Psychological Portrayal Research Articles

Anatomy of the Superstitious Mind: Subjectivity and Interiority in Two Early Twentieth-Century Rebuttals to Liaozhai's Records of the Strange

Focusing on the issue of psychological portrayal, this essay examines two early twentieth-century rebuttals of Liaozhai's Records of the Strange published in newly founded Chinese fiction magazines. Although the two rebuttals lend themselves easily to a didactic interpretation, the essay argues that their demystification of the supernatural is equally in service of literary representation of individualized subjectivity endowed with interiority. Besides aligning itself with the ongoing efforts to recover alternative forms of modernity repressed by the May Fourth discourse, this essay endeavors to contribute to a fuller understanding of the diversity of ideologies, forms, and styles in so-called new fiction.

«Назад к Островскому»: деконструкция постановки классики в режиссерском театре 1920-х годов

Ostrovsky’s centenary in 1923 gave impetus for a major leap in the history of directing. Ostrovsky turned out to be the first author whose plays were staged almost simultaneously (within 3 years) in all styles of Russian directing. Alexander Tairov staged “The Storm” at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre, in 1924, by mythologizing Ostrovsky’s tragedy. The myth of the Russian soul outside the boundaries of time turned out to be in the center of his performance. The psychological portrayal of the 19th-century drama’s character was mastered by the mythological approach. Such components as mythological thinking, constructivism, and the concept of Ostrovsky’s secret mysticism of the Russian soul were combined for the first time. Actress Alisa Koonen delved into the archetype of the heroine. The avant-garde production of Sergey Eisenstein’s “Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man” at the First Workers’ Theatre of Proletkult (1923) was connected with the ancient tradition of the fairground booth show. For the first time in the history of the Russian theatre, a director used the principles of open actualization of the classic play, the connections between drama and the circus, cinematic methods in the theatre, and a “montage of attractions”. “A Profitable Position” staged by Vsevolod Meyerhold (Theatre of the Revolution, 1923) was associated with Russian romanticism. The production revealed the two worlds — the spiritual reality in the opposition to the material everyday life. The metaphorical performance was built according to the principle of a thematic development similar to music. In “The Forest” at the Meyerhold Theatre (1924), the director contrasted three genres and semantic layers: a farcical level, a love line, as in Russian romanticism of the 19th century, and a layer that united the structure — acting and theatricality (the leitmotif of actors and acting). The visual dynamic of the dialogue with hyperbolic expression became the director’s principle approach. In his work on the production “An Ardent Heart” (Moscow Art Theatre, 1926), Stanislavsky created the phenomenon of the psychological grotesque. The performance was perceived by most critics as satirical and accusatory. Stanislavsky did not lose interest in the motives of human behavior, especially of a theatrical nature, and revealed a certain way of human thinking. The progress in the new discoveries in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy in the first half of the 1920s shaped the main courses in which the Russian theatre was developing in the 20th century.

Mirrors and the Aesthetics of Space: The Use of Mirrors in Chinese Director Wong Kar-wai's Film Days of Being Wild

As an important part of visual culture, especially after its commercialisation, cinema plays an important role in constructing social ideologies. This article will analyse the extraordinary possibilities of mirrors for the spatial shaping, psychological portrayal of characters and the aesthetic construction of cinema with reference to the use of mirrors in the famous Chinese director Wong Kar-wai's film Days of Being Wild.

The concept of timbre-role in ukrainian opera: interpretation and development prospects

The concept of timbre-role in ukrainian opera: interpretation and development prospects

When William Came to Japan: A Comparative Study of When William Came and the Post-War Period of Japan

When William Came (1913) is Hector Hugh Munro’s (Saki) novel that describes the German invasion of Britain and its aftermath. It has been regarded as a propaganda novel since its publication, calling for conscription and the like; however, its psychological portrayal of Londoners under German rule is worth reading. Though there are studies on the literary and cultural aspects of this work, none have examined how realistic his depiction would be if Britain had lost the war. However, the premise of this work—how to live in a situation where a traditionally powerful nation is defeated and, because it is an island nation, it is impossible to reverse its defeat—can be historically examined. This study examines the accuracy of Munro’s imaginings by comparing his imagined post-war British people with real post-World War II Japanese people. Although it can be argued that Munro was optimistic about the existence of the colonies, the results show numerous similarities between the changes in the two populations, before and after the war, and in their feelings towards the victorious nation. Munro’s insights into people were surprisingly profound.

