Cool Dead People by Suzanne Nielsen
Heinrich von Kleist: A Megalomaniac Player?
I am going, since there is nothing left for me either to learn or gain in this life. —Heinrich von Kleist
I seldom watch television, but lately I’ve had an addictive fascination with court shows.
The People’s Court with Marilyn Milian is probably my favorite. In spite of feeling distracted by her French manicured waving hands, I admire how she holds people accountable. She’s on at noon and then again at 5pm (Central time). The 5pm show has the same commercials as the show at noon; American National University, Car Hop deals, Head On, and highlights for Extra.
The other day I saw an excerpt from Extra with Sharon Osbourne talking about a suicide pact she’d made with Ozzie. Because assisted suicide is not legal in many places, the Osbournes intend to travel to Switzerland where it’s been legal since the forties. Thanks to Ashcroft (remember him?), Oregon allows assisted suicide (as of 2004) under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act. By the time the Osbournes call it quits, which according to Sharon will be sometime after 2012, maybe Oregon will appear more convenient.
Suicide pacts—an odd concept. When I’ve had suicidal delusions, the last thing I’ve thought about is who might accompany me on that high wire. I don’t know about you, but it seems as though suicide is more of an individual decision, a decision that is made without the prospect of an audience, or, for that matter, without a witness. According to the Rochester Institute of Technology, less than 50% of victims of suicide leave behind a note. Men are more likely to leave a note behind than women. So where am I going with this? No, the Osbournes are not cool dead people, not yet anyway; this leads me into discussing a cool dead playwright/essayist/fiction writer, Heinrich von Kleist. Ever hear of him? I hadn’t until I read Francine Prose’s book Reading Like a Writer (2006). Prose references Kleist throughout her book and includes The Marquise of O–and Other Stories as a book to be immediately read.
Because I trust Prose’s prose, I went online and immediately ordered the book. In the meantime, I went to various websites to find out more about this writer. Born in Germany on October 18, 1777, Kleist wrote most of his work later in life, and was recognized and admired through his writing posthumously by the twentieth century. At the age of 34 (1811), Kleist’s life work was completed and he, along with his suicide partner, Henriette Vogel ended their lives in the outskirts of Berlin. Two gunshots echoed off the lake’s water close by as Kleist fired the first shot through the heart of Vogel, then immediately turned the gun on himself, stuffed the tip of it inside his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Some people say this is an act of a megalomaniac (someone who suffers from a mental disorder characterized by delusions of grandeur, wealth, and power). Other people see this as an act of desperation. Kleist believed that “life can be planned,” lending this double suicide scenario the aura of a well-choreographed event.
Known for placing his characters in action, Kleist “shows the conflict of thought and feeling in the soul of [hu]man[s], leading to unforeseeable results through incidents which in turn provoke the inner forces of the soul to express themselves in a spontaneous flow of ideas and words” (wikipedia). Much of Kleist’s work was censored by the German government, which enhanced his desire to evoke tragic and comic modes in most of his novellas. Kleist was consumed with the hidden influences on the ego. He believed that humans are trained to speak only about what they already understand; and as a result, we neglect our innate desire for a “balanced mixture of wisdom and passion” (wikipedia). For example, The Marquise of O reads like a “detective story, a ‘who-dunnit’, thus betokening yet again his preoccupation with the problem of truth” (p. 18).
I think back to my dear friend Steve, who for a long time believed the city of New York was trying to poison him through the water system. He eventually duct-taped all the sink spouts, refused to flush his toilet and bathed only with bottled water. Steve felt the government was in on the city’s water conspiracy, and as far as I know remains in doubt of the existence of truth. This past October 18th, Steve turned 55, on the same day that von Kleist would have celebrated his 230th birthday. Five years before Kleist’s death he suggested that the world was “governed by a being who is not understood; and the presumptuous claim to understand him can be raised by those who are guided by nothing more than their own cruel passions” (p. 48).
In the story, The Beggerwoman of Locarno, Kleist reveals through the lack of concern, regret and/or compassion, the outcome of the marquis’s life as a result of paying attention to the pain and suffering of those around him and in front of him. Being haunted by a spirit that will not rest is his comeuppance.
In Kleist’s own life, he was haunted by the ghosts of both his parents; he lost his father at ten years of age, and then his mother when he was 15. Two months before his death, Kleist’s sister was no longer talking to him; and he felt she had joined the German government in attempting to keep him silent through censorship. Kleist took to confinement for weeks until he met the partner in his suicide pact, who was terminally ill with cancer. Shortly after they had tea, they closed the final chapter on both of their lives.
Francine Prose reminds us that von Kleist creates characters “…without physical description…what we are intended to note and admire is not how these people look but rather the decency and good conscience with which everyone in the story is trying to act, and does act—with a few dramatic exceptions” (p. 115). I look at the existing image of von Kleist and can’t help but notice how his profile almost perfectly outlines that of a question mark. Kleist believed “that the world is rationally ordered and that all things in principle can, and in due course will, be completely understood and explained” (wikipedia.org). I sit here and am reminded that he left behind a letter for his sister regarding his suicide; I sit here and think of my friend Steve with whom I’ve lost touch several years ago and wonder if his water is still contaminated. I sit here and reread the sentence contained in the letter, “The fact of the matter is that there was no help for me on this earth,” and I see the question mark slowly unify with a period. Did Kleist’s living in Switzerland for a time induce his suicide pact? Did he ever visit Oregon? He did leave a letter. That is his ending; that is where the period belongs.
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Suzanne!
Jeff and I are going to your reading next Friday. I can’t wait to see you again. Will copies of your books be available? Do you want to be friends again?
Gail