with anything else And it seemed to me that a splendor went out from

me that illuminated the whole world and a blissful day dawned over the whole earth

(83) Here we see an excellent example of what Buber terms the unity of the soul with the

world By virtue of a divine brightness the visionary experiences the macrocosm of the

external writ on the soul

This experience blissful though it may be is also terrifying for Schulzs Joseph

as he equates the bar of fire with a host of metaphysical questions After noticing that

his friends and neighbors cannot assist him with the answers he answers with creation

26

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

Elsewhere this mingled selfhood often manifests as the burning light of

revelation In Schulzs text the entire collection of Sanatorium begins with an invasion

of brightness (inwazja blasku) brought on by The Book (115 103) By rubbing the

pages with a wet fingertip the narrators father causes The Book to come alive whereby

ones eyes turned toward a virgin dawn of divine colors toward a miraculous moistness

of purest azure (w dziewiczy sectwit botych koor6w w cudownq mokrosc najczystszych

azurow) (115 103) This inward movement of the eye toward a divine sight recalls the

inner visions ofMechtild Von Magdeburg and Julian of Norwich all three utilize the

language of vision to describe an inner light This equating of light and brightness with

the revelation of the authentic text continues throughout the collection with The Books

emergence the landscape becomes saturated with brightness (sycila barwnosciq) and

continues to burn in the narrators memory with a bright flame while he also notes that

pages of drawing in The Age of Genius glowed brightly in the sun and breathed

brightness (115-116134 103) This emission ofbrightness (barwnosciq) is it seems

the stuff of the visions themselves and appears to be the cause of Josephs visionary

experience The descent into The Age of Genius accompanies a landscape rife with fire

and brightness as the curtains stood in flames smoking in the fire Askew on the

carpet lay a quadrilateral of brightness that could not detach itself from the floor ( 131 )

The narrator notes that this bar of fire (slup ognisty) gives him a sense of being ill at

ease presumably because he is overwhelmed with the visionary experience that this

brightness exemplifies How can I face the flood alone he immediately wonders aloud

How can I all alone answer the million dazzling questions that God is swamping me

with (131 120) The connection between light and God is by no means a unique one

25

just as Joseph knows to connect the light of the book to demands from God so too did

Christian confessions of ecstasy abound with visions of Gods light

This beatific brightness-most commonly viewed as the antithesis of Hells

darkness-is a common medieval trope that appears with great frequency in the visionary

texts of the Middle Ages In Bubers collection of ecstatic confessions an explosion of

light often manifests as the light of God either inhabiting the visionary or pulling the

visionary toward the ecstatic experience Gerlach Peters a mystic from the Netherlands

describes her vision as light itself remarking Now I see I see the light that shines in the

darkness (EC 96) And Sofia von Klingnau a nun writing in Elsbet Stagels Sistershy

Book records a sisters visionary experience as seeing a light beautiful and blissful

beyond measure which surrounds her and then enters her body to illuminate and

transform her (83) Von Klingnaus text continues to describe the experience of seeing

ones bright soul in a way that transcends mere metaphor though it presents itself as a

parable It was a round beautiful and illuminating light like the sun and was of a

gold-colored red and this light was so immeasurably beautiful and blissful that I could

not compare it with anything else And it seemed to me that a splendor went out from

me that illuminated the whole world and a blissful day dawned over the whole earth

(83) Here we see an excellent example of what Buber terms the unity of the soul with the

world By virtue of a divine brightness the visionary experiences the macrocosm of the

external writ on the soul

This experience blissful though it may be is also terrifying for Schulzs Joseph

as he equates the bar of fire with a host of metaphysical questions After noticing that

his friends and neighbors cannot assist him with the answers he answers with creation

26

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

just as Joseph knows to connect the light of the book to demands from God so too did

Christian confessions of ecstasy abound with visions of Gods light

This beatific brightness-most commonly viewed as the antithesis of Hells

darkness-is a common medieval trope that appears with great frequency in the visionary

texts of the Middle Ages In Bubers collection of ecstatic confessions an explosion of

light often manifests as the light of God either inhabiting the visionary or pulling the

visionary toward the ecstatic experience Gerlach Peters a mystic from the Netherlands

describes her vision as light itself remarking Now I see I see the light that shines in the

darkness (EC 96) And Sofia von Klingnau a nun writing in Elsbet Stagels Sistershy

Book records a sisters visionary experience as seeing a light beautiful and blissful

beyond measure which surrounds her and then enters her body to illuminate and

transform her (83) Von Klingnaus text continues to describe the experience of seeing

ones bright soul in a way that transcends mere metaphor though it presents itself as a

parable It was a round beautiful and illuminating light like the sun and was of a

gold-colored red and this light was so immeasurably beautiful and blissful that I could

not compare it with anything else And it seemed to me that a splendor went out from

me that illuminated the whole world and a blissful day dawned over the whole earth

(83) Here we see an excellent example of what Buber terms the unity of the soul with the

world By virtue of a divine brightness the visionary experiences the macrocosm of the

external writ on the soul

This experience blissful though it may be is also terrifying for Schulzs Joseph

as he equates the bar of fire with a host of metaphysical questions After noticing that

his friends and neighbors cannot assist him with the answers he answers with creation

26

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

drawing wildly feverishly across the paper while blinded by the glare my eyes full

of explosions rockets and colors (16) A connection to this ineffable experience with the

divine creates an uncomfortable testing of bodily limits while Joseph is given a glimpse

into the mysteries of the divine the price he pays is being blinded and feverish

In each case the experience of light is more than mere visual experience-it

incorporates the entire body In this way the visionary experience joins an immaterial

body with sensory experience in an attempt to create something new that is paradoxically

within and without It exists in unity as a whole As Alpsis ofCudot remarks

For in all its [the souls] actions and movements it is wholly present Whatever it touches it touches as a whole and all at once and all at once it experiences and apprehends soft or hard warm and cold it distinguishes with the fingertip as a whole what it smells it smells as a whole and absorbs fragrances with all its being what it tastes it tastes as a whole and as a whole distinguishes each taste what it hears it hears as a whole and as a whole recalls the sounds what it sees it sees as a whole and as a whole remembers the images (EC 46)

The ability of the soul to incorporate both physical and spiritual touch is thus shown to be

a function of the souls unity It is not surprising then that the point at which the body

ends and the soul begins is an unclear one one must learn to see with inward eyes but

not at the expense of losing physical sight

In his book Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- I (The Five Senses A

Philosophy of Mingled Bodies) French philosopher Michel Serres describes this

embodiment of spiritual and sensory knowledge as a mingled body ( un corps meli) a

synesthetic experience of feeling and knowing concurrently The mingled body for

Serres represents an expression of the fact that there is nothing in the intellect that has

27

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

not passed through the senses (177) 15 This is nothing short of a call to arms as Serres

repeatedly decries the popular model of a philosophy of knowledge that is divorced from

sensory experience He favors mixing inward and outward sapience and sagacity for

we cannot survive without mingling with other worlds (177) It seems to me that

Serres concept of a knowing sensory body is one that can lend much to our

understanding of visionary ecstatic experience Much in the same way that Joseph

attempts to mingle within and without body and spirit in the manner of a medieval

visionary Serres philosophy of mingled bodies serves to underscore the necessity of an

amalgamation of worlds and experiences

As Alpsis of Cudot attests to the visionary experience is one of unity One is

united with God in the same way spiritual and sensory experiences are united For

Joseph this entails the language of sensory experiencemiddot as more than just a metaphor for

the visionary experience the visionary experience itself is a bodily one If as Serres

suggests a mingling of worlds is necessary for holistic experience Josephs episodes of

visionary insight are more than mere spiritual endeavor They speak to a philosophy that

melds the physical and spiritual possibilities of existence and does not highlight one form

of seeing--or one sense--over another

What No Tongue Can Express Sensation and the Ineffable Vision

And then what of the art of depiction-the medium by which all of these

individuals seek to communicate their sensory sacred experience How does the very act

of writing connect to the mingled body or can it Lying parallel to a sometimes-

15 Translations from the French are my own

28

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

contentious relation between body and spirit in these texts is the tension between

language and the ineffability of visionary experience For Serres language anesthetizes

experience and is a way in which the sensory subject retires the senses in a black box

(58) Following this proclivity ecstasy for Buber is the abyss that cannot be

fathomable the unsayable (EC 6) One writer in Bubers collection describes how the

visionary saw and heard what no tongue can express ( 65) Another describes visionary

truths as inexpressible treasures which cannot be comparable to anything (97) How

then to rectify the fact that it is by virtue of language alone that I read these authors and

write about them today

In an oft-cited 1936 essay entitled The Mythicization of Reality Bruno Schulz

describes language as mans metaphysical organ and argues that to name something

means to include it in some universal Sense (Letters 115-116)16 For Schulz the Word

may have been subjected to our base whims of everyday speech adapted to practical

needs and handed down to us as a handy code of communication but that does not

mar its deepest function (116) For the word in its common usage today is only a

fragment of its former all-embracing integral mythology (116) The job of poetry is

to render this True Word manifest In this way Schulz subverts the negative theology of

the ineffable by arguing for a primordial Word that strives for its former connections

wants to complete itself with Sense ( 115) Unwilling to adhere strictly to a traditional

notion of the Word divorced from and secondary to religious experience Schulz

rewrites the Word to incorporate a deep-seated and primordial spirituality capable of

speaking the ineffable Sense

16 Ive used the translations in the English language Letters with the exception of the title Mythicization more accurately reflects the Polish neologism

29

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

Buber and Serres make similar concessions the former describes the ecstatic

visionary as someone who driven by the flame of the Word does not fling down the

Word as fodder for the words but bears witness for the Word the latter admits that

while language may be closed on the language side closed in by its qualities of

exactness precision rigor theses it opens on the world side (EC 8 Serres 368) In spite

of repeated attacks on hard sterile language Serres reminds us in his final chapter

entitled Joy that honest writing can be an experience of beautiful liberation of

ecstasy (368) Serres suggests that true language resides in the experience of the sensory

while Schulz and Buber argue for a true Word rooted in myth but all three agree that

there exists a sacred freeing language underlying the sterile language of mere

information and communication

In the medieval visionary texts of Bubers collection a similar progression toward

a true word distinct from mere language takes place Mystic Hildegard Von Bingen

professes that the words in this vision are not like the words that sound from the mouths

of human beings but like a vibrating flame (EC 44) At other times the language of the

vision is given as if from God himself as Alpais of Cudot notes what I say I see as I

say it and I say it as I see it (45) In each case the Word moves through the human and

the human does not manipulate mere words This sensory experience is echoed in

Josephs search for the authentic text which unfolds while being read [rozwija silt_ on

podczas czytania] its boundaries open to all currents and fluctuations (127 114)

Moreover the age of genius itselfis for Joseph an expression of the divine for even a

small event may be the result ofa higher order of being trying to express itself (13)

30

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

Schulzs Sense returns here in full-force this text does not merely reflect the meaning

of a potentially divine author its twin anns of Word and Sense are the divine author

Ultimately Schulzs collection of stories transforms into something more it

becomes The Book Unable to adequately describe the splendiferous thing that is The

Book Schulz instead recreates the affair of The Book for the reader to experience in

narrative form As a sort of introduction to the form the story of The Book promises to

be written exclusively for a true reader who will understand me when I look him

straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning (116) It is unclear whether this

I exists as Joseph the narrator or Schulz himself but even the briefest glance at

Schulzs non-fiction suggests that it is probably a combination of the two In a 1935 essay

for SI Witkiewicz Schulz situates his work loosely under the heading of

autobiographical narrative (powie8 autobiograficznq) and acknowledges the

unending exegesis of any creative endeavor

Art for that matter does not resolve that secret completely The secret stays in a tangle [Pozostaje on nierozwiklany] The knot the soul got itself tied up in is not a false one that comes undone when you pull the ends On the contrary it draws tighter We handle it trace the path of the separate threads look for the end of the string and out of these manipulations comes art (Letters 111 101)

Josephs visionary expressions are the threads of these fundamental secrets Schulz

appeals to the reader to trust and understand him as only a true reader can in an attempt

to lessen the burden of the ineffable

The mingled body is more than mere allegory in each of these texts its evocation

serves a very specific function of unity that negates both extreme exteriority and

interiority In creating a mingled text replete with evocative textual markers Schulz

31

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

traverses the chasm separating reader and author and opens up a new space in which the

imagination remakes the world Such new spaces are the phenomenon of imagination

and vicarious being his narrator notes in The Book (13) This notion of a second

genesis in the readers mind is true to the form of the genre of visionary literature In fact

the very practice of prayer in the Middle Ages of which many of Bubers ecstatic visions

testify transcends mere Augustinian visionary polarities and utilizes the language of

sensory experience in order to evoke a bodily response in the reader 17 This praying by

numbers is an art of figuration that is meant to inform the workings of perception to

alienate sensation from its everydayness and to immerse them in artificial states that both

negate and reveal the natural and historical face of the world (Largier 88) Gone are

false splits of inward and outward experience sense and spirit reader and writer

Appropriate then that Schulz chooses to appeal to his reader on the first pages of

Sanatorium A short sharp look or a light clasp of the hand will stir him into awareness

and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book For under the imaginary table

that separates me from my readers dont we secretly clasp each others hands (116)

Glances touches imagination and the Word A mingled journey for a mingled book

17 See Bernard McGinns Visions and Visualizations in the Here and Hereafter Harvard Theological Review 983 (2005) 227-246 for an excellent discussion of the history and evolution of the medieval visionary imagination

32

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

Chapter II

Landscaping Memory Bruno Schulz Walter Benjamin and the Dialectical Myth-Image

Memory believes before knowing remembers Believes longer than recollects longer than knowing even wonders

