‘The works of Hans Henny Jahnn exploded on to the inter-war literary scene in Germany as a crazed marriage of Gothic Romanticism, modernist literary Expressionism and the experiments of writers such as Döblin and Joyce. Jahnn’s personal cry of existential horror and guilt expresses both a repulsion and fascination for mortality which stemmed from his earliest years; it was subsequently reinforced by his unconventional sexuality and a by a philosophy that celebrated life and death in all its aspects — not least in the embrace of eroticism and decay. His narratives, even when rooted in everyday life, burst forth in a wholly intemperate flood of prose, at once lurid and baroque. Little alleviates the apocalyptic fervour and morbid sense of doom in these writings.
‘He has been only rarely translated into English, whereas in France his works have been compared to Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille.’ — This Space
‘Hans Henny Jahnn (1894-1959) is one of Germany’s most controversial modern authors, in large part due to sharply diverging reactions to the depictions of sado-masochistic brutality, incest, and homoeroticism in his plays and novels. Jahnn’s rank as a writer has long been a topic of intense debate between rival schools of critics, and his works have provoked extreme responses, both positive and negative, from a wide spectrum of scholars, writers, and critics, including such prominent figures as Alfred Döblin, Walter Benjamin, Thomas and Klaus Mann, Wolfgang Koeppen, Walter and Adolf Muschg, Wilhelm Emrich, Hubert Fichte and many others.
‘Jahn is an highly uncomfortable writer; his style was and remained idiosyncratic, bearing the discerning influence of Expressionism and later Joyce, and containing the timbre of the antique tragedies. In both his writing and life he rejected society’s morals and institutions, psychological interpretation, dualism, and the enslavement of the world about us by homo faber, championing in their stead a heathen, pan-erotic return to the deeper strata of mythology, where time and place converge into one.
‘”He was a writer of Baroque sexuality, of fleshiness and macabre desperation […]. The reader continuously stumbles over coffins and tombs, witnesses deeds of horror, awesome fear of death and the performance of the necessities of metabolism….” Thus wrote Werner Helwig to his close friend Hans Henny Jahnn. It was not Helwig’s own criticism of Jahnn, but that of a critic he had invented in order to show Jahnn what the public thought of his work. No invented critic was needed, however; Jahnn is known as “the writer who uncovered the hells of the flesh and drives, the abyss of demoniacal passions and sinister licentiousness,” his writings are described as “materialism of pure faith in the body,” his reader is “numbed by the eternal drone of the hormone organ.”
‘The Ship’s introduction namechecks both Melville and Giorgio de Chirico, and the book indeed is an odd combination of nautical metaphysics and surrealism’s insidiously creepy emptying out — an intense mystery story, not unlike the slow build-up of a Bela Tarr movie. In places it moves at a wild pace like a murder story’s final confrontation or a chase scene; other times it lingers endlessly over each character’s neurotics and guilt and anxiety–everyone in it an active Raskolnikov.
‘Jahnn has never enjoyed popular success, but he is often viewed as one of the most influential and important German-speaking writers of this century, his works are currently being re-evaluated in France, where the majority have now been translated.’ — collaged from various sources (Eugene Lim, shigekuni.wordpress, Gerda Jordan, zoran rosko vacuum player)
Hans Henny Jahnn – Ein Mann ohne Ufer (in German)
Gallery
Hans Henny Jahnn as a child
Diagram of the cosmos c. 820 AD that inspired HHJ’s cosmology
HHJ handwritten mss. pages
HHJ’s diagram for use in the restoration of church organs
Organ in Hamburg restored/reinvented by HHJ
‘Neuer Lübecker Totentanz’ (Text: Hans Henny Jahnn; Musik: Yngve Jan Trede)
Jean-Christophe Norman ‘sans titre” (le navire de bois – Hans Henny Jahnn)’
Commemorative plaque (Hamburg)
HHJ’s grave
Organ-izer
‘Hans Henny Jahnn’s association with the organ began as early as 1913, and by 1916 (in Norway) he was intensely involved in organ studies. He was an outspoken critic of late-nineteenth-century organ building (although he accepted Aristide Cavaille-Coll’s work with reservations), and he determined that the foundations of German organ building had disappeared and needed to be reestablished. In 1919 he and his friend, Gottlieb Harms, happened into Hamburg’s Jacobi-Kirche and became acquainted with the Arp Schnitger organ in such bad state that the church had decided to remove and replace it. Jahnn began researching the instrument and convinced the authorities to let him restore the organ, a task he completed in 1923. This was the first major restoration of an historic organ and became a symbol and model for the Orgelbewegung (Organ Reform Movement).
