The Aesthetics of Humanity in the Novels of Christoph Ransmayr: Die Schrecken Des Eises Und Der Finsternis, Die Letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara
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“Menschenleer.” The Aesthetics of Humanity in the Novels of Christoph Ransmayr: Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara Lynne Cook A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of New South Wales. © Lynne Cook, 2001. I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or else where, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others, in the project’s design and conception or in style presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. _______________________________ __________________ For my parents, Rex and Jill Cook, with love. Acknowledgements. My enduring gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Olaf Reinhardt, whose enthusiastic support and critical insights made the experience of writing this thesis not only possible but consistently challenging and enjoyable. My heartfelt thanks to my fellow postgraduate, Paul Allatson, whose valuable comments and advice were always helpful, sustaining and provocative. His friendship and the friendship of Dominic Fitzsimmons, Viktoria Rendes, Neale Edmonds and Andrew Gorman-Murray at the University of New South Wales have made this time of research and writing a rewarding and fruitful one. M y gratitude goes also to Clemens Ruthner, Anne Critchfield, M ichael Nitsche, Oliver Brüssow, Luisa Wiebe, Katja Hirschel, Uwe Weimann, Stephen Hiscox and family whose warm support and friendship have inspired my endeavours in the field of German literature and kept me sane on the streets of Berlin and Vienna. My love and gratitude also goes to Andreas Funke who started it all many years ago in a youth hostel in Oxford. How quickly the years pass. I would also like to express my gratitude to Christoph Ransmayr for his confronting and beautifully written texts. He is an author whose personal humility speaks as persuasively as his prose. Our brief conversation kept me inspired over the years that followed. CONTENTS Introduction. 1 The Aesthetics of Humility (9) Chapter Outlines (12) Chapter One “Rationalitätsmüdigkeit” and the Re-emergence of Myth. 20 A Critical Context for Ransmayr’s Fiction (21) “… Mythos ist der neue Wert” (31) Hans Blumenberg and Arbeit am Mythos (37) Chapter Two Refocusing from the Centre to the Edge. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis 54 Exploration and De-mystification (59) Mazzini’s Project – the Re-Mythologisation of Polar Space (81) Chapter Three Rejecting Fixedness for Fluidity – Die letzte Welt. 94 Augustan Rome (96) The Last World (106) Chapter Four Reversing History – Morbus Kitahara. 125 An Alternative History (127) The “Absolutism of Reality.” Space –Time Considerations (132) Myths of Flight, Autonomy and Contrition (148) Chapter Five 161 The Eternal Recurrence. Restructuring the Worldview (161) The Eternal Recurrence (162) Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. In Search of Heroism and Authenticity (168) i Die letzte Welt - Master and Acolyte (176) Morbus Kitahara -The Past is the Present is the Future (180) Chapter Six “Eine Endzeit” – Or a New Beginning? Apocalypse and Transformation in Die letzte Welt 185 The Interplay between “Entropie”, “Untergang” and “Verwandlung” (185) “Untergang” in the Last World (192) Narratives of “Untergang” (200) The “Grundmythos” of “Verwandlung” (211) A Narrative of Hope? (215) Chapter Seven “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” Morbus Kitahara. 226 Precursors - Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (227) - Die letzte Welt (230) Of Dogs and Wolves – Morbus Kitahara (230) Victims and Perpetrators - Bering and Lily (238) The Dog King – “Wer jetzt am Leben bleiben will, muß töten” (249) Chapter Eight “Menschenleer” – The Aesthetics of Humility. 256 The Return to Nature (259) Projects of Disappearance and “das Wesentliche” (271) Conclusion “Die Wirklichkeit der Erfindung” 284 Bibliography 289 ii INTRODUCTION. The critical reception of Christoph Ransmayr’s writing since his first publications in the early 1980s suggests that the Austrian author has touched a chord with his aesthetic representations and revelations of contemporary thought and experience.1 The one-time student of ethnology and philosophy at the University of Vienna has, to date, worked as a journalist (1978-82), written the prose piece Strahlender Untergang (1982) and edited Im blinden Winkel: Nachrichten aus Mitteleuropa (1985).2 He has written three novels, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (1984), Die letzte Welt (1988) and Morbus Kitahara (1995). A collection of earlier articles and essays has been published in Der Weg nach Surabaya (1997).3 Recently Ransmayr has held public readings from his forthcoming novel Der fliegende Berg4 and the short essay, Luftburgtheater.5 The planned premiere of his play Die Unsichtbare – Eine Tirade has been postponed until 2001.6 Ransmayr’s three novels, being the most substantial part of his oeuvre at present, are, however, the main focus of this study. 