Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures
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Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures by Mary L. Knight Department of German Duke University Date:_____March 1, 2011______ Approved: ___________________________ William Collins Donahue, Supervisor ___________________________ Matthew Cohen ___________________________ Jochen Vogt ___________________________ Jakob Norberg Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of German in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures by Mary L. Knight Department of German Duke University Date:_____March 1, 2011_______ Approved: ___________________________ William Collins Donahue, Supervisor ___________________________ Matthew Cohen ___________________________ Jochen Vogt ___________________________ Jakob Norberg An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of German in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Mary L. Knight 2011 Abstract This study investigates how an ambivalence surrounding men and masculinity has been expressed and exploited in Pop literature since the late 1980s, focusing on works by German-speaking authors Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert and American author Bret Easton Ellis. I compare works from the United States with German and Swiss novels in an attempt to reveal the scope – as well as the national particularities – of these troubled gender identities and what it means in the context of recent debates about a “crisis” in masculinity in Western societies. My comparative work will also highlight the ways in which these particular literatures and cultures intersect, invade, and influence each other. In this examination, I demonstrate the complexity and success of the critical projects subsumed in the works of three authors too often underestimated by intellectual communities. At the same time, I reveal the very structure and language of these critical projects as a safe haven for “male fantasies” of gender difference and identity formation long relegated to the distant past, fantasies that continue to lurk within our cultural currencies. iv Dedication for Don and Marilyn Knight and Jan van Treeck v Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vii Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Blank Check: Inner Emptiness as Strategy in Faserland and Less Than Zero ....................................... 18 Mistaken Identities: Misogyny and Cultural Critique in Faserland and Crazy ...................................... 53 Homosexuality. ......................................................................................................................... 57 Homosocial Desire. .................................................................................................................. 63 Metrosexuality and Consumerism. ............................................................................................ 66 Women. .................................................................................................................................... 70 Benjamin Lebert. ...................................................................................................................... 81 Sympathy for the Devil: Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho ........................................................... 100 This is Not an Exit: Later Works of Lebert, Kracht, and Ellis ....................................................... 147 Der Vogel ist ein Rabe ............................................................................................................ 148 1979 ....................................................................................................................................... 163 The Informers. ....................................................................................................................... 176 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 184 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 192 Biography ...................................................................................................................................... 197 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Christian Kracht, Mesopotamia (1999). Photo by Joachim Bessing. ..................... 16 Figure 2: Water Protectors by Odd Nerdrum, 1985. ................................................................ 17 Figure 3: Photo from Christian Kracht’s MySpace page (2009). ........................................... 52 Figure 4: Screen capture from Bret Easton Ellis’s website (2009). ........................................ 52 vii Introduction On the back inside cover of the 1999 short story collection Mesopotamia: Ernste Geschichten am Ende des Jahrtausends (Serious Stories at the End of the Millennium) is a snapshot of the editor, author Christian Kracht. It is sundown, and a storm gathers on the horizon; Kracht stands in what appears to be a rice field, holding an AK-47 across his body. He is slight and androgynous, with a childlike face and fine blond hair, and he stands awkwardly in a disheveled polo shirt and field jacket with an uncertain grip on the gun. Holding this brutal weapon in a threatening, foreign scene, Kracht nonetheless manages to look harmless, even lost. The photo echoes the collection’s front cover image, a 1985 painting by Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum entitled Water Protectors , in which three men clad in animal skins and carrying weapons similar to Kracht’s are gathered in front of a similarly ominous landscape. The men exist out of time – perhaps in an apocalyptic future – and are realistically rendered with neo-Baroque clarity that defies modern artistic conventions. They appear hairless, their skin smooth, and the one whose face is turned toward the viewer has a large-eyed, gentle expression that clashes with the brute force implied by the men’s guns. These appear to be M1 carbines, iconic World-War-II-era semi-automatic weapons. Thus, whereas Kracht carries the gun associated with unresolved conflicts of the late twentieth century, the men in the painting bear the arms of a previous generation’s global war. Both images deliberately present contradictory conceptions of masculinity within the context of a turbulent time. There exists in each portrait both fragility – the potential for 1 victimhood – and aggression that could quickly engender violent action. This tension pervades the pages between the covers as well, and its ramifications are the subject of this dissertation. This study investigates how an ambivalence surrounding men and masculinity has been expressed and exploited in Pop literature since the late 1980s, focusing on works by German-speaking authors Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert and American author Bret Easton Ellis. I compare works from the United States with German and Swiss novels in an attempt to reveal the scope – as well as the national particularities – of these troubled gender identities and what it means in the context of recent debates about a “crisis” in masculinity in Western societies. My comparative work will also highlight the ways in which these particular literatures (and by extension, their cultures) intersect, invade, and influence each other. My goal in this examination is twofold: I aim to demonstrate the complexity and success of the critical projects subsumed in the works of three authors too often underestimated by intellectual communities. At the same time, I wish to reveal the very structure and language of these critical projects as a safe haven for “male fantasies” of gender difference and identity formation long relegated to the distant past, fantasies that continue to lurk within our cultural currencies and ultimately prove destructive for men and women alike. The masculine identities of protagonists in the novels in question are somehow “damaged” or negated, and yet these characters repeatedly lash out at women and other perceived feminine forces. Each novel presents us with a young man who is lost, confused, 2 broken, and impotent in the midst of a chaotic time and place, be it Manhattan in the late 1980s, the upper echelons of German youth culture in the early 1990s, or even just the tumultuous experience of adolescence as an outsider. Each narrative, told from the young man’s perspective, leads the reader to conclude that the protagonist’s cruel, superficial, and materialist world is ultimately responsible for his angst, fear, and frustration. Thus, the protagonist becomes a victim, and any misogynist violence he perpetrates, whether physical or rhetorical, can be excused as the side effect of a greater evil. The male fantasies at work in these novels are focused on the victimized young man’s fears and desires, which ultimately turn out to be one and the same: he simultaneously longs for and is terrified of the loss of his tenuous identity