Letzte Welten: Deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur diesseits und jenseits der Apokalypse by Heinz-Peter Preusser (review)

Abstract

566 Reviews study, however, reconstructs a far more direct intervention in the genesis of Mann's text, the now famous discussions with Adorno about Schoenberg and twelve-tone music theory. For Adorno helped Mann understand how the dodecaphonic system could open up new musical possibilities, as well as running the risk of being a new form of musical totalitarianism. As a result, Mann, far from trying to construct his novel on twelve-tone principles, or offeringa postmodern pot-pourri, conceived it as something genuinely innovative: 'Die "konstruktiveMusik", von der er in Anbetracht der "Symphonie" seines Romanes spricht, kame demnach asthetisch einem "dritten Weg" gleich' (p. 219)?a 'third way', that is, which reconciles the 'Modernitat' he saw in Joyce and a 'verstandliche Zuganglichkeit', which means people actually bothered to read his books (p. 251). This reconciliatory position is reflected in the end of the novel, which neither damns Faust as in the medieval chap-book, nor saves him as does Goethe, but adopts an Adorno-like paradox as the form of its conclusion, as ambiguous as the light in the dark, in the final chords of the cantata Doctor Fausti Weheklag, of the 'hope against hope'?derived from Kierkegaard, via Adorno. As a consequence, the author argues, a proximity between the aesthetic and the religious in Mann's work is revealed, which was to become a central theme of Der Erwdhlte. Thomas Mann once described his stunning fusion of Germanic legend, syphilitic infection, and symphonie apocalypse as his 'gewagtestes and unheimlichstes Werk' (quoted p. 115). The final chapter's survey of the contemporary responses in the United States following the publication of Doktor Faustus and the vicissitudes of Mann's reception by Georg Lukacs (in whose wake a helpful distinction between 'modernist' and avantgarde was inaugurated by Peter Egri) leads Schmidt-Schiitz to the conclusion that the issue of 'traditionalism' or 'classicism' versus '(post)modernism ' is ultimately aufgehoben by the continuing cultural relevance of Mann's text. After all, as Mann himself put it in 'Deutsche Horer!', tradition means no more, but also no less, than '[a]uf eigene Art einem Beispiel folgen'. University of Glasgow Paul Bishop Letzte Welten: Deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur diesseits und jenseits der Apokalypse . By Heinz-Peter Preusser. (Beitrage zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, 193) Heidelberg: Winter. 2003. 321pp. ?48. ISBN 3-8253-1475-8. It should come as no surprise to findpost-war German writers?and hence post-war German literature?particularly fascinated by,ifnot engrossed with, all things apoca? lyptic. The after-effectsof the Second World War and the Holocaust, as well as most Germans' deep-rooted anxieties resultingfrom their countries' precarious position on the frontlines of the great ideological divide, contributed to a seemingly impregnable sense of gloom concerning the future not just of Germany but of mankind in general, an uneasiness that carried over to their linguistic compatriots in Austria and Switzer? land. As Heinz-Peter Preusser demonstrates in this admirably encompassing and intellectually engaging volume of essays, authors of all shades and convictions in both East and West devoted considerable literary energy to parading their apprehensions and mapping out in their fiction, plays, and poetry the dangers inherent in technical progress, or what Preusser terms 'Modernisierungsschaden und Erwartungsangste, Verlustklagen und Untergangsphantasien' (p. 8). Preusser sees his two main tasks as contouring 'ein breites literarisches Spektrum an Apokalypsevorstellungen' and collating a 'Sammlung topologischer Muster und diskursiver Regularien' (p. 8) for the literary portrayal of mankind's undoing. In his illuminating opening chapter the author correctly points out that apocalyp? tic writing is not the exclusive preserve of German-language writers, nor have they MLR, 100.2, 2005 567 produced any of the seminal texts within this tradition. But due to their own (or their forefathers') complicity in heaping apocalyptic misery on twentieth-century mankind, German writers since 1945 have exhibited a strong partiality forthe theme and such generic offshoots as apocalyptic science fiction (here represented by Alban Nicolai Herbst). Owing to this intensity of preoccupation with apocalyptic modes of writing, the range ofauthors covered in this volume is quite astonishing: West German authors discussed include Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Giinter Grass, Botho Strauss, Marcel Beyer, Bernhard Schlink, Harald Mueller, and Juli Zeh; most prominent among East...