Chapter 6 photo book

I guard a treasure.I guarded it through the lousy long years of nothing but days in the calendar, hiding it and taking it out; I treasured it to my chest during my freight train journeys; when I slept, Oscar pillow Looking at his treasure: a photo album. This is an open-air family grave that makes all the past visible.I really don't know what I would do without it.This photobook has a total of one hundred and twenty pages.There are four or six photos squarely pasted on the top, bottom, left, and right sides of each page, sometimes only two. The positions of the photos are arranged very carefully, some are symmetrical, some are asymmetrical.The cover is made of leather, and the older it gets, the greater the smell of leather.Sometimes my photo album is exposed to wind and rain.Some photos fell off, poorly, so I just had to find quiet time and opportunities to glue back the photos that were almost lost.

What novel, or anything else, in this world has the epic breadth of a photobook?Our dear God, as diligent amateurs, every Sunday, condescendingly photographed us, that is to say, shrunk us down to a very small size, and posted them in his photo album regardless of the exposure. go up.This God may guide me through this photobook, and keep me from lingering unduly long in any one place with interest, or encourage Oskar's innate penchant for the labyrinthine; but, I How I wish I could give these photos a real prototype!Then make a general mention!In this photo book, you can see all kinds of uniforms, you can see the changes in fashion and hairstyles, you can see my mother getting fatter and Jan getting more and more depressed, and you can see some things I don’t know at all. people can also guess who took the picture, and see photography go from bad to worse, from the art photography around 1900 to the practical photography of our day.Let's take for example the monument to my grandfather Koljacek and the passport photo of my friend Klepp!Just juxtaposing my grandfather's brown-stained portrait with Klepp's glossy, yelling, official-stamped passport photo made it clear to me that , where progress in the field of photography has taken us.All the equipment related to instant photography alone has already explained the problem.In this matter, I should blame myself more than Klepp, because I am the owner of this photobook and I am obliged to maintain the photographic level of the photos.If Hell ever flourished, one of the chosen methods of torture would be to lock the naked soul in a room with a framed photograph of him while he was alive.Add a little religious passion now!Ah, the ones caught between snapshots, close-up snapshots, and passport photos, the ones in the flash, the ones standing upright in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, sitting in the photo booth and having their right ear lit to match their passports who!Without enthusiasm, I would say: this hell is bearable, because the worst pictures are dreamed, not taken, and even if taken, it will not show.

Klepp and I met over noodles, made friends, and developed a friendship.In the early days when we lived in Jülichstrasse, we used to go to take pictures.I had several travel plans at the time.That said, I was pretty sad to be adopted. , had to travel, so I want to apply for a passport.I wanted to go to Rome, Naples, and at least Paris, but I didn't have enough money to make such a decent trip.So I'm glad I'm short of cash, because there's nothing more depressing than traveling in a tight economy.However, the two of us still had enough money to go to the movies, so during that time, Klepp and I went to the movie theater often, sometimes watching American Westerns according to Klepp's taste, sometimes going to American Westerns according to my needs. Watching films like this, where Maria Scheer plays the female nurse, weeping, and Borcher plays the chief physician, who opens the balcony door after a very difficult operation and plays a Beethoven sonata to her, Show her your responsibility.Movies are usually only two hours long, which is a big headache for the two of us.There are certain films that we would have liked to watch a second time.We often go to the box office to buy tickets for the same movie after the show.However, as soon as we walked out of the screening room, we saw long and short lines in front of the box office selling tickets for the day, and we lost our courage.We were very shy, not only afraid of seeing the female conductor, but also afraid of seeing those strangers who had the cheek to scrutinize our appearance from head to toe, so we didn't dare to lengthen the queue in front of the ticket line.

-------- ① Refers to the experience of the protagonist Oscar in the book in Dusseldorf after the end of World War II. In this way, we almost always went to a photo studio near Graf Adolf's Square every time we watched a movie, and had passport photos taken for us.The people in the photo studio already knew us, and as soon as we walked in, they politely asked us to sit down with smiling faces; we are the abbreviation of "Creation Evolution" for customer creation theory. , so respected.The customers in the studio just came out, and a lady whom I only know as "cute" pushed us in one after the other, pulling me first, and then Clappa. , commanded us to look at a fixed point until we saw the flash and heard the bell that rang with it, and we had been caught in the film six times in a row.

