“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

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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.

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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. Ferdinand von Ingen (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993) 239-252. 10 Wanke and Sieber see Die letzte Welt as an “ intentionslose” text which promotes a multiplicity of reader responses to its multiple associations and multiple levels of discourse, promoting in so doing a “ Lust am Text” in Barthes’ terms. See Roland Barthes, Le plaisir du texte (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973). This reference is incorrectly footnoted as Lust am Text (Paris, 1972) in the Wanke/Sieber article. Andrea Wanke and Armin Sieber, “ Die letzte Welt – Konsumartikel, Kalligraphie oder einziger T rost,” ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt.’ Ovids ‘Metamorphoses’ und Christoph Ransmayrs ‘Letzte Welt,’ Fußnoten zur neueren deutschen Literatur 20, ed. Helmut Kiesel and Georg Wöhrle (1990): 37.

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human nature in the novel is also central to these thematics and to this critique. The parallels between events in the text and the historical phenomenon of Nazism and war are also investigated in secondary literature on the novel. Bornemann and Kiedaisch, among others, examine “Zivilisationskritik” and historical pessimism in Die letzte Welt, commenting on the novel’s representation of the “Beinhaus der Geschichte” where the course of human history, seen through the eyes of characters such as Thies, inevitably tends towards totalitarianism and aggression.11 The supposedly dialectical relationship between myth and Enlightenment philosophical ideology is problematised in Die letzte Welt in a narrative “Verschlingung von Mythos und Aufklärung.” Wilke, for example, considers this dialectical “Verschlingung” in terms of Ransmayr’s ideology-critical project in the text. She sees both the poet, Naso, and the Metamorphoses text as subverting the totalitarian regime of Rome, and extrapolates further to consider the subversive nature of literature.12 Bartsch, along with Wilke, refers to Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of the totalitarian character of reason, seeing their “Dialektik der Aufklärung” embodied in Ransmayr’s Rome.13 The totalitarian and rational nature of Augustan Rome in the novel is juxtaposed with the chaotic, irrational and mythical world of Tomi. The flashback links between Rome and Tomi, which establish the apparently dialectical relation between the two worlds, ensure that the novel’s critique of historical modernity is integrated with discussion of the role and importance of myth in the text. Anz, however, concentrates on the novel’s postmodern, intertextual character, commenting on various of the postmodern characteristics of the text, amongst them, the text’s fragmentary myth-based content and its postmodern game with the (literal) disappearance of the author.14 The experimentation with postmodernist narrative techniques found in Die letzte Welt, most specifically its intertextuality, is also examined by other critics in terms of the novel’s manipulation of Ovid’s

11 See Christiane Bornemann and Petra Kiedaisch, “ ‘Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.’ Das Geschichtsbild in der Letzten Welt,” ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt,’ ed. Kiesel and Wöhrle 13-21. 12 Sabine Wilke, Poetische Strukturen der Moderne. Zeitgenössische Literatur zwischen alter und neuer Mythologie (Stuttgart: J.B.Metzler, 1992) 254. 13 Bartsch, 127. 14 See Thomas Anz, “ Spiel mit der Überlieferung. Aspekte der Postmoderne in Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt.” Die Erfindung der Welt. Zum Werk von Christoph Ransmayr. ed. Uwe Wittstock (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1997) 120-32.

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Metamorphoses.15 Others combine comments on the novel’s “Zivilisationskritik” with its postmodern playfulness. Harbers agrees with Bartsch that Die letzte Welt is a subversive literary game which sets itself against every form of absolutism.16 If the novel judges the situation of humankind to be “auswegslos” then, according to Epple, an aesthetic existence is the only remaining alternative. The enthusiastic representation of fantasy in the novel is certainly “ein Spiel mit dem Leser” but ultimately “ein Spiel mit sehr ernstem Hintergrund und tödlichem Ausgang.”17 The tension between seriousness and play is also addressed in the critical treatment of the notions of destruction and “Untergang,” “Apokalypse” and “Verwandlung” in Die letzte Welt. Fülleborn, for example, sees the quotation, “[k]einem bleibt seine Gestalt,” (attributed to Ransmayr’s Naso) as anticipating the textual connections between the natural world, death, disappearance and transformation. He finds the death motif, developed in narratives of “Massensterben” in Die letzte Welt (for example, the snails in Trachila, the human victims of the Aegina plague and Thies’ nightmares of the gas chambers) as re-confronting the possibility of a post-Auschwitz “Ästhetik des Schreckens” in Karl Heinz Bohrer’s definition of the term.18 Critical response to Die letzte Welt does not, however, see “Untergang” and “Apokalypse” solely in historico-pessimistic terms, but also as parodies of the popular 1980s “Katastrophentext” genre. Nordhofen, while he initially joins in with Odo Marquard’s “Lob der Plurals,” sees Ransmayr’s postmodern variation of “[k]einem bleibt seine Gestalt” as tending in one direction only, towards “Vernichtung, Verwesung, verrottender schimmelnder Verfall …” The novel ends, for Nordhofen, in “[z]u viele 19 Katastrophen für meinen Schmerz.” Finally, Schiffermüller asserts, with justification,

15 See among others, Reinhold F. Glei, “ Ovid in den Zeiten der Postmoderne. Bemerkungen zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt,” Poetica – Zeitschrift für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, München 26: 3/4 (1994): 409-27. 16 See Henk Harbers, “ ‘Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit’ Zu Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” The German Quarterly, 67: 1 Winter (1994): 58. 17 Thomas Epple, “ Phantasie Contra Realität – eine Untersuchung zur zentralen Thematik von Christoph Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt.” Literatur für Leser, 1 (1990): 40-1. 18 See, for example, Ulrich Fülleborn “ Christoph Ransmayr: Die letzte Welt,” Erzählen, Erinnern. Deutsche Prosa der Gegenwart. ed.Gerhard Kaiser and Gerhard Köpf. (Frankfurt/Main: Diesterweg, 1992) 383. 19 Nordhofen sees Ransmayr’s descriptions of catastrophe in Die letzte Welt as luxuriating in “ apokalyptischen Exzess.” He continues, “ [d]er zum ‘Lesevergnügen’ zubereitete Schrecken wird zur Quelle eines zynischen Unernsts. Der inflationäre Raptus von Szenen und Bildern, die alle nur Steigerung wollen, hin auf den Fluchtpunkt einer Verwandlung, die immer zuerst Vernichtung heißt, verzehrt meine Fähigkeit zur Empathie und zur Teilnahme….” Eckhard Nordhofen, “ Das Glück ist anders: Aktualität zwischen Mythos und Neomythos. Das Beispiel Ransmayr.” Die neomythische

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that in Die letzte Welt “auch die Bildkraft der Phantasie die Leere dieser Welt nicht zu überwinden vermag […].”20 In this vein several interviews with Ransmayr and articles on Die letzte Welt focus on the author’s engagement with the Nazi period in particular, and the human potential for violence in general. The nightmares of Thies and his belief that “der Mensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” anticipate Ransmayr’s extended treatment of this theme in Morbus Kitahara. Ransmayr speaks of the influence of the landscape of his childhood in Upper Austria living in the vicinity of the Ebensee and M authausen concentration camps. In this context he lists the influences of Holocaust writers such as Jurek Becker and Primo Levi, and Hans Lebert’s novel Die Wolfshaut.21 A number of critics have pointed to a continuity in thematic and stylistic elements throughout Ransmayr’s work, beginning with Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Thus Bockelmann, for example, observes “die Konstruktion von der Menschenleere des letzten Erdenwinkels und dem Verschwinden darin” in Ransmayr’s writing beginning with Strahlender Untergang, through to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt. With the publication of Morbus Kitahara “schreibt Ransmayr die erfolgreiche Letzte Welt fort.” The “Endzeit-Welt” of Tomi is now in the centre of Europe.22 Fülleborn, too, describes “Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis als [eine] “Einübung in die Schrecken der Letzten Welt” and points out that the foundation of Ransmayr’s “Untergangsthematik” had already been developed in Strahlender Untergang.23 In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, the dialectical relationship between “Aufklärung” and “Mythos” and the importance of the natural world are also a central focus of the text, as they are later in Die letzte Welt. 24

Kehre. Aktuelle Zugänge zum Mythischen in Wissenschaft und Kunst, ed. Hermann Schrödter (Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 1991) 229. 20 Isolde Schiffermüller, “ Untergang und Metamorphose: Allegorische Bilder in Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid-Roman Die letzte Welt,” Quaderni di Lingue e Letterature, 15 (1990): 250. 21 Ransmayr interviewed by Renate Just, “ Erfolg macht müde,” Zeitmagazin 16 December 1988: 50 and Sigrid Löffler “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” Falter, 38 (1995): 16-17. 22 Eske Bockelmann, “ Christoph Ransmayr,” Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, 7. 23 See Fülleborn, “ Christoph Ransmayr: Die letzte Welt.” Erzählen, Erinnern. Deutsche Prosa der Gegenwart, 373. 24 Wilke, “ Die Dialektik von Aufklärung und Mythos in der letzten Welt: Christoph Ransmayrs Texte zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne.” Poetische Strukturen der Moderne. Zeitgenössische Literatur zwischen alter und neuer Mythologie, 223-261.

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However, apart from early reviews of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, other critical interest arose retrospectively after the success of Die letzte Welt. Responses to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis have focused on the perception of reality and the privileging of space over time in the text.25 Several articles discuss the notions of exploration, re-mythologisation and poststructural interpretations of the disappearance of M azzini. For example, Preußer shows parallels between the deconstruction and reconstruction of the mythical hero-figure and the demythologisation and later remythologisation of the Arctic space in the novel.26 The polyphonic nature of the text, its meta-literary strategies and the notions of authorship and readership are the other major points addressed in the secondary literature on Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis.27 M üller comments particularly on the hybrid nature of the text and the narrative antics of the narrator in attempting to establish a sense of textual authenticity.28 The long-awaited publication of Morbus Kitahara in 1995 resulted in intense interest from critics, an interest which turned into disappointment for some. Janacs, for one, is offended by what he perceives as Ransmayr’s mystification and aestheticisation 29 of the Nazi past in the novel. Ayren, as another, sees the novel as having overreached itself. (“Fazit: Ein Buch, das ein großer Roman hätte werden können und auch fast geworden wäre, hätte Ransmayr nicht allzuviel auf einmal gewollt.”30) The main thrust of criticism has focused primarily on issues associated with the historical Holocaust as

25 See Reingard Nethersole, “ Marginal Topographies: Space in Christoph Ransmayrs Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis,” Modern Austrian Literature 23:3/4 (1990): 135–153. Also Ulrich Scheck, “ Die Entdeckung der Peripherie. Zum körperbewußsten Erzählen in der Gegenwartsliteratur.” Fremdkörper-Fremde Körper-Körperfremde: Kultur- und literaturgeschichtliche Studien zum Körperthema, ed. Burkhardt Krause (Stuttgart: Helfant, 1992) 55-72. 26 Heinz-Peter Preußer, “ Reisen an das Ende der Welt. Bilder des Katastrophismus in der neueren österreichischen Literatur. Bachmann – Handke – Ransmayr.” Fünfzig Jahre der deutschsprachigen Literatur in Aspekten, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, 38/39 (1995): 369-409. 27 See the discussion of these issues in both Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt in Axel Gellhaus, “ Das allmähliche Verblassen der Schrift. Zur Prosa von Peter Handke und Christoph Ransmayr” Poetica, 22:1/2 (1990) 106-142. See also Beate Müller, “ Sea Voyages into T ime and Space: Postmodern T opographies in Umberto Eco’s L’Isola del Giorno Prima and Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis,” Modern Language Review, 95:1 January (2000): 1-17. 28 Müller, “ Sea Voyages into T ime and Space,” 9. 29 Christoph Janacs, Literatur und Kritik, November (1995): 101. 30 Armin Ayren, “ Die Welt nach Morgenthau,” Stuttgarter Zeitung, 10. October, 1995. However other critics disagree: “ Christoph Ransmayr … hat etwas schier Aussichtsloses gewagt, und es ist ihm mit gestalterischer Kraft und erzählerischer Bedachtsamkeit geglückt …” Volker Hage, “Zertrümmerte Zeiten,” Der Spiegel 38 (1995): 211.

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well as the novel’s manipulation of historical events.31 The novel’s representations of the natural world and landscape are also examined as symbolic indicators of human trespass and trauma. Landa examines the novel’s landscapes as political constructs and discusses the “dynamics of looking” which informs the text’s transposition of ideas and concepts.32 The apocalyptic character of Die letzte Welt is also evident in Morbus Kitahara. Knoll, among others, examines the unrelenting experience of apocalypse in the world of Moor.33 The nature of time is also problematised in Morbus Kitahara. Lackner, for example, examines the function and manipulation of temporality on the level of the personal and communal in the novel.34 Although the volume of critical literature addressing the writing of Christoph Ransmayr is slowly accumulating, it remains largely in the form of reviews and articles with a small body of academic theses and the occasional book chapter addressing particular features of a particular text.35 The exceptions are two books devoted to Ransmayr’s writing: the first, a monograph by Thomas Epple, which focuses solely on Die letzte Welt,36 the second is a collection of essays on Ransmayr’s work edited by Uwe Wittstock.37 Epple’s text is a concise overview of key features of Die letzte Welt. He examines the novel’s thematic concerns (such as the individual and the state, reason and fantasy, literature and power), its structure, language and postmodern character. In contrast, Die Erfindung der Welt includes a range of different responses to Strahlender Untergang and Ransmayr’s three novels. Academic articles examine intertextuality, historical parallels, the thematisation of space-time and representations of landscapes

31 Foster examines Morbus Kitahara as an alternative history and traces the historical and geographical parallels between Moor in the Ransmayr text and Upper Austria. See Ian Foster, “ Alternative History and Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara,” Modern Austrian Literature 32:1 (1999): 111-126. 32 Jutta Landa, “ Fractured Vision in Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara,” The German Quarterly, 21:2 Spring (1998): 136-144. See also Alexander Honold, “ Die steinerne Schuld. Gebirge und Geschichte in Christoph Ransmayrs Morbus Kitahara,” Sinn und Form, 51:2, May/April (1999): 252-67. 33 Heike Knoll, “ Untergänge und kein Ende: Zur Apokalyptik in Christoph Ransmayr Die letzte Welt und Morbus Kitahara.” Literatur für Leser, 4 (1997) 214 – 223. 34 Lackner incorporates comment on the complexity of the experience of time in Morbus Kitahara with a general response to the text. See Erna Lackner, “Christoph Ransmayr,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Magazin, 13 October (1995): 10–21. 35 See, for example, Clemens Murath, “ The Function of Allegory in Christoph Ransmayr’s Novel Die letzte Welt,” German Contemporary German Writers, Their Aesthetics and their Language, ed. Arthur Williams Stuart Parkes, Julian Preece (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1996) 109-123. 36 Thomas Epple, Christoph Ransmayr, ‘Die letzte Welt’: Interpretation (München: Oldenbourg, 1992). 37 Uwe Wittstock ed. Die Erfindung der Welt. Zum Werk von Christoph Ransmayr (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1997).

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in Ransmayr’s short prose pieces and novels. Essays by Ransmayr himself show the author’s early journalistic interests (“Reiselust” and extreme landscapes) and his writings on myth (the story of the fates of Icarus and Perdix through the mouthpiece of Daedalus). Essays by colleagues, interviews with Ransmayr and speeches given by the author complete the text’s profile of Ransmayr’s dedication to his craft and the critical success with which his writing has been met. My thesis acknowledges the contribution of the existing body of critical comment on Ransmayr’s texts. However, in contrast to other secondary literature on this author’s work, my study seeks to provide an analysis of all three Ransmayr novels, to draw comparisons and to trace divergences between the texts. With this comparative purpose in mind, I draw and expand upon previous critical commentary targeting the examination of certain key features of the novels. I propose to examine four key features: the texts’ critique of scientific modernity, the privileged status accorded myth both thematically and stylistically in the texts, the texts’ representations of external nature and human nature, and their readings of “Untergang,” apocalypse and transformation. M y study seeks to create an interpretative structure in which these key features may be related in a new way. In this undertaking, I explore what I see to be the author’s revelation of “das Wesentliche” in the human condition.38 Each text reveals “das Wesentliche,” which in this context is defined as an essential truth of human existence - however problematic such a notion may appear in the age of postmodern discourse. An understanding of “das Wesentliche” is developed by what I define as the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels. The aesthetics of humility which I observe to operate in the texts forms the structure of my comparative interpretation of Ransmayr’s work. Two things are important to establish at this point. Firstly, my study of Ransmayr’s novels is above all a literary interpretation, not a theoretical or philosophical treatment of the issues raised in the novels, although it incorporates aspects of contemporary postmodern literary and philosophical theory. Secondly, the development of my argument in this study - that there is a distinctive aesthetics which

38 For example, Ransmayr writes of “das Wesentliche” in the prose piece Strahlender Untergang as that understanding which is reached at the moment of the disintegration of the human subject in its present form. In Strahlender Untergang, “ das Wesentliche” is simultaneously a recognition of humanity’s culpability in the destruction wrought upon the natural world and a recognition of the interconnectedness of all biological life.

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characterises Ransmayr’s novels to this time - necessitates a certain structure of argument. My thesis operates by establishing an initial contextual basis upon which further discussion and interpretation of the four specific features of the texts mentioned earlier cumulatively builds. To this extent, a degree of overlap between chapters is unavoidable.

The Aesthetics of Humility.

It is logical at this point to define what I call the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels. In general terms, the aesthetics of humility demonstrated in Ransmayr’s three novels consists of thematic, symbolic and structural elements which serve to develop the understanding that in Ransmayr’s novels the location of the human subject in the privileged central position in humanist cosmology is considered problematic. Not only is the human subject (as represented by the central characters in each novel) displaced from the centre of civilisation to the periphery in symbolic fashion, it is most clearly no longer in control of its physical and psychical environment. Any pretension the human subject still claims to power and influence over its environment is negated in the texts by the revelation of the transience of life.39 The subject’s loss of status and influence in each novel is also related to the demonstration of human potential for brutality and indifference towards its own kind. In each text the disappearance of the central characters symbolises the forced or voluntary abdication of the human subject from a position of arrogance or inherited privilege. The creation of a changed perspective on the importance of the human subject is achieved in a number of ways in all three texts. Each text contains a pair of “Gegenwelten.” These two worlds are spatially located as being the centre and edge, and allied respectively with either a predominantly “Vernunft,” Enlightenment/scientific modernity mindset or an apparently primitive, pre-logos, myth-pregnant world-view. The main character of each text undertakes, at some point, a journey which is in essence a journey between the two realities each world represents. Varying in degree in each

39 Ransmayr’s development of this perennial theme in literature differs from earlier treatments in that he locates his subjects, whether anachronistically or not, in industrial or post-industrial landscapes where the assertion of human control over its own fate and mastery over nature is scientifically and technologically based.

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text, ratio is abandoned for a new way of perceiving the events and phenomena of the alternative world. In various ways the journeys undertaken by the protagonists signal an ideological rejection of the humanist project and its manifestation in the philosophical paradigm of scientific modernity. Correspondingly, the aesthetics of humility in the texts identifies a textual consciousness of the projected Other of reason: nature, myth, fantasy, irrationality and barbarity. The privileging of the Other is facilitated by the pronounced “Kultur-Natur” dialectic in the texts. In contrast to the allegedly civilised centre, the natural world on the edge is represented as a space of confrontation and revelation. The representation of the natural world as an active agent of change and rejuvenation registers the rejection in the texts of the human domination of this space and highlights the intricate workings of nature. The civilised centre is represented as space which is, depending on the text, culturally imperialistic, totalitarian, or consumerist and morally pragmatic. The critique of scientific modernity, which the three novels develop to varying degrees, is a result of the representation of the world of the centre in each text and is an essential element of the aesthetics of humility in the text. The natural world on the edge is identified as the domain of myth in each novel, most clearly in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt. As the Other of scientific modernity, of reason and of history, myth re-emerges as an age-old narrative of human existence which offers an alternative mode of perceiving and interpreting the trials and trauma undergone by the novels’ characters. Thus, the tracing of the development of the aesthetics of humility in all three texts is undertaken in terms of an examination of the re-emergence of myth as an agency of subversion and revelation within the context of a continuing discourse of the critique of scientific modernity. The way in which myth reassumes a structuring role in an interpretation of the human experience functions as a counterpoint to the collapse of ideological, social and historical institutions of scientific modernity which occurs in the novels. Observing the re-emergence of myth in this way, my thesis follows the transformation of history back into story, of the metanarrative into multiple narratives. M yth’s qualities and manifestations are transformed in each of Ransmayr’s novels in a manner consistent with its protean character. The expectation of the dialectical logos/mythos separation also goes unfulfilled. M yth is revivified, relocated and, at times, co-existent with reason, in narrative sites which symbolically represent the

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hegemonic system of abstracted, purposive reason.40 Therefore, even in the totalitarian state of Ransmayr’s Augustan Rome, a mythologisation of power occurs. The theory of myth applied in my study sees myth as a narrative of adaption, explanation and justification which, alongside reason, operates as a strategy of survival when the human subject is confronted with a reality that threatens to overwhelm it. Hans Blumenberg’s discussion of the work of myth in Part One of his Arbeit am Mythos, is, therefore, a particularly appropriate interpretative tool in my study.41 Blumenberg sees the work of myth as one cultural strategy whereby the human individual or community may attempt to reduce the existential anxiety and paralysis caused by an almost overwhelming “absolutism of reality.”42 The work of myth, in Blumenberg’s terms, operates in the fictional context of Ransmayr’s novels in situations where the human individual must find strategies of survival when confronted by a reality in which meaning is ephemeral and experience traumatic. In examining the way myth operates in the texts to re-structure a postmodern fictional reality, my study takes a new approach to an examination of the relevance of myth’s re-emergence in literature. This work of myth is the focus of the initial chapters of the thesis. The work of myth, in this application of Blumenberg’s term, throws into relief a “Zivilisationskritik” in the Ransmayr novels, which is firmly located in the discourse of modernity critique mentioned earlier. That is, the practices of historical, scientific modernity have created a threatening “absolutism of reality” for the societies represented in Ransmayr’s texts.43 With this focus on the “Zivilisationskritik” in Ransmayr’s novels, my study does not concentrate on what Blumenberg sees as work on myth; that is, the predominantly literary production which responds to different historical and social scenarios to rework and re-write long extant myths. Discussion of the work done on myth is certainly relevant to an examination of intertextuality in Die letzte Welt, but is less relevant in a comparative study such as the one undertaken here.

40 Adorno and Horkheimer’s assertion that “ [s]chon der Mythos ist Aufklärung, und: Aufklärung schlägt in Mythologie zurück” is obviously relevant to Ransmayr’s treatment of the relationship between myth and reason in this context Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1986) 6. 41 Hans Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1979) 42 See Chapter 1 for my discussion of Blumenberg and his writings on myth. 43 It is important to note here that despite the disparate temporal locations in Ransmayr’s novels (for example, imperial Rome and Tomi) the author’s use of historical imagery and anachronism establishes aspects of the alternative worlds of his novels as being commensurate with certain aspects of late nineteenth and twentieth century Western society.

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Thus, the work done on myth in Ransmayr’s novels is a minor aspect of my wider discussion on the role myth plays in all three novels. However, established core mythic structures, that is, “Grundmythen” which survive through the ages, are examined in the later chapters of my thesis to reveal the way in which Ransmayr re-introduces myth into the perception of reality presented to the reader. Thus, these “Grundmythen” re- structure the perception of human existence when the reader is confronted with the collapse of certain metanarratives of modernity in the novels (for example, the metanarrative of progress in Morbus Kitahara). In its examination of myth as an agency of subversion and revelation, my study extends the discussion of the role of myth in developing the “Zivilisationskritik” in Ransmayr’s novels and builds upon this discussion by providing a further dimension to the understanding of the different perceptual perspective which myth provides. This further perspective is the above-mentioned problematising of the relevance of the human subject within a reality increasingly alien and unsupportive of human aspirations and needs. In my reading, the disappearance of individual protagonists in all three novels suggests that the project of Ransmayr’s fiction is a radical revisioning of the autonomy and status of the individual in relation not just to society but to a wider net of cosmic relationships and interdependencies. The disappearance of the human subject, leaving a natural landscape empty of the human form, illustrates the erasure of a subject/object binary in Ransmayr’s novels and re-establishes the notion of a cosmology of fluidity and interconnections. In its “Auflösung” the human subject is divested of its identity as an autonomous entity, relinquishing the symbolic power and arrogance invested in it upon its earlier psychic separation from the cosmos; a separation which historical and scientific modernity has emphasised. The aesthetics of humility is concerned, then, with the textual registering of changes in the perception of the notion of identity and the recognition of a corresponding re-evaluation of the place of the human subject in a wider world view.

Chapter Outlines.

The thesis examines the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels in eight chapters. Chapter One sets out the context of contemporary discourse critical of scientific modernity and locates Ransmayr’s fiction within this context. Western society’s Enlightenment heritage has been structured and furthered by the narratives of 12

historical and scientific modernity which appear to have failed by the middle of the twentieth century. The rehabilitation of myth in the second half of the twentieth century appears to have occurred as a response to the increasing “Rationalitätsmüdigkeit” in Western society. The re-emergence of myth in theoretical discussion and literary production in the last decades of the twentieth century is surveyed in light of this development. M yth operates in both liberatory and repressive ways, according to its manifestation as an aesthetic, social or political strategy or product. The subversive function of myth develops a “Zivilisationskritik” when it is juxtaposed with the rational perceptual paradigm characteristic of scientific modernity. M yth operates as an alternative and equally valid mode of perception and explanation to the rational mode in each text. The theory of myth developed by Hans Blumenberg is introduced in Chapter One. Blumenberg’s notion of an “absolutism of reality” which the human subject must confront and overcome is central to his overall argument and the argument of this thesis. Blumenberg’s consideration of myth as a strategy of survival in mastering an “absolutism of reality” is initially developed in an anthropological context dating from primitive times. M y study shows, however, that the strategy of mythmaking can be extrapolated to a modern and postmodern context; where “modern” is used to refer to historical, scientific modernity and the “postmodern” is treated as a cultural site of postindustrial (and, some argue, posthistorical) society. In this context an “absolutism of reality” denotes a universal existential state which is equally applicable to humankind in earlier historical times and to the experience of reality in contemporary times, that is, here, the final decades of the twentieth century. Under threatening conditions, the human subject exists in a state of paralysed anxiety within a reality he/she feels unable to control. Blumenberg sees both logos and mythos as viable strategies of coping with the “absolutism of reality” and he argues against a temporally linear mythos to logos progression. Both strategies are utilised by the human subject to make sense of his/her physical and psychic environment in the texts. In Chapter One Blumenberg’s definition of the “Grundmythos” as a recurring core narrative of interpretation and explanation is discussed. The circle narrative that Blumenberg treats in detail is particularly useful in introducing the structuring and explanatory role of “Grundmythen” in Ransmayr’s novels. Chapter Two begins the specific discussion of the “absolutism of reality” which confronts characters in each of Ransmayr’s novels. This “absolutism of reality” is 13

considered in terms of the characteristics of the alternative worlds juxtaposed in all three texts. This juxtaposition typically consists of landscapes of nature on the periphery of the known world and the hegemony of the civilised centre whose social, political and ideological institutions are imposed upon the mindscapes of the novels’ protagonists. In this chapter the “absolutism of reality” which confronts two Arctic expeditions separated by a century of historical and technogical change is discussed. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis the nature of the reality confronting the Weyprecht-Payer North Pole expedition of 1872-4 and Josef Mazzini in the early 1980s is highlighted, starting when both parties leave the European centre of civilisation for a journey into the unknown in the Arctic Circle. This discussion shows the way the power of myth dominates in the natural landscape and how projects of historical and scientific modernity which attempt to de-mythologise such a landscape are thwarted. The knowledge and progress-based narratives of the Enlightenment and modernity are compromised by drives to domination and exploitation. Indeed these metanarratives are exposed in the text as ideological myths. They cannot be sustained in terms of the original Enlightenment project of the betterment of the human condition. Mazzini’s later expedition to the Arctic is an attempt to re-mythologise a world characterised for him by a Baudrillardian ‘death of the real’. The human subject, deprived of an immediacy and authenticity of experience, must confront a postmodern form of the “absolutism of reality” - human experience is mediated to such an extent that the human subject has to rewrite and reconstruct his/her own reality in order to find meaning. The irony in such a situation is evident when the “already-writtenness” of experience forms the basis of Mazzini’s writings and his expedition. At this point, the aesthetics of humility in this text registers the mythologising of the Enlightenment project of discovery and scientific progress, and a perceived culture- critical rejection of projects of domination and imperialism. A consciousness of the Other in the form of nature and myth stamps the experiences of both the Weyprecht- Payer expedition and Mazzini’s voyage northwards. This consciousness is suggested symbolically by a textual re-focusing from the centre in Vienna to the edge of European civilisation in the Arctic ice and darkness. My discussion in Chapter Three examines the “absolutism of reality” which operates in Die letzte Welt. The characters who inhabit the two worlds of the novel, Rome and Tomi, experience an existential paralysis. A political “absolutism of reality” is experienced by the population under the totalitarian regime of Augustan Rome. 14