‘Jahnn’s work with the Schnitger organ had prompted studies of the pipework and led him to consider theories and perform experiments relative to what an organ should be. Between the years 1933 and 1945 Jahnn lived in political exile in Denmark and served as a consultant to the Theodor Frobenius firm in Copenhagen. Altogether, he consulted or designed the restoration or construction of over one hundred organs; several of the new organs incorporated Jahnn’s ideas, such as the segregation of what he termed “masculine” and “feminine” stops. Examples of this include the Kemper organ at Hamburg, Heinrich-Hertz-Schule (now Lichtwarkschule), Hamburg (1931), and the Hammer organ at Langenhorn/Hamburg, Angarskirche (1931).’ –– The Organ: An Encyclopedia
die Hans-Henny-Jahnn-Orgel der Heinrich-Hertz-Schule in Hamburg
Hans Henny Jahnn – untitled composition
Further
Hans Henny Jahnn Tribute Blog
Hans Henny Jahnn – The most terrifying author of the 20th century
Hans Henny Jahnn Website (jn German)
Podcast: Hold Fast Network: ‘The Ship’
‘abyss: hans henny jahnn’s “perrudja”’ @ shigekuni
‘Bornholm in the Work of Hans Henny Jahnn’
‘Hans Henny Jahnn and James Joyce: The Birth of the Inner Monologue in the German Novel’
‘Ugo Rondinone: The Night of Lead at Aargauer Kunsthaus’
Mike Kitchell on HHJ’s ‘The Night of Lead’ @ HTMLGIANT
HHJ @ Goodreads
HHJ Board @ the Fictional Woods
HHJ Group @ Last.fm
Hans Henny Jahnn’s books @ Bookfinder
‘The Ship’ @ Internet Archive
Hans Henny Jahn The Ship
Scribner/Peter Owen
‘This book is devastating. Even in the fairly rough English translation, it lodged in my brain and I consider it one of the more powerful and disturbing works of the twentieth century. Atlas Press published a translation of Jahnn’s 1962 novella The Night of Lead. They say that it “shows Jahnn at his darkest: man is portrayed as the toy of supernatural powers, where his only certainty is a bodily existence which, in turn, is blindly bound to the laws of growth, death and decay and procreation – the major themes of Jahnn’s writing.” This description can also apply to The Ship. Even after reading Lovecraft and Thomas Bernhard, I’m tempted to think of Jahnn as the most terrifying author. Bernhard can make me feel a little crazy (finishing Correction was one of the more masochistic things I’ve ever done, and I grew up on gore movies), but he’s often hilarious. Jahnn isn’t very funny. He’s bleak and unrelenting bizarre.’ — A journey Round My Skull
Excerpts
We have witnessed the horrible again and again, a transformation no one could forsee. A healthy body is run over by a truck, crushed. Blood, once secreted, once feeling its way blindly through the body, pulsating in a meshwork of thin streams, spreading the chemically charged hormones and their mysterious functions like a red tree inside man–this blood now runs out shapelessly in great puddles. And still no one grasps that, in a network of veins, it had form. But even more horrible–the death struggle itself, in which the innumerable organs, which we believe we feel, take part. Terror is stronger in us than delight.
*
It had been fifteen minutes since I ordered the taxi. According to the tracker on my phone it had spent that time down a dead-end street, turning slowly in circles. I considered cancelling, but with the instinctive human yearning for a reasonable explanation I convinced myself that my phone was faulty, that I was overreacting, that the fear I felt was unwarranted. When eventually the car pulled up I got in and asked the driver if he had been having mechanical problems. He told that he had been stuck at traffic lights. The lie unnerved me further. When the vehicle moved, it did so at great speed. I felt for my seatbelt, pulled it across my chest. It would not click into place. It was obstructed by something. ‘It doesn’t work,’ the driver said. I asked him to stop the car. He seemed agitated. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Stay there.’
It crossed my mind at this point that he meant me harm, and, further, that in harmful situations the victim usually waits for the terrible moment, the blow, before reacting. I was ready to act, to preempt. The driver offered me the backseat, then changed his mind. ‘Stay there, it’s fine,’ he repeated. We sped on. I wondered, with that futile human need for clarification, why he was so insistent on me being in the front of the car. A robbery? A sexual assault? I contemplated jumping, but, in compromise with myself, persuaded him to let me in the back instead. It’s either that or I get out, I stated firmly. What an absurd agreement. A few moments later we pulled up at some traffic lights. ‘My eyes,’ he said. ‘They feel itchy, I can’t see.’ He wants me to get in the front again, I thought. To check his eyes. I didn’t. I asked to be let out, and to my surprise he stopped the car.
