Alphabetical 4: a short bio of Walter Abish

Walter Abish was born into a Jewish, middle-class family in Vienna, Austria, on 24 December 1931. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Adolph and Frieda Rubin Abish fled with their son first to Italy and then to Nice, France, where Abish attended school. In 1939 his father, a perfumer, was interned as an enemy alien in Les Milles until just ten days before the German invasion of France in May 1940, when the Abish family was able to leave on one of the last ships to sail from Marseille to Shanghai. They settled down in Shanghai from 1940 to 1948. Reflecting on the period, Abish has said, "I spent my childhood in China, seeing an incredibly corrupt society slowly disintegrate. It was as if all the life processes were accentuated and crowded into the period of time I lived in Shanghai."

The Abishes remained in China until December 1948, when they departed for Israel before the communist defeat of the Kuomingtang. In Israel, Abish served in the army; at the same time, he developed two strong interests: architecture and writing. Abish was serving in the tank corps of the Israeli army when he began writing poetry—in English—at age eighteen. After leaving the army, Abish studied architecture, which led to a job with a firm that designed small communities. In 1956 he met an American woman, Cecile Gelb, who was working in city planning in Israel and who was eventually to become a highly respected sculptor and photographer. They married, and, after living in England for a while, they came to New York in late 1957. For six months following his arrival Abish was sequestered in a sanatorium at the foot of the Rocky Mountains as a result of a spot detected on his lung in London. Abish became a U.S. citizen in 1960. His first published work was a fiction piece called "Frank's Birthday," which appeared in a magazine called Confrontation, issuing in Spring 1970 from Long Island University in New York. Throughout the early seventies Abish published short stories in other cutting-edge magazines like The Element, Extensions, and Statements: New Fiction.

Abish’s Major works include:
Duel Site (New York: Tibor de Nagy Editions, 1970).

Alphabetical Africa (New York: New Directions, 1974).

Minds Meet (New York: New Directions, 1975).

In the Future Perfect (New York: New Directions, 1977; London: Faber & Faber, 1984).

How German Is It (New York: New Directions, 1980; Manchester, U.K.: Carcanet, 1982).

99: The New Meaning, photographs by Cecile Abish (Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 1990).

Eclipse Fever (New York: Knopf, 1993; London: Faber & Faber, 1993).

Double Vision: A Self Portrait (New York: Knopf, 2004)

(I assembled this short bio from various sources. I will eventually post references to each of these sources, but I didn't feel it was necessary to cite each source for this bio. I will cite any sources I use in future posts.)

Anti-Oedipus 13

resistance runs, positioning those amorphous
unfavorable currents of liquid to standards
one connects, is connected
to you all the connections
do not become easy in the passage

the linear terminology, the form of this determination
of this enormous standardized message
The body does not originate non-worthy
to point out the test it disappears
gives some remaining types to complete

the device and all its difficult joints
does not contain the organ, the organism
sound the ultimate output, the chain inside spitefully and with interest
for the creation and the product to take from
the determination and the mental vector of the symptom

life works because of craving, being exactly desire
the complete body of death is the motor
the favorable liquid running with normalization

worry our usual way what this means

The body does not contain the line and the evil of organization
In spite of the layout created: the spiritual table of symptoms

the sequential use of audio and video
the unarticulated block of sound
so thin you purchase powers that scream in asthmatic fits

merrily you, the satisfaction in the degree of the taboo
into the joint, by electricity the goods are inserted
the different words hurt by the father of execution
interpret the column of water by the majority of things
in order to form converts after death, you experiment

the fact is formed in identification:
being an enormous, uniform object
the body the final output of noise
to be broken in the body
as an instrument of extensive persecution

resistance flows in sets amorphous
the adverse current, the liquid of unification interrupted
arrangement of time molds examination and
you search the color by any means right

still, it barely continues to promote myth
of the romantic conceptual genius it is possible
as for satisfaction, the joy of violating taboo
inserted in the electric socket to explain the stream of water

