Joseph Roth. Eine Biographie by Wilhelm von SternburgJoseph Roth. Im Exil in Paris 1933 bis 1939. (Zirkular Sondernummer 68) by Heinz Lunzer

Abstract

2 6 Reviews JosephRoth. Eine Biographie.ByWilhelm von Sternburg. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. 2009. 560 pp. 22,95. !sbn 978-3462055559. JosephRoth. ImExil in Paris 1933bis 193g. By Heinz Lunzer. (ZirkularSondernummer 68). Vienna: Dokumentationsstelle f?r neuere ?sterreichische Literatur. 2008. 224 pp. 16. isbn 978-3-900-467-68-5. The two volumes under review here can only sensiblybe considered with reference to a publication that is now thirty-five years old but remains indispensible to researchers working on Joseph Roth: David Bronsen's biography of Roth, first published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 1974. It is not an exaggeration to describe this as a landmark contribution to scholarship. Bronsen's extraordinary achievement was to penetrate decades of misinformation and misunderstandings about the life and work ofRoth, towhich the author himself? Bronsen labelled him a 'mythomaniac' ? had energetically contributed, and whose final years and death in exile, in 1939, had further complicated the task facing any would be biographer. Bronsen spentmore than a decade on his project, and was able to interview almost every remaining familymember, friend and acquaintance of the famously gregarious Roth, travelling extensively around Europe and America to do so. By the early 1970sRoth's work as a novelist, and as an extraordinarily prolific and original journalistic voice, was gradually being rediscovered and appreciated again after a period of neglect in the post-war years; the resultant biography, largely as a result of the use towhich he put thefirst-hand accounts, presented for thefirst time a compelling portrait ofRoth the human being and a narrative thatmade some sense of a chaotic and troubled existence.Writing in the 1970sBronsen could not necessarily assume the acquaintance of his readership with the full extent ofRoth's achievements as a writer ? he was still chiefly remembered only for Radetzkymarsch ? and the mammoth first edition was republished in 1993 in a sensibly abridged version that took account, amongst other things,of the republication, in the intervening period, of the greater part ofRoth's output as a writer. This edition has, however, been out of print for a number of years, and readers interested inRoth's life aswell as his work have had to rely on the handsome Leben undWerk inBildern compiled by Heinz Lunzer and Victoria Lunzer-Talos (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994; reissued in paperback in 2009). 2009 is the seventieth anniversary ofRoth's death and has seen commemorative events, conferences, exhibitions and publications in various countries.With both popular and scholarly interest inRoth's work at something of a high water mark, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, the publisher ofRoth's work (a relationship dating back toRoth's contract and personal friendshipwith Gustav Kiepenheuer in the early 1930s), clearly feels that the time is right for a new biography. Whereas Bronsen's meticulous approach reflected his academic training (he was Professor ofGerman at St Louis University) and the expectations of a largely scholarly readership, the author of thisnew biography,Wilhelm von Sternburg ? not an academic Roth specialist but a journalist and professional biographer ? is clearly addressing a broader readership. The biography does not claim to have uncovered much (ifany) new information about Roth's life and work ? needless Reviews 207 to say the sort of interviews conducted by Bronsen in the 1950s and 1960s are no longer possible ? but instead setsout to synthesize the available data in a readable, clear narrative, and to offer appropriate contextual information on the numerous stations inRoth's lifeand career as hemoves fromGal?ci?n childhood and student years inVienna to publishing success in Weimar Germany, travels around Europe, and thefinal years of exile in France and Holland. Sternburg writes well and the volume is,judged as awhole and with the intended readership inmind, a success. Perhaps mindful of the status of Bronsen's biography and the need tomark out his own approach ifhe is not to be accused of redundantly treading in another's footsteps, Sternburgmakes sparing use ofBronsen's interviews,which he recorded in transcriptions and notes thatare now lodged with the restof the late researcher's Nachlass in the Dokumentationsstelle f?r neuere ?sterreichische Literatur in Vienna. Rather defensively, after quoting from one of Bronsen's interviews, Sternburg asserts: 'Solche, Jahrzehnte sp?tergemachte ?u?erungen sind zweifellos interessant, aber...