I’ve told this story numerous times. Most think that it was nothing, that the danger was a figment of my imagination, that it was no more than dust dirtying the mirror of my mind. Sometimes I think so too. Is it not I who am mad, and not the world? I’ve asked myself that question before. Isn’t it possible, likely even, that I am viewing the world through the prism of my own insanity, and that this is the reason why everything I experience seems so peculiar, offbeat, and frightening? Is that the reasonable explanation for which I yearn? There are no demons in dark corners, they are all in my head. Yes, that is certainly a more straightforward way of looking at things. There was no maniacal taxi driver intent on hurting me, simply a taxi driver who was bad at his job; there are no trapdoors, simply doors upon which my diseased mind has imposed a sinister significance.
*
Later Gustave recalled that he had never spent a more exquisite night. Hours filled with sweetest sadness. To be sure, he had touched Ellena before. His hands were not innocent; their lips knew each other. But all through the night Ellena’s body lay close to Gustave and she was as safely hidden as in a hollow. And he felt the urge to enfold her completely, to explore her body palpably with his warmth, to unite with the girl on the periphery of their skin without disclosing the fact that she was female, he male. Sensuousness was like thin air above them. Far more powerful were the premonitions of immeasurable grief. Their eyes filled with tears that sprang out of the natural pain of existence, which was like an open book in front of them. In it they could read that they had been conceived and born and that Providence had brought them together, two creatures of very different origin, but both in a way undeserving. In spite of separations and strange trials, they felt the harmony of being united, the shapr magic of a deliverance, of wild, immeasurable hopes. At the same time–a callous picture of death. A merciless pounding of waves. The hand of murder. Fear. All the distrust of Providence that overcomes a helpless, crushed creature who one day has to sink bereft, uninformed, and freezing into the grave, who leaves no legend behind him, who has trembled, suffered, hoped–for nothing. The space through which the stars hasten played on them, moving like young cats. And they fell asleep, arm in arm, as they sailed out to sea.
*
‘You are suffering,’ she said simply. ‘Why?’
‘I can present my parables in a different connection or in a different order,’ he said. ‘Millions of ears hear the magical sound of universal sadness, true or false, and fall prey to it. There exists only one pain, one passion, on death. But they glitter limitlessly in infinity, in motion everywhere. And every ray, the known and the unknown, hums this consuming rhythm, this melody of downfall. He who lays himself open to it founders, goes up in flames, succumbs. Perhaps the greatest work of art is the masterpiece of omnipotence which is everywhere with a soft voice. And we, its servants, are being summoned to all things at every moment. But often we refuse. We shut ourselves off. But when are we so completely healthy or invulnerable that pain cannot reach us? When could we call ourselves out of the reach of death? Where is there peace and justice, a condition without condemnation, that we could let sadness go from us with impunity?’
‘That is a theory of how suffering spreads on this earth, from the stars or from somewhere or other.’
‘But I don’t want it that way,’ he said. ‘I want to experience everything but I want to remain as virtuous as matter, which is unaware of its own manifestations. I want to stand at my own side when I scream or sink to the ground in convulsions. I am not prepared to let myself be put on trial as to whether I am a useful or an objectionable male animal. I have come into being and intend to make myself at home in the condition as I please. I don’t escape the voice, I swing and twitch with it, but I don’t want to feel it as everybody else feels it.’
‘You are crying.’ The words come from her forced.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything to me.’
*
In spite of the horrible and painful task he was undertaking, which he liked to call his duty, Gustave had his experiences or, perhaps, he was not yet so spent that he could not be impressed by things that took him out of himself. It was absolutely incomprehensible that he was able to wake up again and again out of the stupefaction into which his fanaticism had led him. With renewed astonishment he took in the multifariously constructed inner form of the swimming ark. He told himself that all this could not be the fantastic idea of a single man, the shipbuilder, but rather the result of an accumulation of constructive experience. Flights of the imagination and penetrations of space throughout centuries. Primeval visions, even though they had come as a surprise to the novice. Beside the thing which had come to pass gradually stood the independent and sudden revelation which emanated from what had been put together, which could not be thought out in advance. A beam, laid on top of another beam, held together with brackets, fastened with dowels, and other beams surrounding three-dimensional proportions, with a limitless and an enclosed outlook, is like a crystal creating a rhythmically divided world . . . that is how the miracle of a sexagonally symmetrical form takes place . . . a form which adapts itself not only to the circle circumscribing it but also, in the repetition of its symmetry, turns seamlessly into the mesh of a honeycomb. An event that takes place with immeasurable ease and puts human reason and the powers of the imagination to shame.
