The Time of Sloth in Terézia Mora’s Der Einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent

Abstract

This article argues that Terézia Mora’s novel Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent (2009) presents us with an account of dysfunctional temporality in everyday lives under the social formation known as neoliberalism. Through the person and daily habits of main character, neoliberal sloth Darius Kopp, Mora shows how so-called fast capitalism in fact produces the time of sloth. Mora thus illuminates the context of stagnation and slowing growth of the industrialized West in the early twenty-first century, showing how this greater context puts pressure on individual lives.