I'm Not Certain I'm The Best Person To Dicuss This Book

There were times when I wasn't sure I would manage to finish I'm Not Stiller in time to use it for today's post (and by the time we're done, you may wish I hadn't). It's actually 100 pages shorter than Dead Man's Song, but it feels considerably denser. Of course, Dead Man's Song didn't have me on the Internet looking up Orlando Furioso to try and figure out what the characters were referencing.

A man with an American passport, Sam White his name, passes through Zurich, and is halted by a customs official, who wishes to investigate the passport. White becomes annoyed, eventually bops the official in the ear, but doesn't flee. He soon finds himself in prison, not for hitting the official, but because the people of Zurich are convinced he is a sculptor who lived there years before, name of Anatol Stiller. White insists this is false, but is told they believe he is Stiller. A veritable horde of people keep insisting he is Stiller: Stiller's wife, Frau Julika, his defense counsel, the public prosecutor (name of Rolf), the prosecutor's wife, Sibylle (who had an affair with Stiller), Stiller's brother Wilfried, all of Stiller's friends. And still White insists he is not this Stiller. They provide White with notebooks, in which he is meant to describe his life, in theory providing verifiable details which will prove he is not Stiller. In practice, White does very little of this, and the notebooks (which compromise the first 350 pages of the book) are filled mostly with stories the other people tell him about their experiences with Stiller, or with White's feelings about his current situation. The final 50 pages are notes from Rolf, describing interactions he had with White after the whole affair concluded, as they had grown to consider each other friends during White's incarceration.

SPOILER! White, for all his protests, does turn out to be Stiller. Or else everyone has browbeat him with that "Fact" to the point he simply accepted it as truth. White admits that he feels he has no identity, so I can't rule out the possibility that he simply went along with everyone just to shut them up*. I don't believe that's what Max Frisch is going for, but it's a nagging idea I can't shake.

One thing about this book is that I frequently found myself set on edge by it. Part of it is the characters, and part of it is Frisch's writing style. At times I feel I've gotten the point, or a point anyway, yet he continues on. For example, the 2nd Notebook is White relating to us the story of Frau Julika and Stiller's relationship, I presume as told to him by Julika. Within the first 15 pages or so, it becomes terribly clear how doomed the marriage is, how hamhanded and occasionally cold Stiller can be to Julika. Certainly, it was enough for me to conclude Julika was better off without him (and to wonder why she seemed so determined to convince White he was Stiller), but the chapter goes on for another 45 pages of people hurting each other with words and indifference. It became a struggle to get through the book, which is where Frisch's style comes in. He varies between terse conversations between characters (where all the dialogue is lumped together, so that it can be difficult to tell which character is speaking, and if they are alternating or if one character keeps starting and stopping statements), and these monologues by characters, expounding on their beliefs on marriage, freedom, identity, love. The most frustrating one came late in the 7th notebook, as White's counsel has grown tired of White's refusal to be Stiller, and begins ranting for 4 pages, a stream of consciousness of useless cliches about pulling oneself together, not letting logic rule all, but letting emotion have its way, and putting the past aside, and on and on. All the while, I kept wishing White would punch the stupid prat in the mouth, or that I could reach into the book and do it myself. Alas, not to be.

OK, so those are some complaints out of the way. What's the book about? Well, that's where I'm lost. I feel like the discussions of marriage, identity, freedom, all that, have to tie together somehow. How, I'm not clear. Rolf went on at length to White about his belief on marriage, some load of drivel about how neither person can feel trapped by the other, where one doesn't claim they'll cease to exist without the other, where one must expect living experience, even if it endangers the marriage, and sexual fidelity isn't required. personally, I think he just made all that crap up to excuse meeting other women on business trips. To his credit though, he didn't get pissy when Sibylle started seeing Stiller. Of course, she wanted him to get angry, to show he did actually care, but it took him some time to get around to that (two years, roughly). I can't see how he can still believe that about marriage after the stories he and Sibylle told, but he described it to White in their present, and the affairs were in the past, so he justifies it somehow.