*
Then it was over. They climbed across the cargo toward the door by which they had entered. Gustave, in a last effort to come closer to the content of the cargo, threw himself down on one of the coffinlike crates. He made the effort, even if with dwindling will power and filled with a premonition of futility, to establish some sort of relationship with the mysterious thing. It seemed foolish to him, an error of human perception, that anything could remain hidden which could be approached until only a few centimeters lay between. But it was the usual thing to be struck with blindness. Who could recognize the sickness of his neighbor with his eyes even though it lay palpable under the skin? When Gustave arose from the crate a few seconds later, he had assured himself that the icy aura which filled the hold had infected the crates or, perhaps, they were its sources. He felt as if he had thrown himself down on the snows of a wintry field. And a white wraith of cold crept up to him.
*
p.s. Hey. ** lotuseatermachine, Looking at rides can be enough sometimes. I can’t ride anything that turns in circles, so that’s what I do admiringly in those instances. I know a little about ‘hell gardens’. There’s a crazy one in Thailand whose name I forget whose imagery I gaze upon with wonder. I’m so sad you don’t get to do Halloween. I think there are some haunted houses there that I’ve noticed in my searching. I’ll try to remember to alert you to them when I put together my fave haunts post in October. I’ll look for that catalog. Timeless generally puts out very worthy books. Me too: infinite backlog. You should see my desk. It’s like a dystopian cityscape of books. ** Jack Skelley, Hi, J. Yeah, I would assume the FFS recovery is the opposite of a picnic, but it’ll be over soon, I’m sure. POP was a dream. Probably shaped my brain pan as much as Disneyland did. I’ll check that YouTube channel, very cool. Me too, re: Little Leota. I was sad that last time I went there to see that she’s been ‘upgraded’. Ugh. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Wooden and rickety’ would make such a good blurb. The weekend is going to its oyster. ** Carsten, Well, of course I was generalising wildly about presses, and generalisations are always bullshit, but neglect certainly can happen. Having run a small press all by myself, I totally get how that happens, not to excuse it. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a real feel for Germany. I haven’t been there a ton, but its character is so far elusive to me. I think Dusseldorf was the cosiest place there for me, I don’t know why. I go to LA usually just once a year around Halloween but more often now because of the film stuff. I think I’m pretty into living in Paris. No longings to relocate at all. Whatever happens though, of course. But, no, being here feels right. ** jay, I’m happy that you see the considerable good in thrill rides. That speaks well of you, in my book. My luck is majority yours for the foreseeable future. Let me know when I can put it bed. I get what you’re saying about the pairings, but, no, I don’t think I was thinking about the Bataille example at all, as far as I can remember. Preciado, cool. Well, we just got into a film festival that we really wanted to get into yesterday, so things are good du jour. See you likewise! ** Steve, Hi. I’ve ridden all of these rides. That’s how I know they’re my faves. Symbolica is lovely. It’s the only ride I know of where it has three separate ways to ride it, meaning three different routes through it. Good, I need to catch up your show! Everyone, Steve hosts/curates a terrific musical radio show/podcast called ‘Radio Not Radio’, and if you haven’t heard the latest edition, you can by clicking this. ** Tosh Berman, Well, you know I heartily agree about POP. I was obsessed with it as a kid. If it was still extant, I’m sure I’d think it was very small, but it seemed like an entire world to me back then. There’s a very good book about POP if you haven’t read it: ‘Pacific Ocean Park: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles’ Space Age Nautical Pleasure Pier’. Yes, I went to the Cheetah a few times. I saw early Alice Cooper, The Byrds (too), Spirit, and I think The Doors there. My parents used to dance there earlier when it was the Aragon Ballroom. You probably know that the Cheetah is the setting of the terrific film ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They.’ ** Sypha, Well, I’ve been going to theme parks since I was a kid at every opportunity, so that helps. The Cinematheque is just concluding a giant Wes Anderson retrospective. In fact there’s a big show of props and art and so on and so forth from his films there too that I think I’ll need to see in the next two days or I’ll miss it. ** Hugo, Thanks. Zac and I actually hoping to go to Wailbi in the next few weeks. I went to it in the mid-80s, so it’s probably a totally difference place by now. I don’t know anything about showing our film in Ghent. Weird. That sure would be nice. I’ll check with our distributor. They sometimes set up stuff and forget to tell us. Sunny (in the good sense) day. ** Bill, Tivoli Gardens is sweet. They have a roller coaster there that’s so old that they have