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Zig Zag: The Politics of Culture and Vice Versa
Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of the most original and exciting thinkers of our time. Like Umberto Eco, Stephen Jay Gould, or Richard Rorty, Enzensberger has the gift of making complex ideas about our world engaging and understandable to anyone―and he writes with rare wit and elegance, never resorting to jargon or obscurity.
Born in a small Bavarian town in 1929, Enzensberger is a generalist and public intellectual in the grand old sense, and has been hailed around the world as a poet, dramatist, and editor. But it is as a cultural essayist and social critic that he has attained his widest acclaim. The Los Angeles Times has declared him "that most rambunctious of all critics―an iconoclast" and Newsweek has commended him as "a raconteur of mordant wit, a trenchant political thinker [and] a pleasure to read."
Zig Zag is the definitive statement of Enzensberger's provocative worldview. In twenty extraordinary essays―some new and translated here for the first time, the rest chosen by Enzensberger himself from throughout his career―he makes an elegant case for open-mindedness in the face of the complexities of contemporary life. The essays cover such topics the false importance of consistency; why our ideas about the end of the world and "progress" have changed; Adolf Hitler vs. Saddam Hussein, the increasing "casualization" of contemporary culture; and what luxury will mean in the future.
Finally, the book also includes Enzensberger's moving evocation of his deep ambivalence about the United States and American culture, from his memories of fleeing American tanks and the joy of discovering American literature in the waning days of World War II, to seeing "applause" signs for the first time in Hollywood in 1953, to teaching at a sleepy American college during the campus uprisings of 1968, to getting lost in Texas shopping malls just last year. As in so many cases throughout the book, Enzensberger's "fifty years' effort to discover America" end in a kind of sublime "After so many exciting expeditions, I realize I have failed to discover America. How could I make up my mind about it, torn as I am between shock and gratitude, bliss and frustration, dismay and surprise? Of all my lifelong failures, this is one which I would hate to do without."
Born in a small Bavarian town in 1929, Enzensberger is a generalist and public intellectual in the grand old sense, and has been hailed around the world as a poet, dramatist, and editor. But it is as a cultural essayist and social critic that he has attained his widest acclaim. The Los Angeles Times has declared him "that most rambunctious of all critics―an iconoclast" and Newsweek has commended him as "a raconteur of mordant wit, a trenchant political thinker [and] a pleasure to read."
Zig Zag is the definitive statement of Enzensberger's provocative worldview. In twenty extraordinary essays―some new and translated here for the first time, the rest chosen by Enzensberger himself from throughout his career―he makes an elegant case for open-mindedness in the face of the complexities of contemporary life. The essays cover such topics the false importance of consistency; why our ideas about the end of the world and "progress" have changed; Adolf Hitler vs. Saddam Hussein, the increasing "casualization" of contemporary culture; and what luxury will mean in the future.
Finally, the book also includes Enzensberger's moving evocation of his deep ambivalence about the United States and American culture, from his memories of fleeing American tanks and the joy of discovering American literature in the waning days of World War II, to seeing "applause" signs for the first time in Hollywood in 1953, to teaching at a sleepy American college during the campus uprisings of 1968, to getting lost in Texas shopping malls just last year. As in so many cases throughout the book, Enzensberger's "fifty years' effort to discover America" end in a kind of sublime "After so many exciting expeditions, I realize I have failed to discover America. How could I make up my mind about it, torn as I am between shock and gratitude, bliss and frustration, dismay and surprise? Of all my lifelong failures, this is one which I would hate to do without."
342 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
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Cyrillic: Ханс Магнус Енценсбергер
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was a German author, poet, translator and editor. He had also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr.
Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books. He was one of the leading authors in the Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour Le Mérite, among many others.
He wrote in a sarcastic, ironic tone in many of his poems. For example, the poem "Middle Class Blues" consists of various typicalities of middle class life, with the phrase "we can't complain" repeated several times, and concludes with "what are we waiting for?". Many of his poems also feature themes of civil unrest over economic- and class-based issues. Though primarily a poet and essayist, he also ventured into theatre, film, opera, radio drama, reportage and translation. He wrote novels and several books for children (including The Number Devil, an exploration of mathematics) and was co-author of a book for German as a foreign language, (Die Suche). He often wrote his poems and letters in lower case.
Enzensberger also invented and collaborated in the construction of a machine which automatically composes poems (Landsberger Poesieautomat). This was used during the 2006 Football World Cup to commentate on games.
Tumult, written in 2014, is an autobiographical reflection of his 1960s as a left-wing sympathizer in the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Enzensberger translated Adam Zagajewski, Lars Gustafsson, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden and César Vallejo. His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages.
Cyrillic: Ханс Магнус Енценсбергер
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was a German author, poet, translator and editor. He had also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr.
Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books. He was one of the leading authors in the Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour Le Mérite, among many others.
He wrote in a sarcastic, ironic tone in many of his poems. For example, the poem "Middle Class Blues" consists of various typicalities of middle class life, with the phrase "we can't complain" repeated several times, and concludes with "what are we waiting for?". Many of his poems also feature themes of civil unrest over economic- and class-based issues. Though primarily a poet and essayist, he also ventured into theatre, film, opera, radio drama, reportage and translation. He wrote novels and several books for children (including The Number Devil, an exploration of mathematics) and was co-author of a book for German as a foreign language, (Die Suche). He often wrote his poems and letters in lower case.
Enzensberger also invented and collaborated in the construction of a machine which automatically composes poems (Landsberger Poesieautomat). This was used during the 2006 Football World Cup to commentate on games.
Tumult, written in 2014, is an autobiographical reflection of his 1960s as a left-wing sympathizer in the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Enzensberger translated Adam Zagajewski, Lars Gustafsson, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden and César Vallejo. His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages.
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