However, the chaos of the last world in Tomi is also potentially overwhelming for those who perceive reality in a rational way. This chapter examines these perceptions of reality, firstly, in the world of the centre, Augustan Rome, and, secondly, in the world of the periphery and exile, Tomi. The apparent dichotomy of these modes of perception is symbolically represented by Cotta’s journey from Rome to Tomi, and also in the way which Cotta responds to his displacement from a rational world to the chaotic irrationality of the last world. The work of myth in subverting rational perception and practice is represented symbolically in the last world landscape and the mindscape of Tomi’s inhabitants. However the work of myth is also evident in the functioning of institutions of power and bureaucracy in Rome. A city/nature, “Kultur/Natur” dialectic is again developed in this second novel, but the text also demonstrates the intertwining of mythos and logos. The ahistoricity of the first and last worlds of the text serves to universalise the human experience of the interaction between these modes of perception and interpretation. Die letzte Welt, in comparison with Ransmayr’s other two novels, particularly privileges myth as a mode of perception. Cotta must acquire this mode of perception to understand metamorphosis as a dynamic life principle and as the text of life in the last world. The fluidity of myth and the transience of form in the last world contrast with the fixedness and stasis of Rome. The fate of both Naso and Cotta shows the human subject dislocated from the rational centre through involuntary or voluntary exile. Their disappearance, following the fragmentation and loss of their (Roman) identity results when they enter a world where myth structures the perception of reality, where “keinem bleibt seine Gestalt.” In Chapter Four, the traumatic “absolutism of reality” in Morbus Kitahara is demonstrated to be a consequence of war in Europe. The victors’ peace program is a barely disguised program of revenge and re-barbarisation of the defeated populations, at least as experienced in the remote area of Moor under the jurisdiction of occupation commander, M ajor Elliot. The conditions which the inhabitants of Moor endure refigure a Stone Age in the midst of the ruins of modern Europe. In a scenario reminiscent of the last world of Die letzte Welt, Morbus Kitahara evokes an “Endzeit” stage of human existence, without the possibility of transformation and renewal evident in Ransmayr’s second novel. The “absolutism of reality” which confronts the inhabitants of Moor is constructed by the physical hardship and suffering inflicted by the policies of the victors, but is also determined by an inheritance of guilt and an inability to confront the experiences of the war years. The discourse of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” is central 15

to the text. Its complexity is indicated by the premise of the novel itself; that is, the text as an alternative version of history. I argue that the thematic impact of Morbus Kitahara is largely due to the comparison drawn by the reader regarding what is understood as actual “history” and what is presented as narrative “history” in the text. The myths which evolve as narratives of survival in Morbus Kitahara are social and historical myths which subvert what the text represents as the official history of the time. This subversion of the text’s official history is also effected to a large degree by another juxtaposition of alternative worlds: that of the centre; the brightly lit, consumer paradise of lowland Brand and that of the edge; the dark, barbaric upland region of M oor. Bering, as one of the text’s central characters, represents one example of the human subject who exists in a state of anxiety and paralysis. He is overwhelmed by social isolation and later in the novel realises the ubiquity of human arrogance and the tragic human capacity for forgetfulness. The natural world serves as a memorial to the failure of metanarratives of progress and emancipation, as the protagonists are caught in a cycle of brutality and incomprehension. The aesthetics of humility in the text focuses on the representation of the damage wrought by the abuse of power and the destruction of historical promise. The programmatic attempt by the occupation forces to send Moor “[z]urück in die Steinzeit!” (MK 41) symbolically represents a reversal of history and consequently the failure of the progress metanarrative of history. Chapter Five identifies the “Grundmythen,” which, I argue, structure the three novels, and replace what the texts have shown as the rejected or collapsed metanarratives of modernity. The first “Grundmythos” examined, that of the eternal recurrence, structures all three of the novels. The way in which Mazzini in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis attempts to repeat the experiences of the earlier Arctic expedition already subverts an expectation of the linearity of progress and history and illuminates a sentimentality for lost truths, values and intensities. M azzini’s actions open up to consideration the perception of the mediated and simulated nature of a postmodern existence and an exhaustion of the literary potential of its form. Other structures of repetition and recurrence are observed in both Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara. Cotta’s following of Naso’s path into the last world and into the text of the Metamorphoses results in his becoming part of the cycle of disintegration and transformation in the Letzte Welt text. Morbus Kitahara is a confronting textual evocation of the tragic inability of human society to avoid repeating horrific acts of human cruelty. The myth of an eternal recurrence also emphasises the impossibility of a 16

forward moving, progress-orientated notion of history. The attitudes and events which confront the novel’s protagonists in Moor are replayed in Brazil. The characters seem doomed to repeat and re-live the trauma and inhumanity of the past. Even Lily who escapes the tragedy on Dog Island is symbolically implicated in the never-ending cycle of violence through the proxy murder of M uyra. M uyra’s death illustrates the eternal recurrence of suffering of the innocent as well as the murderous capacity of the human individual. Chapter Six examines another “Grundmythos” representative of the cyclical nature of human existence. A cycle of entropic breakdown, “Untergang” and “Apokalypse” leads into a series of transformations which culminate in the “Verwandlung” of the last world itself. The Metamorphoses text of Ransmayr’s Naso is the last world narrative of human existence, revealing its transience, decline and an ultimate change of form; the death of self for both Naso and Cotta. The dynamic mythic principle of transformation stands in stark contrast to the rigidity of the institutions of repression and control in the Rome of the novel. This contrast is demonstrated through the contrasting imagery of fluidity and fixedness, and the organic and inorganic in the text. I argue that the work of myth once again functions to throw into relief the structures of power which progressively collapse when first principles of rationality are under attack. Myth subverts and erodes rationality and re-imposes a structure based on a cycle of dynamic change which incorporates both destruction and transformation. Naso’s text itself survives in the reality of the last world. However, definitions of apocalypse as a renewing, and of metamorphosis as a liberatory narrative of hope are deceptive. M y examination of both Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara as apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic texts argues for an already-occurred rupture in human events, as Thies’ nightmares and the tragedy of war in Morbus Kitahara suggest. This apocalyptic rupture forces a reviewing of the place and privilege accorded the human subject. I examine in Chapter Seven the way in which the homo homini lupus motif is relevant in all three texts and how it, rather than remaining a motif, is elevated and expanded into a core myth which illuminates the nature of human existence. This “Grundmythos” in Morbus Kitahara reinforces the perception of a pervasive historical pessimism in Ransmayr’s work. The saying favoured by Thies in Die letzte Welt, “der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf,” both illuminates and delineates the character of the “absolutism of reality” which confronts human beings in any age. Morbus Kitahara comprehensively demonstrates the way in which the Hobbesian dictum structures the 17

narrative of existence in post-war Europe. The recognition of human agency and complicity in acts of brutality and cruelty, and the corresponding relationship of perpetrator and victim in Morbus Kitahara is integral to the self-reflection demanded by the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels. Chapter Eight focuses on the narrative of disappearance which is common to each of the novels. The chapter begins by demonstrating the way a return to nature is enacted by the human subject in all three novels. Whether this return to nature is voluntary or involuntary appears immaterial. Whether the explorer actively seeks fame or knowledge in challenging the unknown, or the Roman poet, deprived of power and influence, is sent into exile, or whether the trio from Moor move to the New World, the subject in all three of Ransmayr’s novels inevitably leaves the centre of the civilised world. M y discussion of this return to nature is followed by a commentary on the project of organised disappearance of the M aster of the World which is the focus Ransmayr’s short prose piece, Strahlender Untergang. Strahlender Untergang functions in several ways as a thematic prototype for Ransmayr’s later novels. A brief discussion of Strahlender Untergang focuses on the piece’s critique of scientific modernity and how this is developed through the mythologising of this project. The spirit of the Icarus myth, later illustrated in Arachne’s weavings in Die letzte Welt, is evoked by the ignorance and arrogance of the New Scientists in Strahlender Untergang. The disappearance of the subject in each of Ransmayr’s novels is related to the program of disappearance advocated in Strahlender Untergang. The final discussion in this chapter examines the revelation of “das Wesentliche” in terms of the death of self which occurs at the moment of the “Auflösung” of the central character/s. The author’s perspective in these three novels is a critical one whose focus ranges from general issues of the critique of Western civilisation in modern and postmodern times, to condemnation of the human race’s capacity for destruction and violence. The author’s critique is developed through the juxtaposition of apparently dialectical worlds where the space of myth comes to invade the space of reason over a range of temporalities. The core myths listed above structure a textual reality in the absence of a successful rational framework for interpreting reality. Finally, the human subject is eliminated from each novel end-scenario, thereby reinforcing the texts’ predominantly pessimistic world-view. The human subject’s relocation to the space of the natural world highlights the re-mythologisation of the physical landscape which, in turn, illustrates a perceptual change in the human mindscape. The re-emergence of myth is 18

symbolically implicated in the re-settlement of the human subject from the centre in which the humanist interpretation of existence had placed it. This re-settlement forces a reconsideration of the relationship between the human subject and nature outside of the realm of the centre. The fact that fragmentation, disappearance and death of the self are the physical and symbolic realities for the protagonists in Ransmayr’s novels underscores this radical revisioning of importance of the human individual. Ransmayr’s novels end with a vision of a landscape which is “menschenleer.”44 The project of disappearance, ironically initiated in Strahlender Untergang, is accomplished in the later novels. This project of disappearance is the final component of the aesthetics of humility in the novels and emphasises “das Wesentliche” in Ransmayr’s fiction. In Ransmayr’s novels there is no philosophical or ideological space reserved solely for the human subject. The final scenes in each text show the human subject subsumed within the natural landscape and demonstrate an interconnectedness and cosmological unity reminiscent of an earlier mythic vision of the world.

44 The narrator in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, sits, as does the reader, before a landscape empty of human form, whether that is the empty page or the Arctic ice. In Die letzte Welt all characters are transformed out of human form. The final scene in Morbus Kitahara is of three human corpses on Dog Island, unseen by a passing survey plane.

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CHAPTER ONE.

“Rationalitätsmüdigkeit” and the Re-Emergence of Myth.

Wir fühlen, daß selbst wenn alle möglichen wissenschaftlichen Fragen beantwortet sind, unsere Lebensprobleme noch gar nicht berührt sind. Wittgenstein Tractatus, 6.52

The sense of ending associated not only with the close of a century, but of a millennium, promoted an urgent atmosphere of evaluation in the last decade of the twentieth century. The philosophical and ideological paradigms, the social and economic institutions, and the historical events which have informed modernity1 have come increasingly under critical scrutiny since World War Two. Comments such as the often-quoted Wittgenstein assertion above indicate that prominent thinkers in the Western tradition; theorists and philosophers, have not found satisfactory responses to the essential questions of human existence in the prevailing systems of scientific modernity which have structured Western society since the Enlightenment.2 Christoph Ransmayr has added a critical voice to the addressing of such questions and dissatisfactions in his writing. In Ransmayr’s three novels, a stance critical of scientific modernity is developed by the juxtaposition of worlds informed by Enlightenment/modernity rationality and those animated by the seductive, chaotic energies of myth. It is the initial purpose of this chapter to fix a context of contemporary discourse (predominantly postmodern in nature) which focuses on a disillusionment with the project of scientific modernity and a generalised “Rationalitätsmüdigkeit,” within which Ransmayr’s literary work may be located. Integral to this study of Ransmayr’s work is the recognition of the supposedly dialectical relationship between

1 I define modernity here as the comprehensive designation of all the changes, intellectual, social and political which brought into being the modern world, with specific reference to modernity as a social, economic and political project founded on science, reason, progress and industrialisation. See Krishan Kumar, From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World, (Oxford, UK/Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, 1995) 67. 2 One thinks here of the modernity critique of Kierkegaard, the Marxist reading of capitalism and Nietzsche’s targeting of the ‘theoretic’ man who stood for modern science and rationality. Later, those such as Weber, Adorno and Horkheimer, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard and Deleuze, in their own individual projects, take issue with the totalising and universalising claims of reason- based modernity.

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rational thought and a mythical interpretation of human existence. Following the contextualising of Ransmayr’s writing within the creative stream of anti-modernity discourse, the way in which myth has re-emerged as a focus in contemporary postmodern theoretical discourse and literary production will be discussed.3 In the face of a multiplicity of theorising as to the role and operation of myth in human society over the ages, the work of one contemporary theorist of myth, Hans Blumenberg, is examined in this chapter in terms of its relevance to Ransmayr’s fiction. Blumenberg’s text Arbeit am Mythos is considered particularly important to this Ransmayr study. Blumenberg’s ideas on the function of myth, the mythos/logos relationship, myth’s enduring relevance in human society, and the way core structures of myth capture essential human experiences illuminate the particular way in which myth is used in Ransmayr’s novels. Parts One and Two of Arbeit am Mythos, in particular, provide a useful interpretative framework for examining the work of myth in the three major Ransmayr texts – it serves to illuminate the development in the text of what I have referred to in the Introduction as the aesthetics of humility. To examine the construction of reality in Ransmayr’s text, myth provides an alternative mode of perception which challenges the controlling gaze of modernity by enabling a shift in perceptual perspective.4

A Critical Context for Ransmayr’s Fiction.

Ransmayr’s earlier reportage, his short prose as well as his later fiction may be located within the context of critical disillusionment and exhaustion with the project of scientific modernity. This project, with its roots in Enlightenment philosophy’s belief in the perfectability of humankind, continues to grant reason a privileged status. However

3 A renewed interest in myth, in particular its perceived anti-rational, anti-orthodox, heterogeneous and playful tendencies, sees myth as compatible with the spirit of postmodernism. See, for example, Stefan Greif, “ Der Mythos – Das wilde Denken und die Zukunft,” Pluralismus und Postmodernismus: Beiträge zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der 80er Jahre, ed. Helmut Kreuzer, (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1989); Sigrid Berka, Einleitung: Mythos-Theorie, Strauß-Forschung und Postmoderne, Mythos-Theorie und Allegorik bei Botho Strauß (Passagen Verlag: Wien, 1991) 13-34; and Peter Bachmann, “ Die Auferstehung des Mythos in der Postmoderne. Philosophische Voraussetzungen zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt,” Diskussion Deutsch, 21 (1990): 639-651. 4 Bormann refers to the “ Priviligierung des Auges” and the controlling gaze of modernity in terms of the metaphorics of the Enlightenment philosophy; that is, “ Licht als Erleuchtung.” See Alexander von Bormann, “ Mythos und Subjekt-Uptopie,” L’80, 34 June (1985): 32.

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historical, political, economic, social and ecological crises in the twentieth century have created crises of ideology, of meaning, confidence and control. This has resulted in the critical questioning of rationality as the hegemonic perceptual and conceptual mode of human experience in the late twentieth century. M etanarratives such as history and progress, truth and freedom, reason and revolution, science and industrialism have been viewed with suspicion if not decried as destructive or empty by a vocal selection of critics. 5

Suspicion of Metanarratives.

Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialektik der Aufklärung signalled the course of much of the discourse critical of historical modernity after World War Two. Rather than an Enlightenment-inspired liberation of humankind from fear, in which a sovereignty of reason and rationality would be established, in reality humankind appeared to have sunk into a new form of irrational barbarity. Instead of the social and political emancipation anticipated in the Enlightenment program, the lust for domination that began with the Enlightenment domination of nature was followed by the domination of human beings and of self-domination.6 In the most graphic European examples, the totalitarian regimes of Germany’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union show the extreme to which projects of social and political domination influenced the history of the twentieth century. Adorno and Horkheimer saw the Enlightenment as having been inevitably doomed to turn against itself. In their eyes, the quest for emancipation inevitably turns into a system of universal oppression. They deem the logic behind Enlightenment rationality, therefore, as the logic of domination.7 Adorno and Horkheimer judge the Enlightenment – paradoxically, in light of its initial promise – to be totalitarian.8 Ransmayr’s debt to the Frankfurt School in this particular critique of the West’s Enlightenment heritage can be clearly seen in Die letzte Welt. In this text, Ransmayr represents the fictional world of Augustan Rome as a totalitarian, de-mythologised

5 See footnote 2. For example, metanarratives of progress and emancipation are attacked in the postmodern “ incredulity” of critics such as Jean-François Lyotard. See Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (London: Macmillan, 1991) 166. 6 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1989) 13. 7 Harvey, 13. 8 Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1986) 12.

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society whose members are controlled and repressed by a faceless, mechanistic bureaucracy. Naso (Die letzte Welt’s Ovid) has been exiled to the far reaches of the empire, just as modernity’s deification of reason and science relegated fantasy and imagination to the margins of society.9 The rejection of repressive social and political systems has also been shown clearly in the work of, amongst others, Weber, Marcuse and, later, Foucault. Max Weber’s image of the iron cage of bureaucratic rationality characterises what he sees as the triumph of purposive-instrumental rationality which emerges from Enlightenment principles.10 The “totally administered” society of Adorno and Horkheimer, and Marcuse’s “one dimensional man,” extend the image of the tentacles of administration penetrating into every corner of existence in advanced industrial society.11 Such a vision of the de-personalised mechanism of bureaucracy is repeated in Foucault’s image of the panopticon of institutional surveillance, in a manner reminiscent of George Orwell’s earlier vision of the society of Big Brother. Foucault documents the modern technology of domination which sees the archetype of the closed institution of the asylum echoed in the forms of the factory, the prison, the barracks, the school and the military academy.12 Habermas adds to this assertion that “he [Foucault] perceives [these institutions as] monuments to victory of a regulatory reason that no longer subjugates only madness, but also the needs and desires of the individual organism as well as the social body of an entire population.”13 Such an image of the monumental institution, characterised by its repressive control over a population, is central to Ransmayr’s representation of Augustan Rome in Die letzte Welt. The banishment of the chaotic energies of myth, fantasy and creativity to the periphery of the Roman world and the aestheticisation of myth (into city friezes) indicate the repression and denial of myth as the Other of reason in Ransmayr’s Rome. However, in contrast to the writers mentioned above, Ransmayr does represent in his novel a terrain of the Other where myth does predominate, the last

9 Kumar, 97. 10 Harvey, 15. 11 Joan Alway, Critical Theory and Political Possibilities: Conceptions of Emancipatory Politics in the Work of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas (Westport/Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, 1995) 83. 12 Habermas refers to Foucault’s study of the birth of the psychiatric institution and the clinic in this context. See Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, An Archaelogy of Medical Perception. trans. A.M. Sheridan, (Tavistock Publications: London, 1973). In Jürgen Habermas, “ The Critique of Reason as an Unmasking the Human Sciences: Michel Foucault,” Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate, ed. Michael Kelly (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 53. 13 Habermas, Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate, 53.

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world of Tomi. The extreme forms of repression and domination experienced in the twentieth century have resulted in the shattering of the optimism and confidence of Western society which has confronted the horror of death squads, concentration camps, totalitarian regimes, world war, the collapse of ideological regimes and continuing regional conflict. The crimes against humanity perpetrated in this time show how the techniques of modern industrial mass production have been adapted to the practice of mass murder. The human potential for barbarity continues to re-appear with horrific frequency around the globe. In Ransmayr’s work this barbarity appears in all three novels in the Hobbesian dictum, “der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.”14 Man’s inhumanity to man is demonstrated on both social and historical levels in novels.15 The conflict between members of the Austro-Hungarian Arctic expedition in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis takes on a more extreme form in Die letzte Welt with Thies’ revelations of his experiences in the European war and the narratives of violence related in Tomi. Morbus Kitahara confronts, in its alternative history, the historical role played by the Nazi regime in both Austria as well as Germany in its examination of humankind’s potential for barbaric action in its fictional setting of Moor.16 In the face of the apparent reversion to barbarity in the twentieth century the modern metanarrative of progress is compromised if not overthrown. This metanarrative is attacked from social, economic and political perspectives. Lyotard, for example, specifies not only such defining crises as Auschwitz and Stalin’s gulags but also the recurrent crises of capitalist societies and the events of May, 1968, as ultimately confuting the “metarécits” of human progress.17 Ransmayr’s fiction, in general, reflects a similar rejection of the possibility of human progress. This rejection in Ransmayr’s novels is demonstrated on both thematic and stylistic levels. Stylistically, the privileging of cyclic time and repetition in the texts challenges the modernity perception of time as

14 Ransmayr, Die letzte Welt, 266. See Chapter 7 for my discussion of Hobbes’ homo homini lupus as a “ Grundmythos” of human existence in Ransmayr’s fiction. 15 The chauvinist nominalisation in this description is appropriate within the context of the sexual hegemony of historical modernity and the characterisation used by Ransmayr himself in his novels. 16 The homo homini lupus motif not only recurs in Ransmayr’s own work but also in collections on which he has worked as editor. In Im blinden Winkel: Nachrichten aus Mitteleuropa pessimistic scenarios of the failure of interpersonal relationships, inter-ethnic rivalries and violence are visited in a variety of short texts, for example, Ransmayr’s Przemysl. (WS 199-208). 17 Gianni Vattimo, “ The End of (His)tory,” Zeitgeist in Babel, ed. Ingeborg Hoesterey (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991) 132.

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linear.18 The systems and structures, which have formerly ordered the worlds the author draws, progressively collapse. Away from Europe, the polar expeditions of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis experience the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of darkness and light. An entropic decay characterises both the worlds of Tomi (Die letzte Welt) and Moor (Morbus Kitahara). A linear representation of time appears in these two novels to be forced into reverse. The view of progress in historical modernity was dependent on the veneration of science as the new God and change was to be achieved by a science-driven technology. The development of modern science necessitated the disenchantment of the world. The universe was explained in a strictly mathematical and physical way.19 The privileging of theory, the scientific method, knowledge, reason and logic meant that the status of the scientific system was elevated from the first under the Enlightenment program.20 However, postmodern questionings of metanarratives and systems have resulted in the criticism of the epistemic hegemony of science.21 Postmodern scientific thinking takes into account concepts such as entropy, indeterminacy, probability, relativity, interpretation, chaos and complexity – concepts antithetical to the modern scientific worldview and practice.22 The attack on the epistemic hegemony of modern science is also the premise of Ransmayr’s portrayal of the fate of humankind in his early publication, Strahlender Untergang, where a condemnation of scientific modernity is conveyed through a heavily critical irony. The document purports to reveal the fate of humankind in terms which are simultaneously an indictment of the absurdity with which an obsessive belief in the infallibility of science can end, and a warning of the catastrophic end facing humankind while it actively pursues the technology of destruction. The value of modern technological change is generally attacked in postmodern debate. Rather than the scientific domination of nature promising freedom from

18 This point is discussed in detail both in Chapters 2-4 and later in Chapter 5 of this study. 19 Best and Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 197-202. 20 During the nineteenth century, ‘knowledge’ came to be equated with scientific knowledge and ‘rationality’ with scientific rationality. This view has continued to resonate in our own time in the widespread tendency to regard ‘methodical’, ‘rational’, ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’ as synonyms. See Hans Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, trans. Frederick G Lawrence (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981), 152-156. See also Joseph Federico, Confronting Modernity: Rationality, Science and Communication in German Literature of the 1980s (Columbia: Camden House, 1992) 1. 21 Federico, 2. 22 Best and Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 195.

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scarcity, want and a defence from the arbitrariness of natural calamity,23 the exploitation and increasing destruction of nature, which accelerated in the industrial age, has literally and symbolically cut humankind off from its roots and its traditional origins. Adorno and Horkheimer state that humankind’s assertion of dominance over the natural world has resulted in its increasing alienation from nature, and from itself.24 The modern human being/nature power relationship has become inverted. Far from becoming (and remaining), in chauvinistic terms, master of his domain, advances in technology have transformed the master/inventor into the potential victim.25 One need only contemplate the capacity for destructiveness of post-industrial weaponry (particularly in its nuclear, biological and chemical applications) to see this inversion clearly. The ecological consequences of development and, more blatantly, exploitation have unavoidable consequences for the immediate health and future survival of those all around the globe. In all three of Ransmayr’s novels, the natural world plays a pivotal role in the fate of the human subject. Nature is exploited but capable of rejuvenation and, in anthropomorphic terms, capable of revenge against its tormentor.26 Ransmayr’s early reportage is also strongly focused on issues to do with the natural environment and the effects of its human population upon it.27 M ore insidious are the social and psychological effects of some aspects of late twentieth century technology. Consider the impact of the creation of a cyber-world on its devotees. Virtual reality devices

promise to take individuals into an even higher and more powerful realm of social abstraction such that one may forget that he or she really is interacting with the environment projected by the device, be it a war game or a pornographic fantasy … Indeed, advocates of the superiority of cyberworlds denigrate the body as mere ‘meat’ and real life (‘RL’) as an annoying intrusion into the pleasures of the media and computer worlds of cyberspace.28

23 Harvey, 12 24 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung, 15-17. 25 Such an inversion is also explored in Ransmayr’s Strahlender Untergang. The human guinea pig in the New Science experiments in the African desert is the one-time Master of the World. 26 The way in which nature and the natural world are represented in the three Ransmayr novels is the focus of a discussion of the “ absolutism of reality” which operates in each text See Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of this study. 27 The role of nature and the operation of industry and technology upon it are central issues in a variety of articles published in Ransmayr’s early reportage. See articles such as “ Ein Leben auf Hooge” (WS 9-28), “ Habach” (WS 29-40), “ Kaprun” (WS 75-90) in Der Weg nach Surabaya. 28 Best and Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 89.

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The notion of what is real is relativised by the versatility of technology in providing stimuli to create a simulacrum that is not perceived as such: “[…] the copy (fake) substitutes itself for the real, becomes more real than the real itself.”29 Information technology associated with media reporting may create, in its turn, hyperreal scenarios and “instant history.”30 While Ransmayr’s work does not enter the genre of conventional science fiction and he is uninterested in fictional representations of the hyperreal or cyberreality, his writing reflects a strong concern with the isolating influences of contemporary technologies31 and a growing silence in the sphere of interpersonal relations. His reportage and novels showcase individuals who for the most part are delineated by a general inability to communicate with their fellow human beings on a variety of levels. In Morbus Kitahara, in particular, Bering’s inability to enter dialogue with Ambras symbolises the reluctance of an entire generation to speak of the traumatic experience of war and suffering.32 However the silence into which Ransmayr’s fictional characters fall is also a social state where each character stands essentially isolated from those closest to them. One thinks of Mazzini, whose social isolation is emphasised in the imagery of ice, and Bering whose choked attempts at tenderness are smoothly rebuffed by Lily. Many of Ransmayr’s short prose texts combine the above elements of critique. Comment on the transitoriness of human life and existential issues of social isolation are blended into commentary on technological abuses, the conquest of nature, and the damage caused by pollution and tourism. The role of technology is exposed as problematic, at once opening up the world but cheapening experience in an associated loss of authenticity.33 The problematisation of the construction of reality is not restricted to

29 Here Kumar is referring to the hyperreal in “ such monuments of Americana, as the Hearst Castle at San Simeon [...] Disneyland […] Las Vegas and Los Angeles.” Kumar, 124. 30 See Jean Baudrillard, ‘The Gulf War Did Not take Place,’ trans. Paul Patton (Power Institute, 1995). 31 The impact of technology on the quality of contemporary social experience is also shown in several articles in Der Weg nach Surabaya. See ‘Der Blick in die Ferne: Ablenkung am Rande der Gesellschaft’. The connection between social isolation and the partial overcoming of such by technology, in this case, television, is revealed in several interviews. An ambivalent response is obvious, but the dependence of each interviewee on such technology in the absence of any other gratifying social interaction is undeniable. 32 This absence of dialogue is also central to Ransmayr’s response to Austria’s belated discourse of “ Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” See, for example, in Der Weg nach Surabaya, ‘Die Vergorene Heimat: Ein Stück Österreich’ (WS 41). Karl Piaty of Waidhofen an der Ybbs has captured his life on slides, his “ Lichtbilder.” Memory takes on a political dimension as Piaty’s private museum is seen to recreate his world with one exception. T here is no place for Nazi memorabilia and no slides of the Anschluß years. “ In der Heimat war es immer schön: es wurden Brautbäume und Maibäume errichtet, aber keine Galgen.” (WS 58) 33 See discussion of this point in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis in Chapters 2 and 5.

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examinations of the technological production of the hyperreal and cyber-reality. The discourse of knowledge and power, so strongly critiqued by those such as Lyotard and Foucault, reveals the extent to which Western society appears to have made abstract and remote its potential for rational action. The transformation of the definition, construction and status of knowledge as societies enter the post-industrial age highlights important issues of power and control. The recognition of scientific knowledge as a discourse structured, informed and disseminated by language, linguistics, cybernetics, theories of algebra and informatics, computerisation and general communications technology raises crucial questions as to the selection and control of knowledge.34 This, in turn, problematises the definition and construction of what constitutes reality in postmodern times. In Ransmayr’s work the construction of reality is also very much a function of power relationships, related directly to the prevailing philosophical and political paradigms.35 The process of the collapse of these paradigms in Ransmayr’s novels signifies, however, the possibility and even the desirability of the subversion of these paradigms in the author’s eyes. The general trend in all three novels is towards the collapse of structures, both physical and metaphorical/ideological. The collapse of universalising and unifying concepts of knowledge, truths and values is demonstrated in their radical dismantling by deconstructionalist discourse. The attack on modern notions of totality is spearheaded by those such as Deleuze and Guattari, who, while claiming not to adopt the discourse of postmodernism, seem exemplary representatives of postmodern efforts to dismantle modern beliefs in unity, hierarchy, identity, subjectivity and representation - while celebrating counterprinciples of difference and multiplicity in theory, politics and everyday life.36 The deconstructionist preoccupation with notions of inclusion and exclusion addresses this fear of alterity and signals the inevitability of systems collapse due to an inherent flaw: the ignorance of that which has been excluded.37 Ransmayr’s novels address this notion

34 Lyotard, The Condition of Postmodernity, trans. Bennington and Massumi, 3. 35 Die letzte Welt is the obvious illustration of this point. The way Cotta, for example, responds to his experiences inTomi is informed by his Roman cognitive heritage. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis the colonising vigour which the European explorers bring to the Arctic world of ice illustrates the attitudes and expectations which structure the reality of Western thinking in Europe during the nineteenth century. 36 Their Anti-Oedipus (1983, originally, 1972) is “ a provocative critique of modernity’s discourses and institutions which repress desire and proliferate fascist subjectivities.” Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, (London: Macmillan, 1991) 76. 37 The initial premise of Enlightenment philosophy of a homogeneous unity in human thought is rejected by current discourse which privileges plurality and perspectivism.

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of “Other-ness” in a variety of ways. In each of them, the alternative worlds represented are drawn in terms of a centre and an edge: the centre functions as a locus of self and a perceived normality within the parameters of prevailing hegemonies, with the world of the edge symbolically functioning as its Other. The novels trace a physical and symbolic journey from the centre to/into the Other. This journey has ramifications for the role of myth as it is discussed in later chapters of this study, and also to this study’s observation of the particular aesthetics operating in the three novels.

A Sense of Ending.

The critical observation of the alienation of the individual in postmodern society is perhaps most clearly expressed in Jean Baudrillard’s vision of the masses as passive, inert and silent. According to Baudrillard, the masses have “no history to write … no virtual energies to release … [their] strength … consists in their silence … to absorb …to neutralise.” They want spectacle but are without responsibility or engagement.38 The sense of alienation, observed in the passivity of the masses, is perpetuated in the above-mentioned notion of the hyperreal, of simulacra, the simulation world of media and information technology. Hyperreality structures Baudrillard’s vision of a postmodern world where the concepts and structures informing modernity have disappeared. He confirms the disappearance of the subject, of political economy, of meaning, truth, the social and the real.39 The so-called ‘end’ of production, of the real, the social, history and other features of modernity40 reflect the collapse of modern concepts: their meaning and application are incoherent in a society with “no stable structures, [no] nexuses of causality and events with consequences.”41 A perceived ‘end’ of history is also consistent with the rejection of master narratives of the Enlightenment and modernity. 42 Much contemporary literature, notably German literature of the 1980s, reflects a preoccupation with “Endzeiten” which are grounded in practical observation, not just

38 Jean Baudrillard, “ In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities … Or the End of the Social,” Semiotext(e), 1983, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton and John Johnston, Foreign Agents Series, 2-10. 39 Douglas Kellner, Baudrillard: A Critical Reader, (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994) 1. 40 Best and Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, 133. 41 Best and Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, 133. 42 A concept which Baudrillard has enthusiastically adopted from Elias Canetti. Best and Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, 133.

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theoretical assertion. Whether this “Katastrophenliteratur” works as “grausam und hoffnungslos” or “[geht] spielerisch mit dem Weltuntergang um,”43 it appears to be a response to the fear of an overweening technology and its capacity for destruction in the face of ideological clash and collapse. Cultural chaos, entropy, decay, bombs and rockets, threat of annihilation, nuclear contamination and ecological damage appear as frequent elements, particularly in German literature of the 1980s. Western society represents “die Herren der Apokalypse”44 who will usher in “das moderne Weltende.”45 The final decades of the last century reveal an intensification of the “Krisenbewußtsein 46 des 20. Jahrhunderts.” Much of Ransmayr’s work reflects an “Endzeit” mentality in these terms.47 The apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic atmosphere of Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara are based on observable physical phenomena of the post-industrial age as well as ‘end’-theorising à la Baudrillard. The disappearance of both author (in Die letzte Welt) and subject (in all three texts) is enacted literally, while an end of history in terms of a modern definition occurs in each text (most notably in Morbus 48 Kitahara). The critique initiated by Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialektik der Aufklärung after the horror of World War Two and the Holocaust has continued to resonate in a continuing mood of cultural despair in the final decades of the twentieth century..49 Interest has continued in the dialectical relationship the text examines, as the result of a

43 Volker Lilienthal, “ Irrlichter aus dem Dunkel der Zukunft. Zur neueren deutschen Katastrophenliteratur,” Beiträge zu Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der 80en Jahre, ed. Helmut Kreuzer (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1989) 194. 44 Such a description immediately evokes the image of the “ Herr der Welt” who becomes his own guinea pig in the New Science project of Strahlender Untergang. 45 Volker Lilienthal, “ Irrlichter aus dem Dunkel der Zukunft..,” 217. 46 Seeba refers to Hans Blumenberg’s Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer (1979) in his discussion of the revised role of the spectator in disasters of the twentieth century (here, the sinking of the Titanic.) Whether actual victim or not, we are now all implicated in “ der allgemeine Schiffbruch der Welt.” Hinrich C Seeba, “ Der Untergang der Utopie: Ein Schiffbruch in der Gegenwartsliteratur,” German Studies Review, 4:2 May (1981): 297. 47 Although this present study does not intend to address Ransmayr’s writing as specifically Austrian in character, it is of interest to note, according to the Austrian critic, Robert Menasse, “ daß es in Österreich einen besonderen Hang zu Endzeiten gibt” in consequence of the number of “ends” Austria has experienced during the twentieth century: the end of the Habsburg monarchy, the end of the First Republic, the “ Ständestaat” and Hitler’s “ Ostmark.” This preoccupation has also manifested itself in Austrian literature. Indeed, in Menasse’s eyes, Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt is possibly the definitive Austrian novel in this regard. See Robert Menasse, Das Land ohne Eigenschaften (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1995) 142-3. 48 One could adduce the existence of a certain irony, of course, in these aspects of the texts. 49 Dagmar Barnouw, “ The Power of Paradox: Dialectic of Enlightenment in Postwar Germany,” Die Resonanz des Exils: Gelungene und misslungene Rezeption deutschsprachiger Exilautoren, ed. Dieter Sevin (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992) 219.