As soon as the photo was taken, the corners of the grinning mouth still couldn’t be closed, the lady pushed us into the comfortable rattan chair, lovely (only the word “cute” can be used to describe it, even the clothes are cute) please We wait patiently for five minutes.We willingly wait.We finally had something to look forward to, our passport photos, and how curious we were to see it!After just seven minutes, the always lovely young lady who was otherwise indescribable handed us two paper pockets and we paid. Look at the triumph in Klip's slightly bulging eyes!As soon as we got our pockets, we had a reason to go to the nearest beer hall, because no one wants to stand in broad daylight on a dusty, noisy street looking at their passport photos, which will inevitably become a stumbling block and get in the way of the hustle and bustle of pedestrians.We were regulars at the little hotel on Friedrichstraße just as we were regulars at the photo studio.We ordered beer, blood sausage with onions, and black bread.Before the food and wine were served, we had already taken out the slightly damp photos and placed them in a circle on the round wooden table.The beer and blood sausage arrived quickly.As we ate and drank, we looked at the facial expressions we had put so much effort into.

-------- ① Blood sausage, a sausage made from pork, lard and pig blood. We always have pictures with us from the day we saw the last movie.So we have the possibility to compare; and whenever we have the opportunity to compare, we can also order a second, third, fourth beer, so that the excitement rises, or as the Rhinelanders say. Said, with emotion. It must never be asserted, however, that it is possible for a grieving person to render his own grief unspecific by means of a passport photograph of himself; Grief is something for which no cause can be traced, and it is precisely because our grief is so imprecise as to be almost arbitrary that it has an intensity that requires no cause.If there is any way to approach our grief, it is only through photographs, because in six snapshots at a time, what we see of ourselves is not clear, but what matters is that what we see The self that arrives is passive and neutralized.The two of us could deal with ourselves all we wanted, drinking beer, chomping on blood sausage, boosting the mood and playing games.We folded photographs and cut them into pieces with scissors; we always had scissors with us for this purpose.We put together old and new photo fragments that were cut up to make us one-eyed or three-eyed, put the nose where the ear was, put the right ear where the mouth was, make it talk or be silent, and Replace the chin with the forehead.Not only did we use our respective avatars for this edit, but Klepp borrowed parts of me to put on his, and I made some of his features mine.In this way, we create new and, we hope, happier creations.Sometimes, we give each other a frame of photo.

We - and I mean just Klepp and me, not the cut characters generated from the game - go to the beer tavern at least once a week, and every time we give it to us at a tavern called Rudy It has become our habit to have a picture of the waiter.Rudy, the type of guy who should have had twelve kids and adopted eight, understood our woes.He already has a dozen profile shots of us and many more frontal shots.However, whenever we discussed for a long time and finally picked out a photo and handed it to him, he always showed a face of deep sympathy and thanked him.As for the barmaid at the bar and the red-haired girl with the cigarette tray, Oskar never gave them pictures, because pictures should not be given to women—they would just abuse them.Klepp, on the other hand, was big-hearted and fat, and was always in the presence of women, loved to chat with them, and was so stupid as to tell them what was on his mind.One day, behind my back, he gave a picture of the cigarette girl, which must have happened, because he was engaged and then married to this young, reckless girl, because he wanted to keep his picture The photos are coming back.

I told in advance what happened later, and I said too much about the last page of my photo album.These silly snapshots are not worth talking about, except as a comparison to how great and incomparable the portrait of my grandfather Koljacek on the first page of the photobook is , and how artistic it is, it still makes me feel this way today. He was short and broad, and stood at a small, delicate table.Unfortunately, he is not the arsonist in the photo, but the volunteer firefighter Wranka.So, he didn't have a mustache.But the tight-fitting fire brigade uniform, the rescue medal on the chest, and the fire brigade cap that turns the little table into an altar are pretty much a substitute for the arsonist's moustache.How solemnly he watched, how well he understood all the troubles of the passing of two centuries.His haughty, albeit pessimistic, gaze seems to have been popular and fashionable during the Second Reich, for it was also the gaze of Gregor Koljacek, the drunken powder factory worker who It looks sober in the photo.Vinzent Bronski's picture was taken in Częstochowa, holding a sacrificial candle, mysteriously.The thin and sickly boyhood photograph of Jan Bronski is an early photographic record of a deliberately melancholic male.

