Sammlung zur heiligsten Aufgabe: Politische Künstler und Intellektuelle in Klaus Manns Exilwerk by Karina von Lindeiner

Abstract

MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 903 inCanetti's works. Preece also observes areas of contention in the fields of politics, gender, or world literature.He generally remains a very factual reader; judgements about style, literaryquality, or aesthetic innovations are extremely rare. Overall, this book provides at least three important insights: itclarifies the com plexity of a very intricatepersonal relationship and productive literarycollaboration as well as rivalry; itdiscusses extensively and in an exemplary manner the difficult position of a Jewish, socialist woman writer during the I930S and the London ex ile; and itpresents the hitherto widest-ranging thematic analysis ofVeza's literary production with a strong emphasis on biographical, historical, and factual evidence. None of the quotations or titles remains inGerman; Preece forces us to return to the archive inZurich ifwe want to follow up the unpublished material he used. One of his central points, thatCanetti's 'depiction ofTherese Krumbholz [inDie Blendung] was his original crime against Veza' and 'her revengewas to startwriting' (p. I27), is a challenging invitation for furtherdiscussion. UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL ALEXANDERKOSENINA Sammlungzur heiligstenAufgabe: PolitischeKiinstler undIntellektuelle in Klaus Manns Exilwerk. By KARINA VON LINDEINER. Wiirzburg: K6nigshausen & Neumann. 2006. 228 pp. ?29. ISBN 978-3-8260-3448-c. This latest addition to the growing corpus ofmonographs on themost literary of Thomas Mann's children does not immediately set out to catch the eye. The title as abbreviated on the spine, 'Sammlung zur heiligsten Aufgabe', would not look out of place in theTheology section, while the cover illustration eschews theobvious in favour of an unidentified Central European edifice reflected in an inverted puddle. This is all themore astonishing when one considers that themuch-photographed Klaus Mann was one of a small number of individuals, including Kafka and Picasso, who had the unsettling ability of staring unflinchingly into the camera as if to bare their innermost soul. As theargument unfolds, thepicture remains insoft focus in spite of the assiduous ness with which Karina von Lindeiner conducts her research.The underlying subtext is familiar: thatKlaus had no specific ideology, thathe abhorred the political Right and came to reject theLeft, retreating into an elitist aestheticism thatwas fundamen tallyout of alignment with the realities ofpost-war Europe. The vaguely sketched-out ideals towhich Mann Junior committed himself may even, the author argues, have been a response to the deliberately mushy concepts evoked by theNazis: 'Aufderen (teilweise absichtlich) schwammig gehaltene Begriffe antwortete ermit nichtminder weitgefassten moralischen Uberbegriffen (auBer der "Vernunft" zum Beispiel "Bil dung", "Fortschritt", "Kultur", "Toleranz", "Wahrheit" und "Zivilisation")' (p. 39). This essentially defeatist introduction to the subject ('Manns sozialistischer Hu manismus entzieht sich der apodiktischen Definition', p. 46) precedes a refreshingly livelyand informativediscussion ofher subject's journalism and novels. In the second half of this study, theauthor comes intoher own as a competent guide to threenovels, Flucht indenNorden, Mephisto, and Der Vulkan. Here she identifies real and potential rolemodels among the marginalized characters of Johanna,Otto Ulrichs, and Kikjou. Yet theoverall historical perspective remains somewhat fuzzy,aswhen Aldous Hux ley,for example, is identified as one of several 'communist' influences (p. 55). It is hard to accept thatKlaus's views on the propagandist role of literature should be likened to those of theNazis ('Es istnicht zu iubersehen, dass sein Kunstverstandnis [... .]auch formaleAhnlichkeiten mit dem nationalsozialistischen hatte') and thathe should stand accused of using his literary colleagues inmuch the same way as the Hitler state exploited Gottfried Benn and Gerhart Hauptmann (p. 87). 904 Reviews Von Lindeiner rightlyacknowledges that the range ofKlaus's interestswas broad and his concerns were surprisingly altruistic inone suspected of elitism. He tirelessly advocated co-operation between exiles of very different persuasions and was quick to acknowledge the need forgreater understanding between emigres and their host countries. In all this, the titlechosen forhiswartime journal, Sammlung, issignificant, implying both meditation and mediation, along with a rallying of resources. Yet the resulting product isultimately foundwanting: the journal remained 'wenig aktuell, wenig eindeutig, [... .]wenig tagespolitisch' (p. S7), itseditor providing 'kaummehr als DenkanstoBe' (p. 62), which turnout tobe 'zwangsweise vage' (p. 74). This book began life as a doctoral project, and it is perhaps unfair to expect the author to have progressed much beyond Marcel Reich-Ranicki's categoric assess ment: 'In keinem einzigen seinerWerke...