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widespread cultural uneasiness and the Western world’s troubled experience of modernity as technocracy and mass culture. The concerns the text raises highlight the growth of disillusionment in the Western world as being intrinsically connected with modernity’s privileging of scientific reason and the impact of technologisation. The perceived instrumentalisation of rationality has effectively destabilised and debased the original Enlightenment project. The distrust and unease which shifting perceptions of meaning, representation, power and reality have promulgated have led to the investigation of other modes of perception and interpretation of the life-experience. A standard way of interpreting the world based on reason, logic and empirical observation has developed its own blind spots. The gaze of modernity has revealed itself to be less than clear-sighted. An alternative way of seeing the world has been reclaimed with the re-emergence of myth. Myth shows its continuing relevancy to an understanding of the human condition and is highlighted in the critical postmodern gaze of the final decades of the twentieth century. The so-called re-mythologisation of the late twentieth century is causally linked to a continuing critique of modernity.

“Vernunft, Geschichte, Fortschritt werden verabschiedet: Mythos ist der neue Wert.”50

An examination by Sabine Wilke of novel best-seller lists, theatre productions, films and exhibitions in the West German cultural scene in the 1980s revealed that “alle genannten Titel und Veranstaltungen in einem entscheidenden Punkt übereinkommen und das ist ihr gemeinsames Interesse an der Wiederbelebung mythischer Stoffe, Räume und Funktionsweisen.”51 If the arts reflect the “Zeitgeist,” the re-emergence of myth suggests that “ein zeittypischer Bewußtseinswandel” has occurred.52 Christoph Ransmayr, too, found his place on the best-seller lists at this time with the publication of Die letzte Welt in 1988. In general, all three of Ransmayr’s novels - albeit in different ways - develop a literary dimension to a “Diskussion über Mythos, Remythisierung, Neoreligiosität und - damit zusammenhängend - über Aufklärung und

50 Fritz J.Raddatz, “ Die Aufklärung entläßt ihre Kinder,” Die Zeit, 29 June – 6 July, 1984. The subtitle from this article is quoted above. See also Lothar Pikulik, “ Mythos und New Age bei Peter Handke und Botho Strauß,” Wirkendes Wort, 2 (1988): 235. 51 Wilke, Poetische Strukturen der Moderne – Zeitgenössische Literatur zu alter und neuer Mythologie, 7. 52 Pikulik, “ Mythos und New Age bei Peter Handke und Botho Strauß,” 235.

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Gegenaufklärung” which has continued unabated in the German speaking literary world for more than a decade.53 Much of Ransmayr’s work (in particular Die letzte Welt) reflects the problematic encapsulated in Adorno and Horkheimer’s frequently quoted “Schon der Mythos ist Aufklärung, und: Aufklärung schlägt in Mythologie zurück” - a statement which, as noted above, informs a wider critique of modernity and culture and continues to be controversial. Responses to the ambivalent nature of the “Mythos/Aufklärung” dialectic and of the renaissance of myth are not indicative of a phenomenon restricted to the late twentieth century, but have certainly intensified in the period since World War Two.54 This ambivalence is also reflected in Ransmayr’s writing, in particular the novels Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt.55 The intensified critique of instrumentalised rationality has certainly contributed to the high profile reassumed by myth.56 In this way one can see myth’s re-emergence into theoretical discussion and aesthetic production as primarily achieved by default; by the above-mentioned failure of scientific rationality to promote a sense of well-being and hope for the future for the human race. As Hüppauf asserts, “Das 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, reich an Enttäuschungen, Melancholie und Untergangstimmungen, sind gerade von ihr [der dunklen Seite der Mythen] fasziniert.”57 Certainly, the realisation that scientific reason has been unable to serve and satisfy earlier claims made by Enlightenment thinkers has re-opened to consideration other strategies which have addressed the problems of human existence. As one of these other strategies, myth has been used to make sense of human experience since earliest times. Despite the impact on the Western world of Christianity and the de-mythogising impulse which informed the philosophy of the Enlightenment, myth has continued to play a unique role in the creation of meaning in human society. While myth’s importance in human society had not been in dispute (Nietzsche, for example, viewed

53 Herwig Gottwald, “ Mythos und Mythisches in der Gegenwartsliteratur: Studien zu Christoph Ransmayr, Peter Handke, Botho Strauß, George Steiner, Patrick Roth, Robert,” Stuttgarter Arbeiten für Germanistik, ed. U. Müller, 33 (1996) Foreword 1. 54 Wilke examines this “ Mythenrenaissance” from Schegel und Schelling, through Marx, Bloch, Nietzsche, Freud, Thomas Mann, Ernst Cassirer, Broch to Adorno and Horkheimer. Wilke, 7-37. 55 See Chapters 2 and 3 of this study. 56 Religion, specifically Christianity in this Western context, has also contributed to a re-emergence of myth. Its promise to create peace, harmony and salvation through faith in God has also been undermined by the crises of the twentieth century. 57 Bernd Hüppauf, ‘Mythisches Denken und Krisen der deutschen Literatur und Gesellschaft,’ Mythos und Moderne: Begriffe und Bild einer Rekonstruktion, ed. Karl Heinz Bohrer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983) 509.

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myth as the “Kraftquelle jeder Kultur”58) its role in the modern age appeared limited to the aesthetic imagination, with no relevance in a practical reality shaped by a philosophy of scientific rationality.59 In a rational system based on definitions and logic, myth appears to be an amorphous, constantly transforming entity, unable to be pinned down by any precise definition or subsumed by any monolithic theory. Has the Enlightenment’s programmatic attempt to demystify the world, to dissolve myth led to the modernist/postmodernist sense of dislocation and alienation? Is the Western world in the late twentieth century still experiencing what Nietzsche saw as the “Verlust der mythischen Heimat, des mythischen Mutterschoßes”? 60 M uch of the appeal of myth seems to lie in its echoes of a Golden Age, of an “Ur-paradies,” a realm of unity, of a nurturing and harmonious balance between humankind and nature, which has been lost in the modern, scientific attempt at the domination of nature. What can myth offer to human society? M yth provides an alternative framework for the interpretation of human existence, a structure which shapes and secures human existence. M anfred Frank attributes to myth a much needed “stabilisierende und tröstende Funktion.”

Der Mythos ist ‘die feste Burg’ oder wie Hegel sagt, ‘das gesicherte Asyl’, in dessen symbolischer Gewißheit die allgegenwärtige Tragik intersubjektiver Kollisionen und die Auflösung aller menschlichen Begebenheiten und Verhältnisse erst erträglich werden.61

M yth made life bearable for humanity in its separation from the cosmos when the perception of a differentiation between subject and object initiated the experience of “Negativität der Entzweiung”62. If humanity still finds itself “orientierungslos und handlungsunfähig,”63 in the late twentieth century, a different way of perceiving reality may indeed be the consequence of a renewed privileging of myth. However this approach to myth fails to make understandable other ways in which myth has operated in twentieth century society.

58 Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke, I, (München: K.Schlechta, 1973) 125. See also Bohrer, Mythos und Moderne: Begriffe und Bild einer Rekonstruktion, 47. 59 C.G.Jung’s use of myth in the practice of psychoanalysis would be an exception here. 60 Nietzsche claims his time was characterised by this loss. Nietzsche, Werke, I, ed. K.Schlechta, 125. See also Bohrer, Mythos und Moderne: Begriff und Bild einer Rekonstruktion, 47. 61 F. Bassenge ed. Ästhetik (Berlin: 1955) 1084. Cited by Manfred Frank, Der kommende Gott, Vorlesungen über die neue Mythologie,(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1982) 110. 62 Frank, Der kommende Gott,104-106. 63 Bohrer, Mythos und Moderne, 122.

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Ein heller - oder ein dunkler – Mythos?

Myth is by nature complex and protean.64 As the traditional antithesis to the privileged logos of modern society, myth has stood condemned as the irrational face of pre- civilised human communities. It had to avert its dark and fantastical face from the blinding light of the Enlightenment, but surprisingly was never able to be exiled completely. It spoke again in the voice of the Romantics but was later kidnapped for political purposes. In a century shaped (and distorted) by totalitarian regimes and their ideologies, myth was indicted by the twentieth century as an accomplice in political and social deception. The manipulation of blood and race myths by fascist ideology and the horror with which myth became associated seemed to preclude a rehabilitation of myth at end of the Second World War. If there could be no more poetry or philosophy after Auschwitz, how could there be myth? Until the 1950s and 1960s myth was perceived in this way, as “irrational, vorlogisch, exotisch, grausam.”65 In the years immediately following World War Two it seemed impossible that another mythic tradition “mit einem leichterem, auch leicht spielerischen Umgang mit dem Leben, der Lockerung und der Phantasie in ihrem Verhältnis zur Wirklichkeit” should reappear. In fact,

Heiterkeit und Gelassenheit waren dem mythischen Denken seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts abhanden gekommen, seit der Mythos, von Heyne bis Hegel, als Unfähigkeit zur Reflexion, als Vorstufe der kultivierten Geschichte und allgemeine Ohnmacht der Menschen angesichts der sie umgebenden Natur und Geschichte verstanden wurde.66

However this “dunkler Mythos” with its primitive, and later contemporary-fascist, connotations has been rivalled by a call for a revived and transformed “heller Mythos.” Frank, for example, sees myth reassuming a role, not just in poetry or art, but in a social

64 “ Was der Mythos sei, kann man angesichts dieser Sachlage nur noch mit einem Mythos beantworten: er ist ein Proteus; er kann sich schlechtweg in alles verwandeln und in allem offenbaren.” Manfred Fuhrmann, “ Mythos und Herrschaft in Ch. Wolfs Kassandra und Ch. Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” Altsprachliche Unterricht, 2 (1994): 11. 65 Greif, “ Der Mythos – Das Wilde Denken und die Zukunft,” 104. 66 Hüppauf, ‘Mythisches Denken und Krisen der deutschen Literatur und Gesellschaft” Mythos und Moderne: Begriffe und Bild einer Rekonstruktion, 510.

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dimension. He sees Dionysos as “der kommende Gott” and refers back to Nietzsche’s assertion that “das Dionysische” had already twice rescued reason from nihilism, which was “das innere Ziel des Aufklärungsprozesses, dessen Morgendämmerung während der Neuzeit sich sehen ließ.”67 Frank sees the Dionysian, that is, Dionysos as the “Gott des Rauschs und der unkontrollierten Begeisterung,” as regaining relevance in the twentieth century characterised by its “Sinnkrise” and its exhaustion with rationality. Myth is generally defined in terms of its Otherness to reason. Its flexibility and its relativism are distinctly alien to the reason, logic, laws and order characteristic of modernity. M yth’s contrasting characteristics are consistent with the paradigm shift from those of the Enlightenment and modernity, to those of postmodernity which is characterised by perspectivism, relativism, plurality and fluidity. In the last decades of the twentieth century, myth has been viewed as a positive, creative source by the postmodern. Its fluidity and fantasy, its proclivity to play and variety, flexibility and relativism have attracted searchers seeking a new aesthetic. By the early 1970s myth was seen primarily as “erzählbar.” “Die Depotenzierung von Wirklichkeit spendet Vertrauen, wenn die Götter zum Erzählgegenstand geworden sind.” Postmodern theoreticians see myth as “ein großes Erzählsystem, als einen ästhetischen und Wirklichkeit vielfaltig erfassenden Rahmen, dem eine anti-rationale, anti-utopische, undogmatische und spielerisch-erzählende Grundhaltung eigen sein soll.”68 The emphasis on form rather than content in postmodern discourse also emphasises myth’s role as an “Erzählgerüst.” Myth is viewed in these terms as open, tolerant and friendly which contrasts with its darker manifestation. Greif takes issue with Hans Blumenberg on this point. “Ein so ‘humaner’ und freundlicher Mythos […] scheint mir für die lange Geschichte des mythischen Denkens unglaubwürdig. Darüber belehrt schon ein Blick etwa ins Alte Testament, wo von so vielen Opfern, Morden und Kriegen die Rede ist.” He asserts that myth’s tolerance and openness was apparent (as Blumenberg also believed) in the transition from “Mythos zur Kunst” in the late-Hellenistic period – and this quality of myth should be specifically noted as time-specific. From this point it is clear that different epochs may relate to either one of these two concepts of myth, that is, as “hell” or “dunkel.” The emphasis on the revelation of myth as/in art is characteristic of myth’s

67 Manfred Frank, Der kommende Gott: Vorlesungen über die Neue Mythologie, 12. 68 Greif, “ Der Mythos – Das Wilde Denken und die Zukunft,” 103.

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re-emergence in the postmodern.69 The contemporary judgement of myth’s openness and playfulness is consistent with myth’s free and flowing narrative potential: “Der M ythos besitzt eine starke Sensibilität für die lebendige, durch keinen Gedanken zu erschöpfende Fülle der Welt.”70 M yth is “ein spielerischer Gestus,” fascinating because it is “nur gespielt, durchgespielt, nur momentan geglaubt.”71 Myth does not explain anything, but it acts as though it does. With beauty and convincing persuasion it binds the interest of the listener (or reader) and neutralises inquiries.72 The conception of myth as both “dunkel” and “hell” shows that the nature of myth cannot be definitively confined to one particular aspect of human experience, negative or positive, in its social, political, historical or the aesthetic manifestations.73 Myth permeates human experience and human aesthetic production. When addressing the role of myth in any single context it is almost impossible to omit its other manifestations. To examine the role of myth in any piece of work it is essential to be aware of the multiplicity of concepts of myth which abound. Apart from the generic meaning of myth as ‘story’, nothing about the definition of myth is simple. There is an exceedingly wide area of scholarly interest in the phenomenon of myth; for example, in the history of religion, philosophy of religion, psychology of religion, philology, history of philosophy, classics, sociology, cultural, anthropology, psychoanalysis and history. Because of this, there exists a degree of confusion as to whether myth should be considered as a kind of story, a work of art, a way of thinking or living or a peculiar form of interpretation.74 What is clear is that the

69 Greif, 105. 70 Kurt Hübner, Die Wahrheit des Mythos (München, 1985) 279. See Greif, 106. 71 Hans Blumenberg, “ Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Wirkungspotential des Mythos,” Terror und Spiel: Probleme der Mythenrezeption, Poetik und Hermeneutik, ed. Manfred Fuhrmann (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1971) 18. 72 Greif, 105 73 This distinction between myth as story in a social, political, historical context and myth as story as an aesthetic product (and their ability to merge) can be seen in the following example. Austria, as an imperial and national entity in the twentieth century has actively endorsed a “ Habsburgermythos,” an “ Opfermythos” and later in the Second Republic, a “ Sozialpartnerschaftmythos,” which reflect the political and social realities of a particular time in history. Considering the metamorphoses that Austria as a political and social entity has undergone in the twentieth century, the preoccupation of Austrian writers with myth and associated notions of the reworking of identity is hardly unexpected. Under the call for an honest “ Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” it appeared that “ die Dichtung [trat] in die Rolle einer neuen Mythologie […]. Die Mythen werden nun bewußt an die Erfahrungen der 80er Jahre angesetzt, wurden als ‘Arbeit an der Geschichte‘ verstanden […] Die Mythen […] erzählen Geschichten, welche den Zusammenhang der großen Welt mit der eigenen, kleinen verständlich machen.” See Klaus Zeyringer, ‘“ Kein schöner Land’ und ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt’ Tendenzen österreichischer Literatur der 80er Jahre,” Acta Germanica, 4, Die Zeit und die Schrift (Szeged, 1993) 21. 74 Joseph P. Kockelmanns, “ On Myth and its Relationship to Hermeneutics.” Cultural Hermeneutics 1

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production of myth in whatever form is a human response to a perceived reality. Myth serves to explain a perceived reality, structure it, justify it and/or relieve it.75 Conceptions of myth which see it as liberatory and/or fantastical, or repressive and deceptive, “hell” or “dunkel,” indicate the complexity of charting a course through the way myth is used in Ransmayr’s work. However it is also this complexity which underlies the power of his vision of the human condition in the Western world in the late twentieth century. The world has been declared to be the text, and myth in Ransmayr’s novels permeates each text and re-mythologises the world it draws. The primary manifestations of myth in the three novels are, firstly, as narratives of explanation which are Other to those determined by a hegemonic, rationalist ideological or philosophical system and secondly, as the re-working of extant myths in a playful postmodern manner (Die letzte Welt). This is precisely the approach adopted by one of the major theorists of myth writing in the second half of the twentieth century, Hans Blumenberg, when he distinguishes between the work of myth and work on myth.76 This study uses certain key elements of Blumenberg’s writings on myth as parts of a theoretical framework for this present study: they provide interpretative guidelines for the examination of the role myth plays in developing the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels.77 These elements in Blumenberg’s writings on myth will be examined in the following section.

Hans Blumenberg and Arbeit am Mythos.

This section focuses on three main aspects of Blumenberg’s writing on myth in Arbeit am Mythos. Firstly, Blumenberg defines myth as one strategy among others, including

(1973): 48-49. 75 The complexity of the theorising on the nature of myth is also demonstrated by G.S. Kirk in The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974). He speaks in Chapter 5 of five monolithic theories of myth, referring to nature myths (Max Müller), aetiological myths, Malinowski’s myths as charters, Mircea Eliade’s creation myths, and myth as ritual. He further discusses myth as the product of the psyche, referring to Freud, Jung and Cassirer, Levi-Strauss and Kluckhohn. See also G.S.Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and other Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). The structuralist reading of myth by Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes’ reading of myth as a semiological system also inform a diverse discourse on the nature of myth as a linguistic phenomenon which is revealed not only in speech and written text but in the visual texts of both high and low culture. See also Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (London: Vintage, 1972). 76 The distinction between these two terms will be discussed in the following section. 77 Blumenberg’s Arbeit am Mythos is an extremely dense text with much learned and detailed discussion of myth, scientific rationality, philosophy, religion and literature. Of primary relevance to this study, however, are the definitions and discussion in Parts 1 and 2 of the text.

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reason, which has resulted from humankind’s attempt to survive in the face of a threatening reality. His discussion of the relationship between myth and reason locates his writings on myth within topical parameters indicated in the second half of the twentieth century by Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialektik der Aufklärung. Secondly, Blumenberg explains the endurance of myth over time, despite the so-called demythologisation effected by the Enlightenment’s advocation of scientific rationality as the guiding societal paradigm of historical modernity. This explanation is related, thirdly, to Blumenberg’s discussion on the work of myth; that is, its role and purpose in human society, regardless of whether the society is archaic or contemporary. Blumenberg’s writings on the work of myth are central to my study of Ransmayr’s novels. The discussion in following chapters is ordered around the key terms, the “Absolutismus der Wirklichkeit,” “Bedeutsamkeit” and “Grundmythen” which are defined in the following pages. By focusing on the work of myth in Ransmayr’s novels, this study is different to most critical literature which discusses Ransmayr’s writing (in reference to Die letzte Welt in particular) as work on myth, that is, the re-working of extant myth narratives in an aesthetic context. Therefore, Blumenberg’s discussion of the work on myth is defined only briefly in this section and treated as a minor focus in the later examination of Ransmayr’s novels. Blumenberg’s innovative discussion of “bringing myth to an end” is also examined briefly in this section to complete an overall picture of the ideas presented in Arbeit am Mythos. Blumenberg provides a new and challenging insight into the continued existence of myth in the last decades of the twentieth century. He has been recognised as a philosopher of major status with the publication of Die Legitimität der Neuzeit in 1966. For example, Robert Wallace, who has translated both Die Legitimität der Neuzeit and Arbeit am Mythos into English, asserts that “Blumenberg has a great deal to offer to anyone who wants to understand the relations between thought and imagination that are manifested in modern literature, as well as in modern philosophy.” 78 In Arbeit am Mythos Blumenberg seeks to identify the “continuing role and character of myth in human life,” by examining how highly literate, more developed societies, rather than traditional societies, use myth.79 Why have myths not simply

78 Robert Wallace, “ Introduction to Blumenberg,” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies, 32, Spring-Summer (1984): 93. 79 Bernard Yack, “ Myth and Modernity: Hans Blumenberg’s Reconstruction of Modern Theory,”

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disappeared in the advance of secular, scientific rationality? Why has their fascination remained? Is it true that “myth’s modern survival [is] evidence of its being … inherent in human nature and even, given its seemingly greater antiquity and ubiquity, of its being more fundamental to human nature than our [‘surface’] rationality.”80 Blumenberg’s answer to these questions is found in the philosophical anthropology developed in his discussion on the work of myth in Part One of Arbeit am Mythos. Blumenberg’s Arbeit am Mythos has been seen as “eine Antwort auf die Dialektik der Aufklärung,” Adorno and Horkheimer’s attempt to determine why “die Menschheit anstatt in einen wahrhaft menschlichen Zustand einzutreten, in eine neue Art von Barbarei versinkt.”81 Blumenberg’s text, according to Yack, is “an answer to a variety of claims, similar to Adorno and Horkheimer’s, that the Enlightenment sets in train a dialectical process that ultimately defeats its aim in both theory and practice.”82 Both these critics see the role and relevance of myth as being found in its subversive qualities, its ability to infiltrate and destabilise Enlightenment assertions and certainties. While the subversive dimension of myth in this context is undeniable, Blumenberg’s undertaking in Arbeit am Mythos appears more in the order of overcoming a perceived antithesis between rationality and myth. He does this by showing that, rather than being incompatible, rationality and myth are both “indispensable aspects of the comprehensive effort that makes human existence possible.”83 In fact, the relationship between mythos and logos, which explains the phenomenon of the continued existence of myth in human society, is indicated by Blumenberg’s reading of myth as itself being a work of logos. Further connections between myth and reason are developed in Blumenberg’s philosophical anthropology, in which he traces human society’s strategies of psychic survival in conditions of existential threat similar to the human animal’s attempt at physical survival under conditions of external physical extremity.

Overcoming the “Absolutismus der Wirklichkeit.”

The problem which it is myth’s function to address, the “Absolutismus der

Political Theory, May (1987): 246. 80 Robert Wallace, T ranslator’s Introduction. In Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: MIT Press, 1985) viii. 81 Christa Bürger, “ Arbeit an der Geschichte,” Mythos und Moderne, ed. Karl Heinz Bohrer, 493. 82 Yack, 244-259. 83 Wallace, T ranslator’s Introduction, Work on Myth, viii.

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Wirklichkeit,” is a situation in which “der Mensch die Bedingungen seiner Existenz annähernd nicht in der Hand hatte und, was wichtiger ist, nicht in seiner Hand glaubte.”84 As one of a number of strategies with a logical character which are directed at reducing an “absolutism of reality” the work of myth is to gain distance from and to deplete the superior power of the Other in whatever form the Other may take - on either the physical or psychical horizon of human experience. M yth acts “to reduce the absolutism of reality, by creating a ‘breathing space’ in which human beings can also deal with the practical side of the challenge of survival by (among other things) cultivating the rational comprehension and control of specific natural phenomena.”85 Blumenberg begins Arbeit am Mythos with an examination of how myth, as well as reason, functions to achieve the “Beherrschung der Wirklichkeit” that will enable humankind’s survival. Blumenberg examines the human response to this “absolutism of reality” by initially tracing an anthropological explanation for the development of myth. The human animal leaves the protection of an environment to which it has adapted for a wider horizon of perception, for example, leaving the protection of the rainforest for the savanna lands. Initially this movement is a response to the pressure to survive, rather than being driven by curiosity, pleasure in discovery or new perspectives as it later comes to be.86 In Blumenberg’s explanation, the open horizon, both literally and symbolically, represents the sum total of all possible threats to the human animal. The “absolutism of reality” poses the fundamental danger to the human animal’s capacity for survival. The point comes at which the human being, as a creature who flees danger, has to stand his/her ground and fight, or avoid the danger by anticipating it.87 A constant openness to tension and anxiety produces a necessity to act episodically in order to reduce the excitement and suspense. An existential panic or paralysis results when this great anxiety is sustained over long periods. M yth’s role, as seen by Blumenberg, is to overcome, or at least check the fear of an overwhelming reality by rationalising the fear, by giving it a name and making it

84 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 9. 85 Wallace provides a concise and informative overview of Blumenberg’s main argument in Arbeit am Mythos in his Translator’s Introduction, Work on Myth, xi. 86 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 10. 87 Gusdorf’s suggestion that myth has a biological role of protection against anxiety anticipates some initally similar suggestions by Blumenberg. However Gusdorf sees myth as an antidote to distress caused by humankind’s loss of conditions of unity, conciliation and reconciliation. These must been spoken about and re-enacted because they are no longer experienced. Kockelmans, 68.

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personal, “occupying” it with the familiar. Such an “occupation” would be the beginning of the reduction of the “absolutism of reality” – a movement towards the 88 desirable state of feeling “in der Welt heimisch zu sein.” Such an attempt at “occupation” for a similar purpose is equally relevant in all societies throughout history and particularly so in contemporary Western society whose sense of anxiety and alienation has been heightened by particular social and political phenomena in the twentieth century. Blumenberg’s notion of the work of myth as an attempt to master an “absolutism of reality” is effectively applicable to the functioning of both myth and rationality in the Ransmayr texts. The three novels involve journeys from the known into the unknown, driving the development of the centre-edge dialectic in the texts. Characters are confronted by new horizons of experience. Transitional spaces must be crossed and the unknown confronted by strategies of familiarisation. However such a movement into the unknown is stamped with fear and anxiety, even when the act is voluntary. In Ransmayr’s three novels, the physical unknown is an extreme natural landscape on the horizon of contemporary knowledge and experience. The extremity of the natural world in the ice and darkness of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis is the antithesis of the centre in ordered and civilised Vienna. In Die letzte Welt the edge of the Roman Empire is the alien, wild, chaotic world of Tomi and Trachila. Moor in Morbus Kitahara is a desolate, decaying, abandoned world, kept in isolation by the natural barrier of the “Steinernes M eer.” Individual characters face an overwhelming “absolutism of reality” which is constructed either by a physical reality created by an extreme, at times abnormal external natural world, or an existential state promoted by the character’s entry into a world psychically alien, or by an anxiety induced by an inherited historical reality. An equally traumatising reality is also produced by the threatening inner nature of humankind itself.89 The individual in contemporary twentieth century society is seen to exist in a state of anxiety and fear in the face of an “absolutism of reality” just like his/her primitive counterpart. However, the quality of

88 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 127. 89 The Hobbesian dictum, homo homini lupus or “ Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf,” reflects a status naturalis common to the existential vision of both Blumenberg and Ransmayr. “ [T]he status naturalis to which Blumenberg compares the “ absolutism of reality” is not primarily Locke’s or Rousseau’s “ state of nature,” for example, but rather Hobbes’s.” See Wallace, T ranslator’s Introduction, Work on Myth, xv. In Die letzte Welt Thies comes to a similar conclusion about the natural state of the human race after witnessing the violence and cruelty perpetrated in the European war before he flees to Tomi. (LW 266)

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the contemporary “absolutism of reality” may be radically different depending on the origin and character of the threat and danger perceived.

Naming and Storytelling.

Apart from earlier strategies of “occupation” such as the projection of images (in cave paintings, for example), other methods to reduce an “absolutism of reality” proved effective for primitive groups. The reduction of anxiety caused by the unknown could also be achieved by the process of naming.

Die generelle Spannung muß immer wieder reduziert werden auf Abschätzung besonderer Faktoren. Anders nämlich in der Sprache des Neurologen Kurt Goldstein ausgedrückt, heißt dies, daß Angst immer wieder zur Furcht rationalisiert werden muß, sowohl in der Geschichte der Menschen wie in der des Einzelnen. Das geschieht primär nicht durch Erfahrung und Erkenntnis, sondern durch Kunstgriffe, wie den der Supposition des Vertrauten für das Unvertraute, der Erklärungen für das Unerklärliche, der Benennung für das Unnennbare … Durch Namen wird die Identität solcher Faktoren belegt und angehbar gemacht, ein Äquivalent des Umgangs erzeugt.90

Franz Rosenzweig’s description of the process of naming as an “Einbrechen des Namens in das Chaos des Unbenannten”91 intimates the structuring and ordering function of naming. The name begins an act of “addressing” that continues with the attempt to exercise influence over what has been named. What is identified by name loses its unfamiliarity in its use in metaphor and is made popularly accessible by the telling of stories. The telling of stories makes possible a weakening of an overwhelming reality. “Jede Geschichte macht der blanken M acht eine Achillesferse.”92 Panic and paralysis are dissolved when certain factors become calculable and regulated by name and story, in magic and ritual. Blumenberg examines in detail the power of the process of naming, for example, in the giving of names in the biblical story of Paradise.93 The name was vital in this religious context. God wanted to be known, but power was held by those who knew His name but kept it secret. Even the language of God itself “hat keine Grammatik. Sie

90 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 11-12. 91 Cited by Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 22 92 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 22 93 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 40-67.

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besteht nur aus Namen.”94 Blumenberg extends his thesis by seeing in the power of naming the faith that underlies all magic and also the beginnings of science. This faith consists in the belief that the suitable naming of things will suspend the enmity between the unknown and humankind, creating a relationship of serviceability between the two. Fear that finds a name and enters language has already been endured.95 However the importance of naming has not been restricted to myth and religion. In pointing out the accomplishments of the giving of names in the realm of scientific empiricism (for example in biological classification, with reference to Linnaeus in particular), Blumenberg states that “die Neuzeit ist die Epoche geworden, die abschließend für alles einen Namen gefunden hatte.”96 What science repeats in such an act has already been acted upon by myth. Myth tells the story of the origin of the first names “aus der Nacht, aus der Erde, aus dem Chaos.”97 The stories that result provide reassurance that early dread is resolved with the depletion of the power of unknown forces. Reassurance also comes with the listing and cataloguing of names that fill up the empty spaces of time between important stories. To illustrate, Blumenberg offers examples such as biblical genealogies and poetic epics. Such catalogues create confidence that the world and all its powers are known. The process of equipping the world with names is a system of ordering in which the undivided is divided and the unclassified is classified, thereby making the intangible tangible, even if not fully comprehensible. First impressions indicate a similar preoccupation with naming in all three Ransmayr novels. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Julius Payer, co-leader of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition of 1872-4 obsessively names the features of an alien and unknown Arctic landscape. In a more sedate fashion Weyprecht also observes, names and records the scientific phenomena of their expedition. The importance of the name is transformed in Payer’s symbolic search for his own name, in the pursuit of fame in the alien Arctic space. A century later the young traveller Mazzini, in seeking to re-mythologise his late twentieth century world, also attempts to find a name for himself, an identity which is consistent with his re-writing of history into personal stories of adventure and discovery.

94 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 43 95 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 41 96 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 45 97 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 45.

