"Der Fremde Freund von Christoph Hein: Fr und Wider." WB 29(1983)9, pp. 1635-1655. (Short essays by several critics.) BERND SCHICK (1648-52) Observations: The genre "Novelle" is appropriate because the book follows froma sudden and unexpected event -- the death Henry. (1648). Rather than being an Alptraum, the book gives one the feeling that an alp weighs down over the story, inviting the reader to climb over it in order to find a way out of the events as described. There is thus an atmosphere of extreme pressure throughout the book. (1648-49) The occasion for the "Novelle" turns out not to really be the event we thought; rather, the events happened in childhood, and themselves led up the the catalytic later one, and account for the narrator's near-total unwilligness to make individual contacts. These events are primarily political and sexual disappointments. (1649). Schick states that the biography of the character is apparently meant to serve as a seismograph for analogous problems in society. (1649). Schick thinks the book promises more than it delivers, as shown by readings on two levels, "gnoseologisch" (1649) and "ideologiekritisch". The first, whatever that word means, amounts to the argument that the book is rather precisely, and not advantageously datable, as a product of a sixties/early seventies milieu. Proofs adduced are the conversations in the dentist's party, (something -- at the party? -- called the "Triebentfaltung" discussion [or is this the history of C's sexuality in general he is refering to?] and the discussion about art, which Schick notes is on page 85 -- no doubt the DDR edition) (1650). Schick sees these things as indebted to Kerouac, On the Road. Also the tractor-encounter, which he says is nearly a quote from On the Road. Thus the book is set within a certain problmatic rather than a real world, and the clinic, also: "Auch das Klinikmilieu ist mehr als existentieller Grenzbereich gefaát denn als konkrete Arbeitsst„tte, was natrlich in bezug auf die geschilderte traumatische Umweltbeziehung der `Heldin' Effekte zeitigt." (1650). The other, ideological point is that the alienation of the narrator simply is not adequately motivated. Hein runs the riskof having her appear as a type for all society on the one hand, and the risk of failing to adequately motivate her alienation on the other (1650-51). Apparently he errs in the latter manner. Idiom: absehen von etw. = to disregard something [Following summary of the description of the friendship with Katharina and its long aftermath] "Ganz davon abgesehen, daá mit dieser Erkl„rung die eigentliche Erz„hlhaltung -- die darauf angelegt ist, die Figur in der Distanz vorzufhren und den Leser auf den schon angedeuteten `Untertext' sclieáen zu lassen -- durchbrochen wird, ist diese Episode fr den Stellungwert, den sie in der Novelle gewinnt, psycho-sozial zu wenig motiviert und ausgelotet, so daá sie, am Ende der Handlung gleichsam als Zusammenfassung stehend, wie nachtr„glich aufgesetzt wirkt. Die Ambivalenz des individuellen Geschehens wird gleichsam kanalisiert, in den Monolog gezw„ngt, so daá das „sthetische Ereignis zu einer rein ethischen Angelegenheit wird, der man sich nur anschlieáen oder ihr ablehnend gegenberstehen kann." (1651). Suspicion that Hein is giving his own viewpoint, that the events are ones he has in some way experienced (no justification for this claim offered), and that consequently the heroine has no independence from the authorial point of view. (1651-52). Following this accusation, Schick says: "Dies ist meines Erachtens aber notwendig, wenn sie mehr sein soll als nur soziale Fallstudie. War diese Art der Figurenzeichnung fr die kleine Prosaform noch legitim, ich denke da an Leb wohl, mein  Freund, es ist schwer zu sterben und Der Sohn aus dem Prosadebtband Einladung zum Lever Bourgeois als prototypen auf jeweils einer der benannten Ebenen, so dr„ngt die Ausweitung des Genres auf tiefere psycho-soziale Durchdringung und damit auf st„rkere historische Differenzierheit und Genauigkeit." (1652). A pretty roundabout way of saying that he hated the short- stories, too. Certainly the comparison is valid, though.