Machine learning classification model using Weibo users' social appearance anxiety

Social platforms aggravate social appearance anxiety (SAA). Therefore, identifying groups with high levels of SAA on social media is critical. Psychological indicator classification and modelling by using social media data can be performed without intrusion. Furthermore, accurate psychological portrayal of social desirability can be obtained using social media data. The study extracted 9 Weibo features related to SAA based on theoretical basis. A support vector machine was used to establish a relationship between the Weibo user data and SAA scale. The results revealed that the accuracy (ACC) of using the activity history of Weibo users to identify SAA was approximately 73.8%. The high-ACC automatic classification of users' SAA can be directly accomplished by analysing users' social media behaviour data. The results of the study can be used to distinguish for SAA and help users develop a positive and reasonable body image.

Ghostly Letters: Legacies of Death Letters in Schnitzler's Short Stories

This essay examines narratives in which Arthur Schnitzler explores the unconscious of Vienna's fin‐de‐siècle society through the leitmotif of the haunted letter. Examining five short stories written between 1880 and 1930, the essay argues that letters written by characters who anticipate their readership after their deaths reflect the uncanny paranoia and hysteria of modernity. Through an analysis of Schnitzler's narrative techniques, the essay investigates the author's psychological portrayal of modern society with the literary tool of the death letter, highlighting modernist instability and uncertainty, especially that of the bourgeois man. This essay argues that Schnitzler makes his critique of anxiety increasingly explicit over time in his published writings, showing one's social acceptance to be a catalyst for violence towards the self and others, while also continuing to problematize Viennese masculinity in his unpublished writings.

CONCEPT “LONELINESS” IN THE POETIC CREATIVITY OF THE END OF ХХ – BEGINNING OF ХХІ CENTURIES

The article is devoted to the linguistic description of the concept “loneliness” in the language of the Ukrainian poetry at the end of ХХ – beginning of ХХІ centuries. The authors prove that “loneliness” concept is a productive instrumentation of lingual depiction of the psychological portrayal of a contemporary. Language of the poetic works at the end of ХХ – beginning of ХХІ centuries gives a convincing evidence to this statement. It represents such lingual signs of the “loneliness” leitmotif as the abstract nouns loneliness, solitude, fragmentation, loner, sad and lonely, recluse, away from everyone, epithets lonely, lone, reclusive, deserted. In process of the artistic modelling of the state of loneliness the lingual images with the space, quantity or the auditory semantics are used. In the language of the Ukrainian poetry at the end of ХХ – beginning of ХХІ centuries such line of the imaginary creation is accompanied with the associates fold, circle, labyrinth, wall, home, room, barrier, etc. They are functioning as the components of the imaginative structures of the different degree of extension. It may be two-componential genitive metaphor or vast metaphoric descriptions which are the components of the predicative metaphor. Suffering of the lonely person are expressively depicted in the poetic contexts united with the quantitative meaning. Such meaning is typical for the numerals and adjectives (big) or adverbs (to overflowing). Semantic field created around the nomination loneliness provides an indication of such trend of the modern lingual creativity as gradual concretization of the abstract loneliness. In such process the associative halo changes its emotional and evaluative marking. However, the associative parallels with the world of nature usually have general positive connotation and the object associations are the factors of the context domestication together with the connotation change. During the abstract “loneliness” concretization demotion of the poetic statement also takes place. Sublime tone and evaluation are episodic while the object associations are the lingual symbols of the domestic or ironic colour. The efficiency of such imaginative line is asserted by the personifying structures with the lexical centre “loneliness”. We’d like to note that during the nearing to the concretization loneliness abstract develops its own epithet field of colours. Latter are mainly eligible or achromatic nominations. Among the other characteristic poetic phenomena is modelling of the imaginative structures meaning the psychological state of loneliness extended to the micro text level. The lingual material analysed makes possible to come to the conclusion of the importance of the loneliness concept in process of the psychological portrayal of the contemporary. The imaginative structures observed prove the importance of the philosophical reflection and poetic depiction of the problem of loneliness in the modern world.

Ēdiens kā sociālā slāņa un nacionālās piederības robežzīme

Taking into account the research conclusions in social and natural sciences, gastropoetics as a research method allows to examine a literary text in-depth revealing the causal relationships and nuances of the psychological portrayal of characters, as well as analyse semantic pluralism providing more diverse interpretation opportunities of a literary text. In Andrejs Upīts’s novel “Bread” (Maize, 1914) the portrayed passengers of the third class train wagon are a micromodel of Western society, where food, sharing the food or its denial precisely reveal the hierarchic structure of community and the differences in social stratification, as well as human behavioural principles, which are based on the tradition that has evolved over thousands of years and can also be cross-compared with the behavioural principles observable among animals. Other aspects include the social undermining of certain social groups, for instance, older people, children, foreigners, as well as the marginalisation of these groups denying them the freedom of choice or action, equal rights, etc. Upīts in his novel constructs a social situation of a small community, accurately revealing the hierarchic structure, as well as collaboration and relationship models of the community.