1 Ransmayr’s writing has earned him support and accolades in the form of the Literaturpreis des Bundesverbandes der deutschen Industrie (1986), an Elias Canetti-Stipendium der Stadt Wien (1986- 88), the Anton Wildgans-Preis der Österreichischen Industrie (1989), Großer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste (1992, the Franz Kafka-Literatur Preis (1995), the European Union Aristeion-Preis (1996), the Solothurner-Literaturpreis (1997) and the Friedrich- Hölderlin-Preis (1998). Ransmayr’s “ Festrede” at the Salzburg Festival in 1997 is now available as Die dritte Luft: oder eine Bühne am Meer. Rede zur Eröffnung der Salzburger Festspiele. (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1997). 2 Willy Puchner: Photography, Christoph Ransmayr: Text, Strahlender Untergang (Wien: Brandstätter, 1982). Later references to the text are to this edition and are denoted by the initials SU and the number of the text page. (Strahlender Untergang has since been published by S. Fischer in 2000 - without the original photos.) Christoph Ransmayr ed. Im blinden Winkel: Nachrichten aus Mitteleuropa (München: Brandstätter, 1985) and (Frankfurt/ Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1989). Later references are denoted by the initials BW and the page number of the Fischer edition. 3 The following novels by Christoph Ransmayr: Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1987 - first published Wien: Brandstätter Verlag, 1984). Die letzte Welt (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1988). Morbus Kitahara (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1995). Later references to these novels will be denoted as follows. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis by SEF and page number, Die letzte Welt by LW and page number, Morbus Kitahara by MK and page number. Der Weg nach Surabaya: Reportagen und kleine Prosa (Fischer: Frankfurt/ Main, 1997). Later references denoted by WS and page number. 4 As yet unpublished at the time of writing. 5 On the 29th June, 1999, on the occasion of the farewell of Burgtheater director, Claus Peymann, Ransmayr read from the Lufttheater text at the Akademietheater, Vienna. In August, 1999, Ransmayr read from Der fliegende Berg in Salzburg at the invitation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger. (http://www.literaturhaus.at. Internet Web page. June, 1999). 6 Julia Kospach, “ Nah und Fern,” Profil 32, 7. August, 2000: 122. 1 At first glance, these three novels appear very different. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis tells of two expeditions to the Arctic Circle, one undertaken towards the end of the nineteenth century, the other a century later. Die letzte Welt, set during the reign of Emperor Augustus follows the search for the Roman poet, Ovid (referred to in the text by one of his other names, Naso). Naso has apparently disappeared in exile and is sought in Ransmayr’s novel by his acolyte, Cotta. Morbus Kitahara presents a world reminiscent of post World War Two Austria in which the defeated war-time power is occupied by the victors whose Stellamour Plan transforms the twentieth century industrialised society into a lawless and primitive agrarian one. Critical commentary on Ransmayr’s fiction oeuvre has primarily targeted the best- selling Die letzte Welt. The critical response to Die letzte Welt upon its publication in 1988 was overwhelmingly positive: the novel was acclaimed the “Literatursensation des Jahres” and its author as “Schriftsteller des Jahres” by German booksellers.7 The novel has had a popular as well as critical success, having been translated into thirty 8 languages. It is my intention at this point to provide a brief survey of critical commentary on Ransmayr’s novels. Further discussion of the secondary literature will 9 be integrated with my examination of each text in the chapters following. The theoretical approaches taken in this secondary literature fall into several main areas which are, of necessity, interrelated. These areas may be roughly divided into responses to both the novel’s “Zivilisationskritik” and what may be understood as a postmodern, playful “Lust am Text.”10 Critical consideration of the novel’s thematics of apocalypse and transformation, for example, show these thematics to be integral to the novel’s “Zivisationskritik.” Examination of the representation of world of nature and 7 Kurt Bartsch, “ Dialog mit Antike und Mythos. Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid-Roman Die letzte Welt,” Modern Austrian Literature, 23: 3/4 (1990): 121. 8 Peter G. Christensen, “ The Metamorphosis of Ovid in Christoph Ransmayr’s The Last World,” Classical and Modern Literature, 12 : 2 Winter (1992): 139. 9 A brief overview of early secondary literature on Die letzte Welt may also be found in Elrud Ibsch, “ Zur politischen Rezeption von Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” Literarische und Politische Aktualität, ed.