One of Germany's greatest living writers offers up an analysis (and
samples) of his failed projects. "My dear fellow artists, whether
writers, actors, painters, film-makers, singers, sculptors, or
composers, why are you so reluctant to talk about your minor or
major failures?" With that question, Hans Magnus Enzensberger-the
most senior among Germany's great writers-begins his amusing
ruminations on his favorite projects that never saw the light of
day. There is enlightenment in every embarrassing episode, he
argues, and while artists tend to forget their successes quickly,
the memory of a project that came to nothing stays in the mind for
years, if not decades. Triumphs hold no lessons for us, but fiascos
can extend our understanding, giving insight into the conditions of
production, conventions, and practices of the industries concerned,
and helping novices to assess the snares and minefields in the
industry of their choice. What's more, Enzensberger argues, flops
have a therapeutic effect: They can cure, or at least alleviate,
the vocational illnesses of authors, be it the loss of control or
megalomania. In Gone but Not Forgotten, Enzensberger looks back at
his uncompleted experiments not just in the world of books but also
in cinema, theater, opera, and journal publishing, and shares with
us a "store of ideas" teeming with sketches of still-possible
projects. He also reflects on the likely reasons for these big and
small defeats. Interspersed among his ruminations are excerpts from
those experiments, giving readers a taste of what we missed.
Together, the pieces in this volume build a remarkable picture of a
versatile genius's range of work over more than half a century and
make us reflect on the very nature of success and failure by which
we measure our lives.
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