Among the women of that era, there were very few who could assume the air and posture corresponding to their personality.Even my grandmother Anna (for God’s sake, she’s a character) in pictures taken before the outbreak of the First World War, with her lips pursed and smirking, gives no hint of her four-striped but tight-lipped There is a large space under the skirt that can provide shelter for people. During the war years, she still smiled at the dancing photographers, tucked in black cloth, snapping her fingers.I have a photograph from this period, the size of two postage stamps, on a piece of cardboard, with twenty-three nurses, including my mother, who was an assistant nurse at the Silverhammer Army Hospital, crammed shyly in a root-like Surrounded by military doctors like pillars.There was another photo of a masquerade ball at the Army Hospital, attended by wounded soldiers who were about to recover, and the nurses looked more relaxed and less reserved.Mama winked boldly, made a kissing mouth, and despite her angel wings and gold and silver strips in her hair, she wanted to say: Angels have desires too.Matzerath, who was running in front of her, chose an attire that he would very much like to wear every day: he was dressed as a cook, wearing a starched chef's hat, and brandishing a long spoon.In contrast, when he was in uniform and wearing the Iron Cross 2nd Class, he was looking straight ahead, with the same deliberate pessimism of the Koljaceks and the Bronskis.In all the photographs he appears stronger than the women.

After the war, people changed their faces.The men all showed relaxed eyes after demobilization, and now it's the women's turn.They learn that they have a special place in the photograph, that they have reason to stare sternly ahead, and even when they smile, they don't want to deny it, underpinned by the pain they've learned.The melancholy of women in the twenties is really suitable for their faces.Didn't they, sitting, standing, or half-lying, with crescent locks of black hair stuck to their temples, have succeeded in forming a bond of reconciliation between the Virgin and the whore?

