Open Access

Peter Clar

• [...] ich [möchte] zeigen, wie Barbara Frischmuths Text "Die Entschlüsselung" die Unlesbarkeit von Texten vorführt, indem er zahlreiche unterschiedliche (Wissenschafts-)Diskurse (Genderstudies, Theologie, Kultur-, Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft) zu Wort kommen lässt. Frischmuths Text exekutiert, wenn man so will, de Mans Konzept der Unlesbarkeit, ja er erweitert dieses noch, indem er die, in allen Texten angelegte Unlesbarkeit "taktisch verstärkt". Damit wird "Die Entschlüsselung" – wie im Übrigen die meisten von Frischmuths Texten – als ein avantgardistisches Werk lesbar.
• In my contribution I intertwine Barbara Frischmuths novel "Die Entschlüsselung" and the deconstructive theories of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. The latter named the illegibility, i.e. the indecipherability, of texts as the central characteristic of literature as well as criticism. All texts tell the story of the illegibility, tell the story of "the failure to read" and so does "Die Entschlüsselung". Two theses prime my article: On the one hand, that all texts (not only the literary ones) tell of this illegibility. The texts themselves do not only exhibit certain cracks in their structure but they are "aware" of this illegibility, they explicitly address this illegibility. On the other hand, that avantgardist texts "tactically reinforce" those cracks. By reflecting different type of scientific approaches to decipher the (allegedly) correspondence between the turkish poet and mystic Nesîmî and the Austrian abbess Wendlgard von Leisling by interlinking them, opposing them, questioning them "Die Entschlüsselung" exposes their illegibility (and thus their literacy). By doing so also the story of the novels own illegibility is told and reflected. Thus, the boundaries between scientific and literary discourses are abolished as well.