Kinesics Gender Dimension as a Dominant of Nonverbal Communication in the Volodymyr Lys's Works

The article highlights the specific features of the kinesics means of communication in the novel by Volodymyr Lys Solo for Solomiya. The author distinguishes the basic categories of kinesics explication in the novel, namely facial expressions, gestures, body movements, postures. The author uses mainly verbs to pout, to twitch, to inflate, to cover, to whisper, to kiss, to put, to stir, to wipe, to rub, to bite, to chew for a detailed description of the kinesics parameters of nonverbalism expressed by kinemes of lips, mouth. Often, semiotically significant movements in a literary work are detailed by identifiers (adjectives and adverbs).
 The study has revealed that the kinesics component of nonverbalism in the text is mostly actualized in the constructions with adapters of the upper body: head (ear, eye, pupil, forehead, cheek, nose, chin, tongue, tooth, hair, face, temple, forehead), neck, shoulder, chest, heart, belly, side, waist, nape, back, hand (elbow, wrist, fist, finger, palm, nail) and lower body: leg (thigh, knee, calf).
 In the focus of attention is gender differentiation of components of kinesics in the literary text. Dominant are typical female gestures and poses: hands to the sides (demonstration of militant intentions, conflict), clap your hands (manifestation of joy), put the head on the shoulder (tenderness), blink the eyes (a sign of confusion), put a finger on the lips (call to silence), cover the mouth with a hand (restraint in the manifestation of the reactions), hide the face in a pillow or press a face against the pillow (expressing shyness), wave the hips, beckon with a finger, scratch with a fingernail (display of flirtation, coquetry), stomp a foot (manifestation of dissatisfaction, aggression), bend the knees almost under the chin (protective posture), etc.
 The author often uses different types of gestures and movements without adapters to describe the nonverbal communication of the characters: a) gestures of a tactile nature; b) gestures and movements caused by the inner state, as a fleeting expression of emotions; c) gestures to indicate a situationally forced action, etc. Verbalizing female kinetic behavior, V. Lisi uses gestures, movements, reactions of the metaphorical type.
 The facial expression has clear gender features among the indicators of internal emotional states used by the author to portray the characters. Naturally, women are more likely to express their emotions and show them openly. In the analyzed text, such mimicry means of non-verbalisation as a smile is, definitely, gender differentiating.
 Selection of the units of kinesics verbalization and the means of their imagery intensification in the literary text is predetermined by peculiarities of the psychological portrayal of characters and the theme of the work.

What Ever Happened to My Peace of Mind? Hag Horror as Narrative of Trauma

In his pioneering study of Grande Dame Guignol (also referred to as hag horror or psycho-biddy), a female-centric 1960s subgenre of horror film, Peter Shelley explains that the grande dame, a stock character in this form of cinematic expression, “may pine for a lost youth and glory, or she may be trapped by idealized memories of childhood, with a trauma that haunts her past” (8). Indeed, a typical Grande Dame Guignol female protagonist/antagonist (as these two roles often merge) usually deals with various kinds of traumatic experiences: loss of a child, domestic violence, childhood abuse, family conflicts or sudden end of career in the fickle artistic industry, etc. Unable to cope with her problems, but also incapable of facing the inevitable process of aging and dying, she gradually yields to mental and physical illnesses that further strengthen the trauma and lead to her social exclusion, making her life even more unbearable. Unsurprisingly, scholars such as Charles Derry choose to name psycho-biddies horrors of personality, drawing attention to the insightful psychological portrayal of their characters. Thus, it would be relevant and illuminating to discuss films such as Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) as narratives of trauma. This will be the main concern of my article.

