{"id":76042,"date":"2015-10-01T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=76042"},"modified":"2015-10-01T14:22:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T14:22:01","slug":"you-tell-yourself-you-are-hannah-arendt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/you-tell-yourself-you-are-hannah-arendt\/","title":{"rendered":"You tell yourself you are Hannah Arendt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a short amalgamation of three unfinished projects: a review of Margarethe Von Trotta’s 2013 film, Hannah Arendt<\/a><\/em>, an unfinished book review of Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and other Conversations<\/a><\/em> and an essay centered on Hannah Arendt’s book Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman<\/a><\/em>, first published in 1957.<\/span><\/p>\n

By \u00a0Bobbi Lurie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Hannah<\/p>\n

I was not raised by a father. Don’t forget that. Karl Jaspers was a father to me. You may not believe me, because of the nature of our relationship, but Heidegger was a father to me too. Heidegger never forgave me for becoming famous. I did my best to be solicitous. Unrequited love is my addiction. Heidegger is my real father. He was Mein Vater.<\/p>\n

Only a once-beautiful-woman-turned-plain knows how to speak about love.<\/p>\n

Beauty gave up on me, after loving me once. Von Trotta lacked the courage to show the fate of an aging woman with a Jewish face. She took on the easy grandeur of a \u00a0German beauty, as if I could be anything like Barbara Sukowa, someone who works at becoming something other than what she is. That isn’t what I do.<\/p>\n

Yes, I was dazzled by words.<\/p>\n

Words in German ignite what can’t be ignited in English or French.<\/p>\n

The sound of German brought me joy in 1949. But what was J\u00c3\u00bcdische, was, by then, forever gone. The ephemeral beauty of a stateless Jew, a pariah: that was my ideal.<\/p>\n

To be whole, not to be separate or divided, not to cling to a political affiliation; to know the depth of love.<\/p>\n

I am part of nothing; I am completely that which I love.<\/p>\n

I was not arrogant; I simply did not see the whole.<\/p>\n

I meant to be transparent. We must have faith in our fellow man. I meant no harm.<\/p>\n

Please don’t put me a list with the women in this film. My relationships need meaning. Rahel Varnhagen is my my closest friend. I do not accept attempts to analyze the nature of our intimacy simply because she’s been dead for hundreds of years. I wrote a description of her inner life, as you do for me.<\/p>\n

I do not attempt to know more about Rahel Varnhagen than she herself knew. I would never do that. Modernists are cruel to investigate the interior; they are nothing but gossips in a quest for comparisons.<\/p>\n

I only want to meet the beloved in the aloneness of my soul.<\/p>\n

I blend with night visions of the dead and the living; I see everything.<\/p>\n

Von Trotta replaced me. She rejected me, an aging woman delighting in the magic of \u00a0thought. She does not show me as the homely wife of a lecherous man; she does not show how I chose, every day, to see him in a beautiful light. Because love is not political. Er ist mein Mann.<\/p>\n

The camera never saw me. Nor did Heidegger ever see me. I saved him. He did nothing for me. I forgave him. Forgiveness is the only way to live. I rejected the idea of radical Evil in favor of radical Good.<\/p>\n

What was misunderstood was my tone, you see. One’s tone is one’s essence; there is nothing I can do about it.<\/p>\n

If I am not loved, I, myself, am still able to love. No one can stop me.<\/p>\n

Yes. Of course I am a Jew. I am a Jew.<\/p>\n

Please come to my apartment for drinks tonight. Don’t be offended if my husband kisses you. He is Mein Liebling. I love life.<\/p>\n

\"Hannah<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

Bobbi Lurie \u00a0<\/strong>is a visual artist, poet and essayist who is the author of four poetry collections. She is in the process of completing a book about Marcel Duchamp. The above illustration is her own, entitled ‘Unfinished Projects’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was not raised by a father. Don’t forget that. Karl Jaspers was a father to me. You may not believe me, because of the nature of our relationship, but Heidegger was a father to me too. Heidegger never forgave me for becoming famous. I did my best to be solicitous. Unrequited love is my addiction. Heidegger is my real father. He was Mein Vater.<\/p>\n

Bobbi Lurie’s<\/b> short, creative response to Hannah Arendt’s<\/b> The Last Interview<\/i> and Rahel Varnhagen: Lebensgeschichte einer deutschen J\u00c3\u00bcdin aus der Romantik,<\/i> as well as Margarethe Von Trotta’s<\/b> 2013 film, Hannah Arendt<\/i>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":76044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}