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Die letzte Welt is a novel in which the landscape is literally as well as figuratively festooned with tags, labels, signs and names of all sorts. When Cotta leaves Rome to search for his poet-hero Naso, he seeks the great man whose name has come to stand for individuality, resistance and change in Rome. In doing this Cotta also seeks his own name and his own fame, should he locate Naso and the Metamorphoses text. The final scene of the novel shows Cotta searching madly for an echo of his name which will grant him a place in a world scheme which is ultimately shaped by Naso’s Metamorphosis text and the transforming principle that drives it. The name that is sought in Morbus Kitahara is the identity of the disease which has led to the physical deterioration of Bering’s eye-sight. In reality, Bering seeks a name for the existential condition of a generation born post-war. His medical diagnosis presents him with a label, but in this case, naming does not alleviate the “absolutism of reality” which denotes a symbolic blindness associated with the historical reality of both Moor and Brand. In all three novels, the name and the story are sought as strategies to aid in the reduction of an “absolutism of reality” present in both de-mythologised and re- mythologised societies. The act of naming and storytelling, and its success or particularly its failure in reducing the “absolutism of reality,” become in Ransmayr’s fictive worlds a means of developing a critique of the society in which individual characters live.

Terminus a quo versus terminus ad quem.

Another key aspect of Blumenberg’s work of relevance to an examination of Ransmayr’s texts includes the viewing of myth from its point of departure, its terminus a quo rather than its point of termination, its terminus ad quem. Such a perspective problematises an accepted progression from mythos to logos.98 Blumenberg examines myth from the perspective of the Enlightenment, which saw myth as essentially frivolous. He observes that Enlightenment thinkers judged myth from its point of termination, its terminus ad quem, rather than myth’s point of departure, its terminus a quo, which presupposes a distinct mythos/logos progression. Blumenberg rejects the idea of such a mythos/logos linear progression, a notion still adhered to in 1931 by those

98 Kirk also questions the process by which Greek myth gave way to philosophy and concludes that there “ was no simple and uninterrupted progress from the irrational to the rational, from dreams to logic, from the visual to the conceptual, from darkness to light.” See G.S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths, 302.

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such as Ernst Cassirer.99 Rather than speaking of the origin of myth (which he asserts cannot be known), Blumenberg speaks of a state of “Vorvergangenheit,” a state that promoted the emergence of the mythic response. Blumenberg examines other human responses to this state besides myth. For example, the protophilosopher also attempts to play the role taken by myth. This is done through discussion and attempted explanation of uncanny and unfamiliar phenomena, in order to deplete myth’s power.100 Using the example of Plutarch’s eclipse anecdote, Blumenberg asserts that,

Die Grenzlinie zwischen Mythos und Logos ist imaginär und macht es nicht zur erledigten Sache, nach dem Logos des Mythos im Abarbeiten des Absolutismus der Wirklichkeit zu fragen. Der Mythos selbst ist ein Stück hochkarätiger Arbeit des Logos.101

The ability of theory to forewarn and provide foreknowledge shows also how an extraordinary phenomenon can be made normal by the application of a rule. The fact that theory is a more effective means of mastering the episodic terror of recurring events does not detract from the realisation that millennia have passed in which the work of myth has already acted to deplete the terror produced by such events. Blumenberg states that the formula “vom M ythos zu Logos” is classical disinformation (and sees it dormant in Plato’s indecision between mythos and logos) because myth should be recognised as one of the “Leistungsformen des Logos.”102 He asserts that to believe there was at some point a “leap forward” (“Fortsprung”) assumes that something has been pushed into the past, while the present and future must be characterised by “steps forward” (“Fortschritte”). In fact, while the demands established by myth had been fulfilled by it, those same demands had still to be fulfilled by theory. “Die Theorie sieht im Mythos ein Ensemble von Antworten auf Fragen, wie sie selbst es

99 See Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der Symbolischen Formen, (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer Verlag, 1931). 100 As a further example of the requirement for explanation or interpretation that phenomena on an unexplored horizon of experience require to free humankind from fear, Blumenberg draws on the eclipse anecdote from Plutarch’s biography of Pericles. The terror of the steersman as his world goes dark is converted into a familiar darkness when Pericles lays the man’s cloak over his eyes. Pericles sought to free the man from fear by explanation through analogy – where was the difference between what had happened to the man and what had happened to the sun? But Blumenberg makes the point that the steersman was also probably calmed by the fact he paradoxically could no longer see the eclipse that had frightened him. See Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 17-18. 101 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 18. 102 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 34.

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ist oder sein will. Das zwingt sie bei Ablehnung der Antworten zu Anerkennung der Fragen.”103 Theory is forced to reoccupy the identical systematic positions it wants to avoid and must address old questions by finding new answers, after rejecting, on the basis of theory, the answers which myth had already supplied.

The Persistence of Myth.

The pride of modernity rested in the belief that scientific reason would eliminate myth, dogma and prejudices. But Enlightenment philosophy could not accomplish this. It had not recognised how a specific set of emotional and intellectual needs, associated with the contents of myth, had been satisfied by myth. In their self-importance the Enlightenment philosophers overlooked the fact that the antithesis between myth and reason is a late and poor invention. Furthermore, they failed to realise the rational function of myth in overcoming an archaic unfamiliarity of the world. Blumenberg looks to Romanticism to identify some of the ways in which myth was not eradicated in the de-mythologising fervour of Enlightenment philosophy. Romanticism argues that the truth could not be as young as the Enlightenment wanted to represent it as being. Against the unseriousness of myth Romanticism asserts the seriousness of the conjecture that in myth there is hidden “die verkannte Konterbande einer frühesten Offenbarung an die Menschheit, vielleicht der paradiesischen Erinnerung.”104 In names, the original language of myth had left behind something of its paradisiac immediacy. In believing this, Romanticism re-evaluates the Enlightenment’s idea that myths were stories from the childhood of the human race; that is, that they were calculated to appeal to an as yet unilluminated reason. Blumenberg asserts that the alleged antithesis of reason and myth is in fact the antithesis of science and myth. He believes that the modern age is not founded in an absolute fashion at the edge of the abyss of the dark epochs preceding it. There is no leap from Plato to Kant, between the Idea and a priori, for “beide meinen den einen Grundgedanken der wissenschaftlichen Weltgeschichte.”105 If the concept of a scientific world history is taken seriously then there is no need to accept a hiatus between myth

103 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 34. 104 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos 56-7. 105 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos 58.

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and logos.106 Blumenberg looks to Cassirer’s theory of symbolic forms as an indication of myth’s internal coherence and power, giving myth a status equal to that of knowledge, art, language and religion as a fundamental human activity and cultural construction. Cassirer’s theory of symbolic forms allows for the first time the correlation of the expressive forms of myth with those of science. However, as has already been noted, Cassirer places this pairing in a historically irreversible relationship with the presupposition of science as the terminus ad quem, as the goal to which the rationalising process strives. Blumenberg’s fundamental criticism of Cassirer is that he did not overcome the unstated assumption that when science emerges, myth is fundamentally obsolete.107 A specific point on which they do not agree relates to the use of myth in Nazism; where Cassirer is at a loss to explain Nazism’s relation to myth except as an incomprehensible regression, a phenomenon which did not fit into any philosophy of history.108 Blumenberg focuses not on what preceded the phenomenon but why it emerged at all. Blumenberg’s thesis is that myth and rationality have been functionally inseparable from one another from earliest times. For him, viewing the emergence of reason as some new shining force born from Descartes’ cogito is nothing other than one more modern myth. In fact, when reason is removed from its pedestal of the culmination of human potential, other human accomplishments, including myth, regain their deserved status. Such a transition is also observable in the re-emergence of myth in those Ransmayr’s texts which are critiques of scientific modernity. The questioning of the imperialist project of historical modernity in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and the totalitarian manifestation of historical modernity in Die letzte Welt are contrasted with the re-mythologising of the human experience in personal or social narratives. In Morbus Kitahara, personal myths enable the physical and emotional survival of the three main characters in a post-modern world shattered by war and its aftermath, although only to a degree.

106 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos 58. 107 In Note C Wallace refers to Blumenberg’s comments on Cassirer which have appeared in “ Ernst Cassirer gedenkend,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 28 (1974), 456-463, which was later reprinted in Blumenberg’s Wirklichkeiten in denen wir leben (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 163-172. Wallace, T ranslator’s Introduction. Blumenberg, Work on Myth, xxxviii. 108 Wallace, T ranslator’s Introduction. Blumenberg, Work on Myth, ix.

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“Bedeutsamkeit,” Myth Patterns and “Grundmythen.”

The third chapter of Part One of Arbeit am Mythos, ‘Bedeutsamkeit,’ contains an examination of the way the origins and the original character of myth have been perceived at various stages of history. Despite myth’s reduced claims to reliability, certainty, faith, realism and intersubjectivity in the face of Enlightenment claims, it continues to have something to offer in the interpretation of human experience. Blumenberg sees the quality of “Bedeutsamkeit” or “significance” (which Blumenberg takes from Dilthey) as the quality which ensures human satisfaction with myth. Myths, he states, are stories whose narrative core has a high degree of durability but with the capacity for marginal variation. These characteristics explain both myth’s transmissibility and attraction. Myth stories are recognisable, yet adaptable. Blumenberg sees “Bedeutsamkeit” as a concept that can be explained but cannot be precisely defined. The giving of “Bedeutsamkeit” to something is not voluntary. It has to do with the charging of certain elements that make up our human world with an emotional importance. Something which is significant has the quality of “Prägnanz,” a resistance to factors which diffuse or dissipate; for example, time. (Time however can lend “Prägnanz” through the process of aging.)109 The need for significance lies in the awareness that we are never entirely free of the experience of anxiety. A phenomenology of significance would reveal its “apotropäische Qualität gegenüber der an den Absolutismus der Wirklichkeit ausgelieferten Benommenheit.” 110 In Part Two of Arbeit am Mythos, ‘Geschichtswerdung der Geschichte’, the first chapter, ‘Die Verzerrung der Zeitperspektive,’ deals with the survival of specific unit myths over time and the significance they hold.

Das Mythologem ist ein ritualisierter Textbestand. Sein konsolidierter Kern widersetzt sich der Abwandlung und provoziert sie auf der spätesten Stufe des Umgangs mit ihm, nachdem periphere Variation und Modifikation den Reiz gesteigert haben, den Kernbestand unter dem Druck der veränderten Rezeptionslage auf seine Haltbarkeit zu erproben und das gehärtete Grundmuster freizulegen. Je kühner dieses strapaziert wird, um so prägnanter muß durchscheinen, worauf sie die Überbietungen der Zugriffe beziehen.111

109 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 78-9. 110 Blumenberg Arbeit am Mythos, 125. 111 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 165-6.

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From the very first, work on myth, the aesthetic re-working of specific myths, can be seen in the corruption of myth material in its transmission over the ages. The agency of reception has filtered an entire stock of mythical material and models through the process of selection. The “ikonische Konstanz” of the core contents of myth provides a fundamental myth pattern which, despite distortion over time in a variety of reception contexts, remains capable of providing a truth about human existence that seems valid and forceful in every age. 112 These patterns, Blumenberg posits, undergo a selection process – which he describes as a “Darwinismus der Verbalität” - a Darwinism of words.113 This testing of stories had begun in pre-literary times with the popularity of singers not just dependent on the beneficence of the muses, but on the popularity of the singers’ material. The material offered by the singers not only entertained but reassured their audience with the familiarity of stories that their cosmos was stable and known. In this way Blumenberg asserts that the interpretations of the world, regulations of existence and human institutions which have developed and found form in myth are products of selection rather than imaginative invention. The endurance of mythic core content and pattern over time reveals its quality and strength. In his discussion of ‘Grundmythos und Kunstmythos,’ Blumenberg examines the attempt to reduce diverse myths to one fundamental myth which underlies all the variations and embellishments. He asserts that the “Grundmythos” is not an original myth but the narrative that remains visible at the end. The fundamental myth provides a particular stimulus to work on myth. These successful unit myths, such as that of Prometheus, seem especially to provoke literary distortion/modification and historical identification.114 Such a fundamental unit myth appears to have an inexhaustible significance and may also be defined as a total myth, in that it leaves nothing unsaid.115 Blumenberg discusses several examples of what he sees as fundamental myths. He examines how “Bedeutsamkeit” works in the myth pattern of the closed circle. For example, the figure of Odysseus is of high mythical quality because in Odysseus’ return to his native place there is a movement towards the restoration of meaning. The closed circle pattern signifies a resumption of order in the face of potential accident and

112 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 166. 113 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 176. 114 Blumenberg refers to Kafka and Gide in this respect. Blumenberg, 193. 115 Blumenberg, 193.

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arbitrariness. Important also, Blumenberg notes, in examining the nature of significance is that Odysseus accomplishes his homecoming against the most powerful of resistances, not just of external adversity, but internal diversion and loss of motivation. The goal of Odysseus’ return is enhanced in value because of the increase in difficulty of carrying it out. Blumenberg discusses various disagreements as to interpretation of such stories, and the various distortions of these stories; for example, Dante’s Odysseus, who is denied the Homeric nostos and left in the eighth circle of the Inferno, in a Roman recasting of the homecoming myth.116 The M iddle Ages produced a deformation of the Odyssey pattern which went even further. Its belief system saw that the redeemed man, in completing the circle of life, was destined for a higher happiness than that of returning to the place of his Fall. The distortion of the myth over time reflects the characteristics of the epoch in which it reappears.117 Referring to Dante’s Inferno, Blumenberg judges Dante as venturing the most extreme variation of the Odysseus myth by having Odysseus not return home but push on beyond the boundaries of the known world, driven by his unrestrained craving for knowledge. As a further example of the extremity of myth distortion, James Joyce’s Ulysses is seen by Blumenberg, as “ein Monument des Widerspruchs gegen alles, was von seinem Namengeber hergekommen war.”118 The power of the distortion of a mythic pattern in revealing the characteristics of an age is relevant also to this study of Ransmayr’s work. The myth patterns developed in Ransmayr’s novels also play an integral role in the development of specific civilisation critique. In each novel there is a circle pattern whose later repetition and distortion indicate the characteristics of the later age, supplementing or contrasting with the first cycle movement narrated.119 The differences thus exposed reveal characteristics of the later society which form the basis of the critique in the texts. For example, characteristics of the mediated and simulated world of M azzini in the late twentieth century are highlighted in his attempt to repeat the journey of the earlier Arctic expedition in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Blumenberg asserts that the

116 Blumenberg, 90. 117 For example, Böttinger’s response to Goethe’s Odysseus in Hermann und Dorothea.:“ Es ist die einzige Odyssee, die in unseren Tagen noch möglich schien.” Cited in Blumenberg, 91. 118 In this context of confoundings, inversions and irony, the closed circle pattern used to convey meaning is also undermined as Leopold Bloom’s return home is the least important moment in his history. Blumenberg, 91. 119 See Chapter 5 of this study.

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cyclical schema is a basic pattern of trust in the world. There is an expectation of reliability, which, even when the pattern is distorted, survives although the expectation has been undermined. There may be also be a delay in recognition when a character itself is finally able to experience self-discovery in completing the cycle.120 The way in which the term “Grundmythos” is used in my discussion of Ransmayr’s novels sees a fundamental myth as a myth structure whose core material has endured, while its external narrative elements are determined by the reality of the age. The examination of “Grundmythen” in my study sees “Grundmythen” generically as core narratives which retain significance and illuminate recurrent human experience. All three of Ransmayr’s novels lend themselves to an examination of closed circle myth patterns. In the texts the pattern of an eternal recurrence is suggested by the repetition of characters’ actions and the revisiting of past scenes, whether these are concrete or symbolic. Mazzini’s actions in following in the footsteps of the century-earlier Weyprecht-Payer expedition, Cotta’s tracing of Naso’s path in the last world and the ever-presence of the past in Morbus Kithara throw into relief the reality experienced by these characters as the cycle is repeated. Along with the examination of an eternal recurrence in the three texts, I discuss the apocalyptic cycle of “Untergang” and transformation as core myth patterns in Ransmayr’s work. However, consistent with a marked tension between imagery of stasis and transformation developed in the novels, a further “Grundmythos” relating to an apparently persistent and perennial human condition and experience must also be examined, that of “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf,” Hobbes’ homo homini lupus.

Work on Myth – and bringing Myth to an End.

Parts One and Two of Blumenberg’s text form a “series of reflections on the persistent function and character of myth [which is] the most original and provocative part of [Arbeit am Mythos].”121 These Parts have been briefly discussed in the preceding pages and act as the theoretical framework upon which my discussion of the work of myth in Ransmayr’s novels rests. However Blumenberg’s text does not end there. Parts Three to

120 Blumenberg uses here the example of Kleist’s Zerbrochener Krug, which he sees as the most audacious parody of the mythical material adapted. Blumenberg, 98. 121 Yack, “ Myth and Modernity. Hans Blumenberg’s Reconstruction of Modern Theory,” 245.

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Five are essentially extensive discussions of the work on myth done in reference to the stories of Prometheus and Faust. Blumenberg concludes his discussion with a consideration of the question: how may myth be brought to an end? Is there an ultimate aesthetic distortion past which a core myth narrative cannot survive? This discussion of bringing myth to an end is further extended by Blumenberg’s consideration of the possibility of a philosophical final myth. Blumenberg offers this second interpretation of the bringing of myth to an end by claiming that myth comes to an end when one final myth is displayed which provides a totality, a perfection, a total schemata which drives out the desire to ask for more or to invent more to add. Even if the ultimate answer is not provided, there seems nothing more to ask about. This means that in the modern age, new names and more highly abstract titles (in the absence of the gods) are put in the place of the old; “das Ich, die Welt, die Geschichte, das Unbewußte, das Sein.”122 Blumenberg offers Schopenhauer’s schema of the transmigration of souls as such a final myth. Blumenberg ends Arbeit am Mythos with a warning. To consider the examples he gives of final myths as obsolete is to be blind to the continuing oppressive contingency of human existence which lies behind myth.

The Work of Myth and the Aesthetics of Humility.

This thesis seeks to foreground the critical revelation of myth in a study of Ransmayr’s novels. My study of Ransmayr’s novels is a comparative one. It is intended as an examination of the way in which myth is used in each of the Ransmayr novels and how the work of myth develops the aesthetics of humility in the texts. Through my observation of the various roles myth takes on in Ransmayr’s fiction, I follow the development of a critique of modern society which narratively reviews the place the human subject occupies in a reality seen as potentially, and in some cases finally, overwhelming. For this reason, it is the first section of Blumenberg’s Arbeit am Mythos which is of theoretical relevance to this study. When one examines the work of myth as being

122 Other models which fit the paradigm set by the Idealists’ fundamental myth are, for example, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence of the same, Scheler’s comprehensive schema of a god in the process of becoming, and Heidegger’s story of Being. Blumenberg, 319.

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one strategy which, along with reason, is used to master an overwhelming “absolutism of reality,” one is further able to understand the continuing relevance and importance of myth in so-called advanced societies. In this way too, myth’s connection and interaction with a reasoned approach to the problems and threats of existence may also be understood. In Ransmayr’s aesthetic vision a new perceptual perspective creates new narratives to replace the stalled history of modernity in a society in which the privileged position of scientific reason is problematised by its distortion into an instrumentalised rationality. A series of “Grundmythen” structures the realities represented by the alternative worlds in the Ransmayr novels, and replaces modern metanarratives which have fallen into disrepute. These modern metanarratives are represented in the texts as characteristic of worlds of the centre. They embody the ideological and philosophical projects of historical modernity. The modern human subject also takes centre place in this humanist cosmology. However, the centre does not hold in Ransmayr’s novels, on either level. The centre is rejected or collapses in symbolic fashion in Ransmayr’s first two novels, with a textual re-focusing to a natural landscape on the periphery of civilisation and the privileging of fluidity over rigidity and structure. The project of historical modernity is symbolically overthrown in Morbus Kitahara in the reversing of history in the text. In each novel the individual or community faces an “absolutism of reality” which threatens to overwhelm them. The influence of the natural world in determining and reflecting the “absolutism of reality” in each text makes an examination of its representation essential. Later in my study I examine in detail the multiple “Grundmythen” which, as fundamental myths illustrating human experience and potential, replace the rejected metanarratives of historical modernity in each novel. In each text a thematic and structural aporia is evident. The disappearance of the individual human subject is a literal as well as figurative/theoretical phenomenon. This disappearance forces a revision of the possibility of mythmaking itself as well as of the importance of the human subject in the texts. The symbolic disappearance of the human subject radicalises not only the displacement, fragmentation and disappearance of the subject in poststructural discourse but offers a reading of human identity and place in line with the aesthetics of humility the texts reveal.

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CHAPTER TWO.

Re-Focusing from the Centre to the Edge. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis.

In this chapter, as in the two chapters that follow, the main focus of discussion is the way in which the natural world is privileged over the world of the centre, the city and civilisation. I identify the space of nature in each of the three novels as a space outside of and Other to the rational, humanistic paradigm of modernity.1 By narratively abandoning the civilised centre for the periphery, a symbolic rejection of the project of historical and scientific modernity is enacted. Both the privileging of the natural world and the critiquing of the project of scientific modernity are aspects of the aesthetics of humility which is developed in Ransmayr’s novels. A re-focusing on the space of the edge allows the emergence of a perspective on the human condition which it is impossible to develop from the viewpoint of the centre. I examine the natural world in this chapter as a space which has been the target of a modern de-mythologisation, and also as a space which, despite this, has remained the Other to the centre and civilisation. The natural world is also the Other in terms of the space of nature being space in which myth freely operates, a space where the human subject’s way of perceiving and acting is not confined by the rational parameters of modern epistemologies. In this context, Hans Blumenberg’s idea that myth comes into existence as a strategy of survival when an “absolutism of reality” threatens to overwhelm the human subject or community indicates the potential importance of the space of the natural world in Ransmayr’s novels. In the following discussion the question of perspective is paramount. At times it is precisely the space of nature that is the “absolutism of reality” against which the individual or group must struggle to survive. The Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition of 1872-4 sees the ice and darkness of the Arctic Circle in this way. For Josef Mazzini a century later, on the other hand, it is the civilised space of the city at the centre that promotes an overwhelming “absolutism of reality” in which individual identity and the authenticity of perception and experience are problematised. I argue

1 Modern science had presided over the ‘death of nature’ by the “ advancing of strictly mathematical and physical explanations of the universe” See Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, ed., The Postmodern Turn (New York: Guildford Press, 1997) 197. 54

that the “absolutism of reality” perceived by the text’s characters, as would be predicted, differs according to specific physical or socio-historical contexts. The discussion in this chapter examines the various representations of the natural world in Ransmayr’s first novel, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. These representations of the natural world inform the character of the “absolutism of reality” experienced by the characters of the text and the nature of the myths these characters develop in response to this “absolutism of reality.” Brief introductory comment on attitudes to the natural world and changes to perceptions of time and place provides a context for the examination of the ways the natural world is represented in the text. The privileging of the space of that world and different centre-edge perspectives presented in the text are reflected in the ordering of the following discussion. I examine the natural world in its representation as mythical and magical space, as a tabula rasa, as an antagonistic Other, as re-mythologised space, as the space of the imagination and, lastly, as the space of symbolism.

Readings of Nature.

Qualitative changes in the experiences of humankind have been read in the “Buch der Natur” since ancient times. The natural world has undergone physical transformation in its domestication by human society and its domination and exploitation through industrialisation. This physical transformation is reflected in the transformation of the way the natural world is perceived and represented by human society and individuals. Such perceptions and representations of nature are used in Ransmayr’s novels to illuminate contemporary human motivations, acts and anxieties. From the eighteenth century on, the natural world was perceived by its human inhabitants in an ambivalent fashion: it was seen by the human subject as either threatening or liberatory. Nature was an agent capable of effecting both the “Bedrohung des Subjekts und subjektive Befreiung.”2 Both the external natural world and human nature were considered dangerous, something to be feared, when the project of historical modernity led to humankind’s alienation from the natural world and itself.3

2 Peter V.Zima, “ Die Revolte der Natur in der Prosa der Moderne,” Celebrating Comparativism, ed. Kürtösi Katalin (Szeged, 1994) 289. 3 Zima refers to Walter Benjamin’s comments concerning Baudelaire’s negative perception of nature as a deep protest against the ‘organic.’ He also discusses Kafka’s perception of nature as “ stets angst- oder ekelerregend.” Zima, 290. 55

The natural world certainly functions as a threat, at times paralysingly so, in Ransmayr’s novels. It is the unknown which must be known and dominated to ensure certainty and safety. Similarly, the inner nature of the human individual is judged to be threatening to others in all three novels. A wild, untamed core of human behaviour is considered dangerous in terms of the human capacity for violence, even in a so-called civilised society. However, the natural world has also been seen as representing a liberatory principle that stands against a “Herrschaftsanspruch des Rationalismus und […] den Zwängen der systematischen Philosophie.”4 In this way, nature represents the realm of the fantastical, the exotic and the chaotic and untamed, in contrast to the ordered systematised character which typically identifies modern society. Such a representation of nature is particularly relevant in a reading of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt. In Ransmayr’s first novel, the natural world of ice is a world of shifting contours and unexpected transformations. Similarly, the natural world in Die letzte Welt is a chaotic and unpredictable domain which refuses to conform to the rational expectations of Cotta and the reader. In view of this perception of nature as both threatening and liberatory, the “Natur- Kultur” dialectic in Ransmayr’s novels is also spatially perspective-dependent. A prevailing Enlightenment/modern philosophical paradigm which is conventionally reflected in the centre-edge dialectic is reworked so that the focus on the privileged centre of civilisation is displaced, thus re-focusing on human action on the edge, the space of the natural world. This re-focusing is essentially consistent in all three novels. The critique of scientific/historical modernity developed in the novels depends on the representation of nature as a space of confrontation and revelation. This critique promotes the reviewing of human action and the revelation of human potential (both positive and negative). The construction and deconstruction of the human subject in Ransmayr’s novels is symbolically determined by the movement of central characters between spheres of culture and an external natural world. In the late twentieth century the perceived threat which the natural world held for human society was re-interpreted. From the beginning of the 1970s, the external natural world was anticipated to be, as a result of advanced industrialism, a site of global ecological disaster. The “Reflexionsbedarf” this realisation entailed resulted in a

4 Zima, 290.

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“keineswegs […] einheitliches neues Naturbild.” The perception of nature by classical science as passive, even dead was replaced by the perception of nature as “ein zersplittertes Universum, das reich an qualitativen Unterschieden und potentiellen Überraschungen ist.”5 Despite the actual and potential damage done by the technologisation of nature, the natural world is still perceived as active and unstable, having non-predictable patterns and forms which cannot be described in many cases by traditional means. Once again nature demands recognition of its complexity, its “Eigen- gesetzlichkeit.”6 Such characteristics certainly find expression in Ransmayr’s novels. Indeed, the at times contradictory roles and representations of nature in the texts symbolically reflect the ambivalence with which human beings have approached nature, according to the philosophical and programmatic paradigms prevailing in each specific age. A modern experience of alienation from nature explains in part the way the external natural world can be a threatening “absolutism of reality” for later human individuals and communities. However a more Romantic view of nature promotes the notion of nature as a landscape providing inspiration, liberation even refuge. Just like the different ways in which myth is manifested in human culture, the natural world has its dark and light aspects, its threatening and liberatory character. 7

Changing Perceptions of Space and Time.

The following discussion on the representation of the natural world in Ransmayr’s novels is informed by the radical alteration of the time-space relationship from Renaissance times through to postmodernity, and the relation of early perceptions of time and space to the existence of myth. The perception of time as cyclical, which is generally characteristic of archaic societies, was intrinsic to the myth, magic and ritual of such agrarian societies.8 Time may still be experienced as cyclical and “enduring” in rural communities with a particularly close connection to nature.9 In isolated feudal

5 Günther Bien,‘Natur’ im Umbruch. (Stuttgart, 1994) 11-14. 6 Bien, 14-5. 7 More consistently dark, however, is the texts’ reading of the inner nature of humankind which reveals its consistent propensity for violence against its own. This reading of humankind’s inner nature, encapsulated in Hobbes’ homo homini lupus dictum, promotes an understanding of an “ absolutism of reality” constructed by the actions of the human subject himself or herself. 8 G. Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time (Dordrecht, 1964). See also Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 224-5. 9 Gurvitch’s typology of social times. See Harvey, Table 3.2, 224-5. 57

worlds, too, space external to roughly settled territorial boundaries was “weakly grasped and generally conceptualised as a mysterious cosmology populated by some external authority, heavenly hosts or more sinister figures of myth and the imagination .”10 A radical restructuring of views of space and time, at least in Europe, occurred from the time of the Renaissance. Voyages of discovery opened new worlds on a globe which became finite and potentially knowable as a result. The necessity for exactness of information for navigation, the determination of boundaries, rights of passage and transportation gave great value to objectivity in spatial representation. Fundamental rules of perspective which broke radically from medieval practice changed the way of seeing space, generating instead a coldly geometrical and systematic sense of space.11 The invention of the chronometer stressed a new linearity of time. The scientific and factual senses of time and space were differentiated from the more fluid conception of experienced time and space.12 This revolution in the perceptions of time and space laid the conceptual foundations for the Enlightenment program when the domination of natural space was a condition of human emancipation. The conquest and rational ordering of space became an integral part of the modernising program.13 Accurate maps and chronometers became essential tools within an Enlightenment vision of how the world should be organised. In such a context, maps were stripped of all sensuousness, fantasy and religious belief and became abstract and strictly functional systems for the factual ordering of phenomena in space. The result was the homogenisation and reification of a rich diversity of spatial itineraries and spatial stories.14 Similarly, time was perceived as linear both forwards and backwards. Its capacity for retrodiction and prediction created the expectation that the potential existed to control the future. Enlightenment thought operated within the parameters of a mechanical Newtonian vision. Time and space were perceived as absolutes. The rise of modernism resulted in a perceived compression of the time-space relationship. The vast expansion of foreign trade and investment after 1850 set the major capitalist powers on the path of globalism through imperial conquest and inter- imperialist rivalry. The result was the political and economic deterritorialisation, then

10 Harvey, 241. 11 Harvey, 244-5. 12 Harvey, 244. 13 Similarly, the great attempt to catalogue all human knowledge – in the Encyclopédie – was begun. 14 Harvey, 253. 58

colonial reterritorialisation of world spaces..15 Under the impact of imperial administration, space was re-ordered. Capitalism changed the meaning of space and time, as did new forms of communication and transport. Time-space compression entered an intense phase in the last decades of the twentieth century, having a disorientating and disruptive impact on all major areas of life. The postmodern age has “sped-up.”16 The keywords of postmodern experience have become instantaneity and disposability. Notions of authenticity are challenged by those of simulation and hyperreality. Simulacra can be experienced as reality and reality as simulacra. Images from different geographical and temporal world spaces may be experienced almost simultaneously via TV and satellite. M ass tourism, films, spectacular locations provide a wide range of vicarious experiences. However the constant and increasing bombardment with stimuli has led to a nostalgia for a simpler past and a desire for stability and permanence in a world seen as ephemeral and fragmented. The search for historical roots and artefacts of past certainties has increased. A search for personal and collective identities has become urgent. 17

Exploration and De-mystification.

The reader of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis immediately recognises in the novel issues which relate to the changed perceptions of time-space in modern times such as those mentioned above. In the novel, the natural space of the Arctic itself is subject to the cyclical, enduring time of earlier epochs. The travellers from Europe in the late nineteenth century, however, bring a modern expectation of time and space to their explorations. They expect their expedition voyage, course of investigation and exploration, and return to Europe to proceed in a temporally linear fashion with the scientific colonisation of geographical space. Instead they are confounded by what seem to them to be alien parameters of time and space. They remain icebound for four years as the Arctic world moves inexorably through the seasons. Only by the smallest of margins is the expedition successful in completing its project and returning to Vienna.

15 Harvey, 264. 16 Harvey examines the “ speed-up” in production, for example, looking at consequences such as volatility and ephemerality of fashions, products, production techniques, labour processes, ideas and ideologies, values and established practices. Harvey, 284-5. 17 Harvey, 284-300.