-William Faulkner Light in August

Among several strange commonalities Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin share

a birth year (1892) background (assimilated Jews) and passion (the written word) What

is perhaps the most enduring commonality between Schulz and Benjamin though is their

common struggle for artistic rebirth In their texts as I shall make clear both authors

utilize the written word to discuss-and thus attempt to create-a world set apart from

our own and yet deeper to a primordial truth This messianic impulse lends itself to a

style writing that is often fragmented and always elusive 18 In particular Benjamins

Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) is so formidable a philosophic endeavor that

even the most seasoned Benjamin expert might be forgiven a feeling of helplessness in

the face of such a powerful an enigmatic array of claims (Pensky 177) Likewise as a

steady stream of critical attention proves Schulz has perplexed and awed critics for

nearly six decades Both artists struggled with creating as it were blueprints for the

world in written form and this revolutionary endeavor makes their work both perplexing

and timeless Of these experiments perhaps most striking is the artists collective usage

18 Karen Underhill has dealt with this aspect of messianism in Schulz and Benjamin beautifully and in great detail See her University of Chicago dissertation Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity (2009) particularly chapter one Bruno Schulz and Modem Jewish Messianism See also Eric Jacobsons Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem particularly chapters one and two

33

of a primeval landscape that is both haunted and teeming with elan vital in Schulzs

work as well as Benjamins the landscape becomes a harbinger of historical past and

mythic-infused present subsequently enfolded in the dialectical image that Benjamin

describes so often

Begun in 1927 and unfinished at the time of his death in 1940 the materials

assembled to create The Arcades Project remain one of Walter Benjamins most

ambitious philosophical endeavors Left with nothing more than a compendium of

quotes musings and aphoristic non-sequiturs we can consider the contents of this work

as mere suggestions of future essays unfinished and hopelessly scattered19 Or we can

look at these literary sketches and see the blueprint for a new literary-philosophic

landscape We cannot know what Benjamin aimed to create but this somewhat

haphazard format though unintended may very well have suited Benjamins purposes In

a brief note the author compares his philosophical opus to a literary montage one in

which I neednt say anything Merely show I shall purloin no valuables appropriate no

ingenious formulations But the rags the refuse-these I will not inventory but allow in

the only way possible to come into their own by making use of them (Nla 8)20 The

Arcades Project is full of such notes that confirm the projects revolutionary aims in an

oft-cited letter from 1930 Benjamin goes so far as to refer to it as the theater of all my

struggles and all my ideas (Eiland and McLaughlin x) If we continue with this

19 In many ways this contrast mirrors the fate of the Jewish people For both Schulz and Benjamin an overt focus on their deaths has led many writers to see their work through the lens of absence and mourning I would like to push against this impulse and suggest that both artists infuse their texts with life and indeed hope 20 All translations are taken from the 1999 edition of The Arcades Project translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin

34

metaphor the theater is undoubtedly set in Paris and the image it showcases is a

dialectical wish-image of the nineteenth century arcade

What Benjamin exactly meant by a dialectical image is somewhat

heartbreakingly never expressly stated and remains open for interpretation 21 What we

do know however is that the dialectical image is a powerful place wherein what has

been comes together in a flash with the now (N2a 3) In other words the arcade (to use

his favorite example) was for Benjamin a site through which the past interacted with the

future in order to dialectically assemble a present These arcades were as much a trashy

expression of pop culture as they were a glimpse into myth In representing a glimpse of

the past in their Greek architectural inspirations the onlooker melds the image of the past

into the present The experience is both tragedy and farce tawdry and transcendent In

Expose of 1935 Benjamin describes this as a function of the wish-image which

deflect[s] the imagination (which is given impetus by the new) back upon the primal

past (4) Such wish-images have the power to recreate and reinterpret the world as much

as they are tied to their primal past

In exploring this dialectical movement both Bruno Schulz and Walter Benjamin

found themselves haunted by the ghostly remains of a mythic city Benjamins obsession

with the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century owed as much to their historical

context as their mythical one In speaking both of newness (in the early 1800s) and

decay the arcades serve to exemplify the means by which a memory of the past is

21 For further study on Benjamins dialectical image including possible solutions to the puzzle see Susan Buck-Morss The Dialectics of Seeing Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project See also Michael Jennings Dialectical Images Walter Benjamins Theory of Literary Criticism and Pensky Max Method and Time Benjamins Dialectical Images in The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin

35

brought to fruition in the present Schulz similarly revels in the useless and broken as

means by which to achieve the mythic his tales are littered with an ordinariness that

somehow glitters and transcends the everyday 22 Perhaps more striking though is the

echo of a dialectical image in his depiction of his book Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy

cynamonowe )

This book represents an attempt to recreate the history of a certain family a certain home in the provinces not from their actual elements events characters or experiences but by seeking their mythic content the primal meaning of that history (Letters 153)

In short Schulz wishes to embrace a dialectical relationship with the past as created in

the present He seeks to draw in the past in the truest way possible by grounding it in

myth and primal meaning

As defined by Schulz landscape offers a crucial dimension to this mythic

content The authors description of his metaphysical mission culminates in an

admission that the semiautobiographical narrator moves from adventure to

adventure within the boundary of the brightly colored landscape that in constantly

mutating forms keeps company with his exploits (155) The landscape of Cinnamon

Shops was for Schulz not just an element of semi-autobiographical fiction rather this

entity in constant flux is possessed of the capability to act as a companion to his narrator

The place mutates and with this mutation it determines the direction of the narrative

Like Bertjamin Schulz posits that the spiritual materiality of the mythic image can be

grounded in and determined by place Although the backdrop of Schulzs fiction was

22 Schulz is often thought of as a post-modernist rather than a modernist however this aim-and indeed many others--sets him squarely in the modernist camp

36

modeled on his hometown of Drohobycz it also presents itself as otherworldly and

indeed an agent of change Echoing Benjamin Schulzs landscape keeps equal parts

footing in past present and mythic embodying the now that characterizes the flash of

the dialectical image

This chapter shall illustrate the connection between landscape and dialectical

imagery in Schulzs fiction by drawing on several convolutes of Benjamins AP namely

D Boredom Eternal Return K Dream City and Dream House Dreams of the Future

Anthropological Nihilism Jung and M The Flaneur As previously mentioned the

dialectical image is murky water however it is my aim to take Benjamins expression as

an intentionally ambiguous one Like most good works of art the secret is inextricably

linked to its beauty and is open to multiple interpretations At times AP reads less like a

work of philosophy and more like a map to a novel where the authors intention is not to

rectify the ambiguities of past present and mythic but to bring attention to points of

rupture in each Much like a feeling of deja-vu the sense of the happened-before has an

uncanny ability to mingle with the present and myth is never far behind

For our purposes here the dialectical link between history and the present can

best be thought of as the relationship between a horizontal (past) and vertical (present)

line where the two intersect the wish-image of primordial myth emerges Now this

connection of three disparate temporal existences is all but impossible in our day-to-day

existence but it attains the status of dream memory in AP One has the sense that the

emergence of a present grounded in myth and past is possible but only in the way a

dream makes its contents seem possible It is as if it has happened before and may happen

again but only in a faint disconnected way In short the potential for dialectical imagery

37

is the realm of good fiction In discussing the eruptions of the dialectical image in

Schulzs fiction I hope to muddy the waters of Schulzs fictional history and to give an

added sense of urgency to his project for this is for both Benjamin and Schulz a

profoundly utopian endeavor

The Vertical Line Galicia

The land of Schulzs birth was an extraordinary one especially considering the

mythic implications of the term homeland Contrasted with the variations of everyday

life ones homeland remains a fixed image often associated with the nostalgia of

childhood-a static measure of stability in the face of unending change However as

discussed in chapter one Schulzs childhood land was anything but stable After over a

century of existence the land of Galicia ( 1772-1918) gave way to the Second Polish

Republic which put Poland back on the map after over 123 years of geographical

nonexistence When Poland returned the Schulzs homeland was officially no more It

would take more than an erasure from the maps to destroy the spirit of Galicia however

Galicia may have been the name of a region but to its inhabitants it was much more As

Larry Wolff notes in The Idea of Galicia there are several important cultural elements

that emerged out of provincial Galician life not the least of which was the messianic

Jewish sect of Hasidism Leopold von Sacher-Masoch for example was convinced that

Hassidism was fundamentally Galician (208)

In order to understand the Hasidic sect one has to understand the land where they live One has to know Galicia Think of a boundless plain covered with green sprouts in the spring yellow fields of grain in the summer and snow in the winter Here people have a feeling of infinity that they cannot grasp and they withdraw into themselves (quoted in Wolff209)

38

Here the land is seen as a catalyst for mystical fantasies where in withdraw[ing] into

themselves the people obtain a unity with everything although there are undoubtedly

many other lands plains covered with sprouts in winter and snow in summer could

Sacher-Masoch have utilized a more mundane example) it is not simply the physical

landscape that defines Galicia Especially for the Jews of the region Galicia was a sort of

metaphysical homeland where the land and spirit worked in tandem When Poland reshy

emerged after the First World War and Galicia receded into the past the idealized

landscape of Galicia became the haunted terrain of phantoms and fantasies for its

former inhabitants Wolff 4)

For Benjamin such haunted terrain reveals an underlying truth beneath the

detritus of the present resounds echoes of primordial myth Such terrain for Benjamin

has its roots not in physical geography although the Parisian arcades may be emblematic

of such a turn) but rather in the dreamscape of the collective-a well of images from

which all of humanity may pull Much of what Benjamin has to say regarding the

influence of the external ie landscape) on the internal ie individual) is embedded in

his theories of the dream collective a place where such primordial myth resides For

Benjamin the image stock of humanity is recognized by the proverbial child whose

job it is to recognize the new once again Kia 3) In this way there is no such thing as

the new only the new rediscovered in the old Although Benjamin seeks to establish

such a pattern in fashion and architecture he is equally concerned with what he terms

symbolic space Kia 3) The dialectic of old and new here correlates with that of

dreaming and awakening and the messianic awakening is poised like the wooden horse

39

of the Greeks in the Troy of Dreams (K2 4) The individual and collective float back

and forth in Convolute K each adopting subjective presence in tum For Benjamin the

relationship between old and new past and present is analogous to the individuals

relationship to the collective and I argue external and internal One awakens from sleep

and in remembering the dream incorporates it into the present In the same way the past

of a haunted landscape reasserts itself in the present to form a mythic ur-landscape a

place of equal parts dream memory and history

The Horizontal Line Drohobycz Poland

Even a cursory look at Schulzs work makes clear that this author was haunted by

landscape in just such a way When Schulzs Galician myths were written Galicia no

longer existed What did remain was Drohobycz a place that fueled Schulzs creativity

Indeed as we know from his letters traveling to Paris or Warsaw left Schulz longing for

the small somewhat provincial town ofDrohobycz23 It was the only place he could

write As noted in the previous chapter the links between Schulzs fictional landscape

and that of the actual landscape of Drohobycz Poland are numerous Equally important

though is what Benjamin calls the increasing concentration of reality a commonly

perceived phenomenon in which everything past (in its time) can acquire a higher grade

of actuality than it had at the moment of existing (K2 3) Put simply Schulz wrote tales

about his childhood in Galicia filtered through the lens of Polish existence as we shall

23 In his introduction to Schulzs letters Jerzy Ficowski notes that Schulz remained an outsider and anchorite in the provincial backwater of Drohobycz--at a remove from the mainstream ideas and events in the cultural centers of Warsaw Krakow and Lw6w (25) However Schulzs work was both stifled and created there the overall critical consensus of Schulzs relationship to Drohobycz is one of artist and muse

40

modeled on his hometown of Drohobycz it also presents itself as otherworldly and

indeed an agent of change Echoing Benjamin Schulzs landscape keeps equal parts

footing in past present and mythic embodying the now that characterizes the flash of

the dialectical image

This chapter shall illustrate the connection between landscape and dialectical

imagery in Schulzs fiction by drawing on several convolutes of Benjamins AP namely

D Boredom Eternal Return K Dream City and Dream House Dreams of the Future

Anthropological Nihilism Jung and M The Flaneur As previously mentioned the

dialectical image is murky water however it is my aim to take Benjamins expression as

an intentionally ambiguous one Like most good works of art the secret is inextricably

linked to its beauty and is open to multiple interpretations At times AP reads less like a

work of philosophy and more like a map to a novel where the authors intention is not to

rectify the ambiguities of past present and mythic but to bring attention to points of

rupture in each Much like a feeling of deja-vu the sense of the happened-before has an

uncanny ability to mingle with the present and myth is never far behind

For our purposes here the dialectical link between history and the present can

best be thought of as the relationship between a horizontal (past) and vertical (present)

line where the two intersect the wish-image of primordial myth emerges Now this

connection of three disparate temporal existences is all but impossible in our day-to-day

existence but it attains the status of dream memory in AP One has the sense that the

emergence of a present grounded in myth and past is possible but only in the way a

dream makes its contents seem possible It is as if it has happened before and may happen

again but only in a faint disconnected way In short the potential for dialectical imagery

37

is the realm of good fiction In discussing the eruptions of the dialectical image in

Schulzs fiction I hope to muddy the waters of Schulzs fictional history and to give an

added sense of urgency to his project for this is for both Benjamin and Schulz a

profoundly utopian endeavor

The Vertical Line Galicia

The land of Schulzs birth was an extraordinary one especially considering the

mythic implications of the term homeland Contrasted with the variations of everyday

life ones homeland remains a fixed image often associated with the nostalgia of

childhood-a static measure of stability in the face of unending change However as

discussed in chapter one Schulzs childhood land was anything but stable After over a

century of existence the land of Galicia ( 1772-1918) gave way to the Second Polish