«При всем отвращении к механике письма, мне хотелось оставить по возможности для будущих читателей дословную копию своих разговоров с министром». Письма управляющего Балтийским железоделательным судостроительным и механическим заводом М. И. Кази

The article studies materials on armored shipbuilding in Russia in the late 19th century. The source base of the study is unpublished letters of the Director of the Baltic Works (Baltic Ironworks, Shipyard and Engineering Works) M. I. Kazi addressed to a retired official of the naval department A. E. Konkevich, who wrote articles about the Navy under the name A. E. Belomor. M. I. Kazi held the post from 1877 to 1894. Kazi’s letters related his activities in 1893 and delivered his opinion on the forthcoming reform of Admiralty factories, and particularly on the idea of merging the administration of the Baltic Shipbuilding and Mechanical Plant with that of the Obukhov Steel Mill. Kazi debated the project of the ‘Regulation on the Management of Works of the Ministry of the Navy,’ on the basis of which the merger of the administrations was to proceed. Apart from his opinions, Kazi’s letters contained fragments of his conversations with Minister of the Navy, Admiral N. M. Chikhachyov, whose ministerial activities he disparaged. The article also introduces a letter from P. P. Tyrtov, head of the Main Directorate for Shipbuilding and Supplies of the Ministry of the Navy, to M. I. Kazi, inducing him to consent to the assignment of the rank of Active Privy Councillor. Kazi’s answer is cited fully, as it characterizes the personality of this extraordinary man, who greatly contributed to the creation of Russian armored cruisers. Letters are indicative of the ways and morals of state officials. They offer a psychological portrayal of a Russian naval officer against the background of building capitalism in Russia. M. I. Kazi’s desire to convey to future generations his opinion on the events he witnessed and participated in, contributed to the motivation of the publishers.

Aus Franzensbad/Das Gemeindekind by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (review)

Reviewed by: Aus Franzensbad/Das Gemeindekind by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Kathy Brzovic Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aus Franzensbad/Das Gemeindekind. Vol. I. Edited by Evelyne Polt-Heinzl and Ulrike Tanzer. St. Pölten: Residenz Verlag, 2014. 352 pp. This is the first of a four-volume series, each volume pairing a lesser-known work with a more prominent one by the Austrian author Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. The contrast between Aus Franzensbad, subtitled Sechs Episteln von keinem Propheten, and Das Gemeindekind could not be greater. While the [End Page 131] former betrays signs of a rather clumsy experimentation in satire, the latter represents the full fruition of Ebner-Eschenbach’s narrative powers. Ambitious and anxious to appear in print, the twenty-eight-year-old Ebner anonymously published Aus Franzensbad in 1858 against the advice of her family. She later confessed to having an aversion to this illegitimate child (13) of her fantasy in which a spoiled young aristocrat is ordered by her doctor to take the cure in Franzensbad. From the resort she sends six letters to her doctor railing against the poor travel conditions, laughing at fellow travelers, deriding transportation workers, ridiculing Goethe’s penchant for scribbling graffiti on café walls, pillorying German literature as “Hecken-Literatur,” poking fun at the pretensions of the high and low. This parade of people, places, and things might have delivered up a humorous critique of nineteenth-century society had it not been for the introduction of additional layers of complexity that place a greater burden on this satire than it can bear. In addition to satirizing the satirist—the bored, eclectically educated aristocrat—and the doctor (male)/patient (female) relationship, Ebner-Eschenbach also parodies the epistolary form and the travelogue, embedding within the letters further stylistic parodies of, for example, Goethe’s poems, literary criticism, the feuilleton, and Romanticism. Yet what Ebner-Eschenbach later deemed “das tolle Kind einer übermutigen Laune” (12) does form a touchstone against which to measure Das Gemeindekind, published almost thirty years later in Julius Rodenberg’s Deutsche Rundschau to general critical acclaim. This novel continues to be one of the author’s most widely read works for its suspenseful psychological portrayal of Pavel Holub’s moral education. Starved for food, for love, and for parental guidance, Pavel must wrestle with the cruelty of village life and his own inner demons to find a place for himself in a world in which the traditional feudal bonds have given way to the self-interested scramble for existence in the era of liberalism. Because Pavel and his sister Milada wear the scarlet letter of their parents’ sins—the robbery and murder of the village priest—the villagers are reluctant to house the thirteen-year-old boy and his ten-year-old sister. While Milada has the apparent good fortune to be sent to the cloister school at the behest of the baroness, Pavel is left to be exploited by the drunken shepherd Virgil, his wife Virgilova, and their daughter Vinska, for whom he develops a fatal attraction. Only the rough sympathy of the teacher Habrecht alleviates the material and emotional brutality of life among the cottagers. In [End Page 132] the end, Pavel’s destiny will be determined by the interplay of character and action—not only his own but those of others. The narrative suspense hinges on whether the moral sensibilities of the key characters will change, how they will change, and what actions they will take. In the absence of the old social contract, a new moral universe emerges: As Habrecht would have it, “Seid selbstlos, wenn aus keinem edleren, so doch aus Selbsterhaltungstrieb” (307). This particular volume of paired works, which are so different in style, tone, and substance, will primarily be of interest to students of Ebner-Eschenbach. Although Das Gemeindekind is readily available, Aus Franzensbad is not. Whatever its literary merits, it remains a literary artifact that reflects a stage in the artist’s development—a development that Ulrike Tanzer usefully outlines in the introduction against the backdrop of larger social developments in the period of Franz Joseph’s reign. Kathy Brzovic California State University, Fullerton Copyright © 2015 Austrian Studies Association

