The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka by Walter H. Sokel The Cambridge Companion to Kafka by Julian Preece (review)

Abstract

MLR, 100.2, 2005 559 ings on the war with his autobiographical travel writings, Kriegsgefangen and Aus den Tagen der Okkupation, works which are quite differentin scope, substance, and style. Following Lothar Kohn, Hebekus places Fontane's rejection of French modernism at the heart of the war texts. Symptomatic of this rejection is the critique of the de? velopment of modern warfare, exemplified?to take two examples?in the activity of partisans and the deployment by the French of troops from their North African colonies. However, the choice of illustrations and the analysis of the text employed to extend Kohn's firmlycircumscribed argument are often unconvincing. Fontane's war texts are declared to be replete with references to actions by partisans (p. 142), but, with one exception (Bazeilles), the only examples provided are from Kriegsgefangen, where they occur, self-evidently, in the accounts of the capture of the author and his fellow prisoners. The treatment of the 'afrikanisch-orientalisch' [sie] troops is seen in terms of a strategy of national stereotyping and polarization. Here Hebekus refers to the account of a Prussian 'officer' (actually a sergeant) in an '"Einzelkampf mit einem Turco", welcher aus dem Hinterhalt agiert' (p. 160); but this contradicts the text, quoted only two pages previously: 'Er hatte einen Einzelkampf mit einem Turco gehabt, der in eine Schmiede retirierte und sich hier mit auBerordentlicher Bravour verteidigte' (p. 158). Hebekus does give good contemporary examples of this strategy in the formof illustrations fromcontemporary journals, asserting thatthe 'Turcos' ap? pear as paradigmatic representatives of the barbarism of French modernity. He omits to mention, however, that, at Fontane's insistence and unlike his previous war books, Der Krieg gegen Frankreich contained no such illustrations, indeed no illustrations at all; that is to say, Fontane consciously chose not to exploit the combination of image and text, so that his relationship to the newly emerging media is more complex, and his similarity to contemporaries such as Freytag less marked, than Hebekus assumes. It is difficultto suppress a similar unease at the treatment of the late novels. Cer? tainly they are illuminated contextually when seen from Hebekus's angle, but one senses that their essence might lie more in their individuality than is allowed here. Under the weight ofthe author's exegeses it is hard to recognize Die Poggenpuhls, for instance, as the urbanely amusing novel one feels one has read. On the other hand, the book has about it something of the spirit of Fontane; like all those meals and pony-rides in Vor dem Sturm, the digressions into travel-writing, iconography, railway history,wireless telegraphy, photography, and many subjects besides , are invariably fascinating. It is only a pity that, with its thirteen-line sentences and thirty-five-letterwords, the style is so rebarbative and so far removed from that of its subject. University of Warwick John Osborne The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka. By Walter H. Sokel. (Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies) Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2002. 336 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0-8143-2608-0. The Cambridge Companion toKafka. Ed. by Julian Preece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. xx + 254pp. ?40 (pbk ?14.85). ISBN 0-521-66314-8 (pbk 0-521-66391-1). So much has now been written and published on Kafka's life and work that one must feel a certain degree of sympathy for the scholar approaching his oeuvre for the first time. Endless studies covering equally endless themes, theories, and interpretations are the legacy of a worldwide fascination with a writer whose difficultlife and intense artistic self-doubt seem to have captured the imagination of subsequent generations. Indeed, so much has been said about Kafka that it is difficultfor the new reader to 560 Reviews know where to begin. Equally problematic is the choice of the tutor when asked fora recommendation. It is, then, perhaps no surprise and also rather gratifying that the volumes under discussion here seem to have been conceived in response to this very dilemma. They are in many ways guides to accompany the reader through the life,work, and reception of this enigmatic author. Each offersa helpful and authoritative overview of Kafka's...