Re: _In Stahlgewittern_ - Origin of Booktitle

["Thomas Mosch" <mosch@postconsult.de>]

Dear Friends

I would like to contribute to this discussion with a quite different
approach to the origin of the title "in Stahlgewittern" (although Gary and
Bertil  slightly changed the topic of the discussion already ;-)).

No matter whether the Edda talks of a "Storm of Steel" or rather a
"Thunderstorm of Steel" or whatever, EJ seems to have got the first idea
for the
title from it (as he stated in "Siebzig verweht V") but turned it later
into "In Stahlgewittern".

To my mind there are two reasons for it:

1. What are the images you have in mind when thinking of a thunderstorm?
Personally I connect bright flashes and loud thunders to it which fit quite
well to the images of the battles of WW1. With a storm I connect the image
of heavy winds which is quite far away from my image of WW1.

2. Another reason might be that the word "Stahlsturm" is a composite of two
one-syllable-words both beginning with "st" (therefore building an
alliteration). For me as a German the word "Stahlsturm" has a rather
static, monolithic sound. "Stahlgewitter" has a quite more dynamic melody
and is therefore more fitting to the subject of the book.

Finally "Sturm" as well as "Gewitter" are often used metaphors of German 
expressionist poetry of that time. So the choice of the title of EJs book
might also be influenced by that (By the way: are there any statements from
EJ about expressionism?).

Regards from Berlin
Thomas Mosch