Grandparental Death: Through the Lens of an Asian Child

Bereavement has been extensively studied over the years, yet scholarly work depicting, with the first-person perspective, the experience of childhood bereavement is severely lacking. The research question I set out to answer here is: What is it like as an Asian child to experience bereavement following grandparental death? As such, self-introspection was exercised, and this, together with the diaries and free writings generated at the time of my grandma’s death, was used as the basis for autoethnographic reflections. It is hoped that my story presented here can offer a psychological portrayal of an Asian child enduring grandparental death, and illuminate the grandmother-grandson relationship in a Chinese society.

Facing the modern and the medical

A review of the exhibition ‘Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900’, which was at the National Gallery, 9 October 2013–12 January 2014 This was the UK's first major exhibition devoted to the portrait in Vienna at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As the National Gallery website explains, ‘Portraiture is closely identified with the distinctive flourishing of modern art in the Austrian capital during its famed fin-de-siecle: artists worked to the demands of patrons, and in Vienna modern artists were compelled to focus on the image of the individual.’ Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Arnold Scho? nberg and Oskar Kokoscka are among the most famous painters of the period, and of a specific style and interpretation of the period; of society, of groups, and of individuals. I was inspired while reflecting upon these by the many ‘medical’ matters touched upon. One room is devoted to the portrait as a simultaneous declaration of love and commemoration of death. Death masks (the most famous exhibited are those of Mahler, Klimt, Schiele and Beethoven) were common at the time, and work on them had to be rapid before decomposition set-in and changed profiles. The most extreme was by Klimt, commissioned by the Gallia family (which was forced to escape from the Nazis some 20 years later) to portray a lady who had already died. He portrayed her as a dead person lying as in Pre-Raphaelite painting. The family refused such work and the famous Klimt was pushed to paint traces of living body in a post-mortem situation, with an unrealistic and pale atmosphere. Beethoven died after a long illness and, because suspicious of being poisoned, he had stipulated in his will that an autopsy should be performed upon his death. Also, doctors investigated his ear canals, aware of his deafness. Antoine von Amerling is painted on her deathbed, describing with extreme naturalism the gleam of the skin, the hint of a tear in the eye. Psychological portrayal is a leitmotiv for these painters. In 1918 Schiele arrived to paint the final days of his wife in pregnancy; she died six days later from ‘Spanish flu’, followed three days later by Schiele himself! He portrays young men, long, pale faces and thin, elongated fingers splayed against the hips. In this way, he is creating a general image of awkward adolescence, the sense of end of a period, and an illusion of freedom with the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with its Viennese society, artists and unique period of art. In Schiele's works, the artist's body itself ‘seems material to be manhandled. The exaggerated slightness of frames and the thrust of his truncated shoulder create a depleted yet dynamic body that was so centered to his portrait practice’ says the exhibition's curator. Georg Schonberg is portrayed by his father Arnold in the claustrophobic family apartment, and he glances anxiously away from his father. Some portraits withdraw to a private sphere that consciously evokes another, that of mind. This period saw so many suicides in the society that many artists portrayed suicides a short time later: I was impressed by two young sisters depicted looking so well, yet both committed suicide one year later. Oscar Kokoscka was criticized by the press for representing ‘deranged visions from a sick childhood’. The figures appear as lost in their own thoughts: I was impressed by a family all sitting in the dining room, five persons, but everyone looking at themselves, their own toys, books, work. The same painter arrived to the extreme of psychologically portraying, when we see a man with an expression that the sector press described as ‘a study of the expression of the Wandering Jew’. You must consider that Jews were a big and very active population at that time, before everything changed for the worse with the arrival of Hitler. Last but not the least, Kokoscka depicted people in the sanatorium. Tuberculosis was rife at the time and a generation of people, including artists, died. He took time to study many patients, giving us a very unusual and interesting medical view; for the portrayed, this was a minor distraction from a succession of identical days spent awaiting a cure…or the end. Some text taken with permission from a press release.