Republic which put Poland back on the map after over 123 years of geographical

nonexistence When Poland returned the Schulzs homeland was officially no more It

would take more than an erasure from the maps to destroy the spirit of Galicia however

Galicia may have been the name of a region but to its inhabitants it was much more As

Larry Wolff notes in The Idea of Galicia there are several important cultural elements

that emerged out of provincial Galician life not the least of which was the messianic

Jewish sect of Hasidism Leopold von Sacher-Masoch for example was convinced that

Hassidism was fundamentally Galician (208)

In order to understand the Hasidic sect one has to understand the land where they live One has to know Galicia Think of a boundless plain covered with green sprouts in the spring yellow fields of grain in the summer and snow in the winter Here people have a feeling of infinity that they cannot grasp and they withdraw into themselves (quoted in Wolff209)

38

Here the land is seen as a catalyst for mystical fantasies where in withdraw[ing] into

themselves the people obtain a unity with everything although there are undoubtedly

many other lands plains covered with sprouts in winter and snow in summer could

Sacher-Masoch have utilized a more mundane example) it is not simply the physical

landscape that defines Galicia Especially for the Jews of the region Galicia was a sort of

metaphysical homeland where the land and spirit worked in tandem When Poland reshy

emerged after the First World War and Galicia receded into the past the idealized

landscape of Galicia became the haunted terrain of phantoms and fantasies for its

former inhabitants Wolff 4)

For Benjamin such haunted terrain reveals an underlying truth beneath the

detritus of the present resounds echoes of primordial myth Such terrain for Benjamin

has its roots not in physical geography although the Parisian arcades may be emblematic

of such a turn) but rather in the dreamscape of the collective-a well of images from

which all of humanity may pull Much of what Benjamin has to say regarding the

influence of the external ie landscape) on the internal ie individual) is embedded in

his theories of the dream collective a place where such primordial myth resides For

Benjamin the image stock of humanity is recognized by the proverbial child whose

job it is to recognize the new once again Kia 3) In this way there is no such thing as

the new only the new rediscovered in the old Although Benjamin seeks to establish

such a pattern in fashion and architecture he is equally concerned with what he terms

symbolic space Kia 3) The dialectic of old and new here correlates with that of

dreaming and awakening and the messianic awakening is poised like the wooden horse

39

of the Greeks in the Troy of Dreams (K2 4) The individual and collective float back

and forth in Convolute K each adopting subjective presence in tum For Benjamin the

relationship between old and new past and present is analogous to the individuals

relationship to the collective and I argue external and internal One awakens from sleep

and in remembering the dream incorporates it into the present In the same way the past

of a haunted landscape reasserts itself in the present to form a mythic ur-landscape a

place of equal parts dream memory and history

The Horizontal Line Drohobycz Poland

Even a cursory look at Schulzs work makes clear that this author was haunted by

landscape in just such a way When Schulzs Galician myths were written Galicia no

longer existed What did remain was Drohobycz a place that fueled Schulzs creativity

Indeed as we know from his letters traveling to Paris or Warsaw left Schulz longing for

the small somewhat provincial town ofDrohobycz23 It was the only place he could

write As noted in the previous chapter the links between Schulzs fictional landscape

and that of the actual landscape of Drohobycz Poland are numerous Equally important

though is what Benjamin calls the increasing concentration of reality a commonly

perceived phenomenon in which everything past (in its time) can acquire a higher grade

of actuality than it had at the moment of existing (K2 3) Put simply Schulz wrote tales

about his childhood in Galicia filtered through the lens of Polish existence as we shall

23 In his introduction to Schulzs letters Jerzy Ficowski notes that Schulz remained an outsider and anchorite in the provincial backwater of Drohobycz--at a remove from the mainstream ideas and events in the cultural centers of Warsaw Krakow and Lw6w (25) However Schulzs work was both stifled and created there the overall critical consensus of Schulzs relationship to Drohobycz is one of artist and muse

40

is the realm of good fiction In discussing the eruptions of the dialectical image in

Schulzs fiction I hope to muddy the waters of Schulzs fictional history and to give an

added sense of urgency to his project for this is for both Benjamin and Schulz a

profoundly utopian endeavor

The Vertical Line Galicia

The land of Schulzs birth was an extraordinary one especially considering the

mythic implications of the term homeland Contrasted with the variations of everyday

life ones homeland remains a fixed image often associated with the nostalgia of

childhood-a static measure of stability in the face of unending change However as

discussed in chapter one Schulzs childhood land was anything but stable After over a

century of existence the land of Galicia ( 1772-1918) gave way to the Second Polish

Republic which put Poland back on the map after over 123 years of geographical

nonexistence When Poland returned the Schulzs homeland was officially no more It

would take more than an erasure from the maps to destroy the spirit of Galicia however

Galicia may have been the name of a region but to its inhabitants it was much more As

Larry Wolff notes in The Idea of Galicia there are several important cultural elements

that emerged out of provincial Galician life not the least of which was the messianic

Jewish sect of Hasidism Leopold von Sacher-Masoch for example was convinced that

Hassidism was fundamentally Galician (208)

In order to understand the Hasidic sect one has to understand the land where they live One has to know Galicia Think of a boundless plain covered with green sprouts in the spring yellow fields of grain in the summer and snow in the winter Here people have a feeling of infinity that they cannot grasp and they withdraw into themselves (quoted in Wolff209)

38

Here the land is seen as a catalyst for mystical fantasies where in withdraw[ing] into

themselves the people obtain a unity with everything although there are undoubtedly

many other lands plains covered with sprouts in winter and snow in summer could

Sacher-Masoch have utilized a more mundane example) it is not simply the physical

landscape that defines Galicia Especially for the Jews of the region Galicia was a sort of

metaphysical homeland where the land and spirit worked in tandem When Poland reshy

emerged after the First World War and Galicia receded into the past the idealized

landscape of Galicia became the haunted terrain of phantoms and fantasies for its

former inhabitants Wolff 4)

For Benjamin such haunted terrain reveals an underlying truth beneath the

detritus of the present resounds echoes of primordial myth Such terrain for Benjamin

has its roots not in physical geography although the Parisian arcades may be emblematic

of such a turn) but rather in the dreamscape of the collective-a well of images from

which all of humanity may pull Much of what Benjamin has to say regarding the

influence of the external ie landscape) on the internal ie individual) is embedded in

his theories of the dream collective a place where such primordial myth resides For

Benjamin the image stock of humanity is recognized by the proverbial child whose

job it is to recognize the new once again Kia 3) In this way there is no such thing as

the new only the new rediscovered in the old Although Benjamin seeks to establish

such a pattern in fashion and architecture he is equally concerned with what he terms

symbolic space Kia 3) The dialectic of old and new here correlates with that of

dreaming and awakening and the messianic awakening is poised like the wooden horse

39

of the Greeks in the Troy of Dreams (K2 4) The individual and collective float back

and forth in Convolute K each adopting subjective presence in tum For Benjamin the

relationship between old and new past and present is analogous to the individuals

relationship to the collective and I argue external and internal One awakens from sleep

and in remembering the dream incorporates it into the present In the same way the past

of a haunted landscape reasserts itself in the present to form a mythic ur-landscape a

place of equal parts dream memory and history

The Horizontal Line Drohobycz Poland

Even a cursory look at Schulzs work makes clear that this author was haunted by

landscape in just such a way When Schulzs Galician myths were written Galicia no

longer existed What did remain was Drohobycz a place that fueled Schulzs creativity

Indeed as we know from his letters traveling to Paris or Warsaw left Schulz longing for

the small somewhat provincial town ofDrohobycz23 It was the only place he could

write As noted in the previous chapter the links between Schulzs fictional landscape

and that of the actual landscape of Drohobycz Poland are numerous Equally important

though is what Benjamin calls the increasing concentration of reality a commonly

perceived phenomenon in which everything past (in its time) can acquire a higher grade

of actuality than it had at the moment of existing (K2 3) Put simply Schulz wrote tales

about his childhood in Galicia filtered through the lens of Polish existence as we shall

23 In his introduction to Schulzs letters Jerzy Ficowski notes that Schulz remained an outsider and anchorite in the provincial backwater of Drohobycz--at a remove from the mainstream ideas and events in the cultural centers of Warsaw Krakow and Lw6w (25) However Schulzs work was both stifled and created there the overall critical consensus of Schulzs relationship to Drohobycz is one of artist and muse

40

Here the land is seen as a catalyst for mystical fantasies where in withdraw[ing] into

themselves the people obtain a unity with everything although there are undoubtedly

many other lands plains covered with sprouts in winter and snow in summer could

Sacher-Masoch have utilized a more mundane example) it is not simply the physical

landscape that defines Galicia Especially for the Jews of the region Galicia was a sort of

metaphysical homeland where the land and spirit worked in tandem When Poland reshy

emerged after the First World War and Galicia receded into the past the idealized

landscape of Galicia became the haunted terrain of phantoms and fantasies for its

former inhabitants Wolff 4)

For Benjamin such haunted terrain reveals an underlying truth beneath the

detritus of the present resounds echoes of primordial myth Such terrain for Benjamin

has its roots not in physical geography although the Parisian arcades may be emblematic

of such a turn) but rather in the dreamscape of the collective-a well of images from

which all of humanity may pull Much of what Benjamin has to say regarding the

influence of the external ie landscape) on the internal ie individual) is embedded in

his theories of the dream collective a place where such primordial myth resides For

Benjamin the image stock of humanity is recognized by the proverbial child whose

job it is to recognize the new once again Kia 3) In this way there is no such thing as

the new only the new rediscovered in the old Although Benjamin seeks to establish

such a pattern in fashion and architecture he is equally concerned with what he terms

symbolic space Kia 3) The dialectic of old and new here correlates with that of

dreaming and awakening and the messianic awakening is poised like the wooden horse

39

of the Greeks in the Troy of Dreams (K2 4) The individual and collective float back

and forth in Convolute K each adopting subjective presence in tum For Benjamin the

relationship between old and new past and present is analogous to the individuals

relationship to the collective and I argue external and internal One awakens from sleep

and in remembering the dream incorporates it into the present In the same way the past

of a haunted landscape reasserts itself in the present to form a mythic ur-landscape a

place of equal parts dream memory and history

The Horizontal Line Drohobycz Poland

Even a cursory look at Schulzs work makes clear that this author was haunted by

landscape in just such a way When Schulzs Galician myths were written Galicia no

longer existed What did remain was Drohobycz a place that fueled Schulzs creativity

Indeed as we know from his letters traveling to Paris or Warsaw left Schulz longing for

the small somewhat provincial town ofDrohobycz23 It was the only place he could

write As noted in the previous chapter the links between Schulzs fictional landscape

and that of the actual landscape of Drohobycz Poland are numerous Equally important

though is what Benjamin calls the increasing concentration of reality a commonly

perceived phenomenon in which everything past (in its time) can acquire a higher grade

of actuality than it had at the moment of existing (K2 3) Put simply Schulz wrote tales

about his childhood in Galicia filtered through the lens of Polish existence as we shall

23 In his introduction to Schulzs letters Jerzy Ficowski notes that Schulz remained an outsider and anchorite in the provincial backwater of Drohobycz--at a remove from the mainstream ideas and events in the cultural centers of Warsaw Krakow and Lw6w (25) However Schulzs work was both stifled and created there the overall critical consensus of Schulzs relationship to Drohobycz is one of artist and muse

40

of the Greeks in the Troy of Dreams (K2 4) The individual and collective float back

and forth in Convolute K each adopting subjective presence in tum For Benjamin the

relationship between old and new past and present is analogous to the individuals

relationship to the collective and I argue external and internal One awakens from sleep

and in remembering the dream incorporates it into the present In the same way the past

of a haunted landscape reasserts itself in the present to form a mythic ur-landscape a

place of equal parts dream memory and history

The Horizontal Line Drohobycz Poland

Even a cursory look at Schulzs work makes clear that this author was haunted by

landscape in just such a way When Schulzs Galician myths were written Galicia no

longer existed What did remain was Drohobycz a place that fueled Schulzs creativity

Indeed as we know from his letters traveling to Paris or Warsaw left Schulz longing for

the small somewhat provincial town ofDrohobycz23 It was the only place he could

write As noted in the previous chapter the links between Schulzs fictional landscape

and that of the actual landscape of Drohobycz Poland are numerous Equally important

though is what Benjamin calls the increasing concentration of reality a commonly

perceived phenomenon in which everything past (in its time) can acquire a higher grade

of actuality than it had at the moment of existing (K2 3) Put simply Schulz wrote tales

about his childhood in Galicia filtered through the lens of Polish existence as we shall

23 In his introduction to Schulzs letters Jerzy Ficowski notes that Schulz remained an outsider and anchorite in the provincial backwater of Drohobycz--at a remove from the mainstream ideas and events in the cultural centers of Warsaw Krakow and Lw6w (25) However Schulzs work was both stifled and created there the overall critical consensus of Schulzs relationship to Drohobycz is one of artist and muse

40

see this dialectical relationship is crucial to understanding the mythic landscape of

Schulzs texts

Certainly one important consideration for both Schulz and Benjamin is that of

their background one would be remiss to ignore the important-yet not uncomplicated-

role of Judaism in each of their lives In Schulzs time Drohobycz was indeed a center of

Jewish life24 Much thought has been given to the level ofJewishness we can attribute

to Schulzs stories and influences25 but as the earlier Sacher-Masoch citation attests

