Ludwig Hohl
Encyclopedia
Ludwig Hohl was a Swiss
author
writing in the German language
. Outside of literary mainstream, he spent most of his life in extreme poverty. He is still not known by the public at large, but has been praised by several well-known authors for his writing and his radical thoughts about life and literature.
and was born in the small town of Netstal
. He went to a Gymnasium
in Frauenfeld
but was dropped from school, allegedly due to the bad impact he had on fellow pupils. He never worked in a "normal" profession and so spent most of his life in poverty; he also suffered from alcoholism
. From 1924 to 1937 he lived outside of Switzerland, first in Paris
(1924–1930), then in Vienna
(1930/31) and The Hague
(1931–1937). He then returned to Switzerland and lived first in Biel
, then in Geneva
, from 1954 to 1974 in a small basement flat which became sort of legendary. His financial situation then improved due to an inheritance, but in his last years, he suffered from several physical illnesses. Hohl died in 1980 from an inflammation of his legs. He had been married five times and had one daughter.
Hohl’s works never gained him commercial success; several of them he published himself
. His small income was made up from works for magazines and newspapers as well as private and public support. In the 1940s and 50s, he had to take legal actions against his publisher who refused to print the second volume of his Notizen (see below) because the first volume had sold less than two hundred copies. Hohl won the trial – which, according to some sources, substantially improved the position of authors against publishers in Swiss jurisdiction – but the second volume sold equally badly. In the 1970s, he finally got some acceptance from the literary world. Siegfried Unseld, leader of the Suhrkamp Verlag
, had become acquainted about Hohl by Adolf Muschg
, and Unseld and Hohl could reach a contract about a new edition of his works. In 1970 and 1976, Hohl was awarded prizes by the Schweizerische Schillerstiftung, in 1978 he got a special prize remembering the 100th birthday of Robert Walser
, and in 1980 he won the Petrarca-Preis
.
Many regard Die Notizen oder Von der unvoreiligen Versöhnung as Hohl’s opus magnum
. The title could be translated as The Notes, or: About the non-premature reconciliation. Hohl wrote it in 1934-36; problems with his publisher (see above) delayed the publication until 1954; it was finally published again, with some additions and in one volume, a few months after his death in 1981. The work is divided into twelve parts (with titles like “About working”, “About writing”, “About death”) which consist of hundreds of "notes". These might be short essays, aphorism
s, quotations, poems, sketches for stories etc. Hohl insisted that these notes are not only a collection of aphorisms, but have a deep inner connection. The main thought which lies behind these notes might be that there is only one true meaning of life which Hohl calls "Arbeit" (work), that is, to exercise one’s own creative forces. This "work" includes the philosophical concepts of knowledge and action: they become one in the person who works. Hohl also polemizes against the masses of people who do not "work" in this way, but are very busy in trying to avoid work. Hohl personifies this flawed way of life in his antagonist, "der Apotheker" (the pharmacist) or "Herr Meier".
A second work written in a similar fashion was not published until after Hohl’s death. Its title is Von den hereinbrechenden Rändern (About the closing-in edges) or simply Nachnotizen (After-notes).
Hohl often quoted the few authors and thinkers he held in highest esteem, e.g. Goethe
, Lichtenberg
, Montaigne
and Spinoza
. He called Goethe’s writings his "daily bread". Hohl’s opinion was that many good things had already been said, and that he was not able to improve the way those thinkers had said them, but it is important to re-think them for oneself.
He dismissed most literature because in his view it was not the product of "work". Among the few writers he praised are Honoré de Balzac
, Marcel Proust
, Karl Kraus
and Katherine Mansfield
.
, Max Frisch
and Adolf Muschg
as well as Austrian author Peter Handke
.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
writing in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Outside of literary mainstream, he spent most of his life in extreme poverty. He is still not known by the public at large, but has been praised by several well-known authors for his writing and his radical thoughts about life and literature.
Biography
Hohl was the son of a pastorPastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
and was born in the small town of Netstal
Netstal
Netstal is a former municipality in the canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Effective from 1 January 2011, Netstal is part of the municipality of Glarus.-Geography:...