The Ninth by Ferenc Barnás, Paul Olchváry

Fiction Ferenc Barnes. The Ninth. Paul Olchv áry,tr.Evanston, Illinois.Northwestern University Press. 2009. 159 pages. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-8101-2602-2 In Ferenc Barnás's semiautobiographical initiation novelTheNinth (AKilencedik), thenine-year-old narrator , theninthof ten(surviving) children, relatesthehistory of his family underSovietrule,roughly from World WarIIto1969. He refers tohimself simply as "theninth/' a cipher instead ofa name.AsArthur Koestler's heroconfessed in Darkness atNoon: "theT [was]a suspect quality.The Partydid not recognizeitsexistence /' Ninth's narrative recounts hisurgent andcompelling examination of past and present eventsin orderto understand the problematic world in which he struggles tosurvive. He guilelessly depictsthe worldas he findsit, offering readers a fresh lookat life under Soviet domination. AtthecoreofNinth's difficult family lifeis Papa's perpetual rage. He had been "kickedout of [the] People's Army"duringtheCommunists 'consolidationof power becausehe had fought againstthe Soviets while in the Hungarian army. Branded "unreliable," hehad trouble finding employment. When hedid,hewas paidlessthanparty n members. After the1956Revolution, the PartySecretariat in Debrecen senta policeman tolivewiththem "forstatesecurity reasons."Given thesehardships,the state'sstrict abortion laws,andMama'sCatholicism ,howareNinth's parents supposedtosupport thefamily? Ninth'sphysical and emotional ill health,along withthe familyproject tobuildthe"BigHouse" outsideof Budapest,providethe framework forthenovel.After an accident inwhichNinth nearly lost histhumb, he,likeThomasMann's Hans Castorp, enters a sanatorium in the Buda Hills wherethe air is invigorating. The construction project reflects Hungary's"Second Economy" in the1960sand is Barnas 'sironic allusiontoRussianformulaic production novels. Thecrisis that setsthenovelinmotion is:Will thefamily obtain a loantocomplete thehouse?This is no smallmatterbecause a wealthycouple has offered tobuyNinth's fifteen-yearold siblingin exchangefor10,000 forints, reducing Ninth'ssibling to a commodity. This and similarly threatening events intensify Ninth's fears ofabandonment. The interactions among the political, social,and family systems thatform Ninth'sworldlead to a lifeofpoverty and constant stress, which render himpowerless against hiscohorts, whobeathimup,bully, and demeanhim.Thiscoming-ofagenovelleavesthereader guessing abouttheprotagonist's future, while marveling at youth's resilience. The Ninth isBarnas' ironic "OdetoJoy." Marguerite De HuszarAllen Northwestern University Henning Boëtius. Berliner Lust. Munich, btb. 2010. 288 pages. €8.95. ISBN 978-3-442-74074-1 PietHieronymous, a sixty-year-old Dutchdetective stuckin an existential crisis,is theprotagonist in HenningBoëtius'snovel Berliner Lust, hissixth basedontheexploits of the world-weary, philosophical investigator ofinternational crimes. Fighting depression andquestioning hispurposeinlifeona soul-searching vacationin Spain and France, Pietreturns totheNetherlands and receives anintriguing callfrom Berlinoffering himbig moneyforhis sleuthing services. Upon arrivalin Berlin,Piet meetswithOttoWelsand Yvonne Bree,ownersof Immob,a highstakes real-estatedeveloper, to discussthe case and details.Piet accepts a standard caseoffinding a missing person, knownonlybythe alias "Fritz,"who apparently has stolentradesecrets. Boëtiusdraws thereadersintothestory withhis highlydevelopedand psychological portrayal of his characters, all ofwhomaremorecomplicated and enigmatic thanon first glance.Berliner Lustis an intricate story about truth, identity, and thesearchfor bothin a worldwheretheyhave beenintentionally obfuscated. Piet's journey to Berlin and hisdetective workrevealas muchabouthislife andidentity as itdoesfor andabout hisemployers. Piet scours Berlinfor clues and graduallyencounters Berlin's sinister history: hidden,and possibly discovered, Nazitreasures and former Stasimembers and spiesof theGDR. Boëtius masterfully intertwines thishistory withthecharacters 'personalhistory to createan immensely tenseandengaging narrative .Piet encounters Otto Rühl, Yvonne'ssecretloverand famous actorand director, withwhomPiet sharesan uncanny, almost identical resemblance. He beginsto reflect on his own childhood, his absent father, dominant mother, and his twin brother whodiedduring childbirth . Pietgradually uncovers Fritz's identity: he's Dutch,had livedfor yearsin theGDR,and workedfor theStasi.After locating andvisiting himinhishometown intheNetherlands ,Pietstopsbyhisformer precinct inGroningen thenext dayonly todiscover that Fritz hasbeenmurderedand thatPietis considered a suspect, which hequickly disproves. Piet returns to Berlinand is joinedbytwoadditional detectives, Einarfrom Finland andHardyfrom theUnited States, andtogether they setouttosolvethe murder casewhile inthe process raising many questions: WhokilledFritzand why?Whois Otto Rühl andwhat ishisrelationship withthevictim, Yvonne, and even Piet? Isthere hidden Naziart andif so, where isitandwhohasit?Allthese questions andmoreareanswered in a stunning andcompletely unanticipated conclusion that involves a duel, unexpected riches, andthechance to change identity forever. Berliner Lust isyetanother example whyHenning Boëtiushas earnedthe reputation as oneofGermany's bestwriters of crime anddetective novels. Gregory H. Wolf North Central College Jaume Cabré. WinterJourney.Patricia Lunn,tr.Chicago. Swan Isle.2009. vii+ 182 pages. $28. isbn 978-0-9748881-6-3 Braiding history and fiction, these fourteen apparently unrelated short stories from theCatalandiverge in genre, style, time, and...

