Dear Georgette,

Helmut is or will be 79 this year. He is chronically ill
and he is worried about his health. Last week he wrote me
that he and his girl friend were about to leave for a
vacation in southern England, to return in mid-March.
Helmut is not wealthy; he is trying to continue to earn
money in his profession.  He reads English fluently and
has translated into German and published at least two
novels of William Faulkner. Last summer I gave him a
miniscule (because he didn't ask for more,) amount of help
with a translation of John Updike's last volume of poetry
"Endpoint". Although during his protracted stay in NYC a
few years ago, Helmut undoubtedly became acquainted with the
US publishing scene, I doubt that he would be of much help
in getting Anschluss published in this country.  Although
a regular visitor to England, he has never made any mention
to me of the English market for books.

As you can infer from Helmut's involvement in the Stolpersteine
fuer Braunschweig project, the Nazi heritage - or curse -
weighs heavily on his spirit. Years ago he cautioned me, -
and he is peremptory at times, - not to presume to understand
anything about Nazi and post-Nazi Germany. It's possible
that he might like Anschluss very much; it's possible that
it might offend him as being written by an observer rather
than by an inmate. Although Helmut insists that I myself am
in denial about the life-long effects of my 6 years in
Nazi Germany, I'm not sure Helmut understands the degree
to which each of us carries Auschwitz and Dachau and Buchenwald
within him/herself, and that therefore each of us has the need
and the license to fashion a brazen serpent (Numbers 21) such
as Anschluss to secure his own salvation.

I think it would be constructive and edifying for both
you (or myself) and Helmut, to write to him, asking whether
he would be interested in evaluating Anschluss. There is a
possibility, albeit remote, that he would ask permission to
translate it into German. As a matter of efficiency, I would
in the initial letter: a) give a synopsis of the novel,
b) describe the fusion of images and text, c) send perhaps
as many as five or ten representative pages, d) present this
as a request for professional services, i.e. literary consultation
and ask what he would consider reasonable remuneration for 
evaluating the entire typescript. I myself am willing to contribute
$500 to this adventure, a gift to Helmut that I would be pleased to
make, although Helmut wouldn't accept it if he knew it came from me.
I would also be willing to write to Helmut on your behalf, -
though it would surprise me, if this wasn't correspondence
that you would want to conduct yourself.

Now a 50 year veteran of manuscript rejection, - from 1960 to
1993, and implicitly to the present, I have adapted well, and
succeeded in making a virtue of necessity. Never have sour
grapes been more elegantly packaged. I now consider becoming
a published author analogous to becoming an elected official.
Running for election wouldn't be a dream. It would be a nightmare.
One has to promote oneself when one runs for public office.
There's nothing wrong with promoting oneself; but I tell myself,
it's not worth my effort or time. - sour grapes again? - 
However, once I made up my mind, I would pursue my project
assiduously, if necessary misleading my public, like any
other candidate running for office, by telling it what it
wanted to hear, by packaging Anschluss as a quasi-historical
novel, with suitable cover and blurb; enticing potential
readers with promises of titillating sex and sadism, crime
and punishment, sin and penance. I doubt that there's much
difference between Germany and the United States so far as
book promotion is concerned.

If one wrote to Helmut, one would implicitly postulate
translation into German. The book itself warns against
the German language as making the account too painful. 
I'm not sure. As I began to read, I was much struck by
the esthetic dialectic explicit in the pervasive citation
of place names, political and administrative terms in
German imbedded in a matrix of English prose. In this
respect I harbor special concerns, because as a child
and adolescent, plunged into an English language environment,
preserving the purity and maintaining the distinction between
the two languages was a major enterprise, which continues
to inform my writing. To this day I refer to my computer
als mein Rechner, and to the consternation of my German
correspondents the Rockies sind nicht "die Rockies" sondern
"das Felsengebirge." In my novel Die Andere, Massachusetts
Avenue wird die Landesallee, Harvard Yard ist der
Universitaetshof, Linnaean Street wird Linnaeusstrasse,
and so forth. In Anschluss I hear the discord of the
languages as an esthetically essential quality which would
be lost in translation. Initially it occured to me that
I should offer to translate Anschluss into German.
On second thought I remembered Helmut's criticism,
that my style in writing German is antiquated, and
as such, unacceptable to the contemporary reader. My
translation would guarantee the failure of the project.

Jochen