to have a guy sitting the train of cars with you to use manual brakes when you come to a curve or start going too fast. I will for sure tip you on adventurous film festivals with open submissions when I find them. ** SP, I’ll try to go find the playlist of the ‘IAM’ trim my friend made. ‘Baby Invasion’ was a joy. Thank god Harmony’s out there fucking with film. Boy, we sure need it. ** Uday, I hope you end up somewhere with a big, packed theme park. Wonderful that you love ‘Action Kylie’. Kevin was way up there among the most dedicated and devoted of her fans. ** Bernard Welt, Hi! Wait … Nicholas., If you didn’t see it, Bernard had a whole lot of STH related information for you in his comment yesterday, and he knows his stuff. Thank you B. Nice about the Lippens like. Porn me up! And, you know, everyone. ** Audrey, Ah, you’re off if you aren’t already. I’m glad yesterday was pretty dry and not too shabby in the temperature department. Next time, yeah, let’s meet. Thank you for the info on possible Seattle film venues. That’s really helpful. I don’t know anything much about the scene there. I’ll look into those. It wouldn’t shock me whatsoever if a doc on Berman is in the works somewhere. Seems like a no brainer. Double yay about the hrt and your excitement. X2 has sadly gotten very rough. To the point where I almost don’t want to ride it anymore. It was more painful than fun the last time I rode it. But I guess smoothing those tracks out is very expensive. No, I haven’t seen ‘Vanderpump Rules’. With TV stuff, people have to point things out because I never watch shows on my own. I’ll seek it. Very curious now. I hope your trip back home is smooth, and see you soon! ** scunnard, Yes, I’ve ridden/experienced all of those rides. Cool, write me whenever the time is right. ** Alistair, I go to amusement parks as often as I possibly can. They’re my post-drugs drug. I think you’re supposed to risk your life when you’re young without realising that you’re risking it? ‘Concerts are a lot’: how so? ** Steeqhen, Oops. I’m imagining that Kneecap’s music isn’t as exciting as their politics, but I don’t know. Sounds interesting: your ‘inbred’ angle. The Haunted Mansion is so incredibly not as scary as your young imagination proposed. You might be disappointed although relieved simultaneously. ** julian, Haunted Mansion is hard to beat. Although not when it has that stupid, counterproductive Tim Burton style overlay in the Halloween period. Burritos with fries in them? Whoa, yum. My favorite thing about Paris in a general way is how beautiful it is and how you can just walk and walk and be totally happy. If I’m here when you’re here, I’ll give you a selective tour. Very nice about the semester abroad in Rome. Have you been there before? It’s lovely and another great place to just walk and walk. ** HaRpEr //, People’s beeline attraction to the confessional in art and life is probably the root of everything that’s wrong in the world. That’s overly judgemental, duh, but that’s surely why Taylor Swift and that meme of the CEO cheating on his wife at a Coldplay concert are phenomenons while, okay, Kenward Elmslie is barely known and considered niche. Or something. He’s so great. Really one of the most underrated original writers in the English language by far. I’ve never been to the UK parks other than Diggerland, which is insane since they’re so close. Every other time I go to the UK I get weirdly hassled and treated with suspicion at the border, which is probably a big reason why I rarely go at this point. ** tom, Hi! Thanks for coming back! I’ve been meaning to watch ‘Friendship’. I’ll do that. Noted. Thanks. You’re from SoCal. High five, etc. Tatsu is great. I don’t know why I forgot to include it. I do Disney vloggers too. I feel like I spend, like, half my time looking at amusement park nerd vlogs and websites and stuff. Absolutely, yes, about the Disney college people. Fascinating. Good novel premise even. Hmm. Catskills, nice, I’ve only seen them from afar. They seem a lot more doable than, say, the San Gabriels. Enjoy that maximally. Wow, that is an interesting role. Yeah, I’m trying to picture ‘masculine swagger’ and I can’t seem to quite get the swish out of it. Weird. Like … John Wayne or something maybe? I’m sure you’ll ace it, but luck galore anyway. ** Nicholas., Go read Bernard’s comment of yesterday if you didn’t. It was largely for you. Yeah, haha, see, being in a place that’s nothing but suntanned gay guys judging each other on their looks and trying to get laid 24/7 is my idea of pure hell. Even when I was young, I practically had to be bribed to set foot in a gay bar much less in a gay sauna. But there are lots of people who are thrilled and set free by that context, and more power to them and of course to you. I fully admit I’m the weirdo. When I went it was exactly as I described above, and I mostly tried to hide out in the place I was staying and write. But I also don’t like the sun or the beach. What can you do? ** Right. Today I spotlight a fascinating and, some say, important novel that a lot of people don’t seem to know, and that seemed like a good impetus to do a presentation on it. See you tomorrow.
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