Berliner Lust by Henning Boëtius

members. After the1956Revolution, the PartySecretariat in Debrecen senta policeman tolivewiththem "forstatesecurity reasons."Given thesehardships,the state'sstrict abortion laws,andMama'sCatholicism ,howareNinth's parents supposedtosupport thefamily? Ninth'sphysical and emotional ill health,along withthe familyproject tobuildthe"BigHouse" outsideof Budapest,providethe framework forthenovel.After an accident inwhichNinth nearly lost histhumb, he,likeThomasMann's Hans Castorp, enters a sanatorium in the Buda Hills wherethe air is invigorating. The construction project reflects Hungary's"Second Economy" in the1960sand is Barnas 'sironic allusiontoRussianformulaic production novels. Thecrisis that setsthenovelinmotion is:Will thefamily obtain a loantocomplete thehouse?This is no smallmatterbecause a wealthycouple has offered tobuyNinth's fifteen-yearold siblingin exchangefor10,000 forints, reducing Ninth'ssibling to a commodity. This and similarly threatening events intensify Ninth's fears ofabandonment. The interactions among the political, social,and family systems thatform Ninth'sworldlead to a lifeofpoverty and constant stress, which render himpowerless against hiscohorts, whobeathimup,bully, and demeanhim.Thiscoming-ofagenovelleavesthereader guessing abouttheprotagonist's future, while marveling at youth's resilience. The Ninth isBarnas' ironic "OdetoJoy." Marguerite De HuszarAllen Northwestern University Henning Boëtius. Berliner Lust. Munich, btb. 2010. 288 pages. €8.95. ISBN 978-3-442-74074-1 PietHieronymous, a sixty-year-old Dutchdetective stuckin an existential crisis,is theprotagonist in HenningBoëtius'snovel Berliner Lust, hissixth basedontheexploits of the world-weary, philosophical investigator ofinternational crimes. Fighting depression andquestioning hispurposeinlifeona soul-searching vacationin Spain and France, Pietreturns totheNetherlands and receives anintriguing callfrom Berlinoffering himbig moneyforhis sleuthing services. Upon arrivalin Berlin,Piet meetswithOttoWelsand Yvonne Bree,ownersof Immob,a highstakes real-estatedeveloper, to discussthe case and details.Piet accepts a standard caseoffinding a missing person, knownonlybythe alias "Fritz,"who apparently has stolentradesecrets. Boëtiusdraws thereadersintothestory withhis highlydevelopedand psychological portrayal of his characters, all ofwhomaremorecomplicated and enigmatic thanon first glance.Berliner Lustis an intricate story about truth, identity, and thesearchfor bothin a worldwheretheyhave beenintentionally obfuscated. Piet's journey to Berlin and hisdetective workrevealas muchabouthislife andidentity as itdoesfor andabout hisemployers. Piet scours Berlinfor clues and graduallyencounters Berlin's sinister history: hidden,and possibly discovered, Nazitreasures and former Stasimembers and spiesof theGDR. Boëtius masterfully intertwines thishistory withthecharacters 'personalhistory to createan immensely tenseandengaging narrative .Piet encounters Otto Rühl, Yvonne'ssecretloverand famous actorand director, withwhomPiet sharesan uncanny, almost identical resemblance. He beginsto reflect on his own childhood, his absent father, dominant mother, and his twin brother whodiedduring childbirth . Pietgradually uncovers Fritz's identity: he's Dutch,had livedfor yearsin theGDR,and workedfor theStasi.After locating andvisiting himinhishometown intheNetherlands ,Pietstopsbyhisformer precinct inGroningen thenext dayonly todiscover that Fritz hasbeenmurderedand thatPietis considered a suspect, which hequickly disproves. Piet returns to Berlinand is joinedbytwoadditional detectives, Einarfrom Finland andHardyfrom theUnited States, andtogether they setouttosolvethe murder casewhile inthe process raising many questions: WhokilledFritzand why?Whois Otto Rühl andwhat ishisrelationship withthevictim, Yvonne, and even Piet? Isthere hidden Naziart andif so, where isitandwhohasit?Allthese questions andmoreareanswered in a stunning andcompletely unanticipated conclusion that involves a duel, unexpected riches, andthechance to change identity forever. Berliner Lust isyetanother example whyHenning Boëtiushas earnedthe reputation as oneofGermany's bestwriters of crime anddetective novels. Gregory H. Wolf North Central College Jaume Cabré. WinterJourney.Patricia Lunn,tr.Chicago. Swan Isle.2009. vii+ 182 pages. $28. isbn 978-0-9748881-6-3 Braiding history and fiction, these fourteen apparently unrelated short stories from theCatalandiverge in genre, style, time, and place,as the 56 1WorldLiterature Today ...