The photograph of my mother when she was twenty-three (this must have been taken shortly before she was pregnant) shows a young woman with a round, smooth head on a strong fleshy neck tilted slightly, but her gaze is Looking directly at the person looking at the photo, the sensual outline is diluted by the above-mentioned gloomy smile and pair of eyes.These eyes are not so much blue as gray.They had become accustomed to observe the souls of the people around them, and her own, as they had observed such unchanging objects as coffee cups and cigarette holders. "Affectionate" is an inadequate word, but I still use it as an adjective for my mother's gaze. Group photos from that period are not very interesting, but they are easy to comment on and therefore instructive.In the days of the Treaty of Rapallo, it is astonishing that wedding dresses should be so beautiful, so bridal.In the wedding photo, Matzerath still wears a stiff collar.He looked good, stylish, almost intellectual.He stretched his right foot forward, perhaps trying to imitate then-movie star Harry Litke.At that time, clothing sizes were all short.My mother's wedding dress was a white dress that just passed the knee, revealing her well-proportioned calves, and she wore a pair of white shoes with buckles on her dancing feet.In several other photos, all the guests at the wedding appeared.Among the guests in city clothes and poses, it was always my grandmother Anna and her brother Vinzent, who was favored by God, that always stood out.Rustic and prim, they lack confidence in themselves but instill confidence in others.Jan Bronski grew up in the same potato field as his aunt Anna and his father, who was dedicated to Our Lady of Paradise, but he, like my mother, was good at covering himself in the dressy dress of a Polish postal secretary. His origins are Kashube countrymen.Although he appears small and frail among the healthy people in the photographs, although he is in the corner of the picture, his special eyes, which give his face a feminine shape, always make him the picture. central character. -------- ① Treaty of Rapallo, a treaty between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Germany signed in Rapallo, Italy in 1922.At that time, Germany's domestic political situation was turbulent, its economy was depressed, and its diplomacy was also very isolated. I've been looking at this group photo taken shortly after the wedding.I had to pick up my drum and sticks before the matte brown quadrilateral, and try to reproduce on my varnished tin the three constellations still recognizable on the cardboard. It was Jan Bronski's apartment that provided the opportunity for this group photo.It is located on the corner of Magdeburg Street, on the side of the army playground near the Polish university student dormitory, because the background in the photo is a balcony half covered with lentil vines under the sun, this kind of balcony is only available in residences in Polish settlements. Have.Mama sat, Matzerath and Jan Bronski stood.But look where she sits and where they stand!For a while I was so stupid that I tried to measure out the positions of the Roman triads (because my mother was worth enough to replace a man) with a student compass that Bruno must have bought for me, a ruler and a set square .First draw the inclination angle of the neck, a scalene triangle, and then carry out a parallel shift to get three congruent triangles, and then draw three circles. The significance is that they are outside, in the green leaves of the lentil vine Intersect in the middle, and produce a point, because I'm looking for a point, a point of belief, a point of desire, to get a point of support, a point of departure, if not a foothold. Naturally, this kind of amateur's measurement will not produce any results. Instead, I used the tip of a compass to pierce a few small holes in the most important places on this precious photo. played a disruptive role.What is so special about this photo?What made me go to this quadrilateral to find, if I wanted to, even to find mathematical relations and -- almost ridiculous -- cosmic relations?Three people: a seated woman and two standing men.She has permed black hair, Matzerath has curly blond hair, Jan has chestnut hair brushed back.All three are smiling: Matzerath smiles more clearly than Jan Bronski, both show their upper front teeth, and their combined smile is five times stronger than my mother's because she only There was a trace of a smile on the corner of his mouth, but there was no smile in his eyes.Matzerath's left hand rests on my mother's right shoulder; Jan is content to rest gently on the back of the chair with his right hand.Her knees are to the left, the rest of her body is thrust forward from the hips down, and a notebook rests on her lap.For a long time I thought it was a stamp collection by Bronski, then a fashion magazine, and finally I thought it was a collection of photographs of famous movie stars in cigarette packs.My mother's hands seemed to be going to flip it, and at that moment, the negative was exposed and the photo was taken.All three seem to be happy, congratulating each other on avoiding the unexpected, the kind of thing that's only possible when one of the trio's partners needs a secure private life, or is sneaky from the start.The three of them were closely related, but still depended on a fourth person, Jan's wife, Hedwig Bronski.Her maiden name was Lemke, and she was pregnant at the time, possibly with Stefan, who was to be born later.All they depended on her was to let her take a camera and aim at the happiness of the three of them and the trio, at least to fix the triple happiness with the help of photography tools.I tore a few other quads from a photobook and pasted them next to this photo.In these pictures, either the mother is with Matzerath, or the mother is with Jan Bronski.In none of these photographs did the unalterable fact, the last viable solution, be seen so clearly as in the frame of the balcony.One, of Jan and Mom, smelled of tragedy, of gold rush mania, of anomalies, of anomalies becoming boredom, of anomalous