6oo Reviews which itselfcontains no fewer than four reproductions of'Handstudien' (pictures of Wassermann's hands). The 'Conditio Judaica' section opens with a relatively conventional overview of Wassermann's place inGerman-Jewish literaryhistory by Hans Otto Horch. More penetrating is Markus May's discussion of Wassermann's stronglyhostile attitude to Heine. Gunnar Och documents Wassermann's lifelong fascination with theAhasver figure, while Theo Elm concludes the section by comparing Wassermann with Kafka, contrasting Kafka's literary style, which Elm situates in theTalmudic tradition,with Wassermann's Messianic mysticism, which is related to the tradition of the Kab balah. The section 'Erzahlen' contains a discussion ofDie Kunst der Erzahlung by Dirk Niefanger, and an analysis of narrative technique inDer Aufruhr um den Junker Ernst by Clemens Heydreich. The lengthy final chapter is a highly detailed account of Wassermann's creative process by the leadingWassermann criticDierk Rodewald, using Der FallMaurizius as an example. Rodewald demonstrates Wassermann's style ofworking, including his habit of restarting novels, and concludes by reproducing fourdifferent manuscript endings of the novel, though therewould have been scope formore critical analysis of the significance of the variants and the effect of the revisions thatRodewald enumerates. Hybrid in structure and uneven in the critical quality of itscontributions, thevo lume leaves amixed impression, demonstrating the pitfalls aswell as thebenefits of the current vogue forcollaborations between literaryscholars and museum curators. University of Kent Karl Leydecker Kafka and Photography. By Carolin Duttlinger. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. xiv+28opp. ?55. ISBN 978-0-19-921945-2. This important study examines Kafka's fascination with visual media and, in par ticular, his literary engagement with photographs. Kafka's interest in photography has often been noted but rarely examined in detail, which iswhy the author rightly identifies it as a 'blind spot' inKafka scholarship. In a series of at times stunning textual and visual analyses, Carolin Duttlinger demonstrates that Kafka's writing was to a great extent inspired by a rich archive of visual material. In addition, he consistently reflected on the nature and ambiguities of media technologies and, moreover, tested the usefulness of the photographic medium for literature.By high lighting surprising visual linkages between Kafka's diaries, his correspondence, and his literarywriting, the book makes a compelling argument that his literary style and narrative strategies cannot be fullyunderstood without recognizing the complex ways inwhich his writing is embedded inmodern media culture. The study firstsituates Kafka's engagement with photographs in relation to the fundamental changes in visual culture that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it then turns to Kracauer, Adorno, and Benjamin, some of the firstreaders to recognize the photographic dimension ofKafka's writing and to suggest thathis work, in itsvisual quality, demands not only interpretation but MLR, 104.2, 2009 601 also a careful 'illumination'. In the subsequent six chapters Duttlinger demonstrates what such an illumination may look like through a series of careful readings that traceKafka's initial fascination with photography tohis increasing scepticism about the representational value of themedium. In her discussion of the early diaries Duttlinger shows thatKafka's exploration of photography was preceded by crucial experiences with two other media, the cinema and theKaiserpanorma. Kafka har boured deeply ambivalent feelings about cinematic images, which enhanced visual experience but, at the same time, also fragmented perception and made of the observer a passive spectator. In contrast, in theKaiserpanorma Kafka discovered a visual experience that afforded the viewer more self-control and a contemplative stance approximating thatbefore photographs. The desire to find a balance between cinematic and photographic modes of per ception also informs the novel Der Verschollene. Suggesting that the text resembles a photographic slide-show', Duttlinger shows thatKafka not only adopted many actual photographs for the novel's setting but also began to use photography as a strategyfor literary writing. In addition, Der Verschollene exposes the function of the bourgeois familyphotograph as a disciplinary tool and itsrole in the construction of authority, a theme that is also at the heart ofDuttlinger's analysis ofDie Verwand lungy where photographic images are revealed as both controlling and subversive. In Kafka's letters to Felice, on the other hand, photographs take on a fetishistic quality, figuring as...
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Dec 1, 2010
Anat Perry + 4
Open Access