The road traffic safety and the notions of inhabitants of Latvia of the Phenomenon „aggressive driving”

In consequence of active informative politics of international organizations in Latvia the official term “aggressive driving” was introduced. The aim of the research was the survey of the inhabitants of Latvia about the notion of aggressive driving. To survey the issue the method of interviewing and polling was applied. All respondents have got a driver's license.During the investigation the main constituents of notion about aggressive driving were brought to light – the description of the phenomenon itself from the point of view of the respondents, the social demographic and psychological portrayal of a driver driving a vehicle aggressively, the emotional attitude, the reciprocal behavioral reactions of the respondents themselves etc.

The Strange Relationship of Stavrogin and Stepan Trofimovich as Told by Anton Lavrent'evich G-v

The first-person narrative form is notoriously problematic. Throughout the history of the novel, it has both repelled authors due to the obvious limitations imposed by its restriction to a single consciousness and attracted them because of the apparent veracity it imparts to psychological portrayal. In the most conscientiously constructed examples of the type, the first-person narrator is able to portray directly the thoughts of a single character only, that is, himself. Of other characters, he can only report actions and surmise motives, and these characters to whom the reader does not have cognitive privilege may appear to be two-dimensional or even come off as caricatures.Fedor Dostoevskii'sBesy(Demons, 1871-72) is a first-person memoir novel. My thesis is that the novel's narrative form itself involves the reader psychologically and morally in problems that occupied Dostoevskii throughout his life—problems of freedom, contingency, and eternity.

Did Chrysippus understand Medea?

The Stoics are generally thought to have been rather bad literary critics. They consistently superimposed on Greek poetry their own philosophical preoccupations, often introducing these by means of allegorizing interpretations.1 For instance, they ignored the important differences between the psychology of earlier Greek poetry and their own, theoretically developed, psychology, and used phrases from Homer, in particular, as support for their own psychological theories.2 For this reason, it may seem implausible to look to Stoic writers for any real insights into the psychological portrayal of figures in Greek poetry. However, I think there is one Stoic discussion which is rarely studied but which is worth exploring for its potential insight. This is Chrysippus' discussion of three lines from Euripides' Medea. This is referred to several times by Galen, in a work which has recently been edited and translated by Phillip De Lacy, under the title, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato.3 In Book Three, Galen deals with Stoic theories of the psyche and, in Book Four, Stoic theories of the emotions (pathe). Galen himself is not a Stoic but takes a Platonic view of these subjects.4 Hence, he consistently criticizes Chrysippus (whom he takes as representative of orthodox Stoic doctrine), while he agrees with Posidonius, who modified Stoic doctrine on Platonising lines; and he cites approvingly Posidonius' criticisms of Chrysippus. The passages in Galen's work which interest me are those in which he reports Chrysippus' attempt to illustrate his psychological theory by several poetic quotations, notably the famous lines which conclude Medea's decision-scene (1078-80):