boredom.In the other, Matzerath stays with his mother: it is drizzling before the couple's life on the weekend, the Wiener Schnitzel is sizzling, he complains before the meal, he yawns several times after the meal, he tells some jokes or puts the Tax accounts are recorded on the wall, so that the married life also has a spiritual background.These shots, as boring as they are, I think are better than the risqué snapshots of years to come.Mom lying in Jan Bronski's arms with the Oliwa Forest near Happy Valley in the background.Jan's hand disappeared under Mom's clothes.This vulgarity can only be understood as the insensitivity of an unfortunate couple whose passion has reached the point of mania, having committed adultery with Matzerath from the first day of their marriage. The photographer's, I assume, is Matzerath.The calm expression in the balcony photo, the gesture that he knew to be cautious, was gone.This expression and posture can only be seen on other occasions, that is, when two men are standing behind or beside the mother at the same time, or lying at her feet at the same time, such as on the sandy beach of Hoybud Beach that one.It's here, take a look! Here is another photograph showing the three most important figures of my childhood, forming a triangle.It's not as focused as the balcony photo, but it still sends the same message: the same rattling peace that can only be made or even signed between three people.Readers can rant about the theater's beloved triangle theme; there are only two people on stage, and they either discuss endlessly or contemplate the third, but there is little else to do.However, in my photo, the three of them are together.They are playing skat.That is to say, they each held a handful of cards in their hands, spread them out in a fan shape, and were about to bid, but they didn't look at the ace in their hands, but looked at the camera.Jan lays his hand flat against a pile of copper plates and holds up his forefinger; Matzerath pinches the tablecloth with his nails; Mama makes a small, and I think successful, joke: she draws a card, but not for her two cards. Not for a poker player, but for the lens of a camera.With just one gesture, just by revealing a card, the Queen of Hearts, a symbol that is not so annoying is easily conjured up, because who wouldn't swear to the Queen of Hearts? -------- ① Shikat, a German card game, with a total of thirty-two cards (no two to six), played by three people. The game of skat--which, everybody knows, can only be played by three--was not only the best game for mother and the two men, but their refuge, their safe haven, when life wanted to Lure them into a two-person existence in one arrangement or another, and hide there when they play silly games like blackjack or renju for two. Let's talk about these three people here!They were the ones who brought me into this world, though they lacked nothing.Before I talk about myself, a few words about Gretchen Scheffler, mother's girlfriend, and her husband, the baker Alexander Scheffler.He, bald, she, showing a pair of horse teeth (most of which are inlaid with gold teeth), laughed.He, short-legged, could never reach the rug in his chair, and she wore dresses she knitted herself, which she reinvented endlessly.Later, I added photos of the Schefflers to my photo album: on the deck chair or in front of the lifeboat of the yacht "Wilhelm Gustloff" of "Strength from Joy", in the "Wilhelm Gustloff" of the East Prussian Shipping Company. Tannenberg's promenade deck.They travel year after year, bringing back undamaged souvenirs from Pilau, Sweden, the Azores and Italy to their home on Kleinhammer Road.At home, the men baked buns and the women added mouse-tooth lace to pillowcases.When Alexander Scheffler was not talking, he tirelessly licked his upper lip with the tip of his tongue, and Matzerath's friend Greve, a greengrocer who lived diagonally across from my house, hated him for this and said it was indecent mediocre habits. -------- ① "Strength comes from joy", an organization organized by the Nazi Labor Front to arrange leisure or vacation activities for workers, established in November 1933. Greve, though married, looked more like a Boy Scout guide than a married man.There's a picture of him: broad-shouldered, strong, fit, uniform of shorts, scout rope, scout cap.Standing beside him was a boy in the same attire, with blond hair and eyes that were a little too big, about thirteen years old. Greve put his left hand on his shoulder and made him close to him, expressing his love.I didn't know the teenager, but I got to know Greff through his wife, Lena, and got to know him a little bit later. I'm lost between snapshots of "Strength From Joy" tourists and physical evidence of Boy Scout tender sex.I hurriedly flipped through several pages, and found my first portrait.I am a beautiful baby.The photograph was taken on Pentecost 1935.I was eight months old, two months younger than Stefan Bronski.On the next page was his photograph, the same size as mine, with a vulgar visage beyond description.A postcard with four sides cut into wavy shapes, beautiful and elegant, with a horizontal grid on the back for writing addresses, a large print run, and it is specially for family use.On this rectangular postcard, there is a photo of me, cut into an overly symmetrical egg shape.I, naked as the egg yolk, belly down, lay on a white fur that must have been donated by some polar bear to a professional photographer in Eastern Europe who took pictures of children.As with many photographs of the time, I was chosen for my first photograph that warm, unconfusing brown, which I like to call humane because it is so different from the inhumane, glossy black-and-white photographs of today. different.Dim and fuzzy branches and leaves, which may be painted, constitute a dark background diluted by several light spots.My smooth, healthy body lay diagonally on the fur in a steady posture, feeling the effect of the polar bear's home specialty.At the same time, I lifted my round baby's head high and stared at my naked people with bright