Hasidism was indivisible from the land of Galicia as well as interwar Poland Schulzs

tales repeatedly insist on their time as somehow beyond time or eternal but such

boundary crossing and remapping of intellectual territory accurately parallel an emerging

interwar Poland and profound changes in Jewish identity between the wars

Moreover the years in which Schulz wrote saw an unprecedented reemergence of

Polish-Jewish community Schulzs family was not strictly religious and Schulz probably

never learned to read Yiddish but he was as Jerzy Ficowski notes not indifferent to

myths or sacred rites (35) As such Schulzs stories retain the essence of Jewish

mythology if not the realism of everyday Jewish life In an essay discussing Schulz in

the context Martin Bubers work Karen Underhill rightly avers that this generation of

writers can fruitfully be placed within a constellation of assimilated Jewish

intellectuals whose work reveals an attempt to incorporate Jewish philosophical and

24 Drohobyczs Jewish population at the turn of the century approached 50 of the total population this is well over the Polish national average (Wirtualny SztetlOnline Virtual Shtetl) 25 See for example my discussion of Benjamin Paloff s article Who Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past in the introduction to this work Jan Blonsky s On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz in Cross Currents also presents an interesting take on the Jewishness of Schulzs work

41

mystical heritage into modem often secular systems of thought (Ecstasy and Heresy

28) Additionally Schulzs work often reflects the juncture between old and new

Judaism between the cultural traditions of an ostracized Jewish community and the

secularism of an emerging Jewish intellectualism

Works such as Schulzs--and Benjamins-present what Underhill calls a third

position in which both authors vacillate between disguising and elucidating their

respective Jewish beliefs (Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity 7) One can claim as did

his good friend Gershom Sholem that Benjamin was a religious thinker but nowhere in

his texts does he explicitly say as much Similarly the Jewish themes in Schulzs texts

are easily extrapolated but Judaism as such is never mentioned26 According to

Underhill this third position posits the modem Jewish intellectual as neither primarily

religious nor primarily secular but as rather an integration of both parts into a Jewish-

other hybrid

This integration of self and other involves a shifting of identities that is often

chaotic and as Underhill argues uniquely modem One must reconcile a collective past

with its individual present a historical reality with its material one In other words much

in the way the Benjaminian child creates the image stock of humanity out of the

detritus of the old hybrid individuality requires an ability to discover a third position

where once there were only two extremes I believe that such a relationship between the

internal and external is mirrored by the dialectic relationship oflandscape to the present

26 The collection Cinnamon Shops begins with a leisurely Shabbat afternoon for example Josephs father also delivers a series oflectures entitled Traktat o manekinach (Tractate on Mannequins) Although often translated misleadingly as Treatise on Tailors Dummies the word traktat (tractate) has Talmudic connotations a tractate is a portion of the Talmud that explicates a specific Biblical subject It can also refer to an entire book of the Talmud

42

mystical heritage into modem often secular systems of thought (Ecstasy and Heresy

28) Additionally Schulzs work often reflects the juncture between old and new

Judaism between the cultural traditions of an ostracized Jewish community and the

secularism of an emerging Jewish intellectualism

Works such as Schulzs--and Benjamins-present what Underhill calls a third

position in which both authors vacillate between disguising and elucidating their

respective Jewish beliefs (Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity 7) One can claim as did

his good friend Gershom Sholem that Benjamin was a religious thinker but nowhere in

his texts does he explicitly say as much Similarly the Jewish themes in Schulzs texts

are easily extrapolated but Judaism as such is never mentioned26 According to

Underhill this third position posits the modem Jewish intellectual as neither primarily

religious nor primarily secular but as rather an integration of both parts into a Jewish-

other hybrid

This integration of self and other involves a shifting of identities that is often

chaotic and as Underhill argues uniquely modem One must reconcile a collective past

with its individual present a historical reality with its material one In other words much

in the way the Benjaminian child creates the image stock of humanity out of the

detritus of the old hybrid individuality requires an ability to discover a third position

where once there were only two extremes I believe that such a relationship between the

internal and external is mirrored by the dialectic relationship oflandscape to the present

26 The collection Cinnamon Shops begins with a leisurely Shabbat afternoon for example Josephs father also delivers a series oflectures entitled Traktat o manekinach (Tractate on Mannequins) Although often translated misleadingly as Treatise on Tailors Dummies the word traktat (tractate) has Talmudic connotations a tractate is a portion of the Talmud that explicates a specific Biblical subject It can also refer to an entire book of the Talmud

42

in Schulzs tales insofar as the author addresses place location and mythic reality In

Schulzs texts the tandeta of reality is never far beneath the surface but neither is it far

from the magical terrain of history For Joseph the city serves as a conduit through which

the mythological experience occurs Much can be gleaned from utilizing Benjamins

myth-image to understand these tales as will be come clear by juxtaposing these two

seemingly disparate dialectical elements-the ordinary (represented frequently by

tandeta or rubbish) and myth-Schulz reveals the mythic potential of the mundane

The Third Rail Or An Accidental Flineur

Schulzs tale Cinnamon Shops is perhaps one of his most canonical In the title

story from Schulzs 1934 collection (translated into English as The Street of Crocodiles)

the narrator and his family are about to spend an evening in a theater when the father

realizes that hes forgotten his wallet On his way to retrieve the wallet Joseph takes a

shortcut and gets lost in the city that was once so familiar streets turn and twist a

childhood gymnasium becomes a place of mythic ritual and the plot-if one can call it

this-culminates in a fantastical carriage ride to the outskirts of the city The story

begins appropriately enough with a personification of the citys labyrinthine structure as

emblematic of the father characters decline

At the time of the shortest sleepy [sennych] winter days edged on both sides with the furry dusk of mornings and evenings when the city reached out [rozgal~zialo si~] deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of winter nights and was shaken reluctantly into consciousness by the short dawn my father was already lost sold and surrendered to the other sphere (53 57)

43

As occurs frequently in Schulzs texts place and time are here allowed physical

attributes Winter days are not just oppressive or dull they are sennych--sleepy or

dreamy The city not only darkens or lightens it reach[ es] out into the night and is

shaken reluctantly into consciousness by the new day Here the city is poised as a

corporeal figure at the mercy of a capricious time-repeatedly thrown from day to night

and night to day

Here too the character of the father is equated with an other sphere which lies

between the world of time and cityscape Schulz later describes him as in permanent

contact with the unseen world and completely submerged in an inaccessible sphere

(53) This belief in a sacred unseen world underneath the mundane owes much to Judaic

mystical thought and modernist tendencies but it also serves to pose the father as a man

emblematic of a past always already lost In a sense Schulzs father figure is the Galician

past underneath modem-day Poland unlike the narrator though he has no way to

integrate these two antithetical modes of being He exists simultaneously in the past and

present-in the mythic and ordinary-to such a point that he risks disappearing from

both His movements and actions become absurd and inscrutable he is preoccupied with

things the rest of the family doesnt understand In an attempt to bring the father into the

everyday or perhaps to ignore the otherworldliness that the father is descending into the

family goes to the theater It is here and for these reasons that Joseph is driven on a sort

of visionary quest facilitated by the citys landscape

Driven by this mythic yet ordinary quest Joseph becomes a sort of accidental

flaneur which Benjamin describes as inextricably tied to the landscape he wanders In

the first of four epigraphs for Convolute M The Flaneur Walter Benjamin

44

appropriates a brief and poignant line from Stephane Mallarme ideally suited to Josephs

journey through Cinnamon Shops A landscape haunts intense as opium Although

Benjamin seems to vacillate between admonishing the flaneur for his bourgeois pastime

and acknowledging the very real connection the flaneur has with his (and it is always his)

city an important underlying thematic concern emerges regarding the power of

landscape Borrowing the term from Baudelaire who Benjamin translated and later

devotes a separate convolute to the flaneur wanders the city as both internal and external

participant both marking and marked by the landscape27 This mutually transformative

experience leads to a vanished time

For him every street is precipitous It leads downward-if not to the mythical Mothers then into a fsast that can be all the more spellbinding because it is not his own not private 8 Nevertheless it always remains the time of a childhood But why that of the life he has lived In the asphalt over which he passes his steps awaken a surprising resonance The gaslight that streams down on the paving stones throws an unequivocal light on this double ground (Ml 2 italics mine)

While the city of the flaneur leads downward into a collective past it simultaneously

reaches back to the flaneurs individual past achieving a surprising resonance in the

present The question that Benjamin asks is I think a sincere one why on earth would

something so primordial and mythical resonate with personal experience Benjamin does

27 For the perfect flaneur that passionate observer it is an immense pleasure [jouissance] to take up residence in the crowd in the undulating in the motion in the fugitive and the infinite To be away from home and yet to feel at home everywhere--to see the world be at the center of the world and to remain hidden from the world (Baudelaire 9 translation mine) 28 Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter Schulz also makes an allusion to such a mother figure of the depths in his story Spring We are here at the very bottom in the dark foundations among the Mothers (162) This decent is also echoed in the carriage ride discussed later in this chapter as well as in Thomas Manns preface to Joseph und seine Bruder a work Schulz much admired

45

As occurs frequently in Schulzs texts place and time are here allowed physical

attributes Winter days are not just oppressive or dull they are sennych--sleepy or

dreamy The city not only darkens or lightens it reach[ es] out into the night and is

shaken reluctantly into consciousness by the new day Here the city is poised as a

corporeal figure at the mercy of a capricious time-repeatedly thrown from day to night

and night to day

Here too the character of the father is equated with an other sphere which lies

between the world of time and cityscape Schulz later describes him as in permanent

contact with the unseen world and completely submerged in an inaccessible sphere

(53) This belief in a sacred unseen world underneath the mundane owes much to Judaic

mystical thought and modernist tendencies but it also serves to pose the father as a man

emblematic of a past always already lost In a sense Schulzs father figure is the Galician

past underneath modem-day Poland unlike the narrator though he has no way to

integrate these two antithetical modes of being He exists simultaneously in the past and

present-in the mythic and ordinary-to such a point that he risks disappearing from

both His movements and actions become absurd and inscrutable he is preoccupied with

things the rest of the family doesnt understand In an attempt to bring the father into the

everyday or perhaps to ignore the otherworldliness that the father is descending into the

family goes to the theater It is here and for these reasons that Joseph is driven on a sort

of visionary quest facilitated by the citys landscape

Driven by this mythic yet ordinary quest Joseph becomes a sort of accidental

flaneur which Benjamin describes as inextricably tied to the landscape he wanders In

the first of four epigraphs for Convolute M The Flaneur Walter Benjamin

44

appropriates a brief and poignant line from Stephane Mallarme ideally suited to Josephs

journey through Cinnamon Shops A landscape haunts intense as opium Although

Benjamin seems to vacillate between admonishing the flaneur for his bourgeois pastime

and acknowledging the very real connection the flaneur has with his (and it is always his)

city an important underlying thematic concern emerges regarding the power of

landscape Borrowing the term from Baudelaire who Benjamin translated and later

devotes a separate convolute to the flaneur wanders the city as both internal and external

participant both marking and marked by the landscape27 This mutually transformative

experience leads to a vanished time

For him every street is precipitous It leads downward-if not to the mythical Mothers then into a fsast that can be all the more spellbinding because it is not his own not private 8 Nevertheless it always remains the time of a childhood But why that of the life he has lived In the asphalt over which he passes his steps awaken a surprising resonance The gaslight that streams down on the paving stones throws an unequivocal light on this double ground (Ml 2 italics mine)

While the city of the flaneur leads downward into a collective past it simultaneously

reaches back to the flaneurs individual past achieving a surprising resonance in the

present The question that Benjamin asks is I think a sincere one why on earth would

something so primordial and mythical resonate with personal experience Benjamin does

27 For the perfect flaneur that passionate observer it is an immense pleasure [jouissance] to take up residence in the crowd in the undulating in the motion in the fugitive and the infinite To be away from home and yet to feel at home everywhere--to see the world be at the center of the world and to remain hidden from the world (Baudelaire 9 translation mine) 28 Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter Schulz also makes an allusion to such a mother figure of the depths in his story Spring We are here at the very bottom in the dark foundations among the Mothers (162) This decent is also echoed in the carriage ride discussed later in this chapter as well as in Thomas Manns preface to Joseph und seine Bruder a work Schulz much admired

45

appropriates a brief and poignant line from Stephane Mallarme ideally suited to Josephs

journey through Cinnamon Shops A landscape haunts intense as opium Although

Benjamin seems to vacillate between admonishing the flaneur for his bourgeois pastime

and acknowledging the very real connection the flaneur has with his (and it is always his)

city an important underlying thematic concern emerges regarding the power of

landscape Borrowing the term from Baudelaire who Benjamin translated and later

devotes a separate convolute to the flaneur wanders the city as both internal and external

participant both marking and marked by the landscape27 This mutually transformative

experience leads to a vanished time

For him every street is precipitous It leads downward-if not to the mythical Mothers then into a fsast that can be all the more spellbinding because it is not his own not private 8 Nevertheless it always remains the time of a childhood But why that of the life he has lived In the asphalt over which he passes his steps awaken a surprising resonance The gaslight that streams down on the paving stones throws an unequivocal light on this double ground (Ml 2 italics mine)

While the city of the flaneur leads downward into a collective past it simultaneously

reaches back to the flaneurs individual past achieving a surprising resonance in the

present The question that Benjamin asks is I think a sincere one why on earth would

something so primordial and mythical resonate with personal experience Benjamin does

27 For the perfect flaneur that passionate observer it is an immense pleasure [jouissance] to take up residence in the crowd in the undulating in the motion in the fugitive and the infinite To be away from home and yet to feel at home everywhere--to see the world be at the center of the world and to remain hidden from the world (Baudelaire 9 translation mine) 28 Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter Schulz also makes an allusion to such a mother figure of the depths in his story Spring We are here at the very bottom in the dark foundations among the Mothers (162) This decent is also echoed in the carriage ride discussed later in this chapter as well as in Thomas Manns preface to Joseph und seine Bruder a work Schulz much admired