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The narrator in the foreword, Vor Allem (SEF 9) observes the perceptual transformation of space-time in the modern, technological age but rejects this transformation in the assertion that ultimately we, the human race, remain “Fußgänger und Läufer.” Modern technology may have shortened in an unbelievable fashion the time taken to travel between continents and hemispheres but the physical distances remain the same.18 The narrator strikes out against the postmodernist perception of the annihilation of space through time achieved, in this case, by modern technologies of transport. The foreword also decries the illusion propagated when it is believed that “selbst das Entlegenste und Entfernteste zugänglich sei wie ein Vergnügungsgelände” (SEF 9). The second polar expedition undertaken by Josef Mazzini is a hybridisation of such perceptions. He is a hiker, who “reiste oft allein und viel zu Fuß. Im Gehen wurde ihm die Welt nicht kleiner, sondern immer größer, so groß, daß er schließlich in ihr verschwand” (SEF 11). However Mazzini’s journey to the north by plane and ice- breaker demonstrates the accessibility and colonisation of the Arctic through modern technologies of travel. Paradoxically, though, this aspect of Mazzini’s journey is relatively unimportant in the larger context of his ambition to travel through the Arctic. The text is a patchwork of various perceptions, sources, archival material, lists, diary entries, maps, sketches and voices which structures the parallel narrative strands. Narrative voices from the 1872-4 polar expedition, primarily Weyprecht and Payer, are presented in italics, quoted from archival materials; diaries and logbooks. (As Ransmayr remarks in his ‘Hinweis,’ “[d]ie Figuren dieses Romans haben an ihrer Geschichte mitgeschrieben” – SEF 265). Mazzini’s narrative voice is increasingly appropriated by the narrator, initially by the narrator’s use of indirect speech to report on Mazzini’s motivations and actions. Later this appropriation is more direct. For example, Mazzini’s journals are given titles by the narrator. “Es ist nicht […] Mazzinis Handschrift. Das habe ich geschrieben. Ich.” - SEF 177). Mazzini’s voice occasionally re-emerges in direct quotations from his journal. Integrated with the written text, photos, portraits, sketches from Die österreichisch-ungarische Nordpol-Expedition in den Jahren 1872- 1874 (Wien, 1876) and tables of information detailing, for example, previous polar expeditions (SEF 89-90) or hours of midnight sun or polar nights (SEF 157) add to the

18 The foreword to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis sets the tone of ambivalence which runs through the text. Nothing is what it seems. Cloudbanks appear to be mountain ranges. Aeroplanes effortlessly span impassable flows of Arctic ice. Mazzini adopts the identity of long dead explorers in conversation with strangers. 60

multiplicity of narrative perceptions. The features of this postmodernist bricolage tend to emphasise, as Nethersole points out, spatial not temporal textual ordering.19 It is the journey through space, rather than through time, which is highlighted in the text.20 Nethersole remarks on the lack of contingency in the text’s structuration; a hierarchical structuration is rejected for a more metaphorical structure of substitutions. Ransmayr collapses the temporal line of events and alters perceptions of proximity and distance. The reader understands the space of the Arctic as free of the notion of the line, of parallels and perpendiculars.21 The world of external nature is a privileged space freed from conventional concepts. In this way, the natural world becomes a site of confrontation with the concepts of space and time familiar to the explorers Weyprecht and Payer in their experience of a modern European world. The natural space of the Arctic functions as an “absolutism of reality” for these European travellers. Their plans revolving around deadlines and timetables are thwarted by a landscape which holds their ship frozen in space until the seasons turn again. In contrast, M azzini, who enters the space and time of the Arctic a century later, welcomes the restoration of a natural space and rhythm after the time- space compression which has become more extreme in the postmodern society in which he lives. M azzini actively pursues a way of travelling through space in time which harmonises with the rhythms of the natural world. He returns to travelling by foot after his plane flight to the north and his failed voyage to Franz Joseph Land by research vessel. He attempts to learn the art of dogsledding on his return to Longyearbyen. Though the text itself is a reconstruction of histories traditionally seen as linear constructions in modernity, the time of the text is experienced differently. There is a contrast in the text between the perception of time as homogeneous, that is, linear and progressive, and heterogeneous, as experienced time.22 The cyclical time of the natural world confronts and confounds perceptions of time inherited from the civilised centre in Vienna. The operation of three narrative strands threading through the text also serves to thwart any conventional linear expectation of event or experience.

19 Nethersole, 136. 20 Reingard Nethersole argues this point in her article, “ Marginal Topographies: Space in Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis,” Modern Austrian Literature, 23: 3/4 (1990): 138. 21 T he “ Eskimo space” of the Arctic has no middle distance, perspectives or outlines. It is “ smooth” space without borders or limits. In making this point Nethersole refers to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Athlone Press, 1988) observing that the Arctic icescape in Ransmayr’s text bears no resemblance to any known or familiar region. Nethersole, 142.

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The following section examines the roles and representations of nature in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis in terms of these changes to the perceptions of time and space. These representations of nature also vary according to the changed perceptions by characters as their perspective is altered according to the nature of the space they occupy. This discussion is divided as indicated above; into responses to nature as mythical and magical space, nature as tabula rasa, nature as antagonistic Other, as re-mythologised space, as the space of the imagination and as the space of symbolism. In these representations of the natural world a variety of mythologising and rationalising responses of the characters are evident.

Nature as Mythical and Magical Space.

To see the natural world as a space of myth is to re-find the reality of traditional societies to whom myth was the medium through which their relationship to nature was constructed. For example, for the Annotoak Eskimos, the North Pole is “der große Nagel,” which was driven by outsiders, not their own kind, into the ice of the north and then lost. Whoever follows and finds the Great Nail will find iron for his spears and 23 axes (SEF 184). To the early European adventurer the Arctic was characterised by its apparent timelessness, emptiness and, above all, darkness. They saw the Arctic was an unknown, unformed location in an archaic space and time that gradually assumed a form and an identity through the fears and desires of those who begin to create its stories. It was to them the grand Mystery, the great Unknown, a Chaos, a world which for “Jahrtausende unter Wahnbegriffen und Fabeln begraben [lag]” (SEF 48). For the European explorers the Arctic was a place of deception and uncertainty. Weyprecht and Payer’s expedition experience the world of ice first hand as an “Irrgarten,” where they lose orientation; their compasses become unreliable (SEF 211). They perceive the polar space to be a realm of fantasy and mystery which generated fears of vulnerability and madness in the expedition members. The expedition co-leader, Julius Payer, reports “Trugbilder von versengender Hitze, tödtendem Froste, steil abfallenden Meeren, von welchen es für die Schiffer keine Rückkehr gab, von unheildrohenden Wind- und Meeresgöttern und

22 Nethersole, 137. 23 For the Europeans who follow in a later age, the North Pole also holds its treasure and its power: the wealth of knowledge and the status of conquering the polar domain.

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goldbewachenden Ameisen” (SEF 48). Various expedition crews, including that of the Tegetthoff, load their ship with fool’s gold, worthless glinting stones that have bewitched them into believing they have made their fortunes. The dreams and expectations of 1872-4 Weyprecht-Payer expedition in heading into the unknown space of the Arctic are revealed by the narrator to be “Trugbilder.” As the expedition travels northwards, the conversation, the narrator supposes, would have been of a “ernste weiße Ferne, die ihnen entgegenkommt; und wenn sie auf ihrer Fahrt durchs Eismeer eine Insel entdecken sollten, dann würde es gewiß ein schönes Land sein, still und sanft” (SEF 38). Payer records earlier perspectives of the polar region: “Seine Thäler dachten wir uns damals mit Weiden geschmückt und von Renthieren belebt, welche im ungestörten Genuß ihrer Freistätte weilen, fern von allen Feinden” (SEF 38).24 In anticipation, the Great Unknown of the Arctic is already shaped by the expedition’s familiar European reality; a reality which is further constructed by expectation, rumour and fiction. However, Payer’s later diary entry records the physical “absolutism of reality” which confronts them in the North Polar Circle. Isolation, fear and physical suffering are responses to the extremity of the natural landscape they enter, a part of what they come to perceive as the horrors of ice and darkness. The expeditioner Krisch’s death is recorded by Payer in such terms:

Aber welch ein Schweigen liegt über einem solchen Lande und seinen kalten Gletschergebirgen, die in unerforschlichen duftigen Fernen sich verlieren, und deren Dasein ein Geheimniß zu bleiben scheint für alle Zeiten … So stirbt man am Nordpol, allein und wie ein Irrlicht verlöschend, ein einfältiger Matrose als Klageweib, und draußen harrt des Dahingegangenen ein Grab aus Eis und Stein. (SEF 38).

The experience of time itself in the Arctic world is an alien and unexpected one for the expedition crew. The homogenous time recorded in logbooks and diaries belongs to the experience of time in a familiar place. Time in the Arctic becomes heterogenous and circular, following the seasons of extended light, but more predominantly, of extended darkness. Experienced time appears to slow down, (“Der bleierne Flug der Zeit” – SEF 99), as the ship and expeditioners lie ice-locked month after month. Then

24 The passages in cursive script in the text are excerpts from actual archival material written by the specified character. T his important presentational distinction reinforces the reader’s perception of the multiplicity of individual voices which structures the text. See ‘Hinweis’, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, 265. 63

time speeds up - as the crew pursue Klotz who, succumbing to madness, has decided to walk from the Arctic Circle home to his Austrian valley:“Jetzt läuft die Zeit schnell wie noch nie. Jetzt, wo keine Minute mehr verlorengehen darf, fliegt die Zeit plötzlich dahin” (SEF 187). The expedition is confronted with new experiences of time and space. The modern perception of time as rich, fecund and dialectical25 is inappropriate to the long waiting of the expedition, through the cycles of darkness and light it endures. Later, the experienced time of the crew in their labyrinthine explorations through the ice also contrasts to the modern experience of time. The space of the natural Arctic world is also unfamiliar and unexpected This space is the site of various transformations. The movement of the ice, the shifts of cloud banks and the icy entrapment of the Tegetthoff show the transformation of the natural environment. Along with the metamorphosis of time and space, those human beings who enter the Arctic region are themselves transformed. This transformation occurs both in terms of their perceptual response to this new place and also in terms of their perceptions of themselves and those around them. The civilised European explorer himself is not what he appears to be. (In one infamous case, the crewman abandoned by the Italian hero, Nobile, becomes a cannibal). Objects which become part of the Arctic landscape (as does the icelocked Tegetthoff) are also transformed in the crew’s perception. The Tegetthoff is variously the 1872-4 expedition’s emotional “Zuflucht,” then its “Gefängnis” later becoming “das hölzerne Herz einer Eisinsel” (SEF 84) when it is abandoned. The expedition crew must construct a new reality in the Arctic space to ensure their physical and psychological survival. The icescape - and its opposite extreme, the desert – “function as the very signs of marginality and have been seen throughout history as topoi of desolation presenting the subject with ultimate corporeal and creative challenges.”26 The “absolutism of reality” in this alien, extreme polar space for the nineteenth century European polar expedition is its unpredictability. The Arctic represents geographically the open horizon of experience and knowledge, while denying the expedition the order, logic and predictability of the reality the explorers wish to bring to the white unknown. The curiosity Weyprecht and Payer bring to their proposed leap into the unknown becomes transformed progressively into a fear that the natural space and time of the Arctic will overwhelm them. They experience disorientation and

25 Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, ed. P. Rabinow (Harmondsworth: 1984) 70. 26 Nethersole, 139. This view of both the icescape and desert is a particularly Eurocentric one. 64

anxiety – and even a form of paralysis - in facing the “absolutism of reality” in the darkness and ice. Before the expedition’s later suffering in the horrors and darkness of the Arctic, Payer, as his diaries record, is spellbound. He describes his impressions of the mysterious beauty of the Arctic landscape; the “violette Schleier des Frostdampfes” (SEF 108) and enthuses about how a “magische Schönheit verklärte unsere Einöde, das frostige Weiß der Takelage des Schiffes zeichnete sich gespenstig ab von dem graublauen Himmel” (SEF 107). There is fascination even when this natural beauty reveals a majestic horror in the image of its melting:

dieses flüsternde Hinsterben des Eises; - langsam, stolz wie ein Festzug, zieht die ewige Reihenfolge weißer Särge dem Grabe zu, in der südlichen Sonne… Prächtige Cascaden Schmelzwassers brausen gedämpften Glanzes in Schleiern herab von den Eisbergen, die sich selbstvernichtend und donnernd spalten im glühenden Sonnenstrom. (SEF 79).

The Northern lights also astound and dumbfound the spectators. Weyprecht records their impact, reaching back to ancient stories to find the words to illuminate their experiences in the ice, although he locates his description, characteristically, in a scientific context.

Das ganze Firmament steht dann in Flammen; in dichten Büscheln schießen fortwährend tausende Blitze von allen Seiten jenem Punkte am Himmelsgewölbe zu, nach welchem die freie Magnetnadel weist; um ihn herum flimmern und flackern und wogen und lecken in wildem Durcheinander die intensiv lichtweißen Flammen mit farbigen Rändern […] Es ist, als sei die Sage wahr geworden, von welcher wir in den alten Chroniken lesen, die himmlischen Heerscharen hätten eine Schlacht geschlagen und sich mit Blitz und Feuer vor den Augen der Erdbewohner bekämpft. (SEF 101)

The human individual in this environment appears puny and inconsequential. By journeying to the margins of civilisation, the expedition (more specifically its leaders) abdicates symbolically the central locus of the European human subject in the philosophical mindset of the humanist Enlightenment. Ironically, the expedition’s explorative intention is diametrically opposed to such a decentralising movement. Weyprecht and Payer’s intention is to draw the Arctic edge into the space of the known and under the influence of the centre. But the explorers enter a space in the ice and darkness where the European human subject, while struggling to maintain its autonomy,

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is progressively removed from its place of privilege. In this space of nature the expedition members revert to another strategy to interpret their experiences. They describe and interpret their experiences in terms of the ancient powers of nature and of the supernatural. With the Tegetthoff crushed between encroaching ice floes, the simple crewmen throw their trophies of antlers and bear skulls overboard to appease the violence of nature (SEF 109). Harpoonist Carlsen removes all metal from his body when the Northern Lights appear, “um die Harmonie der fließenden Figuren nicht zu stören und die Wut der Lichter nicht auf sich zu ziehen” (SEF 134). Haller and Klotz treat Kepes’ sickness using a natural remedy to free the doctor from his “demons,” pouring alcohol over his “Herzarm.” When Kepes’ feverish ramblings end, the men report that “die Kräfte des Feuers den Ungarn von seinen Dämonen befreit und ihn aus der Verrücktheit in die Welt zurückgeholt hätten” (SEF 142). Why, however, had the European begun the journey northwards into this space on the margins to be later spellbound by its reported beauty and horror? The text represents this journey as that of the agent of European civilisation, who anthropologically speaking, has learnt to walk upright on the now familiar turf of modern Europe, and is determined to undertake the de-mystification of the North Polar circle. This peripheral space must be made known and the Arctic claimed, as an end in itself and also as a means to an end, the discovery of a polar sea passage around the northern continents. However the explorers initially see the unknown space of the polar North in mythical terms. The narrator of Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis reports the intentions of explorers/adventurers from earliest times who had considered or braved this great unknown, as being driven to find utopia; “durch alles Chaos und alle Rätsel hindurch über das Eismeer ins Paradies!” (SEF 56)27 On a practical, economic level, the paradise dreamt of by the early explorers was not the Arctic world, but the New World. Reports of seafarers returning from Asia and America led to a belief in the “Mythen von unerschöpflichen, goldenen Paradiesen” (SEF 52). The trade passage to Asia, through a North-east Passage or direct north over the Pole was still a dream,

27 See chapters 5, 8 and 14, ‘Erster Exkurs: Die Nordost Passage oder der weiße Weg nach Indien’ (SEF 48), ‘Zweiter Exkurs: Passagensucher - Ein Formblatt aus der Chronik des Scheiterns’ (SEF 88) and ‘Dritter Exkurs: Der Große Nagel - Fragmente des Mythos und der Aufklärung’ (SEF 178). 66

Denn als die italienischen Matrosen der Tegetthoff die Segel setzten, hatte die abendländische Seefahrt einen ihrer längsten Träume noch immer nicht zu Ende geträumt: Irgendwo entlang der sibirischen Polarküste, immer nordöstlich, mußte ein kurzer, packeisgesäumter Seeweg nach Japan, China und Indien zu finden sein […] (SEF 49).

Dreams of fame, national and personal prestige, of wealth, a bid for historical immortality shaped the European explorers’ adventures. Out of the exploits of these explorers developed another myth of the Arctic, that of the hero adventurer. (“Am Anfang dieser überwältigenden Epochen standen – wie immer in großen Zeiten – Heldengestalten; sie wurden den nachgeborenen Eismeerfahrern zu Idolen …” (SEF 52). These figures stand against tremendous odds with bravery and resolution. Or they attempt to do so, with varying degrees of success. The manner of the reporting of this success contributes also to the development of the hero myth. The two figures in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis who most conform to this definition of hero are the co-leaders of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition 1872-74, Lieutenants Carl Weyprecht and Julius Payer. Consistent with the specific historical and ideological context of European journeys of discovery from the fifteenth century on, which were informed by projects of demystification, imperialism and colonisation, the two men see the Arctic as an empty space to be filled in and written upon - a polar tabula rasa.

Nature as Tabula Rasa -The Project of the Enlightenment Hero.

The Enlightenment project was theoretically based on the privileging of objective science and the de-mystifying and de-sacralising of knowledge to enrich and emancipate all. The domination of nature was undertaken to ensure freedom from want and from the arbitrariness of natural calamity. With the belief in a system of rational thought, liberation from myth, religion, superstition and the arbitrary use of power was believed possible. The elimination of the darker side of human nature would reveal the universal, eternal, immutable qualities of all humanity. The Enlightenment lauded creativity, scientific discovery and the pursuit of personal excellence.28 Within the parameters listed above the leaders of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition 1872-4, Weyprecht and Payer appear to be ideally qualified to be heroes in the Enlightenment mould. The curriculum vitae of the two explorers (SEF 31-5)

28 Harvey, 12-13

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suggest that, towards the end of the nineteenth century, their expedition will achieve what others have not. Both men had already won honour and high respect through their feats and knowledge. They appear to approach the expedition with altruistic motives. Both are men of science, inspired by the dream of extending objective knowledge of the remotest, most extreme margins of the globe. Weyprecht is the man of measurement and objectivity; Payer the romantic, lyrical observer and passionate man of action. Weyprecht, polar explorer and “Kommandant zu See und Eis” in 1872, had a distinguished career in the Austrian navy (SEF 31-2) and was noted for his clever, considered actions in the “Seeschlacht von Lissa.” He was widely travelled, had been to Asia, sailed to the American continent, as well as the eastern Mediterranean. He had an excellent command of Italian, Hungarian, Serbo-Croat, French, English and Norwegian. He had published many articles on navigation, meteorology and oceanography, and had been awarded many honours (SEF 32). He was given the sea command of the Austro- Hungarian North Pole expedition at the age of thirty-three. Payer, “Kommandant zu Lande,” was no less distinguished. History records him as a first lieutenant, cartographer, alpine and polar explorer, writer and painter. His high mountain climbs included more than thirty first-recorded ascents, and more than sixty peak climbs. He discovered the Tyrol and Franz Joseph Fjords on a six hundred kilometre march along the east coast of Greenland. He had published many articles in the area of cartography, geography and Arctic adventure. He won honours and medals from scientific societies, alpine clubs and had the reputation of being the best dog sled driver born outside the Polar Circle. Defined by the expectations of the modern society in which these men lived, both were men of distinguished achievement and superior qualities of leadership, knowledge and endurance. They were the elite; their actions, attitudes and expertise were firmly anchored in a context of science and discovery. On their polar expedition they intended to occupy an unknown space and incorporate it into the system of knowledge of an ordered and rational world. However the quality of their heroic experiences in the Arctic is already strongly reminiscent of the mythic hero who undertakes a quest, battles obstacles of both natural and supernatural origin, encounters conflict, then returns with the spoils and/or stories of his journey. Weyprecht and Payer’s voyage is a late nineteenth century odyssey. The trials they must face and overcome in an heroic

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struggle with adversity before finally returning home leave both characters, in terms of their initial vision and project, humbled and almost unrecognisable. The two men individually confront the “absolutism of reality” in the North Polar circle with their own dreams and images of heroic enterprise. Both seek to occupy and inscribe the empty space of the Arctic with these dreams and ambitions. Weyprecht, the scientist-scholar, desires to make his own contribution to the progress of humankind with the knowledge he can gather. His demeanour is controlled, purposeful, at all times disciplined. He is the monkish observer and the Arctic a fascinating laboratory of study. Through the force of his intellect and personality he undertakes his project to de-mystify mythic space, to define and inscribe so-called empty space so that it becomes known, measured and ordered. Weyprecht’s personal challenge in this expedition can be seen in his journal entry, “In der Erforschung der Räthsel, mit welchen sie [die Natur] uns umgiebt, kommt das Streben des denkenden Menschen nach Fortschritt zum vollsten Ausdrucke’” (SEF 103). His own perception of his role can be seen in terms of his honouring of Newton’s accomplishments; “er gab der ganzen denkenden Menschheit einen Stoß nach vorwärts, in den er sie in ihren eigenen Augen erhob und ihr zeigte, wessen der menschliche Verstand fähig sei.” (SEF 103). Weyprecht does not deviate from his purpose of serving the modern god of knowledge. While observing the Christian practices of his crew and exhorting them to greater confidence and action with Bible readings, Weyprecht, nevertheless, shows his humanist world view. He exhorts his men that “sie sollen nicht auf Wunder trauen, sondern auf ihn [Weyprecht]” (SEF 101), when, overwhelmed by the amazing polar lights, the crewman Marola drops to his knees and prays to the Madonna. Weyprecht assumes all responsibility for ordering and securing the expedition’s world. He in fact becomes the new god, the modern man of science. He will be their saviour. “Weyprecht war die Autorität […] Tröster und Prophet […] letzte Instanz aller Fragen” (SEF 135). During the travails of the expedition,

Weyprecht bleibt ernst […] Nächtelang sitzt er allein in einem Beobachtungszelt […] führt seine meteorologischen, astronomischen und ozeanographischen Journale […] beschreibt, kalkuliert, stellt Zusammenhänge her. Alles an ihm ist Aufmerksamkeit. (SEF 102).

Weyprecht subjugates the mystery of the Arctic region to a system of observation and recording. The unknown becomes the known, registered in the scientific method via

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extensive notes in notebooks. He measures the earth’s magnetism, the ship’s drift wedged between the ice and the alteration in sea depth. The cerebral colonisation of the Northern ice proceeds on Weyprecht’s written page. The tabula rasa of the natural Arctic landscape is symbolically represented by Weyprecht’s blank pages which are later filled with information and observations. But while Weyprecht is constant in his identity as the objective man of science in his white Arctic laboratory, Payer is transformed by his drive to occupy Arctic space. He becomes the chauvinistic lover who is so obsessed by his Arctic passion that he attempts to master it, dominating and controlling, wanting to see all, possessing it all, penetrating the space of the Other as far as is physically possible. “Herr Oberleutnant will das Land an sein Ende durchmessen, er will alles sehen, er muß alles sehen, und er wird auch den zweiundachtzigsten Grad nördlicher Breite überschreiten und vielleicht auch den dreiundachtzigsten und den nächsten” (SEF 212). Payer’s understanding of his role at the beginning of the expedition is more clearsighted and objective than at the end.

Ein mühevoller Weg ist die Reise in die innere Polarwelt. Alle geistigen und körperlichen Kräfte muß der Wanderer, der ihn betritt, aufbieten, um dem Geheimnisse, in das er dringen will, eine dürftige Kunde abzuringen. Mit unsäglicher Geduld muß er sich wappnen gegen Täuschung und Mißgeschick, sein Ziel noch verfolgen, wenn er ein Spiel des Zufalls geworden ist. Nicht die Befriedigung des Ehrgeizes darf dieses Ziel sein, sondern die Erweiterung unserer Kenntnisse (SEF 61).

In contrast to Weyprecht, “[Payer] will neue Länder oder Seewege entdecken […] ein Beobachtungszelt ist ihm zu wenig, er will in einem großen Jubel zurückkehren, mit einer wunderbaren kosmographischen Neuigkeit” (SEF 104). On Payer’s sled expeditions over the ice northwards, he baptises the Arctic contours with names of the Austrian nobility, Austrian cities and his friends. He immortalises them in the ice. The compulsion with which this naming is undertaken is demonstrated by Payer’s uncertainty “ob, was er tauft, Felsen sind oder Wolken” (SEF 220). Under the extreme conditions of the Arctic Payer appears superhuman. “Er leidet unter den Strapazen, unter den fünfzig Kältegraden, der Erfrierung und dem schmerzhaften Auftauen erstarrter Glieder wie jeder andere auch – aber er wird nicht müde.” (SEF 199) While his men rest, he draws and records, treating himself enthusiastically as a human guinea pig, observing his own split and cracked skin, the 70

changes to his urine (deep red) and the lack of sweat under such bitter conditions (SEF 199-200).29 Payer’s conquering of the Arctic space includes a mastery of his own physical and mental being, and an objectification of himself. As Preußer comments, “Die Verdinglichung der eigenen Person wird zum Programm. Die innere Natur will gemeistert sein, um die äußere sich vollends unterwerfen zu können. Diese Grundfigur einer Dialektik der Aufklärung wird von Payer im Extrem vorgeführt.” 30 Payer’s obsession manifests itself in his domination of other human beings as well as the attempted domination of nature and himself. His sled team is pushed to exhaustion and must continue its exertions even when snowblind (“[Catarinichs] Augenhöhlen sind tränende Wunden” - SEF 202). The men fear the amputation of frozen limbs as they endure the extremes of cold. Their leader’s dream of breaking records by pushing ever northwards becomes a madness which threatens any hope of survival and return to Weyprecht at the ice-bound Tegetthoff. In a labyrinth of ice Payer ignores his team’s worsening condition and separates them. Klotz is angrily sent back alone, “seine blutenden eiternden Füße, wo einmal Zehennägel gewesen sind, ist nur rohes faulendes Fleisch” (SEF 214). Emergency measures must be taken when both the sled and Zininovich plunge into a crevasse. Haller tells his fellow crew that “[d]er Herr Oberleutnant hat auf einem Gletscher einen Fehler gemacht und ist dann verzweifelt gewesen.” (SEF 219). Payer’s response to the natural world of Arctic icescape becomes both physical and emotional. His struggle against the ice landscape appears increasingly irrational. He pits his body against the ice and cold, and symbolically leaves blood behind on the virgin landscape. The motif of blood on the ice throughout the text is strongly associated with the actions of Payer.31 His sled dogs leave “das Blut ihrer rissigen Pfoten auf dem Eis … ein rotes Muster, das von den Schlittenkufen zerschnitten wird” (SEF 213). Klotz staggers back alone to the expedition camp on bloody feet. Payer’s superhuman effort to know the land and to possess it through exploration and recording is unrelenting; “[sie] messen und taufen und leiden. Nur Payer scheint diese neuerliche Tortur mit Begeisterung zu ertragen” (SEF 207). The violence of

29 Payer’s recording of his symptoms is similar to that of the “ Proband” as he succumbs to the symptoms of dehydration in his “ strahlender Untergang.” 30 Heinz-Peter Preußer, “ Reisen an das Ende der Welt. Bilder des Katastrophismus in der neueren österreichischen Literatur. Bachmann – Handke – Ransmayr,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, 38/39 (1995): 391.

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Payer’s assault on himself and his crew is translated onto the natural landscape to which they are laying claim.32 Payer’s drive to dominate nature, himself and fellow human beings is an obsessive individual vision that becomes more and more abstract from the reality that confronts the expedition and the rationality that characterised his original idealistic desire to colonise the empty space of the Arctic. Payer’s hubris is set against nature to his ultimate detriment.33

Nature as Antagonist.

Payer’s violent penetration of the Arctic ice and its colonisation by mapping leads into a further reading of the representation of the natural world in the text. The expedition’s experiences in the Polar Circle take on the quality of an aggressive confrontation with the natural world. In the perception of the Europeans, the Arctic landscape becomes the antagonistic Other. The survival - not merely the success - of the expedition comes to depend on overcoming the ice. The Arctic landscape is a physical “absolutism of reality” whose threat promotes a variety of responses. As the Tegetthoff becomes trapped in the frozen sea the expeditioners strike back. The crew sees Nature as the enemy.

Sie wehren sich. Sie schlagen um sich. Mit Beilen und Hauen hacken sie auf die Scholle ein, versuchen mit langen Sägen Känale ins Eis zu schneiden, bohren Löcher, die sie mit Schwarzpulver füllen, in dieses verfluchte, erstarrte Meer, zünden Sprengsatz um Sprengsatz ... (SEF 99).

31 For elaboration of this point see Lynne Cook, “ Variations of the Lost Hero: Blood on the Ice in Christoph Ransmayr’s Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis,” 1000 Jahre Österreich im Spiegel seiner Literatur, ed. August Obermayer (Dunedin: University of Otago, 1997) 214-233. 32 The Payer figure appears to characterise the dionysian tension within modern life, in the way suggested by Nietzsche. Beneath the surface of modern life, dominated by knowledge and science are to be found vital energies; wild, primitive and completely merciless. See Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane ed. Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930 (London: Penguin, 1991) 446. 33 The enthusiastic adventurer figure of Payer exemplifies both the warning of the “Hybris menschlicher Vernunft” in a context of the extremity of polar conditions and the eurocentric romanticisation of the polar regions as noted by Scheck in his discussion of a “körperbewußtes Erzählen.” See Scheck, “ Die Entdeckung der Peripherie. Zum körperbewußten Erzählen in der Gegenwartsliteratur,” 55-72.

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The men live in anxiety and fear of an unexpected attack from the ice. They lie in hammocks prepared for the call to abandon ship.

Drohend erstanden Berge aus ebenen Flächen, aus leichtem Aechzen entstand ein Klirren, Brummen und Brausen, gesteigert bis zu tausendstimmigem Wuthgeheul … Immer näher kommt das Klingen und Rauschen, wie wenn tausende Sichelwagen dahinrasten über die Sandflur eines Schlachtfeldes. Stets wächst die Stärke des Druckes; schon beginnt das Eis dicht unter uns zu beben. (SEF 108-9).