eyes. -------- ① Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter. Readers will say that, like all baby pictures, it's just a baby picture.Wait a minute, please look at these hands!Gentlemen will have to admit that my first photographs are distinctly different from the countless flowers in various photo albums, which have always indicated lower life.I can be seen clenching my fist.Not a single sausage finger forgot itself, obeyed some vague tactile impulse to play with the fur of the polar bear's hide.The carefully clenched small fist was shaking on the side of the head, ready to fall, making a sound.What stereo?The sound of drums! No drums yet, I was promised drums for my third birthday when I was born under a light bulb; it would have been a no-brainer for a seasoned photo editor to add a child's drum accordingly thing, and without having to edit to change the position of my body.Just take the hide of that stupid stuffed animal out of my way.Taking away this irrelevant body, this photo is a successful creation.Its subject is the age of keen senses and sharp eyes when the first milk teeth are just erupting.Later, they stopped putting me in polar bear fur.When I was about a year and a half, I was in a high wheeled buggy.They wheeled me in front of a board fence, the tines and rungs of which were clearly outlined by a blanket of snow.From this I can infer that this photograph was taken in 1926.The fence was clumsy, and the boards smelled of asphalt.This reminded me of the suburb of Hochstris when I observed it for a long time. There is a large barracks where the Mackensen Hussars used to be stationed. station.But I can't recall a single acquaintance living in the suburb, and the photographs may have been taken when my parents visited someone there who were never seen again, or who only showed up briefly. Mother and Matzerath sandwiched the buggy, despite the cold weather, without winter coats.Mom wore a short Russian-style long-sleeved jacket embroidered with a winter scene.It evokes the image: in the heart of Russia, the entire family of the Tsar is photographed, Rasputin with the camera, I am the little Tsar, and behind the fence Mensheviks and Bolsheviks lay in ambush, making bombs and determined to destroy my family of despots.However, Matzerath's authentic, Central European, future-conceived (as we shall see later) petit-bourgeois dress moderates the murderous intensity of the tragedy lurking in this picture.We are in the peaceful district of Hochstris, and we just leave the master's apartment for a while, without a coat, so that the master can take a picture of the two of them and little Oskar, who is looking funny as everyone else wants, Then immediately return to the house for hot and sweet coffee, cake and whipped cream. -------- ①Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin (1872~1916), the notorious so-called "saint" and "miracle doctor" in the court of Tsar Nicholas II.Ben was a semi-literate peasant who advocated a so-called salvation doctrine combining religious fanaticism and sexual indulgence, which won the favor of the female tsar and influenced the tsar. Killed in 1916 by royalist officers including Prince Yusupov. There are more than a dozen snapshots of Oscar lying, sitting, crawling, running, one-year-old, two-year-old, and two-and-a-half years old.The photos are good and bad, and together they form the run-up to the full-body portrait that was taken of me on my third birthday. On this full body shot, I got it, drums.It just hung on the front of my belly, brand new, red and white zig zag.With a serious and determined expression on my face, I crossed two wooden drum sticks on the iron sheet confidently.I was wearing a striped sweater and shiny patent leather shoes.The hair stood straight on his head like a brush ready to move.My blue eyes reflect the will to power without followers.I had managed to be in a position that I had no reason to give up.I said, I made up my mind, I decided not to be a politician at all, not to be a colonial goods store owner, but to put an end to it, just stay the same, keep the same height, keep the clothes, and that's it Not changed for many years. -------- ① Alluding to Nietzsche, this book was edited by Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth Fuster-Nietzsche based on the posthumous manuscript and published in 1901. ② To paraphrase what Hitler said after the November Revolution in Germany: "I am determined to be a politician." Little man and great man, Little Belt and Great Belt, small letters and capital letters, little Hans and Karl the Great, David and Goliath, little men and giants who can beat a strong hand; and I, I am three The little one, the dwarf of the myth, the thumb of the fairy tale, the popular child who never grows taller, so that there is no need to read the catechism of the child to read the grown-up one.The guy who shaves in front of the mirror and claims to be my father won't get a so-called 1.72-foot-tall adult to take over his shop.According to Matzerath's wish, this colonial merchandise store will mean the world of adults to Oscar, who is 21 years old.I hugged the drum so as not to fiddle with the cash register.Since my third birthday, I haven't grown even one finger's breadth in height, maintaining the state of a three-year-old child, but I am a person who is three times smarter.All grown men were taller than him, but he surpassed them all in wisdom.He didn't want to compare with them whose shadow was longer.He is perfect both inside and out, and those people are still thinking about development and growth until they are old.Those men gained experience through hardship, and often bitterness, and he had shown he had it all.There is no need for him to change his shoes and pants one size up year after year, just to prove that he has grown a little. -------- ①Thumb, the character in the middle. Here Oscar has to admit that there is a development, that something grows - not always in my favor - and finally achieves messianic greatness; but, in my time, which adult Who has eyesight and hearing to recognize the drummer Oscar who always looks like a three-year-old child?