45

not give us a straight answer most likely because there isnt one For Benjamin the city

of Paris exists in two dialectical realms for the flaneur It opens up to him as a

landscape even as it closes around him as a room (Ml 4) Somehow the city has an

uncanny ability to render the landscape both internal and external and in doing so

creates a double ground of eternal mystery The double here is between self and the

external mythic and ordinary the flaneur embodies the contradiction of being oneselfshy

in all of the ordinariness that implies-while simultaneously gesturing to the divine

Indeed like Joseph ordinariness combines with the experience of the landscape to

actively create the mystical experience of the flaneur

Joseph for his part does not present himself as a typical flaneur In Cinnamon

Shops he has been enlisted in a very specific mission to retrieve his fathers wallet He

does however find himself in the midst of a uniquely mysterious night and notes that he

finds it exceedingly thoughtless [lekkomyslnosciq] to send a young boy out on an urgent

and important errand into a night like that (55 59) On such a night wandering is

necessitated for even though he hopes that he can be back to the theater before the

curtain rises on such a night the streets multiply becoming confused and interchanged

There opens up deep inside a city reflected streets streets which are doubles make

believe streets [ulice podwojne ulice sobowtory ulice klamliwe i zwodne] (55 59) In

this way Joseph becomes a kind of accidentalflaneur traveling the doubled streets as

wide-eyed and aimless as a Parisian dandy It is as if he had never seen this city beforeshy

and indeed he hasnt The city that lies in front of him is a ghostly double to his

hometown and it isnt long before he is rendered not exactly lost but nowhere any map

would be able to place

46

In the course of his journey Josephs city opens up as an active participant in the

story As much as Joseph tries to consider the imminent start of the theater performance

he finds himselflent wings (uskrzydlony) by a strange and urgent desire to visit what

he calls the cinnamon shops (for their dark-paneled walls) of Market Square (56 61)

However despite his having taken a route that according to his calculations should

have brought him to the neighborhood Joseph finds himself unable to recognize

anything The streets configuration moreover was different from what [he] had

expected (nawet konjiguracja ulic nie odpowiadala oczekiwanemu obrazowi) (56 61)

This is not simply a case of a child misremembering his way the author gives us every

indication that the city itself is changing course-if not in actuality then at least in

appearance In this way Schulz plays with the notion of perception Is the city as Joseph

sees it or is it merely an expression of Josephs internal journey I posit that both aspects

of the citys appearance are bound together and that on this particular night Joseph is

able to see the city double

On this night Joseph is opened up to a way of seeing that is particular to this

period of time As previously mentioned the specificity of this night is crucial it is as if a

sliver of myth-time has made a rupture in present time for young Joseph Like

Benjamins dialectical image the city embraces its mythic potential alongside the

quotidian landscape of buildings and labyrinthine streets Moreover the heavenly

landscape reflects the otherworldliness of its terrestrial counterpart The sky appears large

enough to cover a whole month of winter nights and the moon is projected against

various clouds showing all its positions at once (demonstrujqc w tym zwielokrotnieniu

47

wszystkie swe fazy i pozycje) (55 59)29 As he wanders the streets under this fantastical

sky he sees familiar landscapes rendered unfamiliar Expecting to see the cinnamon

shops for example he instead sees a street of houses with no doors and of which the

tightly shut windows were blind from reflected moonlight (57) Although he wants

nothing more than to get out of there quickly and back to familiar ground he is instead

compelled to traverse this strange land

I felt on me the breath of a wide-open space Close to the pavement or in the midst of their gardens picturesque villas stood there the private houses of the rich In the gaps between them were parks and walls of orchards The whole area [ Obraz przypominal z daleka] looked like Lesznianska Street in its lower and rarely visited part The moonlight filtered through a thousand feathery clouds like silver scales on the sky It was pale and bright as daylight-only the parks and gardens stood black in that silvery landscape (57 61)

Unbelievable though it may be this mystical landscape is nothing more than the back of

Josephs high school seen from a strange angle But it more than just the angle that has

rendered this scene unfamiliar The landscape itself has become an active participant

breathing its wide-open space onto Joseph Moreover the colors of night here seem to

transcend the confmes of any typical night Like a chiaroscuro drawing the background

becomes pale and bright as daylight while the buildings are foregrounded black

against gray

Appropriate then that Joseph should fmd himself wandering into a late-night

high school drawing class Here a small group of industrious pupils is gathered by

candlelight--some drawing some not (57) In this strange space time runs unevenly as

29 Elements such as these inspired Benjamin Pal offs excellent argument for the influence of Einsteins theory ofrelativity on Schulzs work Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist was delivered at the 2012 Annual Bruno Schulz Conference at the University of Chicago

48

if making knots in the passage of hours swallowing somewhere whole empty periods

(58) Again the childish trope oflost time is rendered something more here time itself

like space elsewhere in the text is capable of very human actions namely running and

swallowing It does not behave as proper time and this has everything to do with the

mystical landscape Joseph has entered As the pupils laze about Professor Arendt shows

old lithographs of night landscapes of avenues in wintry parks outlined black on the

white moonlit background and a strange thing happens the landscape itself becomes a

drawing (58) The night was copying fpowtarzala] now Joseph notes at that late

hour the nightly landscapes of Professor Arendts engravings reenacting [kontynuowala]

his fantasies (58 63) As time recedes into the distance-and simultaneously stretches

out into one moment-the landscape also changes form Rather than the drawing

replicating what is seen in nature here we realize that the strange buildings and

unfamiliar streets that Joseph has seen on this mystical night are born of drawings

Our first visionary moment in this text centers around the act of perceiving the

cityscape with the ultimate realization that this nightly landscape is molded from human

illustration Joseph here participates in what Benjamin terms illustrative seeing (M2 2)

For Benjamin the fliineur does not merely take in the images of his city whole he is also

an active participant in his specific image production Whether it is through disregarding

certain images and picking up on others or actively viewing the cityscape in his own

particular way the fliineur composes his reverie as text to accompany the images (M2

2) This back-and-forth image creation allows Joseph to view the landscape as an intrinsic

part of space as well as a moveable part

49

After exiting this labyrinth Joseph enters into a second even more surreal

visionary space Again Joseph fmds himself lost and winding through strange corridors

of the school that are completely Wlknown to him (nigdy nie widzianej stronie gmach)

(59 64) The strange room he ultimately discovers himself in he realizes with an

increased heart rate is the headmasters apartment He realizes suddenly that he needs to

get back to the familiar streets that have taken him here and devises a specific plan

This is what I did When I found myself on the parquet floor under the potted palms that reached up to the frieze of the ceiling I noticed that now I really was on neutral ground because the living room did not have a front wall It was a kind of large loggia connected by a few steps with a city square an enclosed part of the square because some of the garden furniture stood directly on the pavement I ran down the short flight of stone steps and found myself at street level once more (60)

It is curious that Joseph needs such an elaborate plan to escape this room Indeed

it seems as ifhe has entered the rabbit hole of his high school and cannot fmd his way

back to reality Although a familiar enough place-at least in concept-the apartment is

recreated as a mythic otherworldly location where the image of the loggia transcends a

typical balcony Schulz states that the living room did not have a front wall and that it

was therefore neutral territory Utilizing such idiosyncratic language renders the

familiar unfamiliar and removes Joseph even further from the reality of the family

excursion that starts the story

After this the landscape becomes an overtly mystical one Once safely outside the

high school Joseph discovers a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man with a small red

kindly face who takes him on a metaphysical excursion to the outskirts of the city

(60) Ifwe concede to discuss Schulz in tenns of plot this is certainly the crux of the

50

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

In the course of his journey Josephs city opens up as an active participant in the

story As much as Joseph tries to consider the imminent start of the theater performance

he finds himselflent wings (uskrzydlony) by a strange and urgent desire to visit what

he calls the cinnamon shops (for their dark-paneled walls) of Market Square (56 61)

However despite his having taken a route that according to his calculations should

have brought him to the neighborhood Joseph finds himself unable to recognize

anything The streets configuration moreover was different from what [he] had

expected (nawet konjiguracja ulic nie odpowiadala oczekiwanemu obrazowi) (56 61)

This is not simply a case of a child misremembering his way the author gives us every

indication that the city itself is changing course-if not in actuality then at least in

appearance In this way Schulz plays with the notion of perception Is the city as Joseph

sees it or is it merely an expression of Josephs internal journey I posit that both aspects

of the citys appearance are bound together and that on this particular night Joseph is

able to see the city double

On this night Joseph is opened up to a way of seeing that is particular to this

period of time As previously mentioned the specificity of this night is crucial it is as if a

sliver of myth-time has made a rupture in present time for young Joseph Like

Benjamins dialectical image the city embraces its mythic potential alongside the

quotidian landscape of buildings and labyrinthine streets Moreover the heavenly

landscape reflects the otherworldliness of its terrestrial counterpart The sky appears large

enough to cover a whole month of winter nights and the moon is projected against

various clouds showing all its positions at once (demonstrujqc w tym zwielokrotnieniu

47

wszystkie swe fazy i pozycje) (55 59)29 As he wanders the streets under this fantastical

sky he sees familiar landscapes rendered unfamiliar Expecting to see the cinnamon

shops for example he instead sees a street of houses with no doors and of which the

tightly shut windows were blind from reflected moonlight (57) Although he wants

nothing more than to get out of there quickly and back to familiar ground he is instead

compelled to traverse this strange land

I felt on me the breath of a wide-open space Close to the pavement or in the midst of their gardens picturesque villas stood there the private houses of the rich In the gaps between them were parks and walls of orchards The whole area [ Obraz przypominal z daleka] looked like Lesznianska Street in its lower and rarely visited part The moonlight filtered through a thousand feathery clouds like silver scales on the sky It was pale and bright as daylight-only the parks and gardens stood black in that silvery landscape (57 61)

Unbelievable though it may be this mystical landscape is nothing more than the back of

Josephs high school seen from a strange angle But it more than just the angle that has

rendered this scene unfamiliar The landscape itself has become an active participant

breathing its wide-open space onto Joseph Moreover the colors of night here seem to

transcend the confmes of any typical night Like a chiaroscuro drawing the background

becomes pale and bright as daylight while the buildings are foregrounded black

against gray

Appropriate then that Joseph should fmd himself wandering into a late-night

high school drawing class Here a small group of industrious pupils is gathered by

candlelight--some drawing some not (57) In this strange space time runs unevenly as

29 Elements such as these inspired Benjamin Pal offs excellent argument for the influence of Einsteins theory ofrelativity on Schulzs work Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist was delivered at the 2012 Annual Bruno Schulz Conference at the University of Chicago

48

if making knots in the passage of hours swallowing somewhere whole empty periods

(58) Again the childish trope oflost time is rendered something more here time itself

like space elsewhere in the text is capable of very human actions namely running and

swallowing It does not behave as proper time and this has everything to do with the

mystical landscape Joseph has entered As the pupils laze about Professor Arendt shows

old lithographs of night landscapes of avenues in wintry parks outlined black on the

white moonlit background and a strange thing happens the landscape itself becomes a

drawing (58) The night was copying fpowtarzala] now Joseph notes at that late

hour the nightly landscapes of Professor Arendts engravings reenacting [kontynuowala]

his fantasies (58 63) As time recedes into the distance-and simultaneously stretches

out into one moment-the landscape also changes form Rather than the drawing

replicating what is seen in nature here we realize that the strange buildings and

unfamiliar streets that Joseph has seen on this mystical night are born of drawings

Our first visionary moment in this text centers around the act of perceiving the

cityscape with the ultimate realization that this nightly landscape is molded from human

illustration Joseph here participates in what Benjamin terms illustrative seeing (M2 2)

For Benjamin the fliineur does not merely take in the images of his city whole he is also

an active participant in his specific image production Whether it is through disregarding

certain images and picking up on others or actively viewing the cityscape in his own

particular way the fliineur composes his reverie as text to accompany the images (M2

2) This back-and-forth image creation allows Joseph to view the landscape as an intrinsic

part of space as well as a moveable part

49

After exiting this labyrinth Joseph enters into a second even more surreal

visionary space Again Joseph fmds himself lost and winding through strange corridors

of the school that are completely Wlknown to him (nigdy nie widzianej stronie gmach)

(59 64) The strange room he ultimately discovers himself in he realizes with an

increased heart rate is the headmasters apartment He realizes suddenly that he needs to

get back to the familiar streets that have taken him here and devises a specific plan

This is what I did When I found myself on the parquet floor under the potted palms that reached up to the frieze of the ceiling I noticed that now I really was on neutral ground because the living room did not have a front wall It was a kind of large loggia connected by a few steps with a city square an enclosed part of the square because some of the garden furniture stood directly on the pavement I ran down the short flight of stone steps and found myself at street level once more (60)

It is curious that Joseph needs such an elaborate plan to escape this room Indeed

it seems as ifhe has entered the rabbit hole of his high school and cannot fmd his way

back to reality Although a familiar enough place-at least in concept-the apartment is

recreated as a mythic otherworldly location where the image of the loggia transcends a

typical balcony Schulz states that the living room did not have a front wall and that it

was therefore neutral territory Utilizing such idiosyncratic language renders the

familiar unfamiliar and removes Joseph even further from the reality of the family

excursion that starts the story

After this the landscape becomes an overtly mystical one Once safely outside the

high school Joseph discovers a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man with a small red

kindly face who takes him on a metaphysical excursion to the outskirts of the city