the automaton halts the deceased
time sets the unorganized bulk
useful to concatenating freely, shape is
not only detection, dead instinct: that is name
there is no model, no evidence of original nothingness

what kind of remnant? the whole linked
the countercurrent of the uniform liquid
connected, and interrupted, using the word
only the scream or the panting which are
the unarticulated block whose sound is thin

the possible romantic myth talent joyfully violates
as for the degree of satisfaction in taboo
in the electricity hub sundry goods, labor
by the performance it can interpret water
the creek, whether it does convert, or you experience

is not the primitive worthy of mentioning
or can he interpret the split of water by the majority of the things
the automat stops the late ones, a positioning is useful
the instinct dies: it is to name, the dead are not there
it did not conceive the unfavorable current, the liquid of unification

the instinct cubes: it is to designate, it is not understood absolutely
noises of the block, the resistance, the energy
the father of execution can interpret the column of the water
from the greater part of the things, after that the dead women, the dead men

if converted, the standardized message
the machine arrests the delayed one
the cubes of instinct: it must indicate the unfavorable
liquid running through the normalization
it will be able to interpret the column of water

after the inoperative women will be converted
you try, you do not only become fulfilled, not observed
the cubes of instinct: it must indicate it is not understood absolutely
to point with respect is to disappear
the escape of blockage disturbs the organization

in the sound and the section of the sight of the word
it’s given form is only unarticulated
centers of resistance, of the energy, the outcry

the haltings of the machine behind
the title of the plant which it did not order
liberations, inside ignited here, each possible chain of the thing
the buckets of instinct: it must indicate it is absolutely not understood, not here, no
the demands began enthusiastic and for the duration
the inoperative men are integrated
and began the enthusiastic demand for the inoperative women

the resistance works in positionings amorphous
so that the favorable liquid a colleague executes
with the normalization, is connected, arrested.

Anti-Oedipus 12

Crave the function works as is
that kind political escape and contention,
all forces, strengths, solutions, mystifications,
and in all directions a fever,
personal atheism, no beliefs move about in search of habit

Be pleased, it serves the inside separately
everything approximately terminated in the connection
to the hunt on the one hand
the year of the old man,
a year that is not possible,
a certain material past

Perhaps the self—animal loss returned
the vegetables and the mineral in the home—
experiences existence and humanity’s travel
reduced directly before confidence

Lately built to stop in order to seize
the solution of humanity connected
with the force of a search
to reduce the inside subjectively

Made to reorganize the feather escapes
adapted and buried within the possible
to seek the substitution of crisis yet not really solve it.

Perhaps the loss of the art of the self
turning over the ore of the experiment
and the social sciences and the voyage
content to be used, the internal part
incorporates the beginning of erasures

Consequently if the toolbox is unimagined
come to create the tool;
belief simultaneous to learn the situation
and the happy initial use
sending out in search of a symbol.

Beseech the function, the number of works
a link requiring considerable opposition
adding to the base, the loss of the art of the self

To intersect the transformation and introduce the revolution
not to create an order of time
the fortunate escape transmission of the symbolic order

Abolish all before completion
the one hand hunts the seal
newly built in order to interrupt
to grasp connected humanity’s solution
a subjective reduction as we learn the situation

Assembly by the initial symbol
the basis of self loss
practice it is not, there is not a zone

Recently structured in order to stop
in order to seize the strength of the search
termination with the outcome for the use of transmitting
in an educated manner you reorganize
the feather, the spring that escapes adapted and buried
to look upon a lower surface, over the loss

In addition patient interests determined the material beyond
this pleasant resistance codes a solution,
through all the senses in the form of a fever
to arrest the revolutionist a resistance of the search
in the substance of the crisis observe real resolve
scrumbled directly before the secret, the end

Bringing the grass into an ordered order to arrest
an updated restoration not to create
when equal in the substitution of the ordered crisis
longitudinally observe the ignited interior