Initially the battle for survival and domination over the ice takes the above earnest form. Later a more playful battle for domination is undertaken by the crewmen in their icebound boredom. During the leaden flight of time while the Tegetthoff is caught in the polar ice, the trapped crewmen entertain themselves by constructing cities out of ice, an activity which, ironically, considering their situation, is an undeniable allegory of imperialist enterprise. They literally re-shape the contours of the landscape that holds them fast. Their attempts at colonisation take the form of “nur eine Latrine zuerst, dann Mauern, Häuser, Türme! und mit einer geradezu wütenden Anstrengung schließlich Kastelle und Paläste” (SEF 102). When the violent movements of the ice floes thrust off these structures, the men just as vigorously and enthusiastically begin to re-territorialise the space with more ambitious and grandiose plans, smoothing and levelling the frozen sea surface with water so they can iceskate. Ice-locked in their terra nuova (SEF 132), the crew help to build a three-sea-mile long sled track on which Payer can practise with his dog team. The temples and towers they build become an escape from reality, a game which ends only with the shout of “Offenes Wasser!” from the crows nest, and they “stürzen aus dem Märchen zurück in die Wirklichkeit” (SEF 147).34 But most enduringly for the expedition, the natural world of the Arctic is a place of exile “unter dem furchtbaren Triumvirat: Finsternis, Kälte und Einsamkeit” (SEF 114). Weyprecht reads the story of Job to the expedition, but “[der] unglückliche Hiob aus dem Lande Uz habe mit Gottes Hilfe schlimmere Prüfungen überstanden als das Eis” (SEF 110). Later the parallel is more unequivocally drawn; “[d]as Eismeer gleicht doch dem Lande Uz. Und jeder hier dem Hiob” (SEF 132). In the chapter ‘Aufzeichnungen aus dem Lande Uz’ the crew face further obstacles and disappointments. They have discovered a new land, but “[a]ch dieses Land. Die Berge

34 Ironically, this cry is in direct contrast to the joyous cry one would expect in such a maritime context, “ Land ahoy!” 73

tragen ja keine Fichtenwälder, keine Föhren, keine Krüppelkiefern, nichts. Und die Täler sind voll Eis” (SEF 186). The space of the Arctic ice remains alien and Other - despite their attempts to re-create it in their own eurocentric image. In the space of nature, the men are driven to delusion (for example, Klotz’s internal migration, his “Versteinerung”- SEF 188), into deprivation and illness (“Die Skorbutkranken weinen”), even to death (Krisch’s lungs “seien unheilbar zerfressen”); even commander Weyprecht begins to cough blood. They live in darkness for one hundred and twenty five consecutive days (SEF 194). The work they do to free the ship is again for naught. “Alles ist unverändert. Alles umsonst. Jeder Handgriff eine Sisyphusarbeit, sagt Payer. Sisyphus? fragen sie. Dem ist es ergangen wie uns, sagt Payer” (SEF 145). The ice holds them prisoner. The imagery of religion and myth relate more aptly than Enlightenment narratives of progress and achievement to the expedition’s dire situation trapped in the ice. In this context, Payer provides the men with a mythology to combat the “absolutism of reality” they face in the polar north. The sled team under Payer must do battle with both distance and the Arctic cold (the temperature sinks to minus fifty-one degrees Celsius). To the team, it seems that the forces of nature rise against them (“Tosend leistet das Land Widerstand; gegen diese Stürme vermag alle Wut und Begeisterung nichts” SEF 200). The crew’s return to the Tegetthoff base over the polar terrain is “der Vollzug der reinen Strapaze” (SEF 221). Finally the men leave their still ice-bound ship and begin the overland odyssey back to Europe. After ten hours exhausting labour pushing their laden boats over the ice they have come a bare kilometre, after two weeks only kilometres further.

Die Wahrheit ist, daß der erste Tag ihres Rückzugs nur ein Beispiel war für die nachfolgenden Wochen und Monate, nur ein Gleichnis für eine Zeit, die ihnen schließlich als Zusammenfassung aller Entbehrungen und Enttäuschungen ihrer arktischen Jahre erscheint (SEF 238).

The glorious dreams of the expedition - to participate in an adventure of a lifetime, to gather information, knowledge, to win fame and fortune – drain away in the face of an adversary that merely follows age-old seasonal cycles and climatic extremes. The attempt by the expedition in mastering the physical reality of the Polar North is ultimately unsuccessful. The “absolutism of reality” on the margins represented by the horrors of ice and darkness is overwhelming and survival becomes a matter of being able to return to Europe – to the centre, to the known. Even their scientific colonisation

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of the Arctic territory is problematised upon their return to Europe as the following discussion indicates. Their maps and observations, their reports and chonicles, are viewed with distrust and open derision.

Inner Nature - The Fragmentation of the Hero Myth.

In the face of the isolation, fear and suffering of his expedition, Weyprecht holds to his rationalist creed of order, routine and discipline. “[W]enn die Disziplin verlorengehe […] dann sei alles verloren” (SEF 114).

Weyprecht sagt ihnen, daß es vor allem die Ordnung sei, die sie am Leben erhielte […] das Festhalten an der Disziplin und am Gesetz sei geradezu Ausdruck der Menschlichkeit und der einzige Weg, um in der Einöde zu bestehen (SEF 133).

Weyprecht’s repetition of “Wir werden zurückkehren. Ich weiß es,” (SEF 86) becomes a mantra of certainty to calm the crew. Only once does Weyprecht’s façade crack, revealing the responsibility and strain of leadership. He acts in a spontaneous and unconsidered way, running off to find his co-leader when Popischill staggers back to the ship after the first sled expedition; “Weyprecht nimmt nicht einmal ein Gewehr mit. Ohne Pelz rennt er davon” (SEF 202). At all other times Weyprecht’s thoughts and concerns are kept hidden. In his “Rückzugs Tagebuch” he writes, “Jeder verlorene Tag ist nicht ein Nagel, sondern ein ganzes Brett an unserem Sarge […] Ich mache zu allem ein gleichgültiges Gesicht aber ich sehe sehr wohl ein, daß wir verloren sind, wenn sich die Umstände nicht gänzlich ändern” (SEF 240-2). From Weyprecht’s perspective as the leader of such an enterprise representing the forces of imperial Austria, suicide is far preferable to his expedition’s possible dishonourable degeneration into chaos, cannibalism and insanity: “eine kaiserlich-königliche Nordpolexpedition konnte … durfte nicht zugrunde gehen wie ein Rudel ausgezehrter Wölfe” (SEF 242). The thinness of the civilised veneer, of notions of honour and order among human beings is observed not only in the altercations of minor officers and crew as their deprivation and exhaustion become severe, but also in the hero-leader Payer. Payer’s anger so overcomes his rational, civilised behaviour that he mistreats expedition members, quarrels violently with his officers and threatens the life of Weyprecht should

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they appear unable to survive the return journey to Europe. Weyprecht records, “Payer … ist derart mit Wut geladen, daß ich jeden Augenblick auf eine ernste Kollision gefaßt bin” (SEF 243). The text both situates nature as a stage setting and characterises it as the antagonist, the Other in the representation of Enlightenment philosophy in narrative. The narrative strand of the Weyprecht and Payer expedition allegorises the preliminary attempts by the European world to explore, claim and dominate the territory of the Other through naming and mapping. As well as dominating external nature and bringing it into service for the betterment and progress of Western humanity, the inner nature of humankind must also be dominated to serve scientific rationality. In such an extreme natural space as the Arctic, nature itself carries on its age-old seasons and rituals indifferent to the travails of its would-be colonisers. The “absolutism” of such a reality is physically and psychologically confronting to and overwhelming for the human individuals driven to conquer it. In such a primal terrain the rational gaze of the modern mind becomes disoriented and desperate. The drive for survival rejects the sophistications of order and rationality. Strategies of survival transform the rationalist tabula rasa of the Arctic into a mythically evocative space, where narratives of Job and Sisyphus more closely correspond to the reality the expedition experiences. The notion of an Enlightenment hero is also problematised in the text in Umberto Nobile’s anti-heroic attempt to conquer the spaces of nature. Nobile was initially the hero figure of Josef Mazzini’s childhood, the fantasy of his youth, dreamt of and admired in the stories and enthusiasms of his mother, Lucia. But the metamorphosis of the great general in his “golddurchwirkten Paradeuniform” (SEF 17) into “ein Schiffsbrüchiger” brings the young Mazzini into a shocked understanding of misfortune and mortality. His fascination with the polar ice and sea becomes the stuff of nightmares. “Was war das für ein M eer, auf dem sich Helden in Lumpengestalten. Kapitäne in Menschenfresser und Luftschiffe in eisige Fetzen verwandelten?” (SEF 18). However the polar world effects more than the external transformation of Nobile. A “Panzer aus Eiskristallen” (SEF159) causes Nobile’s air ship Italia to crash against an iceberg. Nobile and eight companions are thrown out onto the ice. The following drama demonstrates the metaphorical fall of the famous explorer and the naked selfishness of the human animal removed from the constraints of civilisation. “Denn Umberto Nobile verletzte nach seinem Schiffbruch jenen Ehrenkodex, der den Ablauf von Untergängen regelt. Und das verzieh ihm die Welt nicht” (SEF 160). 76

Nobile splits up the stranded group and lets himself (and his fox terrier!) be rescued first, leaving his companions behind; (“Ein Kommandant der sich vor allen anderen bergen ließ!” - SEF 160). Fifteen hundred rescuers on sixteen ships, twenty-one planes and eleven sled teams set out to rescue the remaining men, whereby seventeen rescuers lose their lives. After forty-seven days the survivors are found near death, as are two of three others who had been sent off earlier by Nobile. One, Zappi, in good condition was suspected of having eaten the missing Swedish oceanographer. “Aber gut, daß die Wahrheit für immer im Eis lag. Helden, die sich gegenseitig auffraßen!” (SEF 161). The notion of honour, so dear to the humanist philosophy is irrevocably tarnished in such acts. 35 The fragmentation of the identity of the Enlightenment hero begins with the tentative acceptance that the irrational nature of humankind has not been eradicated with the development of a so-called enlightened society. The fragmentation of the image of such a hero continues in this text with the disintegration of personality and project as the 1872-4 Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition successfully returns to Europe. The collapse of this subject-constructed, philosophically humanist and ideologically imperialist project is judged as a failure of an instrumentalised Enlightenment rationality to dominate the extreme frontiers of nature. Later, when Mazzini journeys to the Arctic, more sophisticated technology fills the arsenal of the human project to dominate nature.

Different Perspectives.

Archival material in the novel records Weyprecht and Payer’s triumphant return to Vienna. They are acclaimed heroes, cheered along their route into the capital and their carriage is hung with victor’s wreaths. But gradually the recognition and admiration are eroded away by the “Geplauder der Aristokratie … Gerede der M ilitärs … Gerüchten am Hof oder den Kommentaren aus der Kaiserlichen Akademie und den Zirkeln der geographischen Gesellschaft” (SEF 254-5). Payer in particular suffers from this treatment, “er allein, Julius Payer, der Held, der nicht bloß geachtet, sondern verehrt, geliebt! sein will, ist verletzbar geblieben – und wird verletzt.” (SEF 255). Comments such as “Herrn Payers Kartographierung dieses sogenannten Kaiser-Franz-Joseph- Landes sei bedauerlicherweise doch sehr, sehr ungenau,” destroy Payer’s faith, “Sein

35 John Carroll, Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture (London: Fontana, 1993) 14-26. 77

Land, eine Lüge …[das Land] das er unter Qualen vermessen hat?” (SEF 255). He is mocked during a lecture with the interjection, “Wenn es nur wahr wäre!” (SEF 256). Payer’s later comment, “Was die Entdeckung eines bisher unbekannten Landes anbelangt, so lege ich persönlich heute keinen Werth mehr darauf,” (SEF 256) reveals his vulnerablility and surrender to the judgement of his peers. As such, his failure as an Enlightenment hero is dependent on the historical, political and social context of Vienna. The act of translation undertaken by the expeditioners when entering the new space of the Arctic has resulted in their changed perceptions of reality. These new perceptions cannot be understood by those still firmly committed to a philosophical paradigm shaped by a Western modernity in the late nineteenth century. Even the sober Weyprecht is transformed by his experiences in the ice and darkness, and is no longer the confident scientist demanding centre stage. He responds to the intrigues of the Vienna circles as follows; “er hört gar nicht auf das Geschwätz von Intriganten, [...] will nichts mehr werden […] der sehnt sich oft ins Eis zurück” (SEF 255). Payer also revisits the world of ice and darkness through his massive paintings that dominate whole walls with Arctic landscapes. After his return to Europe Weyprecht tries to warn against the intoxication of exploration, “[d]enn der Forschung und dem Fortschritt sei nicht mit immer neuen Opfern an Menschen und Material zu dienen.” (SEF 251). As reported by the narrator, Weyprecht criticises the trend of Arctic research, “[s]ie sei doch zu einem sinnlosen Opferspiel verkommen und erschöpfe sich gegenwärtig in der rücksichtslosen Jagd nach neuen Breitenrekorden im Interesse der nationalen Eitelkeit” (SEF 251). Such a comment of necessity reminds the reader of Payer’s excesses during the expedition. By the time of Weyprecht’s death six years after the expedition’s return to Europe, the one-time heroes’ achievements have been devalued to the extent that “das neue Land schon nichts mehr wert [war].” The doubt existing on both sides as to the worth of their extraordinary experience is crippling. The heroic impulse to knowledge and achievement which had initially driven both men has been undermined both by their experiences in the polar ice and also the reponse which greeted their experiences upon their return to Vienna. In view of this, at the end of the nineteenth century the age of the Enlightenment hero-leader appears over. Payer, who had sought his fame and his place in history, is “[…] von seinem Volk vergessen und vernachlässigt” and “… [mußte] in Armut leben und [war] gezwungen, wie ein Händler umherzureisen und für wenig Geld 78

Vorträge zu halten” (Sven Hedin, SEF 259). The twentieth century ushers in a new world with a world-view paradigm shift from certainty to doubt, from grand gestures and totalities to a recognition of a general and pervasive transience and relativism.

An Enlightenment Myth?

In the archival material which structures a “Chronik des Scheiterns” in Die Schreckens des Eises und der Finsternis, the reader is given a sense of the losing battle fought by the explorer and adventurer/hero with the forces of nature. Men lose their lives, their ships, their dreams and ambitions, when taking part in this “Totentanz” of exploration (SEF 60). Reports list expeditions as variously “verschwunden, gestorben, erschlagen, verschollen, umgekommen” (SEF 89-90). The narrator questions the value of these undertakings by considering the cost in human life and suffering. In the chapter entitled ‘Zweiter Exkurs: Passagensucher, Ein Formblatt aus der Chronik des Scheiterns,’ there is an ironic subheading, ‘Ergänzende Eintragung: Die Sieger’. The battle terminology aligns man and nature as adversaries once more. But with the successful forcing through of the North-East passage, what has been gained? “Eine Passage ohne Verkehrsbedeutung und Wert für den Handel, weil nur um den Preis einer vielleicht jahrelangen Eisgefangenschaft zu befahren.” Its value waits for later triumphs of technology; massive tankers and battleships (SEF 91). Victory over the North-West passage follows. The polar space is decisively penetrated and human presence asserted. “Aber wer würde zu behaupten wagen, daß alle Qualen und Leidenswege der Passagensucher sinnlos gewesen seien? Höllenfahrten für wertlose Routen?” (SEF 91). The questioning of this so-called victory over nature and its final value is an essential questioning of the Enlightenment project itself, which is possible from the retrospective advantage of the late twentieth century. Critics in the late twentieth century are rightly suspicious of projects to dominate and exploit the natural environment. The Enlightenment dream begins with the desire to open and extend the spaces of knowledge and science. In reality what is achieved is the “Zerstörung der Mythen vom offenen Polarmeer, der Mythen von Paradiesen im Eis. Und den Mythos zerstört man nicht ohne Opfer.” (SEF 91). The attempted de-mystification of the natural landscape has led in many cases to tragedy; not only in the statistics listed in the

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“Chronik des Scheiterns” but also in terms of the impact of European domination of the populations of these spaces of the Other. The lust for the new, for power and wealth led to excesses far from any altruistic impulse for exploration in the service of the betterment of the quality of (European) human life. The excesses of exploration had, however, begun in pre-modern times. For example, the modern compulsion to map and to name is placed in the context of the geographical division of the New World in 1494. All lands both discovered and as yet undiscovered were, for “immerwährende Zeiten” (SEF 51), to be divided between Spain and Portugal. However,

… die unmißverständliche Wahrheit dieses Zeitalters der Entdeckungen wurde nicht in den Kosmographenstuben Europas aufgezeichnet, sondern in Berichten wie jenem Náhuatl-Text der Azteken. Der das Bild des europäischen Auftritts überlieferte: ‘Die Kalkgesichter waren entzückt. Affen gleich wiegten sie das Gold in ihren Händen …Wie hungrige Schweine gierten sie nach dem Gold (SEF 52).

The horrific actions of Pizarro against the Incas confirm the brutality of the imperialising Christian European. “[E]r läßt taufen und hinrichten, zerstampft was sich widersetzt, und widmet seine Massaker dem Herrn Jesus und der spanischen Krone” (SEF 54). The tone in which the narrator relates these actions reveals the late twentieth century’s critical rejection of the arrogance and ignorance of past ages. The crusading impulse of medieval times had already become abstracted by greed and lust for power before historical modernity. However, the imperialist project of modern times, with the desire to dominate and possess both land and people, is similarly excessive and dangerous, even totalitarian. The guiding ideals of what became known as the Enlightenment program, ideals of human progress and the altruistic pursuit of knowledge are subverted into self-interest and greed. In terms of its own definition, the Enlightenment project becomes myth, irrational and inconsistent, and is denounced by its failure to achieve human advancement and a common good. Such a critique falls easily into familiar anti-Enlightenment, post-colonial, postmodern parameters. In this regard, Ransmayr’s voice as novelist is hardly new, though his comment is still valid within the context he offers. Where Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis does address issues of a more recent discourse critical of scientific modernity is Ransmayr’s treatment of the questing subject in the second narrative strand: the project and disappearance of Joseph Mazzini. If the movement of 80

the first historical narrative strand of the text is towards scientific de-mystification and imperialistic exploitation, the Mazzini narrative strand tracks a re-mythologising impulse in the text. Mazzini intends to write a story for his own time by re-inventing the past. In doing so he attempts to re-invest Arctic space and contemporary experience with the fantastical element drained from it by the de-mystifying impulse of Enlightenment philosophy and historical modernity.36

Mazzini’s Project: The Re-Mythologisation of Arctic Space.

Josef Mazzini, “Sohn des aus Wien stammenden Tapezierers Kaspar Mazzini und dessen Frau Lucia, einer Triestiner Miniaturmalerin,” responds to the conflict between his parents and their expectations of him by leaving Triest for Vienna. This act initiates a project of voluntary de-centering and re-casting of identity which characterises Mazzini’s actions in the text. The impetus for this re-defining of identity and place is located in M azzini’s need for an authenticity of experience and existence, unshaped and unmediated by other lives and texts. This need is consistently confounded by the character of a postmodern reality where the notion of authenticity is problematised by the death of the real and its replacement by a technologised society of simulacra and the second-hand. In reaction to this, M azzini enters the fantastical spaces of the imagination and later into the fantastical space of a re-mythologised nature. The child M azzini becomes “schwierig” (SEF 16), ultimately rejecting the rules and regulations of his father and his role as heir. In leaving Trieste for Vienna, Mazzini, as a young adult, acts out the “Fluchtphantasien” of his father. He exists between two languages, Italian and German, and two centres of belonging, Trieste and Vienna. While Mazzini as subject is constructed by forces of rebellion and rejection it is obvious that his “inheritance” from his parents is also part of the identity he assumes in Vienna and in the Arctic Circle. This conflict and confusion is central to Mazzini’s drive to find a new space supportive of the clearly delineated identity he seeks. He attempts to reconstruct himself as an active and coherent subject in the face of the fragmentation which is his social inheritance.

36 Mazzini’s narrative is distinct from the earlier Weyprecht/Payer narrative in the use of standard font presentation. However, Mazzini’s attempt to write a new narrative is, ironically, over-written by the eager narrator’s comments, suppositions and interpretations. The notion of the narrator as intermediary/representative is central to the following discussion of authenticity and identity in the Mazzini narrative. 81

The “absolutism of reality” for Mazzini in the late twentieth century is, firstly, this fragmentation and confusion of identity and place, an absence of individuality and familiarity/acceptance. Secondly, Mazzini is confronted by his perception of the mediated and simulated nature of contemporary existence. He seeks an authenticity and immediacy of experience which he initially – ironically - attempts to achieve through the medium of the written text. A contemporary technological sophistication promotes both life at second-hand and passivity born of the ease of vicarious access to a multitude of experiential moments. The need to be entertained does not distinguish between the authentic experience and the imaginative invention. The role of the “Vertreter,” the writer or reporter, mediates all experience and veracity.

Wohin wir selbst nicht kommen, schicken wir unsere Stellvertreter – Berichterstatter, die uns dann erzählen, wie’s war. Aber so war es meistens nicht … Uns bewegt ja doch nichts mehr. Uns klärt man auch nicht auf. Uns bewegt man nicht, uns unterhält man … (SEF 21-2).

Mazzini’s project in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis falls into two phases. He first attempts to re-stimulate the gaze of fantasy through the act of the imagination and writing. To a large extent M azzini remains a lone crusader in this specific quest. His vision remains singular and isolated. The metaphorical ice within which M azzini already exists in Vienna - in his inability to effectively or convincingly communicate his project to others – is repeated in his social isolation in the Arctic North. This isolation also signifies an “absolutism of reality” which Mazzini attempts to overcome by the assumption of various identities in the various places of his adventuring. He does this in order to connect on an individual level with the other characters who structure each social space, in particular with characters such as Flaherty in Longyearbyen. In doing so, Mazzini constructs a personal myth, which borrows heavily from earlier hero myths in the novel, notably that of Julius Payer. The second phase of Mazzini’s project begins when he physically re-enacts the earlier Weyprecht-Payer expedition, although he continues to record his experiences in his journal. The textual recording of this adventure ends as Mazzini’s quest takes its first decisive step into authenticity (whether intended or not) – in the act of his own physical disappearance. These two phases of Mazzini’s project confront the “absolutism of reality” in his late twentieth century existence and can be identified through the way the natural world is represented in the Arctic, and the roles it assumes.

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In an attempt to re-invest the de-mythologised and regulated space of contemporary existence with values of authenticity and immediacy, M azzini’s project takes as its site of research and action the space of the Arctic. For Mazzini, the Arctic had long been synonomous with the heroic and the exotic. In this identification lies a nostalgia for the past and his past, and for the familiar tales of adventure and heroism from his childhood. As such the Arctic is seen as a space of revelation and refuge from the confusion, ephemerality, fragmentation and mediated nature of postmodern existence.

The Arctic as Re-Mythologised Space - Fantasy and Text.

The Arctic for Mazzini has long been “Bühne und Hintergrund [seiner Phantasien]” (SEF 64). It is the stage for his dream world as a child, when his mother transformed the kitchen table into a space where the past was “übermächtig and malerisch.” In the stories told by Mazzini’s mother, the world was an “Album, in dem man blätterte” (SEF 16). Everything is possible in such a textual space. As his mother enthusiastically relates, Mazzini comes from a line of adventurers and heroes. His great-uncle was the Antonio Scarpa (my italics), who had served on the Austrian expedition to the North Pole, discovering Franz Joseph Land. As a result of his mother’s storytelling, the young Mazzini “wurde mit Helden vertraut” (SEF 17). The boy was held in thrall by the world of ice and heroes. Mazzini’s adult project continues these fantasies of adventure. As he reports to the literary circle which gathered at Anna Koreth’s in Vienna, he “entwerfe gewissermaßen die Vergangenheit neu” (SEF 20). He is intrigued by the notion of playing with reality, by an “Erfindung der Wirklichkeit” (SEF 21) in which “er gehe aber davon aus, daß was immer er phantasiere, irgendwann schon einmal stattgefunden haben müsse” (SEF 20). After thinking up stories, inventing plots and writing them up, Mazzini finally checks if in the distant or recent past such characters or events corresponding to his story actually existed. This play with temporality characterises the text.

Das sei, sagte Mazzini, im Grunde nichts anderes als die Methode der Schreiber von Zukunftsromanen, nur eben mit umgekehrter Zeitrichtung. So habe er den Vorteil, die Wahrheit seiner Erfindungen durch geschichtliche Nachforschungen überprüfen zu können. Es sei ein Spiel mit der Wirklichkeit (SEF 20).

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The more magnificent the adventure which Mazzini dreams up and searches for in the archives, the more his stories tend to be set in extreme, unpopulated landscapes, particularly in the northern ice. “Der Erfinder schien damit den Anschluß an die eisstarrenden Bilder seiner Kindheit gefunden zu haben” (SEF 22). When he finds documentary material relating to the Weyprecht-Payer North Pole expedition of 1872-4 in Koreth’s bookshop, “Mazzini [begann] damals mit einem geradezu fanatischen Eifer, den wirren Verlauf dieser Entdeckungsreise zu rekonstruieren” (SEG 23). Mazzini’s reconstruction of the earlier expedition begins in the archives and continues when he begins his own expedition into the physical space of the Arctic Circle a century after the original explorers. The textual structuring of the novel allows the course of both expeditions to be followed. Characters, places and events re-emerge and are re-enacted as Mazzini re-invents the reality of the earlier expedition in his own journey. When Mazzini travels north, he “probt das Alleinsein” by making a twenty kilometre foot march in Tromsö. He gains a berth on a research ship the Cradle in order to reach Franz Joseph Land through the ice. He learns dogsledding in Longyearbyen, after circumnavigating Spitzbergen. He introduces himself as Antonio Scarpa to a travelling acquaintance and is called ‘Weyprecht’ by Flaherty in mocking honour of the young man’s obsession with the earlier explorer. Mazzini seeks to emulate Payer in his dogsled expeditions, while it is Fyrand Kyetl who is more consistently identifiable as the Payer figure.37 M azzini’s preferred experiences of the time and space of his contemporary world are reflected in the description of him as a “Fußgänger” in the first chapter; “[Er] reiste oft allein und viel zu Fuß” (SEF 11). This description connects him immediately to the foreword comments in ‘Vor Allem’ that “wir [sind], physiognomisch gesehen, Fußgänger und Läufer” (SEF 9). The role of the writer as the reader’s proxy is observed in this context. (Mazzini’s comment has been noted previously, “Wohin wir selbst nicht kommen, schicken wir unsere Stellvertreter – Berichterstatter, die uns dann erzählen, wie’s war” - SEF 21-2). But how can experienced reality be communicated? And further, what is the point anyway? The mediated experience is a momentary, sensual,

37 Ransmayr’s own fascination with the Weyprecht-Payer expedition was inspired by Payer’s paintings. With Reinhold Messner he climbed the Ortler in Southern Tyrol’s Vinschgau, emulating Payer’s earlier climb. The first ORF film expedition to the Arctic in 1992 (“ Land der Berge”), which involved Ransmayr and Messner, was dedicated to Julius Payer. Neue Zeit, Graz, 13.October, 1992: 31. 84

trivialised one. Mazzini’s diary comment, “Uns bewegt ja doch nichts mehr. Uns klärt man auch nicht auf. Uns bewegt man nicht, uns unterhält man…” (SEF 22) deplores the ignorant and passive state contemporary entertainment culture promotes in the spectator.38 Mazzini attempts, by undertaking his own polar expedition, to overcome this spectator passivity for which even the most extreme landscape and experience is made available second-hand. Mazzini’s polar expedition is also undertaken in two stages. Firstly, the journey is textual. Mazzini’s project reflects the deconstructionist position which states that experience is always already-writtenness. The concept of reality as text is one which the Mazzini narrative adopts literally for the major part of this character’s story. The natural world of adventure for Mazzini is one which is experienced through the pages of journals written a century before, through sketches drawn in the polar wastes, through maps tentatively sketched through almost superhuman endeavour. Mazzini’s decision to re-enact the North Pole expedition of Weyprecht and Payer seeks to narratively de- territorialise (in the Deleuzian sense) Arctic space and reterritorialise it, reclaiming it as his personal mythic space. His journey is communicated to the reader by appropriated journals, letters and documents gathered in preparation for his expedition. Mazzini’s own impressions of the Arctic space go largely unrecorded. The reader sees the polar world through the twice-removed gaze of Payer and Weyprecht, and must understand the further intermediary gaze of Mazzini and the narrator as part of a narrated reality. Mazzini’s textual re-mythologising of the Arctic expresses absolute confidence in the act of imagination. The imagination can take the thinker or writer into the space of actuality. Mazzini’s later trip to the Arctic may be interpreted as a further concretised text of imagination. However the reading of Mazzini’s textual re-mythologising as an act of imagination and writing rests on the realisation that such an act is yet another mediated representation of an earlier experienced reality. Mazzini does, however, experience first hand both the lure and fear repellent in the Arctic nature-scape of ice and darkness. His enthusiastic cerebral journey to a world shaped and anticipated by his fantasies ends with a paradoxically passive slide towards action under the spell of this Arctic space. As the narrator comments, “ich glaube nicht, daß er diese Reise von allem Anfang an so bestimmt, so wirklich gewollt hat. Es schien als ob die Dinge tatsächlich ihren Lauf genommen und Mazzini diesen Lauf erst

38 Ironically, yet fitting in this context, both “ bewegen” and “ erklären” are used here in the passive voice. 85

nachträglich als seine Entscheidung auszugeben versucht hätte” (SEF 64). The magic of mythic space which grows from M azzini’s earliest archival explorations resonates with his nostalgic identification with the subject matter from childhood. The personal myth Mazzini constructs as a response to the forces shaping his adult reality develops from his early identification with heroes and the extreme space of the Arctic. Mazzini wants to be heroic. He wants to make his name and take his place in a conscious act of bravery against the numbing forces of a socially constructed reality of passivity and isolation. But, by the end of the twentieth century, Mazzini’s Arctic destination was “längst kein mythenverzaubertes Land mehr.” Before his departure for the Arctic Circle the tourist information he had received (arrival details, geographical, climate and light facts, flight connections and population statistics, warnings about bears and nature protection laws) indicates an ordered and organised place:

Die Vogelarten Svalbards sind gezählt. Die Namen der Flechten und Moose aufgezeichnet, ihr Regenerationzyklus bekannt. Für das Verhalten im Ernstfall gibt es rettende Vorschriften; die Meerestiefen sind vermessen, die Riffe und Klippen mit Leuchttürmen bestückt und auch die schroffsten Erhebungen kartographiert (‘Hinweise für Touristen,’ SEF 68).

The work started by Weyprecht and Payer in scientifically de-mystifying this space of the Other has been completed. Or so it would seem. M azzini wakes on his last morning in Vienna, numbed and dizzy, stranded between dream and reality. His life continues to bear the trace of fantasy as he travels to the ice and darkness of the Arctic Circle (SEF 69). By playing at being a writer, supposedly doing important research for an historical project, M azzini is able to gain a berth on the research ship, the Cradle. Even so, the writer figure is not valued by the locals whose everyday world is the polar space. “Ein Buch also … noch ein Buch; auf jedes Abenteuer entfällt mittlerweile eine Schiffsladung Bücher, eine ganze Bibliothek,” says Fagerlien, chief of the Polar Institute. “Und aus jeder Bibliothek kommt wieder ein Abenteuer,” retorts Mazzini (SEF 71). In this inversion the problematised notion of textual and experiential authenticity is poetically placed before the reader. The adventure Mazzini undertakes in the Arctic is one in which the dreams of his childhood and the heroic stories of the past are not merely remembered, but re-lived. He visits the Amundsen-Nobile memorial - “Nein, Josef Mazzini hatte sich an nichts

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erinnert. Er hat alles noch mal erlebt” (SEF 159). He attempts to join the community of modern polar heroes. With Fyrand in Longyearbyen, “Josef Mazzini glaubt sich längst im Inneren dieser Gesellschaft; aber die weiß, woran sie mit ihm ist – ein Journalist oder Schriftsteller oder so ähnlich, der sich in die Polargeschichte vernarrt hat” (SEF 126). The Longyearbyen eccentrics and adventurers condemn the accessibility of this polar space for travellers from the outside. “Jetzt, wo jeder rachitische Urlauber diesen Scheißpol in einer Boeing einfach überfliegen konnte, na klar, in Anzug und Krawatte, ein Steak aus der Plastiktüte auf den Knien und die Kodak am Bullauge” (SEF 126). M azzini’s desire to belong in this circle, to find an identity and place in the polar ice, is not only an act of translation of himself into this environment, but an attempt to win recognition from those whose identity is already determined by their existence in this wild space. He seeks to win a form of authenticity through their acceptance. Mazzini’s re-writing of the past in a textual re-mythologising is transformed into an attempt to re-invent himself in a new identity as the Arctic hero who belongs in the land of ice and darkness, the space of the exile and outsider. He does transform himself after his journey to the Arctic Circle. He becomes less and less identifiable as the Viennese tourist. However the issue of identity becomes less and less important.