(60) Ifwe concede to discuss Schulz in tenns of plot this is certainly the crux of the

50

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

wszystkie swe fazy i pozycje) (55 59)29 As he wanders the streets under this fantastical

sky he sees familiar landscapes rendered unfamiliar Expecting to see the cinnamon

shops for example he instead sees a street of houses with no doors and of which the

tightly shut windows were blind from reflected moonlight (57) Although he wants

nothing more than to get out of there quickly and back to familiar ground he is instead

compelled to traverse this strange land

I felt on me the breath of a wide-open space Close to the pavement or in the midst of their gardens picturesque villas stood there the private houses of the rich In the gaps between them were parks and walls of orchards The whole area [ Obraz przypominal z daleka] looked like Lesznianska Street in its lower and rarely visited part The moonlight filtered through a thousand feathery clouds like silver scales on the sky It was pale and bright as daylight-only the parks and gardens stood black in that silvery landscape (57 61)

Unbelievable though it may be this mystical landscape is nothing more than the back of

Josephs high school seen from a strange angle But it more than just the angle that has

rendered this scene unfamiliar The landscape itself has become an active participant

breathing its wide-open space onto Joseph Moreover the colors of night here seem to

transcend the confmes of any typical night Like a chiaroscuro drawing the background

becomes pale and bright as daylight while the buildings are foregrounded black

against gray

Appropriate then that Joseph should fmd himself wandering into a late-night

high school drawing class Here a small group of industrious pupils is gathered by

candlelight--some drawing some not (57) In this strange space time runs unevenly as

29 Elements such as these inspired Benjamin Pal offs excellent argument for the influence of Einsteins theory ofrelativity on Schulzs work Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist was delivered at the 2012 Annual Bruno Schulz Conference at the University of Chicago

48

if making knots in the passage of hours swallowing somewhere whole empty periods

(58) Again the childish trope oflost time is rendered something more here time itself

like space elsewhere in the text is capable of very human actions namely running and

swallowing It does not behave as proper time and this has everything to do with the

mystical landscape Joseph has entered As the pupils laze about Professor Arendt shows

old lithographs of night landscapes of avenues in wintry parks outlined black on the

white moonlit background and a strange thing happens the landscape itself becomes a

drawing (58) The night was copying fpowtarzala] now Joseph notes at that late

hour the nightly landscapes of Professor Arendts engravings reenacting [kontynuowala]

his fantasies (58 63) As time recedes into the distance-and simultaneously stretches

out into one moment-the landscape also changes form Rather than the drawing

replicating what is seen in nature here we realize that the strange buildings and

unfamiliar streets that Joseph has seen on this mystical night are born of drawings

Our first visionary moment in this text centers around the act of perceiving the

cityscape with the ultimate realization that this nightly landscape is molded from human

illustration Joseph here participates in what Benjamin terms illustrative seeing (M2 2)

For Benjamin the fliineur does not merely take in the images of his city whole he is also

an active participant in his specific image production Whether it is through disregarding

certain images and picking up on others or actively viewing the cityscape in his own

particular way the fliineur composes his reverie as text to accompany the images (M2

2) This back-and-forth image creation allows Joseph to view the landscape as an intrinsic

part of space as well as a moveable part

49

After exiting this labyrinth Joseph enters into a second even more surreal

visionary space Again Joseph fmds himself lost and winding through strange corridors

of the school that are completely Wlknown to him (nigdy nie widzianej stronie gmach)

(59 64) The strange room he ultimately discovers himself in he realizes with an

increased heart rate is the headmasters apartment He realizes suddenly that he needs to

get back to the familiar streets that have taken him here and devises a specific plan

This is what I did When I found myself on the parquet floor under the potted palms that reached up to the frieze of the ceiling I noticed that now I really was on neutral ground because the living room did not have a front wall It was a kind of large loggia connected by a few steps with a city square an enclosed part of the square because some of the garden furniture stood directly on the pavement I ran down the short flight of stone steps and found myself at street level once more (60)

It is curious that Joseph needs such an elaborate plan to escape this room Indeed

it seems as ifhe has entered the rabbit hole of his high school and cannot fmd his way

back to reality Although a familiar enough place-at least in concept-the apartment is

recreated as a mythic otherworldly location where the image of the loggia transcends a

typical balcony Schulz states that the living room did not have a front wall and that it

was therefore neutral territory Utilizing such idiosyncratic language renders the

familiar unfamiliar and removes Joseph even further from the reality of the family

excursion that starts the story

After this the landscape becomes an overtly mystical one Once safely outside the

high school Joseph discovers a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man with a small red

kindly face who takes him on a metaphysical excursion to the outskirts of the city

(60) Ifwe concede to discuss Schulz in tenns of plot this is certainly the crux of the

50

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

if making knots in the passage of hours swallowing somewhere whole empty periods

(58) Again the childish trope oflost time is rendered something more here time itself

like space elsewhere in the text is capable of very human actions namely running and

swallowing It does not behave as proper time and this has everything to do with the

mystical landscape Joseph has entered As the pupils laze about Professor Arendt shows

old lithographs of night landscapes of avenues in wintry parks outlined black on the

white moonlit background and a strange thing happens the landscape itself becomes a

drawing (58) The night was copying fpowtarzala] now Joseph notes at that late

hour the nightly landscapes of Professor Arendts engravings reenacting [kontynuowala]

his fantasies (58 63) As time recedes into the distance-and simultaneously stretches

out into one moment-the landscape also changes form Rather than the drawing

replicating what is seen in nature here we realize that the strange buildings and

unfamiliar streets that Joseph has seen on this mystical night are born of drawings

Our first visionary moment in this text centers around the act of perceiving the

cityscape with the ultimate realization that this nightly landscape is molded from human

illustration Joseph here participates in what Benjamin terms illustrative seeing (M2 2)

For Benjamin the fliineur does not merely take in the images of his city whole he is also

an active participant in his specific image production Whether it is through disregarding

certain images and picking up on others or actively viewing the cityscape in his own

particular way the fliineur composes his reverie as text to accompany the images (M2

2) This back-and-forth image creation allows Joseph to view the landscape as an intrinsic

part of space as well as a moveable part

49

After exiting this labyrinth Joseph enters into a second even more surreal

visionary space Again Joseph fmds himself lost and winding through strange corridors

of the school that are completely Wlknown to him (nigdy nie widzianej stronie gmach)

(59 64) The strange room he ultimately discovers himself in he realizes with an

increased heart rate is the headmasters apartment He realizes suddenly that he needs to

get back to the familiar streets that have taken him here and devises a specific plan

This is what I did When I found myself on the parquet floor under the potted palms that reached up to the frieze of the ceiling I noticed that now I really was on neutral ground because the living room did not have a front wall It was a kind of large loggia connected by a few steps with a city square an enclosed part of the square because some of the garden furniture stood directly on the pavement I ran down the short flight of stone steps and found myself at street level once more (60)

It is curious that Joseph needs such an elaborate plan to escape this room Indeed

it seems as ifhe has entered the rabbit hole of his high school and cannot fmd his way

back to reality Although a familiar enough place-at least in concept-the apartment is

recreated as a mythic otherworldly location where the image of the loggia transcends a

typical balcony Schulz states that the living room did not have a front wall and that it

was therefore neutral territory Utilizing such idiosyncratic language renders the

familiar unfamiliar and removes Joseph even further from the reality of the family

excursion that starts the story

After this the landscape becomes an overtly mystical one Once safely outside the

high school Joseph discovers a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man with a small red

kindly face who takes him on a metaphysical excursion to the outskirts of the city

(60) Ifwe concede to discuss Schulz in tenns of plot this is certainly the crux of the

50

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

After exiting this labyrinth Joseph enters into a second even more surreal

visionary space Again Joseph fmds himself lost and winding through strange corridors

of the school that are completely Wlknown to him (nigdy nie widzianej stronie gmach)

(59 64) The strange room he ultimately discovers himself in he realizes with an

increased heart rate is the headmasters apartment He realizes suddenly that he needs to

get back to the familiar streets that have taken him here and devises a specific plan

This is what I did When I found myself on the parquet floor under the potted palms that reached up to the frieze of the ceiling I noticed that now I really was on neutral ground because the living room did not have a front wall It was a kind of large loggia connected by a few steps with a city square an enclosed part of the square because some of the garden furniture stood directly on the pavement I ran down the short flight of stone steps and found myself at street level once more (60)

It is curious that Joseph needs such an elaborate plan to escape this room Indeed

it seems as ifhe has entered the rabbit hole of his high school and cannot fmd his way

back to reality Although a familiar enough place-at least in concept-the apartment is

recreated as a mythic otherworldly location where the image of the loggia transcends a

typical balcony Schulz states that the living room did not have a front wall and that it

was therefore neutral territory Utilizing such idiosyncratic language renders the

familiar unfamiliar and removes Joseph even further from the reality of the family

excursion that starts the story

After this the landscape becomes an overtly mystical one Once safely outside the

high school Joseph discovers a horse-drawn carriage driven by a man with a small red

kindly face who takes him on a metaphysical excursion to the outskirts of the city

(60) Ifwe concede to discuss Schulz in tenns of plot this is certainly the crux of the

50

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

story Joseph even notes in rare candor that the experience proves not only instructive or

otherwise enlightening it is also one of sheer pleasure

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome on which there loomed fantastic lands oceans and seas marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography We entered a hilly landscape The lines of hills bristling with the bare spikes of trees rose like sighs of bliss I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which now were damp with snow I was happy ( 61)

Schulz presents us here with yet another curious event without obvious signification We

are reminded of a Galician countryside that in its everydayness was a place of mystical

dreams The language of ecstasy remains ever-present the journey is luminous the

geography heavenly and the happy slopes rise like like sighs of bliss As Schulz

projects this landscape through his text he simultaneously anchors it to its Galician past

and ties it to Josephs present The wanderers gathering fallen stars situate themselves

in a landscape that both fuels and reaffirms their ethereal endeavor Emblematic of a

prophetic past that exceeds the everyday vision of the citys present these figures

nonetheless undergird it Joseph is privy to a kind of mythic image that dialectically

integrates a history myth and the present

The carriage ride was a personal myth that interested Schulz from his earliest

days and an image very much connected with the Benjaminian wish-image As an act

that seemed to be full of weight and arcane [ utajone11 symbolism Schulz felt that this

trope drew from the basic material of [his] imagination it is a kind of node to many

receding series (Letters 110 100) This is to say that the image itself was born of

something beyond Schulz what he called an iron capital of spirit [zelaznego kapitalu

51

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

mojej fantazji] (110 100) If as Benjamin notes the essence of the mythic event is

return then it is no surprise that Schulz returns to this image as does Joseph (DlOa 4)

Even while in the carriage Joseph and his kindly driver do nothing more than circle the

city embarking on a circular descent to the realm of the proverbial Mothers In this

way the mundane experience of a carriage ride is weighted with the significance of

myth yet again in his evocation of the aimless carriage ride Schulz weds the quotidian

with the divine

For his part Joseph is indelibly marked by the landscape of this mythic event

On such a night unique in the year the narrator notes one feels touched by the divine

finger of poetry [palca botego] (62) The landscape circles around Joseph and Joseph

circles around it when he attempts to return back to the town he finds his classmates

sleepy-eyed and carrying their books but he finds it difficult to return to normalcy The

scent of violets permeates the air-the same scent that explodes over the landscape of the

wanderers-and a certain magic which lay like silver on the snow blankets the

landscape ( 62) Although the night-with its messianic drawing teachers uncanny

wanderers and kindly carriage drivers-has faded into the past the residue of the myth-

image remains

Conclusion Or The Phantasmagoria of ffistory

Schulzs tales are perhaps best analogized to a dream of a memory that never

happened30 In Cinnamon Shops in particular the landscape ofDrohobycz during its

Galician past rears its head alongside that of its Polish present to create an amalgamation

30 I am indebted to an anonymous Wes Anderson fan for this metaphor It works for Schulz-and I think in the same way- as well as it does for Anderson

52

of mythic proportions Time and landscape come alive twist into fantastic forms and

help to facilitate a visionary experience To muddy the water even further there are

frequent glimpses of the Schulz that wrote these tales embedded throughout indeed it is

often difficult to separate the (once) corporeal author from his fictional protagonist In

this way the world of Schulzs tales is an accordion-style book of the past the present

the historical and mythic It is in short what Benjamin might term a phantasmagoria of

history31 Underneath the tandeta of everyday reality lays an eternal primal past that in

its actuality also recedes into myth In his accidental flanerie and through his mythic

carriage ride Joseph stumbles upon the outskirts of a mythic past while simultaneously

rewriting that past under the light of the present

Both Schulz and Benjamin in Cinnamon Shops and The Arcades Project

respectively succeed in recreating the way in which readers view the world Although

retaining a certain historical materialism dreamlike proportions are made tantamount

serving to indoctrinate the reader into an alternative vision of reality If Schulzs text is

the cityscape Benjamins notes are the map In remembering the dream we are able to

pass through and carry out what has been much the same way reading Schulzs texts

have equal footing in the quotidian historical and mythic (Kl 3) Reading both texts is

akin to remembering a cultural-and personal--dream of a memory long forgotten It is

the stuff of third position remembrance Benjamin notes that the place where one

encounters [dialectical images] is language (N2a 3) I hope to have shown that there is

31 In the idea of recurrence the historicism of the nineteenth century capsizes As a result every tradition even the most recent becomes the legacy of something that has already run its course in the immemorial night of the ages Tradition henceforth assumes the character of a phantasmagoria in which primal history enters the scene in ultrashymodern get-up (D8a 2)