White and Rolf both talk about how having an identity involves accepting what you are, rather than worrying about what you are not. Stiller served in the Spanish Civil War (Communist side), but failed to fire on Fascists to defend a ferry. Throughout his marriage to Julika, he could never forgive himself for that failure, when the point was, that wasn't who he was. The other thing that seems to be important is to not only know who you are and are not, but to be comfortable and self-assured about it. White notes that people will often quickly correct misconceptions others have about them, seemingly because they do not wish to be seen in that way. Apparently, this represents the person not being comfortable as themselves, even if they know who they are. I guess if they are comfortable as themselves, they wouldn't worry if others have misconceptions about them. Or, would they simply be certain that who they truly are shows through clearly enough to rpevent the formation of misconceptions? How this relates to White is that everyone is trying to claim he is Stiller, to attach motives for the stories he tells of his life** that would work for Stiller, and White contends, naturally, that he is not Stiller, that a criticism of Swiss government and policies is not evidence of self-loathing, or that he didn't not flee to escape militarys ervice, because he never fled at all, damnit. Yet, by White's statements, by trying to fight their misconceptions, he's weakening his own identity, isn't he?

Then there's Frau Julika. She is an undemonstrative person, which makes her seem cold, or disinterested in things not related to dancing (she was a fine dancer once, even with tuberculosis). Stiller apparently saw something more lively in her, and is was determined to bring it out. Why? Julika has no idea. She tells Rolf she has no idea what Stiller wants from her, so his attempts fail, and he apologizes and she half-heartedly says she forgives him, not because she actually thinks he's done anything wrong, she just doesn't really want to get into all of it. Unfortunately, Stiller perceives her "forgiveness" as admitting he did do something wrong, when he wants her to tell him he did nothing wrong. It drives him nuts. So Stiller has a picture in his mind of what Julika can, or should be, and it drives him nuts that Julika won't be this person. Julika meanwhile, seems to know who she is, and is merely tired of Stiller trying to force her to conform to his image. On the one hand, Julika seems to have her identity settled, and she doesn't waste time trying to explain to Stiller that the Julika he wants to see will never emerge. At the same time, Julika complains that Stiller has formed this image of her in his mind, and expects her to remain thus forever, which imprisons her. So she's not free, except that whatever the image has isn't happening. She isn't the person he wants to see, that's why he's so frustrated.

So is it all about talking past each other? White often complains of both Julika and his counsel, that anything he says, that isn't admitting he's Stiller, simply passes by them. Rolf presumably has his theory of marriage to allow Sibylle freedom from the hurt he causes by not remaining faithful, but Sibylle sees it as indifference. Likewise, she has her affair with Stiller to try and get some sort of reaction out of Rolf, some sign he cares, but Rolf sticks to his theory and does nothing. Even when she is waiting for him to ask her not to go to the U.S., and he knows that's what she's waiting for, he does nothing because he thinks she has done wrong, and should make the first step, not realizing that's what the freaking affair was, an attempt to get him to explain how deep his feelings go.

I think I'm Not Stiller is probably a well-written book, and it can be entertaining, but it can also really drive me up the wall. I think I was expecting it to be a bit more like Catch-22, though isntead of the trap of being crazy enough to be removed from duty, without telling the docs you were crazy, we're presented with the difficulty of proving who you are, or who you are not. it didn't wind up being as hirlariously absurd, which was disappointing. I don't think that was Frisch's point, but like I've said, I'm not sure what point he was driving at? It can't be as simple as "Accept youself and others for who you and they are", can it?

* White is taken to a dentist, because he needs some work done. It isn't Stiller's dentist, but the dentist's nephew, who is confused by the fact that the condition of White's teeth don't match what's on the X-rays, or what he's observing as he probes around. The dentist attributes it to his uncle using outdated methods, or simply being a poor dentist, and White's mouth is stuffed with cotton, so he can't explain. But if he's Stiller, why would his dental condition be so different? Yes, it's been six years, but could things have changed that much? Or are we to infer that the young dentist is right, and the blame falls on the shoddy work of his deceased uncle?

** Some of the stories intersect with Stiller's, such as how White "murdered" his own wife, and there's a Director White supposedly killed in Jamaica. Other stories overlap with each other, or become confused. At one point, White tells of living in a house in Oakland, and being forced to care for a cat he despised, which one night ran away and returned injured, to the horror of Helen, who lived with White. This is as he relates it to his counsel. To his warder, the only one who believes he isn't Stiller, he repeats the story, but Helen is noticeably missing, and the concerned woman is a girl named Florence, who he had mentioned in a earlier story. Florence doesn't live with him, but she finds the cat, returns it, and chides White for taking poor care of it. He had earlier said he saved Florence from her home burning down, then stolen a car and run for the Mexican border with her, only to be pursued by her solider husband, who he killed. How much of any of this is true, I have no idea.