Liebe als Flucht: Metaphorische und allegorische Sinnschichten in Gertrud Leuteneggers Roman „Späte Gäste“ (2020)

Abstract

The novel "Späte Gäste" [Late Guests], published in 2020 by the Swiss author Gertrud Leutenegger (*1948), examines the relations between love and death. The first-person narrator travels to the Ticino village where her earlier life partner has died and is laid out in a funeral chapel. She wants to see him once more, but she never actually succeeds; for the chapel is closed. Yet, this blocked door is interesting for its metaphorical and metonymical meaning, as it stands for the barrier between the narrator and her earlier partner. Moreover, it is beneficial because it engenders a mental detachment which appears in several reflections and images that arise in her inner eye. They relate not only to the past, but also to her present life and even to the future. These apparitions can be interpreted as dialectical images as defined by Walter Benjamin. The present interpretation will examine this dialectic and demonstrate that the first-person narrator gains a new freedom in the process of this consideration of the death before her: freedom from the fear of death in general – and from the false certitudes of modern life.

Keywords

• dialectical image
• Phantasmagoria
• escape
• love
• dead
• dream