53

no place better to encounter such genuine images as in the fiction of Bruno Schulz

These dreams of the collective from which we emerge are of eternal importance for

they allow us to recognize the sea on which we navigate and the shore from which we

push off (Kla 6) And such dreams such mythic blueprints in their landscape of time

immemorial are never inconsequential

54

Epilogue

In the beginning there was the theory

As I suppose is the case for many budding academics I was initially drawn to

looking at works of art through the lens of a pet theory and this project is no exception

In the fall of my first year of graduate school Dr Thaine Stearns introduced me to

several canonical texts of visual culture-namely WJT Mitchells Iconology and

Jonathan Crarys Techniques of the Observer On Vision and Modernity in the 19th

Century As a former film student I felt immediately at home In fact mid-way through

this course I decided to change my Masters focus from Creative Writing to Literary

Criticism I found that vision and visuality is often used in literary works to suggest a

second sort of seeing the inward look or second sight For my final paper I wrote on

Lewis Carrolls usage of visual metaphors and their connection to esoteric sight in the

Alice books I was enchanted and intrigued by the prospect of further study in this area

and thought I had for sure found my thesis topic

In the writing of my Carroll paper I was reminded of another author who used

words and images in a similar way I first read Bruno Schulz (in English of course) as an

undergraduate studying Creative Writing Then as a film student I read it again I wish

there were an interesting story about how I came to Schulz but really it was as simple as

a deep-seated love for his depiction of an alternate reality underneath this one Even in

translation I had the sense that his image making was extraordinary and heart-breakingly

55

precise 32 This is when I sought out Dr Anne Goldman with whom I studied theories of

the fantastic This rabbit hole led to an interest in posthumanism and I wrote and

presented several papers on the relationship between the fantastical and Schulz focusing

specifically on posthumanist-thing theory in particular- elements A course on

postmedievalism33 with Dr Brantley Bryant furthered my love of this theoretical

apparatus

All of these areas of inquiry-visual culture study theories of the fantastic and

posthumanism-have informed this project but ultimately I found that any one lens fell

short of illumining the entire picture A feminist or posthumanist reading for example

may illuminate one aspect of Schulz but at the risk of ignoring the whole In order to

know Schulz better I went deeper into his work I read it again for pleasure And I

waited Ultimately Dr Niklaus Largiers course on medieval visionary literature brought

me out of my stupor The connection was made

As I have hoped to have shown with this study Schulzs descriptions of visionary

experience and mythic landscapes expose new modes of viewing the world-for Joseph

for Schulz and for readers Although Joseph never breaks out of the cycles that he has

created for himself-he is always searching for the Book always lost down some

corridor or another-the journeys that he takes create flashes of illumination or what

Benjamin might call a constellation ofgenuine images (N2a 3) Indeed Benjamins

enigmatic writing on the dialectical image is ideally suited to Schulz it suggests ever so

32 Many other critics have felt a similar gut-level response to Schulz I am not the first person to learn Polish with the express purpose of studying Schulz and I know I wont be the last 33 Yes this indeed is a word It denotes the study of medieval texts from a posthumanist (thing theory monster theory critical animal studies etc) perspective

56

no place better to encounter such genuine images as in the fiction of Bruno Schulz

These dreams of the collective from which we emerge are of eternal importance for

they allow us to recognize the sea on which we navigate and the shore from which we

push off (Kla 6) And such dreams such mythic blueprints in their landscape of time

immemorial are never inconsequential

54

Epilogue

In the beginning there was the theory

As I suppose is the case for many budding academics I was initially drawn to

looking at works of art through the lens of a pet theory and this project is no exception

In the fall of my first year of graduate school Dr Thaine Stearns introduced me to

several canonical texts of visual culture-namely WJT Mitchells Iconology and

Jonathan Crarys Techniques of the Observer On Vision and Modernity in the 19th

Century As a former film student I felt immediately at home In fact mid-way through

this course I decided to change my Masters focus from Creative Writing to Literary

Criticism I found that vision and visuality is often used in literary works to suggest a

second sort of seeing the inward look or second sight For my final paper I wrote on

Lewis Carrolls usage of visual metaphors and their connection to esoteric sight in the

Alice books I was enchanted and intrigued by the prospect of further study in this area

and thought I had for sure found my thesis topic

In the writing of my Carroll paper I was reminded of another author who used

words and images in a similar way I first read Bruno Schulz (in English of course) as an

undergraduate studying Creative Writing Then as a film student I read it again I wish

there were an interesting story about how I came to Schulz but really it was as simple as

a deep-seated love for his depiction of an alternate reality underneath this one Even in

translation I had the sense that his image making was extraordinary and heart-breakingly

55

precise 32 This is when I sought out Dr Anne Goldman with whom I studied theories of

the fantastic This rabbit hole led to an interest in posthumanism and I wrote and

presented several papers on the relationship between the fantastical and Schulz focusing

specifically on posthumanist-thing theory in particular- elements A course on

postmedievalism33 with Dr Brantley Bryant furthered my love of this theoretical

apparatus

All of these areas of inquiry-visual culture study theories of the fantastic and

posthumanism-have informed this project but ultimately I found that any one lens fell

short of illumining the entire picture A feminist or posthumanist reading for example

may illuminate one aspect of Schulz but at the risk of ignoring the whole In order to

know Schulz better I went deeper into his work I read it again for pleasure And I

waited Ultimately Dr Niklaus Largiers course on medieval visionary literature brought

me out of my stupor The connection was made

As I have hoped to have shown with this study Schulzs descriptions of visionary

experience and mythic landscapes expose new modes of viewing the world-for Joseph

for Schulz and for readers Although Joseph never breaks out of the cycles that he has

created for himself-he is always searching for the Book always lost down some

corridor or another-the journeys that he takes create flashes of illumination or what

Benjamin might call a constellation ofgenuine images (N2a 3) Indeed Benjamins

enigmatic writing on the dialectical image is ideally suited to Schulz it suggests ever so

32 Many other critics have felt a similar gut-level response to Schulz I am not the first person to learn Polish with the express purpose of studying Schulz and I know I wont be the last 33 Yes this indeed is a word It denotes the study of medieval texts from a posthumanist (thing theory monster theory critical animal studies etc) perspective

56

Epilogue

In the beginning there was the theory

As I suppose is the case for many budding academics I was initially drawn to

looking at works of art through the lens of a pet theory and this project is no exception

In the fall of my first year of graduate school Dr Thaine Stearns introduced me to

several canonical texts of visual culture-namely WJT Mitchells Iconology and

Jonathan Crarys Techniques of the Observer On Vision and Modernity in the 19th

Century As a former film student I felt immediately at home In fact mid-way through

this course I decided to change my Masters focus from Creative Writing to Literary

Criticism I found that vision and visuality is often used in literary works to suggest a

second sort of seeing the inward look or second sight For my final paper I wrote on

Lewis Carrolls usage of visual metaphors and their connection to esoteric sight in the

Alice books I was enchanted and intrigued by the prospect of further study in this area

and thought I had for sure found my thesis topic

In the writing of my Carroll paper I was reminded of another author who used

words and images in a similar way I first read Bruno Schulz (in English of course) as an

undergraduate studying Creative Writing Then as a film student I read it again I wish

there were an interesting story about how I came to Schulz but really it was as simple as

a deep-seated love for his depiction of an alternate reality underneath this one Even in

translation I had the sense that his image making was extraordinary and heart-breakingly

55

precise 32 This is when I sought out Dr Anne Goldman with whom I studied theories of

the fantastic This rabbit hole led to an interest in posthumanism and I wrote and

presented several papers on the relationship between the fantastical and Schulz focusing

specifically on posthumanist-thing theory in particular- elements A course on

postmedievalism33 with Dr Brantley Bryant furthered my love of this theoretical

apparatus

All of these areas of inquiry-visual culture study theories of the fantastic and

posthumanism-have informed this project but ultimately I found that any one lens fell

short of illumining the entire picture A feminist or posthumanist reading for example

may illuminate one aspect of Schulz but at the risk of ignoring the whole In order to

know Schulz better I went deeper into his work I read it again for pleasure And I

waited Ultimately Dr Niklaus Largiers course on medieval visionary literature brought

me out of my stupor The connection was made

As I have hoped to have shown with this study Schulzs descriptions of visionary

experience and mythic landscapes expose new modes of viewing the world-for Joseph

for Schulz and for readers Although Joseph never breaks out of the cycles that he has

created for himself-he is always searching for the Book always lost down some

corridor or another-the journeys that he takes create flashes of illumination or what

Benjamin might call a constellation ofgenuine images (N2a 3) Indeed Benjamins

enigmatic writing on the dialectical image is ideally suited to Schulz it suggests ever so

32 Many other critics have felt a similar gut-level response to Schulz I am not the first person to learn Polish with the express purpose of studying Schulz and I know I wont be the last 33 Yes this indeed is a word It denotes the study of medieval texts from a posthumanist (thing theory monster theory critical animal studies etc) perspective

56

precise 32 This is when I sought out Dr Anne Goldman with whom I studied theories of

the fantastic This rabbit hole led to an interest in posthumanism and I wrote and

presented several papers on the relationship between the fantastical and Schulz focusing

specifically on posthumanist-thing theory in particular- elements A course on

postmedievalism33 with Dr Brantley Bryant furthered my love of this theoretical

apparatus

All of these areas of inquiry-visual culture study theories of the fantastic and

posthumanism-have informed this project but ultimately I found that any one lens fell

short of illumining the entire picture A feminist or posthumanist reading for example

may illuminate one aspect of Schulz but at the risk of ignoring the whole In order to

know Schulz better I went deeper into his work I read it again for pleasure And I

waited Ultimately Dr Niklaus Largiers course on medieval visionary literature brought

me out of my stupor The connection was made

As I have hoped to have shown with this study Schulzs descriptions of visionary

experience and mythic landscapes expose new modes of viewing the world-for Joseph

for Schulz and for readers Although Joseph never breaks out of the cycles that he has

created for himself-he is always searching for the Book always lost down some

corridor or another-the journeys that he takes create flashes of illumination or what

Benjamin might call a constellation ofgenuine images (N2a 3) Indeed Benjamins

enigmatic writing on the dialectical image is ideally suited to Schulz it suggests ever so

32 Many other critics have felt a similar gut-level response to Schulz I am not the first person to learn Polish with the express purpose of studying Schulz and I know I wont be the last 33 Yes this indeed is a word It denotes the study of medieval texts from a posthumanist (thing theory monster theory critical animal studies etc) perspective

56

subtly the hint of hopefulness but never makes express recommendations One could

argue that both Schulz and Benjamin are essentially nihilistic thinkers but in placing

them together I have attempted to show the ways in which their optimism outweighs

their cynicism In the writing and researching of both chapters I have found that Schulzs

struggle for a second sight true sight or multi-layered ambiguous image (as in the case

of the dialectical image) is a struggle for artistic rebirth

There is still much left unsaid and there are other chapters that I would like to

write In particular the notion of the descent to the Mothers (glossed on page 45 of this

work) deserves further study Benjamin Schulz and Thomas Mann (with whom Schulz

was enamored) all speak of deep primordial center of things and each defer to the

mystery of such a well without properly naming its place or function Schulz for his part

even addresses his reader at a certain point in Wiosna (Spring)

But we have not finished yet we can go deeper There is nothing to fear Give me your hand take another step we are at the roots now and at once everything becomes dark spicy and tangled like in the depth of a forest (161)

Yet again the tangle represents something wonderfully enigmatic and pregnant with

possibility I am not sure what exactly is at the roots-nor am I convinced are any of the

authors that invoke the image-but whatever it is holds some kind of key Perhaps it is

the key to loneliness For after all the well from which we all draw is a secret

commonality a source of communal strength Schulz was a chronically lonely man and

alleviating loneliness was one of his chief concerns Loneliness (samotnosc) was he

admitted the overriding motif of Cinnamon Shops and he believed it to be the catalyst

that makes reality ferment (Letters 114 103) In studying this image further I would

57

like to explore Manns impact on Schulz and the ways in which he mutates this return to

the mythic to his own ends

As briefly discussed in the introduction to this work I would also like to look

more closely at identity creation in Schulzs work as well as theories of autobiography

Judaism geopolitical conflict and regional customs all make brief appearances in this

thesis but a more solid grounding in the history of interwar Poland Hassidic Judaism

and Galician literature would I think serve me well In addition to reaching back to the

past Schulzs identity-creation also resonates today In his essay on recent fictional

incarnations of Schulz (Cynthia Ozicks The Messiah of Stockholm and David

Grossmans See Under love for example) David Goldfarb suggests that the ones who

stayed in Eastern Europe have the real claim to Schulzs legacy and are the legitimate

bearers of that aesthetic into the postwar age (27) Such authors of the postwar era can I

think lend much to a discussion of Schulz Over the course of this study I have found it

difficult to focus too completely on any one external aspect this must be a function of the

draw Schulz has for me However the many parts from which Schulz composed and was

composed-some conscious some not-are varied and deserving of further study

As I continue my study of Schulz at the doctoral level I shall continue to allow

myself to be surprised at what resonates This it seems to me is the most fruitful way to

study Schulz A poem here or half-remembered phrase there can sometimes burst with

the possibility of application In the beginning there was the sureness of theory but now I

only hope for the eternal return to mystery-a mystery that is as rewarding and

complicated as Schulz himself

58

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Baudelaire Charles Le Peintre de la vie moderne Paris Fayard 2010

Benjamin Walter The Arcades Project Trans Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1999

Blonski Jan On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture no 12 (1993) 54-68

Buber Martin Introduction Ecstasy and Confession Ecstatic Confessions Edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985 1-11

