Wolfgang Koeppen and the bridge of memory

In this paper I examine the importance of memory and the image of the bridge in Wolfgang Koeppen's later texts. As I show through detailed analysis of these works, the bridge principally denotes the temporary resolution of the paradox of past and present selves through the act of writing, but also suggests that the search for an identity with the past means an inability to exist productively in the present. I understand the bridge as a liminal space in anthropological terms, as a state between separation and re-aggregation in a society. This has consequences for our understanding of Koeppen within the Federal Republic. I go on to compare Koeppen's fragile, public spaces of remembrance with some of the central works of post war 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung' (Doktor Faustus, Die Blechtrommel, Billard um halb zehn, Deutschstunde), where the act of memory is carried out in a more private space removed from the present (studies, prisons, billiard rooms in hotels), but where the authors' intention is often aimed towards a possible re-definition of German identity in the post war situation: there is always the possibility of release from these environments. For Koeppen, liminality is a permanent condition. © Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999.