Better a well-turned epigram than an empty epic

Better a well-turned epigram than an empty epic

Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Frank Wilson

I first heard of Peter Altenberg while watching The Tonight Show, back in the days when it was hosted by Jack Paar. Alexander King, one of Paar’s regulars, used to talk about Altenberg all the time.

King and Altenberg had much in common. Both were native Viennese. King had been born there in 1899, 40 years after Richard Engländer, who wrote under the name Peter Altenberg. An insomniac, Altenberg developed a dependence on sedatives. King for a number of years had a morphine habit, which he wrote about in a best-selling memoir, Mine Enemy Grows Older.

When I studied German literature in college, I came upon Altenberg’s name. I knew he had written a book called Wie Ich Es Sehe (As I See It), but that was about it. Then, a few years ago, a selection of his pieces, translated by Peter Wortsman and published as Telegrams of the Soul, came out. It is a good introduction to Altenberg’s strangely poignant work.

One night on the Paar show, King told a story about Altenberg that I have never forgotten. It seems that Altenberg, who lived out his days in cheap hotels, awoke one morning feeling poorly — probably hung over from a combination of slivovitz and sleeping pills — and decided to spend the day in bed. But just as he was about to fall back to sleep, he remembered it was the birthday of a woman he loved very much. So he dragged himself out of bed, went to the florist, and bought a bouquet.

The bouquet he chose was made up of all sizes, shades and varieties of yellow flowers. He had it sent to the woman, but without a card. Then, later in the day, he called to pay his respects. The woman was out and her maid told Altenberg about the wonderful yellow bouquet that had just arrived. She told him she hoped it was from Mr. Spellman, because her mistress was very much in love with him. Altenberg assured her that it was indeed from Spellman, that he had been with Spellman when he bought it.

Later still, Spellman stopped by to pay his respects. This time, the woman was at home, and she showered Spellman with kisses and thanks for the beautiful yellow bouquet. Spellman took the maid aside and asked her what her mistress was talking about. The maid told him what Altenberg had said, Spellman put two and two together and, being an honorable man, went immediately afterwards to the florist and bought another bouquet, this one made up of flowers of all kinds and colors. He sent it to the woman, along with Altenberg’s card.

That night, when the woman was retiring, she remarked to her maid that she had just received another wonderful bouquet, this one from Mr. Altenberg. “But I like the other bouquet better,” she said, “the yellow one. That was sent by someone who really loves me. A woman can tell such things.”

That anecdote encapsulates perfectly the bittersweet essence of Altenberg’s existence. His shtick was to appear carefree and unworldly, content with enough to get by so he could spend his time watching and savoring the pageant of life from the perspective of his café table.

But the fuel he used to light the twinkle in his prose was costly. It was himself. “No one suspected what destruction, wrack and ruin the poet suffered,” he wrote in “A Sunday,” just a year before he died at 59 in 1919. For “the concern of his few true friends just slid off him like little globs of quicksilver sliding off a glass plate!”

Still, like every good artist, Altenberg knew precisely where his talent lay:

I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.

Now, there is the wisdom that every aspiring artist needs to attain: To know if one is a miniaturist, not a muralist — a little, not a grand master — and be content with small effects. Better a well-turned epigram than an empty epic.

Altenberg’s exquisite pieces won some heavyweight admirers, among them Kafka and Arthur Schnitzler. His postcard notes inspired Alban Berg’s Five Orchestral Pieces. Most telling of all perhaps is that Thomas Mann, an artist given to working on a monumental scale if ever there was one, described his first encounter with Altenberg’s writing as “love at first syllable.”