Er blieb [in Longyearbyen]. Und seine Existenz schien mit jedem Tag unscheinbarer und spurloser zu werden, nur ein Beweis für die Kraft jenes Sogs, der in der Leere, der Zeitlosigkeit und dem Frieden der Wüste seinen Ursprung hat und der seine Opfer ohne jede Auswahl erfaßt und noch aus der wärmsten Geborgenheit eines geordneten Lebens fortholt in die Stille, in die Kälte, in das Eis (SEF 230-1).

With his decision to stay in the North, Mazzini, the “Sekretär der Erinnerung,” (SEF 174), having written feverishly in his notes on the Cradle, and sharing his stories and photocopies of Payer’s sketches with interested passengers, ceases to write in his journal. When Mazzini abandons the mediated fantasy of the written page, he transforms fantasy into reality, by action. His response to an “absolutism of reality” in Vienna, which was structured by a culture of mediation and simulation, has been to privilege fantasy and adventure in the writing of explorer narratives and the development of a personal myth. He reconstructs himself as the hero of his text. However, in doing so, he assumes the identity of others and the space of their heroic acts. His final act of re-mythologising his reality in Arctic space is in his disappearance

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into the ice with Fyrand’s dog team. He becomes part of a polar mystery and joins a late twentieth century “Chronik des Scheiterns.” As the human subject in this polar context Mazzini becomes less and less distinct, until he becomes indistinguishable from the natural world of the Arctic. No trace of him is found after his dogsledding expedition. Mazzini’s act of re-mythologisation has taken him back into an intimate relationship with the space of nature. He has voluntarily abdicated his role as subject. His identity, as determined within European, late twentieth century parameters, is dissolved within the Arctic ice. He completely re-enters the, for him, re-mythologised space of the Arctic and, in doing so, ceases to exist in terms of the reality dictated by his previous life in Vienna. Mazzini’s disappearance results in a re-mythologising response on the part of his circle of acquaintances in Vienna. These acquaintances attempt to create a story around Mazzini’s fate. The narrator has initially taken up Mazzini’s story in an effort to symbolically lay Mazzini to rest.

… [W]enn einer verlorengeht, ohne einen greifbaren Rest zu hinterlassen, etwas, das man verbrennen, versenken oder verscharren kann, dann muß er wohl erst in den Geschichten, die man nach seinem Verschwinden über ihn zu erzählen beginnt, allmählich und endgültig aus der Welt geschafft werden. (SEF 11)

An acquaintance who admits to little sympathy with Mazzini in Vienna, the narrator finds himself/herself drawn into Mazzini’s quest. A further problematising of identity occurs when the narrator, by reconstructing Mazzini’s fate, colonises Mazzini’s identity and text and insists upon the necessity of Mazzini’s death in order to legitimate his/her own appropriative act.

… daß ich längst in die Welt eines anderen hinübergewechselt war; es war die beschämende lächerliche Entdeckung, daß ich gewissermaßen Mazzinis Platz eingenommen hatte: Ich tat ja seine Arbeit und bewegte mich in seinen Phantasien so zwangsläufig wie eine Brettspielfigur … Mazzini war tot. Er mußte tot sein (SEF 25).

In this act, the narrator also effects the disappearance of M azzini as subject.39

39 T his narratorial cannibalism as an aspect of Mazzini’s disappearance is also referred to in my discussion of the eternal recurrence in Chapter 5. See pages 172-74. 88

The last act of myth-making in the novel belongs to the narrator who relates the story of Mazzini’s disappearance to the reader. But by disappearing, Mazzini’s heroic narrative ultimately cannot be brought to an end. No amount of rational analysis can provide a proof of his fate or a conclusion. The narrator is left with the diaries, letters, maps and paraphernalia of Mazzini’s journey to the Arctic and Mazzini’s early research into the Weyprecht-Payer expedition. There is no solution to the puzzle, no factual final explanation. Mazzini’s story remains speculation, fantasy and mystery.40

A Symbolic World of Ice.

The recurrent image of ice in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis suggests another way in which the natural world is used to represent another “absolutism of reality” for human individuals in the late twentieth century. The comment, “jeder aus einem anderen Eis,” encapsulates the symbolic representation of the world of nature as that corresponding to a contemporary human condition, that of social isolation. The image is one of popular currency in recent literature. One critic notes an “allgemeine gar gesamtgesellschaftliche Erstarrung … [und Vereisung] unseres Zeitalters.” 41 The social isolation and social division registered in the image is found in both the Weyprecht- Payer and Mazzini narrative strands, but more directly in the latter. When used in the narrative of the earlier expedition, the motif highlights the dissolution of conventional time in the Arctic and the perspectivism, promoted by the expedition hierarchy that characterises individual written reports of experiences in the ice.

Die Expedition erreichte am zweiten, erreichte am drittem, erreichte am vierten Juli 1872 Tromsö. Die Wirklichkeit ist teilbar. (Auch in der kleinen Gesellschaft an Bord der Tegetthoff waren die Journale der Untertanen von denen der Befehlshaber so verschieden, daß es manchmal schien, als würde in den Kojen und Kajüten nicht an einer einzigen, sondern an der Chronik mehrerer, einander ganz fremder Expeditionen geschrieben. Jeder berichtet aus einem anderen Eis (SEF 41).

40 T he myth of Mazzini’s disappearance as developed by his circle in Vienna holds for them something of the “ T error” attributed to myth by Blumenberg; that is, the awe one feels in the presence of something still essentially unknown and which promotes a sense of vulnerability – in this case for Mazzini’s friends’ own certainties and sense of mortality. 41 Reinhold Grimm, “ Eiszeit und Untergang: Zu einem Motivkomplex in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur,” Monatshefte, 73: 2 (1981): 156. 89

The ice motif is more evocative of a specific social context in the M azzini narrative a century later.42 M azzini is established early as the isolate, the outsider. Mazzini has rejected his “Erbe” (SEF 16) and is only conditionally accepted in the Koreth circle in Vienna. M azzini’s attendance at Anna Koreth’s literary soirées results in his unsuccessful attempts to explain his plans for a polar journey to the bemused group present. They question, “Wer geht schon in die Arktis, nur um sich vorzustellen, was war, was gewesen sein könnte?” (SEF 47). M azzini is an outsider not only because of his writing project, but to a degree because of his language: “[e]r sprach … tat es in einem höflichen Deutsch, dem man anmerkte, daß es aus der Emigration kam” (SEF 20). In the initial response of the narrator, Mazzini’s conversation appeared “pointensüchtig.” What he spoke about was seen as “seltsam und kauzig” (SEF 20). M azzini’s project to reinvent reality in his fiction is received as pure pretension by the others, and they respond negatively: “aha, sehr nett, kommt uns bekannt vor … eine phantasierte Geschichte, die tatsächlich schon einmal geschehen sei, würde sich doch durch nichts mehr von einer bloßen Nacherzählung unterscheiden” (SEF 20-21). Even with Anna, with whom a relationship of warmth and connection is established, a sense of isolation persists. “Mazzini ist schon allein mit Anna; was er sagt, sagt er ihr. Aber dann können sie einander nicht mehr zuhören, und doch reden sie einen Abend lang weiter; jeder aus einem anderen Eis” (SEF 47). The social world of the polar North, populated by various exiles and eccentrics, similarly rejects M azzini, despite his own eccentricity. There, he is also the outsider, not an authentic polar type. He is described variously as a “Ferienkind,” “der Junge aus Wien,” a “Faschingsnarr” and “besoffener Tourist.” When Mazzini ceases recording his

42 Ransmayr’s early reportage also addresses the issue of social isolation and the role of technology in the creation of this isolation. In ‘Der Blick in die Ferne: Ablenkung am Rande der Gesellschaft’ in Der Weg nach Surabaya, social isolation and both its intensification, as well as partial overcoming, by technology, in this case, television, is revealed in several interviews. The teenagers of the Wiener Jugendgerichthof see “ zwei Wochen Fernsehentzug [als] die schlimmste Strafe” (WS 164). Television is a substitute for human contact in the “ Seniorenheim” in Berlin. “ Das Fernsehen [...] ist wunderbar. Aber Besuche wären doch schöner” (WS 165). Ransmayr also questions the validity of the criticism of television as “ Leben zweiter Hand” when he poses the question of what “ [ein] Leben erster Hand” offers, “ Wovon schließen wir uns denn in verdunkelten Zimmern ab? Wovon erholen wir uns denn beim Starren und Stillhalten? Von einem Leben aus erster Hand vielleicht? Vom Glück?” (WS 157). Further deliberations on notions of mediated experience and failing communication in these articles end in a ambivalent response, such as that of one interviewee, Alois Blum who condemns television as “ die allergrößte Volksverblödung” but then excuses himself to go inside to watch the “ Tagesschau” (WS 161-162). Ransmayr’s closing comments, including “ die Welt liegt doch in Bildschirmgröße, entschlüsselt vor uns - jederzeit verfügbar, jederzeit löschbar” (WS 168-9) indicates a perception of the multiple versions of reality, its accessiblity and the ease of its manipulation in our age.

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experiences in his journal the narrator interprets this as evidence that Mazzini has found his place. However it should be noted that Mazzini adopts as his own the Count’s family motto on their coat of arms in the film, The Barefoot Contessa, which he watched on board the Cradle: “Was geschehen soll, geschieht.” Mazzini has already demonstrated his propensity to be drawn passively into situations, so a sense of the workings of fate or a perceived determinism is consistent here. His passivity is to an extent contradicted by his focused dedication in learning dogsledding with Fyrand. The emasculation of the Count in The Barefoot Contessa also symbolically reflects Mazzini’s impotence in realising his polar ambitions. Mazzini is aligned with those who are not to be taken seriously, not a “real” (polar) man. By learning the art of dogsledding, M azzini makes one last gesture for acceptance in this chauvinistic society on the edge of civilization: a last commitment to self-reinvention, to become a part of his re-mythologising of Arctic space, the Arctic hero. However he fails in this project. He disappears without trace into the ice and darkness. M azzini appears an anti-heroic, rather than heroic, figure.43 M azzini’s disappearance can be seen in two ways. Firstly, his disappearance reawakens a sense of the fantastical and the mysterious in those left behind, the book readers of Vienna. The “Tischgespräche über die fraglichen Pläne und Absichten des Verschollenen” (SEF 228) continue without the narrator’s participation. As noted, the narrator persists in his role as chronicler without the consolation of an ending. Mazzini’s post-Vienna existence is transformed into a myth in both contexts. But, secondly, in his attempt to re-invent himself as the hero, Mazzini fails to leave his stamp on the space he confronts. It can be seen that the existential ice and darkness of Mazzini’s social existence ultimately swallows him. The fascination of the Arctic casts its spell on Mazzini as it had for Weyprecht and Payer, who both dreamt of a return to its cold and stillness. However for M azzini the natural space of the Arctic is also the place where the cry “ich bin allein, ich war immer allein” (SEF 236) makes perfect sense. These words are the shouted reply of the hunter Aker, whom Fyrand finds in the Arctic emptiness on his rescue mission to locate the missing Mazzini. The

43 Müller describes Mazzini as a “ pygmy” protagonist in contrast to those of earlier seafaring adventurers. She points out that one of the functions of the heterodiegetic omniscient narrators of both Ransmayr’s novel and Umberto Eco’s L’Isola del Giorno Prima is to deconstruct the notion of hero by the discouraging of identification and the encouraging of critical distance, irony and laughter. Müller, “ Sea Voyages into T ime and Space: Postmodern Topographies in Umberto Eco’s L’Isola del Giorno Prima and Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis,” 2.

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identity and place M azzini strives for in the ice and darkness of the Arctic are finally mysteries. The fate of Mazzini as the individual subject is unknown, his story is without resolution once Mazzini’s textual existence, as recorded in his journal, ends. The essential isolation of the subject, in being removed from all sites of certainty - a condition characteristic of postmodern times - is a precursor to the subject’s disappearance in a textually mediated world.

By Travelling to the Ice …

Both the Weyprecht-Payer expedition of 1872-4 and Josef Mazzini’s journey into the ice and darkness a century later illustrate the refocusing of the human narrative from the centre to the edge, from known to unknown space. This geographical de-centering demands a critical re-focusing from civilised space to the space of the natural world which has retained the quality of Otherness in the face of modern science’s attempt at its de-mythologisation. What both expeditions demonstrate is the physical and symbolic de-centering of the human subject in its confrontation with an “absolutism of reality.” This confrontation demands the reviewing and revisioning of projects of imperialistic and technological arrogance, and reveals the continuing human need for another type of social and personal narrative to face the challenges of modernity and to define identity and to promote belonging in postmodern times. The space of the natural world in the extremity of polar ice is a place in which the Other of modern civilisation is re-asserted. The attempted de-mythologisation of this space points critically at the way historical modernity has acted in a totalitarian fashion. The understanding that the natural world has retained its character as a space supportive, indeed encouraging, of myth, sees the natural landscape of the Arctic as a space in which new perspectives on the human condition and the project of reason may be developed. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, the space of ice and darkness functions to develop a perspective critical of early and continuing Western imperialistic ideology, and cognisant of the de-mystified, isolated and mediated experience of contemporary life. The aesthetics of humility which is developed in Ransmayr’s novels is first evident in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis in the text’s rejection of human arrogance in acts of geographical and cultural imperialism. The privileging of the natural world, as a space of revelation unable to be fully dominated by the technologies 92

of scientific modernity, forces the novel’s characters to adopt perspectives alien to that of the civilised centre in Europe. This new perspective is, in essence, a mythical gaze. The characters perceive an Arctic reality through the lens of myth. This mythical gaze acknowledges magic, dream and terror, and subverts the rational perceptual mode which informs the philosophical and ideological systems of historical modernity. Mazzini’s journey northwards is also a rejection; a rejection of the technologically mediated quality of existence in postmodern times. He attempts to refind a relationship of immediacy and intimacy with the spaces and stories of nature thereby ending the alienation and isolation which characterise his life in Europe.

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CHAPTER THREE.

Rejecting Fixedness for Fluidity. Die letzte Welt.

In Ransmayr’s highly successful second novel, Die letzte Welt, the natural world is again clearly identifiable as mythic space. However rather than concentrating solely on the space of nature in Die letzte Welt, it is necessary in this chapter to discuss the juxtaposition of the two narrative spaces of the text, the worlds of the centre (in Rome) and of the periphery (Tomi and the last world). The world of the centre in Die letzte Welt is more strongly characterised than is the centre represented by Vienna in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Augustan Rome is the first world of the text, the centre of the known world. Its civilised and ordered structure is set against the chaotic last world of Naso’s exile on the edge of the Black Sea. A “Kultur-Natur” dichotomy is also developed in Ransmayr’s second novel with the text’s representation of the apparently parallel worlds of Augustan Rome and the natural world around Tomi. Rome and Tomi are identifiable in the novel as the realms of reason and fantasy respectively. A discussion of the first and last worlds of the text brings into relief the representations of rational, structured, civilised space and the space of nature, of both the external natural world and the inner nature of the human individual. In this chapter the critique of modernity which is developed through Ransmayr’s representation of Augustan Rome as a modern totalitarian state furthers the critique of the abuses of Enlightenment reason initiated in Ransmayr’s first novel. As in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, the natural world in Die letzte Welt is a thematic and stylistic focus of the narrative. The narrative focus is removed from the centre, as is the individual subject in the text. The narrative concentrates on the world of exile at the edge of the Roman empire, rather than on the centre, the city of Rome. In Die letzte Welt the human individual, denied creative and personal freedom in the first world, becomes an integral (but not central) part of the dynamic process of change in the last world, a world which is increasingly subject to the forces of nature. In this chapter I examine the “absolutism of reality” in both the first world of Rome and the last world in terms of the individual characters concerned. The “absolutism of reality” is different according to the space and situation in which

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characters find themselves. In Die letzte Welt the reality which is threatening and antagonistic for the human individual (in this case both Naso and Cotta) is found both in the known worlds of Rome and the unknown last world. The political structure of Rome acts as an overwhelming “absolutism of reality” for many of its citizens. The totalitarian nature of the Roman state leads to individual acts of protest which take the form of the invention and search for a new narrative, to give meaning to the existential dilemma of surviving as an individual in a repressive society. Naso responds with a poetic vision or philosophy whose guiding principle is less threatening to the individual than the state ideology and more closely corresponding to his perception of human need and experience. Naso’s poetic vision takes the form of the Metamorphoses text. However, in Rome, the Metamorphoses may only be realised as an aesthetic fragment, in contrast to its dynamic and pervasive manifestation in the last world. The “letzte Welt” on the edge of the Roman empire is equally a threatening environment to those freshly arrived from Rome. An inexplicable series of events, involving disappearances and transformations, characterises a chaotic and fantastical world. The “absolutism of reality” which the unknown and the incomprehensible in the last world represent for Cotta is a product of the character’s changing perceptions of the site of his voluntary exile. Initially the “absolutism of reality” in the last world is overwhelming. The Roman has no system of reason or logic to explain the last world’s disappearances, mysteries and changes. His fear turns to a mad ecstasy when he begins to abandon the rational perception of his former existence and live the life of the last world in accordance with the principle of the Metamorphoses text itself: “keinem bleibt seine Gestalt.” The first part of this chapter addresses the political and ideological “absolutism of reality” in the first world of Rome and examines Augustus’ Rome as a totalitarian state which functions to repress individual thought and action. I discuss the role of Naso as the mythic champion who stands symbolically as the individual and the artist against the regime. I will then detail the representations of the natural world as the dialectical Other in the last world. Nature is observed by the reader to be in a dynamic process of the reassertion of its power and is revealed also to be a site of refuge. However a reading of the ecological disaster which precedes the welter of physical transformation in the natural landscape of the last world indicates the destructive impact of a first world mentality of exploitation and domination. The collapse of the physical and psychological infrastucture of Tomi confirms the status of the town as a 95

“Zwischenwelt” between the reasoned structures of Rome and the fluid, fantastical natural last world which steadily regains influence. The generation of myth as a response to an “absolutism of reality” is readily evident in both worlds of the text. A measure of the subversive action of myth is found in the extent of its pervasiveness. It infiltrates the first world institution of totalitarian power, revealing the petrifaction of the system and the system’s instrumentalisation of power. Myth also pervades the last world. Its dynamic first principle of metamorphosis is revealed in the transformation of both human beings and the natural world. Naso’s myth text, the Metamorphoses, narratively shapes the last world driving the action with cameo scenes and micronarratives of transformation. The privileging of myth both thematically and stylistically also serves to highlight a critical re-focusing of the narrative gaze from the centred location of humanistic historical modernity in Rome to alternative readings of reality from the periphery, the space of exile in the last world.

Augustan Rome – A Totalitarian First World.

The representation of Rome as the first world and the world of exile as the last world sets up expectations of an easily read dichotomy in terms of temporalities, geographies and philosophical paradigms which are generally based on a logos/mythos dialectic. The reference to the Rome of Augustus as the “first” world in Die letzte Welt operates on several levels. Rome is the first world in that it is the centre of the known world. The world is known in that it is known by the Romans. The first world is also the geographical point from which all action in the novel begins. Naso has departed this first world on his path to banishment in Tomi. Also, Rome’s role as the first world and its identification as “Reich der Notwendigkeit und Vernunft” (LW 287), indicates the state’s privileging of reason. Rationality informs the contemporary political and philosophical mindset. However the novel records the phenomenon that the further one is removed from Rome, the less rational is the quality of the world view exhibited by individual characters. Politically also, Augustan Rome has an imperial influence which extends to the edge of the known world although this influence becomes progressively less marked.1 This decline of Roman political influence the further one moves from the

1 The Tomi villagers are less than eager to speak to Cotta who is enquiring after Naso. It had been their imperial duty to guard Naso without consorting with the poet. In both roles they have been unsuccessful. Naso has disappeared and they have been Naso’s willing audience around the story- fi re. 96

centre in Rome emphasises the decline of the influence of reason the further one travels towards the edge of the known. One also has to consider Rome as temporally the first world when compared with the last world of Tomi. In Die letzte Welt, the ages of civilisation, as defined in antiquity, are suggested primarily by reference to a cycle which incorporates and links the rigidly structured civilisation of Augustan Rome and the entropic collapse of the last world. This is an inversion of the original Metamorphoses history of the world from the original Chaos of nature on to the civilised world of Ovid’s “own times.”2 The text begins with the stiflingly ordered, rational world of Augustus and ends in the chaos of the last world. In response, then, to Enzensberger’s challenge “die berühmte Metamorphosen von Ovid zu bearbeiten, so daß dieses klassische Werk der Antike wieder belebt wäre,”3 one of Ransmayr’s innovations in his twentieth century version of Metamorphoses was to reverse the original story of transformation. Although both first and last worlds notionally belong to historical antiquity, their depiction in the narrative suggests a much more recent time context. Ransmayr’s Rome of antiquity has been located temporally by critics in “einem vorindustriellen Stadium.” Rome is “ähnlich einer Großstadt zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts … [und] es rauchen noch nicht die Kamine der Industriegebiete, der Arbeiter ist noch nicht Sklave des Fließbands.”4 However the reader notes other more modern anachronistic images such as the bank of microphones which serve the ceremonial speakers at the Stadium of the Seven Refuges. Other time references appear in a vocabulary characteristic of medieval times.5 For example, the Roman government is the “Hof,” the people “Untertanen,” variously “Knechte” and “Mägde,” their behaviour consistent with a feudal atmosphere of “Huldigung,” “Kniefall” and “Demut.” The political atmosphere of repression and depoliticisation in Ransmayr’s Rome is characteristic of an absolutist regime of any age. However the references to a totalitarian political system easily place the events of the text in a twentieth century context. Specific images are easily identifiable with the Nazi period, for example, the “väterländische Parolen,” “Fahnenwälder,” the mass celebrations and the manipulation

2 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Mary M. Innes (London: Penguin, 1955) 29. 3 Dursan Gorse, “ Einige Aspekte der Metaphorik im Roman Die letzte Welt,” Acta Neologica, Slovenia, 23, 1990: 75. 4 Bornemann and Kiedaisch, “ ‘Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf’: Das Geschichtsbild in der Letzten Welt,” Ovids ‘Metamorphosen’ und Christoph Ransmayr’s ‘Letzte Welt,’ 13. 5 Bornemann and Kiedaisch, 14. 97

of the population (as one notes in Naso’s “Ameisenhaufen” allegory).6 The structures of modern power are rigidly in place and these structures, along with later mentions of a European war, gas chambers and acts of inhumanity firmly locate the Roman first world in the context of twentieth century totalitarianism. However the ahistoricity of the novel, as already noted, prevents any simplistic judgement as to temporal placements of before-and-after. The description of the two worlds as first and last functions primarily to privilege the project which shapes Ransmayr’s Rome, its systemic and repressive application of reason and its imperialistic power. The last world bears the traces both of Rome’s impact and of earlier ages. Those ages, the silver, copper and iron age, are represented in a post-industrial setting. The rusted machinery and abandoned conveyor belts signal a collapse of a postmodern, post- industrial age.

A Political “Absolutism of Reality.”

Augustan Rome in Ransmayr’s novel - the above-mentioned “Reich der Notwendigkeit und der Vernunft” (LW 287) - is “als Orwellscher Überwachungsstaat organisiert”7. The elite and the masses are under strict control by a repressive state apparatus. Ransmayr’s drawing of Rome equates reason with totalitarian domination,8 an observation consistent with the Enlightenment critique developed by Adorno and Horkheimer.

Diese ‘vernünftige’ Gesellschaft kann keinen positiven Orientierungsmaßstab darstellen, die Herrschaft der Vernunft ist dort längst in Terror umgeschlagen, ‘Vernunft’ im Roman als Disziplinierung, Kontrolle, Überwachung, Unterwerfung der Subjektivität negativ konnotiert.9

The failure of the Enlightenment project, a project intended to promote reason as emancipatory tool in humankind’s social evolution, is evident in the response of the regime to its opponents.

6 Bornemann and Kiedaisch, 14. Such imagery is also reminiscent of DDR political ritual and control. 7 Epple, “ Phantasie Contra Realität – eine Untersuchung zur zentralen Thematik von Christoph Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt,” 30. 8 Harbers, “ Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit: Zur Christoph Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt,” 60. 9 Epple, “ Phantasie contra Realität,” 35. 98

Rom wird von Cotta gleichgesetzt mit Vernunft und Ordnung. Er sieht im Römischen Imperium die höchste Entfaltung der Vernunft wirken, muß aber bei seiner Suche nach Ovid und dessen Buch in Tomi erkennen, was Horkheimer und Adorno als ‘Dialektik der Aufklärung’ bezeichnet haben. Instrumentelle Vernunft und Zweckrationalität, funktioniert für äußerste Machtentfaltung, für globale imperialistische Herrschaft über die ‘letzte Welt’, für totale Überwachung, für Unterdrückung politischer Opposition und Meinungsfreiheit – die besonders eben auch die Literatur, im speziellen Fall Ovid trifft – führen zu Petrifikation alles Lebendigen. 10

The “absolutism of reality” in the first world is a political and a social phenomenon in which surveillance, repression and violence result in an anxiety and paralysis within its population. Apart from those who participate in underground protest and others who flee Rome, the attempt to master this “absolutism of reality” is manifested in the individual endeavour of the poet, Naso. Naso “als Kritiker der rationalen Zivilisation Roms,”11 seeks to find a new name, to write a new story, and thus, to reconstruct reality along lines more sympathetic to the notion of individuality. Naso stands as the mythical champion against the “absolutism of reality” in totalitarian Rome.

Naso - The Subversive Poet.

The historical Ovid and Ransmayr’s character, Naso, are superficially similar. Both are threatening to the Roman state and both are banished.12 Ovid indicates his own interpretations of the reasons for his fate in the exile text, Tristia. The Ars amatoria was offensive to Augustus – but the poem’s publication had been over ten years beforehand. Ovid was involved in a personal “error” – culpability in a scandal within the imperial family. However, the appearance of the original Metamorphoses text is seen by many philologists as potential grounds for Ovid’s exile.13 The anti-Augustan tendencies of the original Metamorphoses text are noted in the following arguments. In contrast to Virgil’s Aeneid, the Metamorphoses does not, as it

10 Bartsch, “ Dialog mit Antike und Mythos. Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid-Roman Die letzte Welt,” 127. 11 Harbers, 60. 12 In Ovid’s case, the banishment “ handelte sich um eine ‘Relegation’, eine milde Form der Verbannung, bei der dem Relegierten das Vermögen und die persönlichen Ehrenrechteerhalten blieben.” Reinhold F. Glei, “ Ovid in den Zeiten der Postmoderne. Bemerkungen zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt” Poetica – Zeitschrift für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 26, 3/4 (1994): 409-410. 13 In spite of intensive philological and historical research the exact reasons for Ovid’s exile are still relatively unclear. Glei, 409-410. 99

could appear, teleologically culminate in the Augustan age. The Metamorphoses is more “universalhistorisch” and relates the epic span from the chaos of creation to the present – a present which is temporally located according to the poet’s existence (“bis auf meine Zeit”) - not Augustus’. It is the poet’s individual existence which is the endpoint of the narrative.14 Additionally, in the fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses, Ovid announces, through the philosopher Pythagoras, the temporal limitation of all earthly power. Everything is subject to change. In Glei’s paraphrasis, “[d]ie Entstehung des Universums, die Abfolge der Weltzeitalter, historische Umwälzungen wie Aufstieg und Niedergang von Staaten usw. sind Beispiele dieser kosmischen Metamorphosen.”15 The status and power of Augustus is threatened by such a revolutionary announcement. The Metamorphoses text in both Ovid’s and Ransmayr’s productions is subversive, asserting as it does both the poet’s importance and the transience of political power. The individuality of both the historical Ovid and Ransmayr’s Naso is suspect in a society where Augustus is absolute ruler. Ransmayr’s Naso stands against the Augustan regime which rigidly reinforces hierarchy, order and power. In essence, the regime is a petrified colossus with the Emperor at its head, protecting its own interests by controlling the actions and thoughts of its subjects. The individual subject in such a system is denied freedom of expression and movement.

Der römische Imperialismus unterdrückt alles, was seine Herrschaft in Frage stellen könnte, inbesondere auch die Vielstimmigkeit der Lebens- und Äußerungsformen der von ihm ‘befriedeten Völker,’ denen er das eigene, machtkonservierende, bis in den letzten Winkel des Reiches wirksame Einheitssystem aufzwingt.16

The notion of change and transformation represents the ultimate threat to a system of control such as that in Ransmayr’s Rome. The writer who concerns himself which such phenomena is himself subversive. Naso’s role is established by several incidents; initially by his writing and public readings of fragments of his Metamorphoses, then by subtlely ridiculing the Roman elite in the comedy Midas. Naso further addresses the Roman crowd in revolutionary terms as citizens of Rome and forgets the ritual extolling of the snoozing Augustus’ virtues when performing as a guest speaker at the opening of the stadium “Zu den sieben Zufluchten.” The seriousness of Naso’s crime is further

14 Glei, 412. 15 Glei, 414. 16 Bartsch, 121. 100

deepened by his relating the story of the plague of Aegina and the rebirth of the ant people to the Roman audience. This less-than-masked honouring of “ein Ort der Verwandlung und Wiedergeburt” (LW 64) both criticises and seeks to provoke the passive masses. The socio-critical and potentially revolutionary dimension of Naso’s poetry is potentially politically destabilising. Naso represents individuality, fantasy and myth in a demystified, de-mythologised society. His poetic message is revolutionary in terms of its threat to the stasis that characterises the repressive control of the Roman state apparatus. Naso’s desire for public standing is also subversive. In Die letzte Welt, Naso, the most celebrated poet of Rome since Horace, sets himself up to become a popular hero with his address to the masses. Not satisfied with his fame among the elegant literati - “Was war denn das kleine, elegante Publikum der Poesie gegen die ungeheueren Menschenmassen, die sich im Zirkus, in den Stadien … vor Begeisterung die Hälse wundschrien?” (LW 45) - Naso sets himself up as a rival to Augustus, for whom, symbolically, all applause is intended. With the scandal which developed after the performance of his Midas, Naso becomes the focus of popular gossip and a public figure. The principle that informs Naso’s writing and his later fate is the transformation and transience inherent in all human existence. The creative advocate of metamorphosis is himself subject to its influence. Cotta later contrasts the image of the great poet he had seen as a schoolboy with the “allmählichen Verfall und die Verwandlung des lebendigen, alternden Naso,” aware of “das Verblassen [von Nasos] Glorie und … die Tiefe seines Sturzes” (LW 110). When such a transformation is possible, everything is subject to change and decay, even palaces fall into rubble. Naso’s villa in Rome suffers the same fate. As Cyane leaves and the months and years of exile go by, the ashes of Naso’s burnt manuscript and the building graphically show the poet’s absence - and the transience of his fame. The fragments of the Metamorphoses - was it a novel, “eine Sammlung kleiner Prosa, eine poetische Geschichte der Natur oder ein Album der Mythen, Verwandlungssagen und Träume?” (LW 53) – had been burnt by Naso before he went into exile. Naso’s revolt against the authority and restriction of the Roman state in the subversive act of writing seemed doomed in the light of his banishment. However, the principle of transformation begins to operate in a fashion initially unthought of by Naso as author. The metaphoric link of fire, creativity and transformation connects Naso in 101

Rome to Naso in exile, in his role as the storyteller by the fire in the ruins of Tomi. Out of the Tomi ashes are reborn the stories of the Metamorphoses, which structure the lives and experiences of the inhabitants of the last world. The poet’s attempt to find immortality through the written text and in the inscriptions in the menhir garden at Trachila is also subject to the living principle of metamorphosis. The inscriptions disappear under a carpet of glistening snails and are overturned in the earthquake. Pythagoras’ pennons, inscribed with fragments of Naso’s prose, are later, bleached and ragged, gathered by Cotta who can only gain a fleeting impression of their meaning. Although Cotta tries desperately to conserve Naso’s physical text, the tiny flags also disintegrate. The heavy poststructuralist sense of game-playing in these scenes does not detract from, but rather adds to, the notion of the act of writing as subversive in the face of a rigid political institution. The driving principle of the Metamorphosis text in Rome is the reality of the last world: constant transformation. As such, meaning is fleeting and the written word is increasingly superfluous. The subversive word is also unstable. All structures are transient.