--- ed and trans Ecstatic Confessions 1909 Reprint edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985

Buck-Morss Susan The Dialectics of Seeing Walter Benjamin and The Arcades Project Cambridge MA MIT Press 1991

Detailed Map ofDrohobycz and Its Surrounding Map Ficowski Jerzy Regions of the Great Heresy Bruno Schulz A Biographical Portrait

Translated by Theodosia Robertson New York WW Norton and Company 2003

Goldfarb David A Living Schulz Noc wielkiego sezonu (The Night of the Great Season) Prooftexts A Journal of Jewish Literary History vol 14 (1994) 25-47

Gross Terry Interview with Wes Anderson Fresh Air NPR May 29 2012

Jacobson Eric Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem New York Columbia University Press 2003

Jeethan Aaron Evidence Lacking The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 21 September 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Jennings Michael Dialectical Images Walter Benjamins Theory of Literary Criticism Ithaca Cornell University Press 1987

Largier Niklaus Mysticism and Kulturkritik Paper presented at Rhetorics of Religion in Germany 1900-1950 Princeton University March 31-April 2 2011

59

---Praying By Numbers An Essay on Medieval Aesthetics Representations 104 (Fall 2008) 73-91

Mitchell WJT Comparisons are Odious World Literature Today 702 (Spring 1996) 321-324 JStor Web 15 May 2012

---Introduction Landscape and Power Ed WJT Mitchell Chicago University of Chicago Press 2002 1-4

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---Who Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The Boston Review (December 2004January 2005) Web 7 May 2013

Pensky Max Method and Time Benjamins Dialectical Images The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin Ed David S Ferris New York Cambridge University Press 2004 177-198

Rubinowiscz Harry M The Legacy of Polish Jewry A History of Polish Jews in the lnterwar Years 1919-1939 New York AS Barnes and Co Inc 1965

RuleofWolves One of the Loathome [sic] and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 08 July 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Schama Simon Landscape and Memory New York Random House 1995

Schulz Bruno Ksi~a listow I Bruno amphulz Edited by Jerzy Ficowski Gdansk slowoobraz terytoria 2002

---Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz Ficowski Jerzy ed Translated by Walter Arndt New York Fromm International Publishing Corporation 1990

--- Skepy cynamonowel Sanatorium pod Klepsydrq KrakOw Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa 2010

---The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories Trans Celina Wienewska New York Penguin Books 2008

Serres Michel Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- Paris Bernard Grasset 1985

Underhill Karen Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity Diss University of Chicago Chicago 2004 Gradworks Web 5 March 2010

60

Drohobycz Wirtualny Sztetl Muzeum Historii Zyd6w PolskichWeb 2 February 2012

Wolff Larry The Idea of Galicia History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture Stanford CA Stanford University Press 2010

Zajaczkowska Jo The Legacy of Bruno Szu1z [sic] The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 31October201 L Web 7 May 2013

61

• B 1
• B 2
• B 3

like to explore Manns impact on Schulz and the ways in which he mutates this return to

the mythic to his own ends

As briefly discussed in the introduction to this work I would also like to look

more closely at identity creation in Schulzs work as well as theories of autobiography

Judaism geopolitical conflict and regional customs all make brief appearances in this

thesis but a more solid grounding in the history of interwar Poland Hassidic Judaism

and Galician literature would I think serve me well In addition to reaching back to the

past Schulzs identity-creation also resonates today In his essay on recent fictional

incarnations of Schulz (Cynthia Ozicks The Messiah of Stockholm and David

Grossmans See Under love for example) David Goldfarb suggests that the ones who

stayed in Eastern Europe have the real claim to Schulzs legacy and are the legitimate

bearers of that aesthetic into the postwar age (27) Such authors of the postwar era can I

think lend much to a discussion of Schulz Over the course of this study I have found it

difficult to focus too completely on any one external aspect this must be a function of the

draw Schulz has for me However the many parts from which Schulz composed and was

composed-some conscious some not-are varied and deserving of further study

As I continue my study of Schulz at the doctoral level I shall continue to allow

myself to be surprised at what resonates This it seems to me is the most fruitful way to

study Schulz A poem here or half-remembered phrase there can sometimes burst with

the possibility of application In the beginning there was the sureness of theory but now I

only hope for the eternal return to mystery-a mystery that is as rewarding and

complicated as Schulz himself

58

Works Cited

Banks Brian R Muse amp Messiah The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 22 December 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Baudelaire Charles Le Peintre de la vie moderne Paris Fayard 2010

Benjamin Walter The Arcades Project Trans Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1999

Blonski Jan On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture no 12 (1993) 54-68

Buber Martin Introduction Ecstasy and Confession Ecstatic Confessions Edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985 1-11

--- ed and trans Ecstatic Confessions 1909 Reprint edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985

Buck-Morss Susan The Dialectics of Seeing Walter Benjamin and The Arcades Project Cambridge MA MIT Press 1991

Detailed Map ofDrohobycz and Its Surrounding Map Ficowski Jerzy Regions of the Great Heresy Bruno Schulz A Biographical Portrait

Translated by Theodosia Robertson New York WW Norton and Company 2003

Goldfarb David A Living Schulz Noc wielkiego sezonu (The Night of the Great Season) Prooftexts A Journal of Jewish Literary History vol 14 (1994) 25-47

Gross Terry Interview with Wes Anderson Fresh Air NPR May 29 2012

Jacobson Eric Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem New York Columbia University Press 2003

Jeethan Aaron Evidence Lacking The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 21 September 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Jennings Michael Dialectical Images Walter Benjamins Theory of Literary Criticism Ithaca Cornell University Press 1987

Largier Niklaus Mysticism and Kulturkritik Paper presented at Rhetorics of Religion in Germany 1900-1950 Princeton University March 31-April 2 2011

59

---Praying By Numbers An Essay on Medieval Aesthetics Representations 104 (Fall 2008) 73-91

Mitchell WJT Comparisons are Odious World Literature Today 702 (Spring 1996) 321-324 JStor Web 15 May 2012

---Introduction Landscape and Power Ed WJT Mitchell Chicago University of Chicago Press 2002 1-4

Paloff Benjamin Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist University of Chicago Social Sciences Tea Room Chicago IL 20 November 2012 Paper Presentation

---Who Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The Boston Review (December 2004January 2005) Web 7 May 2013

Pensky Max Method and Time Benjamins Dialectical Images The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin Ed David S Ferris New York Cambridge University Press 2004 177-198

Rubinowiscz Harry M The Legacy of Polish Jewry A History of Polish Jews in the lnterwar Years 1919-1939 New York AS Barnes and Co Inc 1965

RuleofWolves One of the Loathome [sic] and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 08 July 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Schama Simon Landscape and Memory New York Random House 1995

Schulz Bruno Ksi~a listow I Bruno amphulz Edited by Jerzy Ficowski Gdansk slowoobraz terytoria 2002

---Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz Ficowski Jerzy ed Translated by Walter Arndt New York Fromm International Publishing Corporation 1990

--- Skepy cynamonowel Sanatorium pod Klepsydrq KrakOw Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa 2010

---The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories Trans Celina Wienewska New York Penguin Books 2008

Serres Michel Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- Paris Bernard Grasset 1985

Underhill Karen Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity Diss University of Chicago Chicago 2004 Gradworks Web 5 March 2010

60

Drohobycz Wirtualny Sztetl Muzeum Historii Zyd6w PolskichWeb 2 February 2012

Wolff Larry The Idea of Galicia History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture Stanford CA Stanford University Press 2010

Zajaczkowska Jo The Legacy of Bruno Szu1z [sic] The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 31October201 L Web 7 May 2013

61

• B 1
• B 2
• B 3

Works Cited

Banks Brian R Muse amp Messiah The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 22 December 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Baudelaire Charles Le Peintre de la vie moderne Paris Fayard 2010

Benjamin Walter The Arcades Project Trans Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1999

Blonski Jan On the Jewish Sources of Bruno Schulz trans Michael C Steinlauf Cross Currents A Yearbook of Central European Culture no 12 (1993) 54-68

Buber Martin Introduction Ecstasy and Confession Ecstatic Confessions Edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985 1-11

--- ed and trans Ecstatic Confessions 1909 Reprint edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr Translated by Esther Cameron New York Harper amp Row 1985

Buck-Morss Susan The Dialectics of Seeing Walter Benjamin and The Arcades Project Cambridge MA MIT Press 1991

Detailed Map ofDrohobycz and Its Surrounding Map Ficowski Jerzy Regions of the Great Heresy Bruno Schulz A Biographical Portrait

Translated by Theodosia Robertson New York WW Norton and Company 2003

Goldfarb David A Living Schulz Noc wielkiego sezonu (The Night of the Great Season) Prooftexts A Journal of Jewish Literary History vol 14 (1994) 25-47

Gross Terry Interview with Wes Anderson Fresh Air NPR May 29 2012

Jacobson Eric Metaphysics of the Profane The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem New York Columbia University Press 2003

Jeethan Aaron Evidence Lacking The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 21 September 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Jennings Michael Dialectical Images Walter Benjamins Theory of Literary Criticism Ithaca Cornell University Press 1987

Largier Niklaus Mysticism and Kulturkritik Paper presented at Rhetorics of Religion in Germany 1900-1950 Princeton University March 31-April 2 2011

59

---Praying By Numbers An Essay on Medieval Aesthetics Representations 104 (Fall 2008) 73-91

Mitchell WJT Comparisons are Odious World Literature Today 702 (Spring 1996) 321-324 JStor Web 15 May 2012

---Introduction Landscape and Power Ed WJT Mitchell Chicago University of Chicago Press 2002 1-4

Paloff Benjamin Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist University of Chicago Social Sciences Tea Room Chicago IL 20 November 2012 Paper Presentation

---Who Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The Boston Review (December 2004January 2005) Web 7 May 2013

Pensky Max Method and Time Benjamins Dialectical Images The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin Ed David S Ferris New York Cambridge University Press 2004 177-198

Rubinowiscz Harry M The Legacy of Polish Jewry A History of Polish Jews in the lnterwar Years 1919-1939 New York AS Barnes and Co Inc 1965

RuleofWolves One of the Loathome [sic] and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 08 July 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Schama Simon Landscape and Memory New York Random House 1995

Schulz Bruno Ksi~a listow I Bruno amphulz Edited by Jerzy Ficowski Gdansk slowoobraz terytoria 2002

---Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz Ficowski Jerzy ed Translated by Walter Arndt New York Fromm International Publishing Corporation 1990

--- Skepy cynamonowel Sanatorium pod Klepsydrq KrakOw Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa 2010

---The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories Trans Celina Wienewska New York Penguin Books 2008

Serres Michel Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- Paris Bernard Grasset 1985

Underhill Karen Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity Diss University of Chicago Chicago 2004 Gradworks Web 5 March 2010

60

Drohobycz Wirtualny Sztetl Muzeum Historii Zyd6w PolskichWeb 2 February 2012

Wolff Larry The Idea of Galicia History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture Stanford CA Stanford University Press 2010

Zajaczkowska Jo The Legacy of Bruno Szu1z [sic] The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 31October201 L Web 7 May 2013

61

• B 1
• B 2
• B 3

---Praying By Numbers An Essay on Medieval Aesthetics Representations 104 (Fall 2008) 73-91

Mitchell WJT Comparisons are Odious World Literature Today 702 (Spring 1996) 321-324 JStor Web 15 May 2012

---Introduction Landscape and Power Ed WJT Mitchell Chicago University of Chicago Press 2002 1-4

Paloff Benjamin Bruno Schulz as Theoretical Physicist University of Chicago Social Sciences Tea Room Chicago IL 20 November 2012 Paper Presentation

---Who Owns Bruno Schulz Poland Stumbles Over its Jewish Past The Boston Review (December 2004January 2005) Web 7 May 2013

Pensky Max Method and Time Benjamins Dialectical Images The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin Ed David S Ferris New York Cambridge University Press 2004 177-198

Rubinowiscz Harry M The Legacy of Polish Jewry A History of Polish Jews in the lnterwar Years 1919-1939 New York AS Barnes and Co Inc 1965

RuleofWolves One of the Loathome [sic] and Unprofessional Examples of Holocaust Research I Have Encountered The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 08 July 2011 Web 7 May 2013

Schama Simon Landscape and Memory New York Random House 1995

Schulz Bruno Ksi~a listow I Bruno amphulz Edited by Jerzy Ficowski Gdansk slowoobraz terytoria 2002

---Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz Ficowski Jerzy ed Translated by Walter Arndt New York Fromm International Publishing Corporation 1990

--- Skepy cynamonowel Sanatorium pod Klepsydrq KrakOw Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa 2010

---The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories Trans Celina Wienewska New York Penguin Books 2008

Serres Michel Le cinq sens philosophie des corps mees- Paris Bernard Grasset 1985

Underhill Karen Bruno Schulz and Jewish Modernity Diss University of Chicago Chicago 2004 Gradworks Web 5 March 2010

60

Drohobycz Wirtualny Sztetl Muzeum Historii Zyd6w PolskichWeb 2 February 2012

Wolff Larry The Idea of Galicia History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture Stanford CA Stanford University Press 2010

Zajaczkowska Jo The Legacy of Bruno Szu1z [sic] The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 31October201 L Web 7 May 2013

61

• B 1
• B 2
• B 3

Drohobycz Wirtualny Sztetl Muzeum Historii Zyd6w PolskichWeb 2 February 2012

Wolff Larry The Idea of Galicia History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture Stanford CA Stanford University Press 2010

Zajaczkowska Jo The Legacy of Bruno Szu1z [sic] The Boston Review Online The Boston Review 31October201 L Web 7 May 2013

61

• B 1
• B 2
• B 3