 
                      20051205.00

 ...  about my novel, Die Freunde, on which I have been work-
ing, in a desultory manner, for ten years, and which  I  want
to  finish  _now_.  I was delayed in part by the circumstance
that I had not yet lived (erlebt) what I needed to  describe,
and recently by the circumstance that I am easily distracted,
and that my memory is no longer tenacious enough to enable me
to  retrieve  the thread of my narrative, once I have dropped
it.

     Die Freunde (The Friends) is not, I repeat, is not a
roman a clef.  I have no interest in surreptitious
autobiography. My subjective experience (Erleben) and
objective experience (Erfahrung) enter into the invention of
_all_ the characters. I am not Doehring, or Mengs, or Joachim
Magus, and none of the women I have been acquainted with is
Elsie or Susanna. Yet the observation and insight which make
it possible for me to write at all, are obviously integral to
my own existence. The stranger to whom I lend my coat and hat
may remind you of me, but please don't confuse us.

     I am presently starting on the 24th chapter of the book,
but over the ten years that I have been at it, my
understanding has changed, and it may well be that after I
reach and end, I will rewrite or replace what I have already
written.

     The novel begins in a crowded subway train which has
just pulled out of the (Park Street) station.  It is summer.
There is a power outage.  The train is stalled in the tunnel.
The air conditioning has failed. The sounds and the fetid
odor of the respirations of more than a hundred sweaty human
beings permeate the car. Joachim Magus (don't ask me where I
found the last name) has just passed through South Station.
He has sat up all night in the train in which he came up
north from somewhere in Maryland to go to college. Next to
him, a girl, slightly older than he, with an impressive
profile, and auburn hair undulating over her shoulders.  He
is so tired he falls asleep. He wakes to find the train in
motion. The darkness of the tunnel walls has been replaced by
brilliant sunlight as the subway train moves slowly across a
bridge overlooking the river and the city. With a jerking of
its brakes the train again comes to a stop. Joachim gazes out
the window over the broad river and toward the hill on which
the city is built. He falls asleep again and dreams.


                      * * * * *
Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