. He went to a Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Frauenfeld
Frauenfeld
Frauenfeld is the capital of the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland.-Early history:The earliest trace of human settlement are several La Tène era graves to the east of Langdorf. The Roman road from Oberwinterthur to Pfyn ran through what is now the Allmend in Frauenfeld. Two Roman villas were...
but was dropped from school, allegedly due to the bad impact he had on fellow pupils. He never worked in a "normal" profession and so spent most of his life in poverty; he also suffered from alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. From 1924 to 1937 he lived outside of Switzerland, first in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1924–1930), then in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(1930/31) and The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
(1931–1937). He then returned to Switzerland and lived first in Biel
Biel/Bienne
Biel/Bienne is a city in the district of the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.It is located on the language boundary and is throughout bilingual. Biel is the German name for the town, Bienne its French counterpart. The town is often referred to in both...
, then in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, from 1954 to 1974 in a small basement flat which became sort of legendary. His financial situation then improved due to an inheritance, but in his last years, he suffered from several physical illnesses. Hohl died in 1980 from an inflammation of his legs. He had been married five times and had one daughter.
Hohl’s works never gained him commercial success; several of them he published himself
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
. His small income was made up from works for magazines and newspapers as well as private and public support. In the 1940s and 50s, he had to take legal actions against his publisher who refused to print the second volume of his Notizen (see below) because the first volume had sold less than two hundred copies. Hohl won the trial – which, according to some sources, substantially improved the position of authors against publishers in Swiss jurisdiction – but the second volume sold equally badly. In the 1970s, he finally got some acceptance from the literary world. Siegfried Unseld, leader of the Suhrkamp Verlag
Suhrkamp Verlag
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature.In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin.-Early history:...
, had become acquainted about Hohl by Adolf Muschg
Adolf Muschg
Adolf Muschg is a Swiss writer and professor of literature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten.- His life :...
, and Unseld and Hohl could reach a contract about a new edition of his works. In 1970 and 1976, Hohl was awarded prizes by the Schweizerische Schillerstiftung, in 1978 he got a special prize remembering the 100th birthday of Robert Walser
Robert Walser
Robert Walser may refer to:* Robert Walser , Swiss modernist writer* Robert Walser , American musicologist, author and professor...
, and in 1980 he won the Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis is a European literary award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. It was founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, and is primarily designed for contemporary European poets, but also epicists appear in the list of...
.
Works
Hohl published some poems and stories. His best literary work might be the narrative Bergfahrt (the German word Bergfahrt, literary mountain ride, is an old term for climbing) which he wrote in 1926, rewrote several times over the next decades and which was finally published in 1975.Many regard Die Notizen oder Von der unvoreiligen Versöhnung as Hohl’s opus magnum
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
. The title could be translated as The Notes, or: About the non-premature reconciliation. Hohl wrote it in 1934-36; problems with his publisher (see above) delayed the publication until 1954; it was finally published again, with some additions and in one volume, a few months after his death in 1981. The work is divided into twelve parts (with titles like “About working”, “About writing”, “About death”) which consist of hundreds of "notes". These might be short essays, aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
s, quotations, poems, sketches for stories etc. Hohl insisted that these notes are not only a collection of aphorisms, but have a deep inner connection. The main thought which lies behind these notes might be that there is only one true meaning of life which Hohl calls "Arbeit" (work), that is, to exercise one’s own creative forces. This "work" includes the philosophical concepts of knowledge and action: they become one in the person who works. Hohl also polemizes against the masses of people who do not "work" in this way, but are very busy in trying to avoid work. Hohl personifies this flawed way of life in his antagonist, "der Apotheker" (the pharmacist) or "Herr Meier".
A second work written in a similar fashion was not published until after Hohl’s death. Its title is Von den hereinbrechenden Rändern (About the closing-in edges) or simply Nachnotizen (After-notes).
Hohl often quoted the few authors and thinkers he held in highest esteem, e.g. Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany...
, Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
and Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
. He called Goethe’s writings his "daily bread". Hohl’s opinion was that many good things had already been said, and that he was not able to improve the way those thinkers had said them, but it is important to re-think them for oneself.
He dismissed most literature because in his view it was not the product of "work". Among the few writers he praised are Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
and Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield left for Great Britain in 1908 where she encountered Modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and...
.
Influence
As of 2008, Hohl’s influence remains extremely small. Most of his works are (again) out of print. However, there have been several authors who have praised Hohl’s writing. Among them were and are fellow Swiss authors Friedrich DürrenmattFriedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...
, Max Frisch
Max Frisch
Max Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist, regarded as highly representative of German-language literature after World War II. In his creative works Frisch paid particular attention to issues relating to problems of human identity, individuality, responsibility, morality and political...
and Adolf Muschg
Adolf Muschg
Adolf Muschg is a Swiss writer and professor of literature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten.- His life :...
as well as Austrian author Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
.