The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [13]
Three weeks into the course, on a February day of flurries and gray skies, they read Zipperstein’s own book, The Making of Signs, along with Peter Handke’s A Sorrow Beyond Dreams.
It was always embarrassing when professors assigned their own books. Even Madeleine, who found all the reading hard going, could tell that Zipperstein’s contribution to the field was reformulative and second-tier.
Everyone seemed a little hesitant when talking about The Making of Signs, so it was a relief when, after the break, they turned to the literary selection.
“So,” Zipperstein asked, blinking behind his round wire-rims. “What did you make of the Handke?”
After a short silence, Thurston spoke up. “The Handke was totally dank and depressing,” he said. “I loved it.”
Thurston was a sly-looking boy with short, gelled hair. His eyebrowlessness, along with his pale complexion, gave his face a superintelligent quality, like a floating, disembodied brain.
“Care to elaborate?” Zipperstein said.
“Well, Professor, here’s a subject dear to my heart—offing yourself.” The other students tittered as Thurston warmed to his topic. “It’s purportedly autobiographical, this book. But I’d contend, with Barthes, that the act of writing is itself a fictionalization, even if you’re treating actual events.”
Bart. So that was how you pronounced it. Madeleine made a note, grateful to be spared humiliation.
Meanwhile Thurston was saying, “So Handke’s mother commits suicide and Handke sits down to write about it. He wants to be as objective as possible, to be totally—remorseless!” Thurston stifled a smile. He aspired to be a person who would react to his own mother’s suicide with high-literary remorselessness, and his soft, young face lit up with pleasure. “Suicide is a trope,” he announced. “Especially in German literature. You’ve got The Sorrows of Young Werther. You’ve got Kleist. Hey, I just thought of something.” He held up a finger. “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” He held up another finger. “A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. My theory is that Handke felt the weight of all that tradition and this book was his attempt to break free.”
“How do you mean ‘free’?” Zipperstein said.
“From the whole Teutonic, Sturm-und-Drang, suicidal thing.”
The flurries swirling outside the windows looked like either flakes of soap or flash of ash, like something either very clean or very dirty.
“The Sorrows of Young Werther is an apt reference,” Zipperstein said. “But I think that’s more the translator’s doing than Handke’s. In German the book’s called Wunschloses Unglück.”
Thurston smiled, either because he was pleased to be receiving Zipperstein’s full attention or because he thought German sounded funny.
“It’s a play on a German saying, wunschlos glücklich, which means being happier than you could ever wish for. Only here Handke makes a nice reversal. It’s a serious and strangely wonderful title.”
“So it means being unhappier than you could ever wish for,” Madeleine said.
Zipperstein looked at her for the first time.
“In a sense. As I said, something is lost in translation. What was your take?”
“On the book?” Madeleine asked, and immediately realized how stupid this sounded. She fell silent, the blood beating in her ears.
People blushed in nineteenth-century English novels but never in contemporary Austrian ones.
Before the silence became uncomfortable, Leonard came to her rescue. “I have a comment,” he said. “If I was going to write about my mother’s suicide, I don’t think I’d be too concerned about being experimental.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “I mean, wasn’t anybody put off by Handke’s so-called remorselessness? Didn’t this book strike anyone as a tad cold?”
“Better cold than sentimental,” Thurston said.
“Do you think? Why?”
“Because we’ve read the sentimental, filial account of a cherished dead parent before. We’ve read it a million times. It doesn’t have any power anymore.”
“I’m doing a little thought experiment here,” Leonard said. “Say my mother killed herself. And say I wrote a book about it. Why would I want to