The Abstraction of Power -Totalitarianism becomes Mythic.

The apparent logos/mythos dialectic drawn by the comparison of the first and the last world in Die letzte Welt is problematised by the entwinement of myth and reason in the text. In Rome the abstraction of power and control results in a deliberate mythologisation of its leader. Tomi in the last world already bears the scars of industrial modernity, the physical and psychic scars of the logos which characterises the Roman world. The representation of the totalitarian Roman state in Die letzte Welt is stereotypical of the representation of the modern state in a post-World War Two discourse critical of historical modernity. The dialectical tension and interaction between myth and reason is evident in the novel. As Bartsch points out,

Wenn Aufklärung totalitäre Züge annimmt, entmündigt sie die Menschen und versetzt diese in Furcht wie in voraufgeklärten Zeiten. Dafür, daß entfaltete, machtassimilierte instrumentelle Vernunft sich selbst zu Mythos macht, steht bei Ransmayr die Gotterhebung des Kaisers Augustus … In einem historischen Moment, da im Zeichen von Aufklärung der Glaube an Mythen und der

102

alten Götter weitgehend zurückgedrängt ist, begründet sich der absolute, totalitäre Herrschaftsanspruch des römischen Kaisertums selbst mythisch.17

In this totalitarian system the figure of Augustus becomes mythical. The true power of the emperor lies in the apparatus which organises and controls the system. In Ransmayr’s text, Augustus is more a figurehead than an imperial leader, sidelined by the colossal machinery of state which professes to do his bidding. The role of Augustus the Emperor is revealed in the allegory of the captive gift rhinoceros. The animal repetitively performs ritualised and meaningless tasks, and is confined to a preordained space, with his original value largely forgotten. Augustus sits motionless at his window observing an animal that mirrors his own fate. As such Augustus shares with the Roman people the existential paralysis which results from the “absolutism of reality” created by the state’s totalitarian system although he himself is integral to this system. The decision to eliminate the subversive threat of Naso’s attitude and actions comes from a disembodied bureaucracy. A faceless bureaucrat interprets a hand wave of the Emperor as the sign to exile the popular poet. Such an interpretation is obviously a convenient one for the self-serving Roman bureaucracy. However the realisation of how abstracted notions of power and reason have become in Rome is also indicated by such an interpretation of the Emperor’s sign-gesture (LW 71-3). The individual is lost in a state apparatus that is alienated both from its head and from the masses. The function of communication is lost in the semiotic abstraction and stultification which has developed within such a system Rome itself is revealed as a colossal edifice, a “Versteinerung” of the project of human advancement, a city where “jedes Bauwerk ein Denkmal der Herrschaft war, das auf den Bestand, auf die Dauer und Unwandelbarkeit der Macht verwies” (LW 44). Roman society is trapped in a system that relies on the constant vigilance of an Orwellian bureaucracy which controls the population and interprets the abstract decrees of a symbolic head. Acts of violence are the overt manifestation of this control. For example, actors and theatre-goers are bashed after the performance of Naso’s Midas, in a response to the privileged elite’s sensitivity to criticism. The people of Rome survive by conforming, by going underground or into exile. They live under a regime that creates a predominantly malleable, manageable mass who

17 Bartsch cites Adorno and Horkheimer (Dialektik der Aufklärung, 1944: 9-10) in his intial comment. Bartsch, 127. 103

succumb to a greater or lesser extent to passivity and/or boredom.18 The number of “Staatsflüchtigen” progressively increases: they leave “die M etropole, um der Apparatur der Macht zu entgehen, der allgegenwärtigen Überwachung, den Fahnenwäldern und dem monotonen Geplärre vaterländischer Parolen; manche flohen auch vor der Rekrutierung” (LW 124-5). Such terms and imagery promote, again, associations with the twentieth century in this case the DDR regime, its political terminology and practice. This political and historical dimension to Ransmayr’s allegory of totalitarianism stamps the modernity critique in the text with contemporaneity. However the profusion of temporal indicators in the text does not restrict this critique to the specific but lifts it into the universal.

Petrifaction and Mechanism.

The predominant motifs of Ransmayr’s Rome under Augustus are those of petrification and mechanism. Even Naso, when he enters the “Stadion zu den Sieben Zufluchten,” is described as one of the procession of guest speakers under the patronage of the system, who ride “auf den Rücken ihrer Pferde, steif und schwankend wie elf Metronome, die den Takt gegeneinander schlugen” (LW 65). Images of petrification and mechanism are combined in the response of the bureaucrats after Naso’s speech at the inauguration of the stadium (LW 60-64). The bureaucrats at court were “starr vor Wut.” But they swing into operation reacting to Naso’s perceived subversion as “ein ebenso vielgliedriger wie nahezu unsichtbarer Mechanismus” (LW 67). These motifs also form oppositional pairs with motifs from the last world. The pairing of dialectical qualities, such as “anorganisch/mineralisch: beseelt/organisch” in the examples of “Herz/Stein, Warm/Kalt, Leben/Tod, Mechanismus/Organismus” have long been a part of the German literary tradition.19 The notion of Rome as the Eternal City becomes less impressive and romantic if one regards “Versteinerung” less as permanence and more as the lifeless petrification of a system.20 The image of the state bureaucracy in Rome as a mechanism of repression is reinforced by constant references to its character as an “apparatus.” Such a motif clearly identifies the Cartesian notion of

18 Cotta’s reasons for searching for Naso are less than altruistic; ambition, vanity, boredom. 19 Manfred Frank, Kaltes Herz, Unendliche Fahrt, Neue Mythologie, Motiv-Untersuchungen zur Pathogenese der Moderne (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1989) 11. 20 In contrast, the last world is most obviously a site of the organic and the organism in a variety of fo rm s . 104

the modern world as a mechanical system21 and also situates the Rome of Die letzte Welt in the context of industrial modernity where technology becomes an ordering and powerful agent in structuring perceptions of reality. Although references to the technology of the industrial age are more frequent in the last world, anachronistic images of modern technology, for example the afore-mentioned of banks of microphones in front of the ceremonial speakers in Rome, develop the perception of Rome as modern and technologised. The “Versteinerung” motif in the text is not restricted to the first world. Following the general principle of the construction of reality in the last world, the use of the image is transformed. In the last world petrifaction holds the capacity for consolation and refuge. Echo tells Cotta the stories told by Naso in which “Trauernde[n ]… Rasend[e] … zu Stein wurden … Selbst … Tiere[n] blieb … nur die Versteinerung als Weg aus dem Chaos des Lebens” (LW 156). Naso’s Book of Stones (in Echo’s words) shows “Versteinerung geradezu als Erlösung, als grauer Weg ins Paradies der Halden, der Kare und Wüsten … die Würde und die Dauer der Steine” (LW 158). In Rome, however, the colossus of totalitarian power is symbolically conveyed by images of edifice and mechanism, in which stone represents the system’s rigidity and its apparent durability in the face of one poet’s pretensions to know otherwise. The world of Augustus in Die letzte Welt is no longer the Silver Age of Rome looking back in admiration at the Classical Golden Age of the Greeks. Rome is a totalitarian state in which a neo-Classical turn to reason and order has led to the aberration of purposive reason, repression and exploitation. The text asserts there is no solace or security to be found in Classical, Enlightenment or modern reason. In this way, this critique of historical modernity, which sees the totalitarian state as an inevitable end to the pretensions and privilege accorded reason, aids the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels. The notion of the human subject as rational and central to the practice of historical modernity is undercut by the fate of Naso and Cotta. In this aesthetics the narrative gaze records the abuses of modernity and seeks out a new reading of the world which acknowledges a changed position and relevance for the human subject. This new reading finds its context in the world of nature.

21 In this context, one thinks also of Louis Althusser’s structuralist Marxism in more recent times. The theoretical privileging of “wholes over parts […] social structures and institutions over individual and group struggle and revolt” is evoked in the representation of the Roman state in Die letzte Welt. See Best and Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 33. 105

The Last World. Nature as the Dialectical Other.

In contrast to the rigid bureaucratic structure of Rome, the last world of the text is a world characterised by fluidity. The natural world represents the Other of the first world of Rome. Its cycles, changes and transformations are phenomena ignored or rejected by, or absent in, the first world. The first world of Rome is already, in conventional terms, antagonistic and separate to the world of nature. The city is represented by built structures imposed upon the natural world, for example, the draining of the marshes on the site where the “Stadion zu sieben Zufluchten” is built. This stadium is a monument to the power of Augustus and dominates the natural landscape. In Rome the natural order is subordinate to the imposed order of human society evident in the rigid structure of Augustus and the Roman bureaucracy.22 The last world consists of two parts, Tomi, the town of iron and the natural world which steadily encroaches upon it. The following discussion focuses firstly on Tomi as representative of a “Zwischenwelt” which, anachronistically, appears to be both a barbaric, pre-civilised space and an apocalyptic post-civilised one. The town of Tomi is composed of structures which characterise the first world but these structures, physical infrastructures and rational perceptual structures, are in a state of collapse. The natural world acts antagonistically against such structures and Tomi itself is under attack by the forces of nature. The world of nature is more obviously the space of the Other in dialectical relation to Rome than is Tomi. Further discussion in this chapter examines the space of the natural world as a space of refuge and liberation, and a space of fantasy, dream and madness.

Tomi – “eine Zwischenwelt.”

The barbaric, seemingly pre-civilised world of Tomi is also identifiable as a post- civilisation scenario as the structures of industrial modernity collapse and the human inhabitants disappear. In this way the transition between the worlds of Rome and Tomi

22 T he decaying of Naso’s deserted villa in Rome and the encroachment of nature upon the building echo the natural and entropic processes in train in the last world. These changes signify that nature has not been entirely dominated by the first world. T hey also symbolise the forces Naso may be said to have unleashed in his act of reprivileging the dynamic forces of change and transformation through his Metamorphoses. 106

form an allegorical progression of the sort that is perhaps best described by Adorno and Horkheimer. That is, the essentially totalitarian nature of the project of Enlightenment reason ultimately reverts to barbarism in the face of the instrumentalisation of reason and reversion to myth. The environment of Tomi easily translates into an extended metaphor of the collapse into barbarism of the rational premise upon which a civilised society is based. Imagery associated with the twentieth century Holocaust in Die letzte Welt links post-World War Two Europe with the barbaric last world of the text. The linear model of modern progress in the novel reverts to a cyclical model more consistent with a primitive, apparently barbaric human existence. Any conventional linear notion of space and time is suspended in the text. Rather than the collapsing of time in modern experience through modern technology (as in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis), time in Die letzte Welt is simultaneously the time of antiquity and of modernity/postmodernity in the post-industrial age. Artefacts of the post-industrial age are discovered in the decay of Tomi, the rusting town of iron. The reader is confronted with unexpected objects, processes and actions: microphones, film, photographs, telephones, tear gas, printing, the displaying of books in shop windows, and the paying of a war pension to a German ex-soldier.23 This apparent profusion of anachronistic props should not, however, be solely attributed to a variation of “postmoderne Stilübung.” Schmidt-Dengler sees those anachronisms characteristic of Die letzte Welt as “brisante zeitkritische Sprengsätze” rather than some superficial postmodern playfulness.24 These anachronistic features of the novel are evidence of the text’s “Zeitlosigkeit.” In this way the ahistoricity of the text has the required effect of insisting on the continuous relevance of the issues raised by events in and responses to both the first and last worlds.25

23 Christensen refers to Solodow’s identification of the processes of anachronism, Romanisation and modernisation which the original Ovid used on his material. Christensen states that Die letzte Welt reveals analogous forms of playing with time; anachronism, Christianisation and modernisation/postmodernisation. In Peter Christensen, “ The Metamorphoses of Ovid in Christoph Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt,” Classical and Modern Literature, Winter 2/2 (1992): 148-9. 24 See Ibsch, “ Zur politischen Rezeption von Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” 240. 25 This can be problematic. “ Dieses unverfängliche Spiel auf der Ebene der Dingwelt wird zweifelhaft, da Ransmayr es auf ein historisches Ereignis ausdehnt, und zwar ausgerechnet auf den Zweiten Weltkrieg und die Ermordung der Juden in Gaskammern, im Text dem deutschen Totengräber Thies in Tomi als albtraumhafte Erinnerung mitgegeben. Die grundsätzliche Problematik liegt in der Verharmlosung eines solchen konkreten historischen Faktums durch die ahistorische Darstellung einer alle Konturen verwischenden Zeitlosigkeit.” Epple, “ Phantasie contra Realität,” 31. Epple refers further to the historians’ controversy of 1986-88 responding to a perceived trend of relativising the Nazi treatment of the Jews. See also H-U Wehler, Entsorgung der deutschen Vergangenheit? (München, 1988). 107

However, the last world is also readily identifiable in a temporal sense as the final world. Its story is “die Geschichte des bevorstehenden Untergangs der Welt” (LW 162). The sense of apocalyptic ending is strongly present through the text. “Die Welt Tomis ist eine letzte Welt auch sofern, als sie eine Welt des Untergangs ist.”26 This sense of collapse and ending is reinforced, as mentioned previously, by the representation of the ages of civilisation in the text. The reversal of the ages of man from Ovid’s Metamorphoses emphasises the chaotic end of humanity in Ransmayr’s novel. In Die letzte Welt the “Untergang” of Tomi, “die eiserne Stadt,” is preceded by the end of the Limyra “die Stadt der Kupferminen” and Trachila, which lies in ruins is torn apart by avalanches whose ravages reveal “Silbererz, eine schreckliche Welle des Reichtums” (LW 237). The course of human civilisation has been reversed. Humanity reverts to barbarity and finally the human inhabitants of the last world disappear amid the flood and earthquakes.

The Collapse of Structures.

In contrast to the system and structure of Rome, the last world on the edge of the Roman Empire is a world where human civilisation has fallen into ruin. The houses of Tomi, Trachila and Limyra are collapsing, “sie verfielen und verschwanden unter Kletterpflanzen und Moos” (LW 10). Tomi, “die eiserne Stadt” (LW 11), is associated not only with the mythical Iron Age (the last of the four ages before the Flood, described in the original Metamorphoses) but also with the modern industrial age (indicated by the mines and smelters of the surrounding area). The town is being eaten away by rust and is no longer powerful enough to combat the actions of nature. “Der Rost war die Farbe der Stadt” (LW 10). As rust corrodes all physical structures, social and philosophical structures are also under attack. The atmosphere in the last world is one of decay and dereliction, a depiction of the collapse of the industrial age, the modern age of iron. In Limyra Cotta sees “am Fuss einer Abraumhalde das von Dorngestrüpp überwucherte Gerüst eines Förderbandes, umgestürzte Kipploren lagen neben einem Schienenstück, dessen Stränge im seichten Wasser eines Tümpels endeten” (LW 228). The town of Tomi is both a place of transition and in transition. Although “[h]ier an dieser Küste, verloren sich die Gesetze, die Macht und der Wille Roms in der Wildnis” (LW 123), there are echoes of the power

26 Harbers, 61. 108

of Rome. The Tomi villagers are suspicious of Naso, and are obligated under imperial law to act towards Naso within the terms of his exile. They fear the penalties of consorting with a political opponent of state. They are also suspicious of Cotta and begin to accept him only when he appears to be enjoying the same sexual favours of Echo as they have. The appearance of the Roman gods, played by the Tomi villagers in makeshift costume in the “Fastnacht” procession not only offer incontrovertible proof to Cotta that Naso the Roman has been there, but show the gods’ transformation in a vibrant and living form in the last world.

Die Viehhirten aus den Hochtälern des Küstengebirges, die Erzkocher und Bergleute aus Tomi äfften in dieser Stunde die Pracht des römischen Himmels nach: Der erste unter den Göttern schleppte eine Batterie auf einem Bauchladen durch die Gassen der Stadt, Iuppiters Glorie und seine Blitze waren das Gleißen von Wolframdrähten im Vakuum der Glühbirnen (LW 92)

Although the celebrations have a parodic element, the villagers honour the gods in Tomi in riotous costume and spectacle in a manner no longer known in Rome. The edifice of reason in Rome has confined myth and fantasy to stone friezes along the walls of public buildings. The gods in Rome have been relegated to the rigidity and lifelessness of stone reliefs and museum pieces, overgrown with moss. In contrast, in Tomi, myth and fantasy have been liberated in the streets. The influence of Rome in Tomi is evident in Cotta’s initial desperation in clinging to the ratio that has characterised his former life. For much of the novel, the “absolutism of reality” which Cotta must master is the perceptual limbo of responding to the reality of the last world in rational terms, when the reality of the last world is constructed in terms alien to this. Cotta’s sole focus of certainty in such a situation is the storyteller/poet Naso, whose metaphorical presence in the text is only revealed once Cotta relates to the reality of the last world in a non-rational fashion. Only then does he understand that he has found the Metamorphoses and its author. They are present in the story of life all around him. After Battus turns to stone before the episcope, Cotta recognises his own place as neither “in der eisernen noch in der ewigen Stadt.” He now exists in a “Zwischenwelt, in der die Gesetze der Logik keine Gültigkeit mehr zu haben schienen, in der aber auch kein anderes Gesetz erkennbar wurde, das ihn hielt und vor dem Verrücktwerden

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schützen konnte” (LW 220). For Cotta, this realisation signals the end of his dependence on rational thought and his acceptance of the madness which characterises his final actions and emotions in the text.

Nature – Ecological Disaster?27

The reassertion of the natural over the man-made world is manifested in the last world in waves of change which range from the subtle to the extreme. The town of Tomi is introduced to the reader in terms of a place alienated from or deserted by the vital, life- giving force of nature. The women are “früh alternd” and men “staubig und erschöpft” (LW 10) and “[w]er hier zum Fischen hinausfuhr, der fluchte auf das leere Wasser, und wer ein Feld bestellte, auf das Ungeziefer, den Frost und die Steine” (LW 10). It is this alienation, allied with a brutality and, paradoxically, an exhaustion, which manifests itself in an indifference and passivity, that characterises the inhabitants’ response to an existential “absolutism of reality” in the last world. Disconnected and decentred from the stability of structures of the first world civilisation, the last world cast of exiles, outsiders and outcasts is confronted with a world of which they can make no sense. Nature reoccupies the physical space of the last world in a variety of confronting ways. On Cotta’s first journey to Trachila he finds Naso’s house, ants running over the table, sand on the bed, benches and stools, underfoot (LW 16). After an abnormal winter lasting for two years, “das Jahr wurde trocken und heiß wie keines zuvor in den Breiten der eisernen Stadt” (LW 119). The Black Sea becomes so warm fish beach themselves (LW 120), drawing jackals and vultures. The inhabitants longest in Tomi “konnten sich

27 The price nature (and humankind itself) has paid for progress is a central element in Ransmayr’s earlier reportage. For example, in ‘Ein Leben auf Hooge’ the sea which transforms the contours of the landscape is poisoned, the sea life injured. “ [V]iel Dreck, viel Protest und alles umsonst” mutter the villagers (WS 22). The irony of contemporary action to protect the North Sea ecology is found in villager Mextorf’s words: “ Die Deutschen sind ein seltsames Volk … Noch vor ein paar Jahrzenten haben sie ganze Kulturen zugrunde gerichtet und Millionen Menschen verschleppt und erschlagen und wohin sie auch kamen, nur vernichtet und verwüstet. Und jetzt? Jetzt träumen sie von einer stillen, menschenleeren Natur und errichten um jeden verseuchten Seehund, um jeden Borstenwurm ein Gesetz.” (WS 26). In ‘Die vergorene Heimat: Ein Stück Österreich’ (WS 9-27) the transformation of the Mostviertel revealed in Karl Piaty’s slides reveals the “ Triumph der Maschinen” (WS 46). Unskilled labour, trees and a way of life disappear, “(sie) standen schließlich die Zeit im Wege und wurden gefällt” (WS 46).). In ‘Kaprun: oder die Errichtung einer Mauer’ (WS 75-90) the construction of the Kaprun dam is seen as “ ein moderner Mythos für Österreich” (WS 79), an heroic story of “der Sieg über die Natur, der Triumph der Technik” (WS 78), part of the canon of “ Wiederaufbau” myths post-war. Such examples contrast with the representation of nature evinced in the glory of the clear view of mountain peaks and superb shifts in weather seen from the Zugspitze (See ‘Der Blick in der Ferne: Ablenkung am Rande der Gesellschaft’ - WS 155-169).

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an kein solches Frühjahr erinnern und deuteten alle Phänomene der Erwärmung als die Zeichen einer neuen unheilvollen Zeit” (LW 120).28 Sirens and cries greet the transformation of the sea into a yellow, sluggish wash, its surface discovered to be coated with the dust of petals. The stink of rotting fish fades in the onslaught of exotic growth and the miners eat the petals of unknown flowers as delicacies, covered with sugar or dipped in honey. Intimations of nature as a paradise are given in such imagery, but the human beings in the last world are represented as alienated from and uncomprehending of such a state. In Chapter IX the heat of summer is “glühend.” Children must be protected from the unbearable racket of cicadas by the insertion of wax into their ears (LW 199). Spiders and snakes in plague numbers invade Tomi, but “Tomi vom raschen Wechsel der Zeiten und von der Hitze erschöpft, begann sich mit den neuen Plagen abzufinden wie zuvor mit dem Prunk der Vegetation und den Wärmegewittern des neuen Klimas” (LW 200). With the later downpours of rain, moss and grass coat the streets, walls and furniture of Tomi. The rope-maker Lycaon, sunk into indifference, abandons the upper floor of his house to a swarm of wasps. In common with the other villagers, he “überließ [sein Haus] der unbeirrbar vorrückenden Natur” (LW 219). The indifference and passivity of the villagers in the face of the extremities of natural phenomena grow. Cotta experiences a fearful storm in Tomi, and wakes to find the physical damage it has wrought. However the other villagers profess to have heard and seen nothing (LW 174). This discrepancy demonstrates the way in which Cotta still experiences the reality of the last world in a different fashion to the town’s long-term inhabitants. Later Cotta also sinks into in a similar state as the villagers, indifferent to those phenomena, judged abnormal by the rational mind. The landscape around Tomi, the mountains and valleys, are transformed by massive mudslides, seen metaphorically as “urzeitliche … Ungeheuer” (LW 225). Rockslides transform the route to Trachila into a labyrinth. Nature is certainly no bucolic idyll, but “übermächtig, eine unbarmherzige Welt, wo alles auf Untergang angelegt ist .”29 The mountains, as “Gegenwelt der zivilisierten Welt,” possible “Welt

28 Despite no direct references being made, Christensen suggests that “ global warming … the strange blossoming of plants after the bombing of Hiroshima” is a possible reason for the particular type of abnormality described in Ransmayr’s novel. Christensen, “ The Metamorphosis of Ovid in Christoph Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt,”148. 29 Harbers, 61. 111

[der] Erholung bzw. Befreiung von der Zivilisation” or “Zufluchtsraum”30 become, in Ransmayr’s text, an active agent of catastrophe. This phase of destruction precedes an apocalyptic metamorphosis of the last world and the emergence of Mount Olympus, the definitive symbol of the re-privileging of myth in the text. In this scenario, ecological disaster is somewhat ambivalently pressed into the service of demonstrating the transformative power of fantasy and myth. Climatic extremes and plagues of insects and animals are represented on a number of narrative levels in the text. The plagues in the last world evoke for the reader Naso’s story of the plague of Aegina which he tells the stadium audience in Rome. Later, Echo’s report of Naso’s narrative of the birth of the men of stone after the Flood, further links the Roman and last world narratives of transformation, beginnings and the decline of humankind. The “Untergang” scenario is echoed in the story of the end of Limyra, destroyed by the collapse of the mountainside under and through which the copper miners had driven their mines. A “wölfische Menschheit” dreaded by Thies is exemplified by the violent and destructive actions of survivors and visitors after the disaster. The earthquakes and rockslides also transform Trachila, in the heart of the mountains, into a virtual quarry of rock. “Die zerfallenen Mauern des Weilers, das Haus des Verbannten, der Brunnen – fast alles, was hier noch an das Dasein von Menschen erinnert hatte, war zermalmt und fortgerissen worden von einer Steinlawine” (LW 235- 6). As the rain and mudslides subside a new age seems to be dawning. It is one washed clear of human presence.

Die Zeit der Menschen schien in diesem Regen stillzustehen, die Zeit der Pflanzen zu fliegen […] Alles, was zu seinem Dasein nicht mehr brauchte als Feuchtigkeit, Wärme, und das graue Licht dieser T age, gedieh, wucherte […] […] Unter den Umarmungen der Zweige war schließlich nicht mehr zu erkennen, ob ein Wetterhahn oder ein Giebelfigur noch an ihrem Platz stand […] Das wuchernde Grün ahmte die Formen, die es umfing, anfänglich spielerisch und wie zum Spott nach, wuchs dann aber nur noch seinen eigenen Gesetzen von Form und Schönheit gehorchend weiter und unnachgiebig über alle Zeichen menschlicher Kunstfertigkeit hinweg. (LW 270-1)

30 Sventa Steinig, “ Postmoderne Phantasien über Macht und Ohnmacht der Kunst. Vergleichende Betrachtung von Süskinds Parfum und Ransmayrs Letzte Welt,” Literatur für Leser, 20:1 (1997): 39. 112

In contrast to the structures and order of Rome, the last world is increasingly disordered and chaotic. The physical structures imposed by human civilisation collapse or are progressively reoccupied or swept away by the forces of nature. An “entfesselte Naturgewalt”31 once more assumes dominance. The natural world reveals itself spontaneously and unpredictably.

Nature as Victor.

In the last world nature reclaims its space. Its organic profusion, volatility and relentless movement contrast with the petrification of Rome. The fate of Tomi is conveyed symbolically in its description as “die mit dem Gebirge wie verwachsene Ruinenstadt,” as seen through the eyes of the emigrants on board Iason’s Argo.32 Vegetation and animals progressively overrun the buildings of the town. In de Groot’s words, “Alles was Menschenhände geschaffen haben, wird von Pflanzen [und Tieren] überwuchert und kolonisiert.”33 The use of “kolonisiert” in this quotation strongly emphasises the power inversion integral to this process. The domination of nature in the interests of human advancement has been reversed. In the last world the realm of nature continues its slow, relentless assault on man-made structures. “Verstohlen und mit glasigen Wurzeln zuerst, dann mit grünen Fingerchen, betörenden Blüten und schließlich mit zähen von bemooster Rinde gepanzerten Armen griff die Wildnis nach der eisernen Stadt” (LW 270). This perception of nature in the text reflects strongly the text’s inherent critique of instrumentalised reason. The modern domination of nature is viewed with suspicion, regret and anxiety. The destruction of the natural world is rejected. The relentless burrowing of miners into the mineral hearts of the mountains and valleys of the last world has left a devastated landscape. The rape and exploitation of nature initiates two responses by nature. As already noted the natural world strikes back against the physical structures of what is left of civilisation in Tomi. In the last world nature regains control. This notion of nature as victor is hailed in positive terms in the text. As Fülleborn points out, the

31 Claus Erhart, “ Visionäre Klischees,” Gegenwart 10, 33. 32 In Ransmayr’s text Iason in his Argo plies the Black Sea coast ports, trading in a cargo of human misery as well as conventional marketable goods. “ …[A]llen verspricht Iason eine goldene Zukunft am Schwarzen Meer und nimmt ihnen für einen stickigen Platz im Zwischendeck das letzte Geld ab.” ‘Ein ovidisches Repertoire,’ (LW 300). 33 Cegenias de Groot, “ Es lebe Ovid – ein Pladöyer für die Ars Longa,” Neophilologicus, April 75: 2 (1991): 259. 113

“Sieg der Natur” means the “Befreiung der Welt von den Menschen,”34 a liberation which Ransmayr, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, approves wholeheartedly.35 Nature is the survivor. The human subjects survive only in altered form, becoming a part of the natural world. Naso, the poet of metamorphosis, is transformed into “triumphierendes Purpurmoos” or perhaps as “unverwundbarer Kiesel,” or “ein über der Meeresbrandung fliegender Kormoran” (LW 287). There is a parallel with the mythic Orpheus,

…dem Urbild aller Dichter, der nach seinem Tode ebenfalls in der Natur aufging, nur daß er sie in eine singende, dem Menschen nahe und verständliche Welt verwandelte, während Naso seinerseits in eine menschenferne, menschenleere Natur entrückt wird.36

A transformation from human existence into the realm of nature, as birds, animals, stone or sound, is generally indicated in the text as positive. A transformation out of human existence and a subsumation into the world of nature for the abused Procne and Philomela, for example, signifies a liberation from a violent and brutalised existence. (However their pursuer is also transformed and continues the pursuit.) Arachne’s tapestries which hang in Lycaon’s house depict scenes of nature, empty of human presence. Cotta sits and “folgt den mäandrischen Windungen der Flußläufe auf den Tapisserien. Die Uferwiesen, die Urwälder und Steppen waren erfüllt von Scharen jagender, äsender, flüchtender oder schlafender Tiere – aber sie waren menschenleer” (LW 191). Visiting Arachne, Cotta understands that her Icarus tapestry depicts humankind’s destiny. All living entities appear to desire flight as “die Zeichen der Befreiung von aller Schwere” (LW 196). Even Icarus, barely visible on the horizon, has attempted flight, but disappears into the water (LW 197). The human subject in this context has attempted to fly using a primitive technology. Icarus’ attempt to use his father’s science ends in disaster. The young man’s naive arrogance has ignored the power of the sun. What remains is “ein Blick auf das ruhig unter der Sonne liegende M eer, der Himmel sommerlich heiter bewölkt, die Dünung sanft, darüber vereinzelt Möwen […]” (LW 197).

34 Fülleborn, “ Christoph Ransmayr: Die letzte Welt,” 385. 35 “ Die vom Homo sapiens entleerte Erde musse ja nicht unbedingt die apokalyptische, atomar verseuchte Wüste sein. Was ist aber so schrecklich an einer wuchernden, blühenden Wildnis ohne uns?” Just, “ Erfolg Macht Müde,” 50. 36 Fülleborn, “ Christoph Ransmayr: Die Letzte Welt,” 386.

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Nature as Refuge.

In addition to the representation of nature as liberator in Die letzte Welt, that is, a victor over a civilising mentality which attempts to dominate it, the natural world is represented in the text as a space in which one can find refuge. Only recently arrived in the last world, the Roman citizen, Cotta, is panicked by the proximity of a nature he perceives as unruly and disordered. He contrasts this to the orange groves and groomed countryside of his home back in Rome. Visiting Naso’s house in Trachila, Cotta is literally swallowed up by the thicket which encloses and overwhelms the garden of menhirs, “Jetzt schloß sich die Wildnis hinter ihm und über ihm … Das Dickicht hatte Nasos Haus, hatte has Gebirge, selbst das Mondlicht verschluckt” (LW 47). Cotta’s journeys from Tomi to Trachila which take place in a constantly metamorphosing environment are such that he constantly experiences a loss of orientation. However, in company with Echo who is the voice of Naso, Cotta gains a new familiarity with the wilderness of nature in the last world and overcomes his estrangement and fear. On his last journey to Trachila through the torn and transformed mountains, Cotta faces his disappointment in not finding Naso with the understanding “[e]r war verrückt geworden, aber die Welt hatte ihn trotzdem nicht verlassen, sondern harrte geduldig bei ihm aus, ihrem letzten Bewohner. Das Meer blieb bei ihm. Das Gebirge. Der Himmel” (LW 241). Despite the assault Cotta initially experiences from natural forces, ferns and branches, stones and wind, he comes to find a comfort in the wilderness, such as the dwarf Cyparis does in his dreams, the “Trost und die Kühle der Erde” (LW 25). Cotta’s final certainty in having discovered Naso’s “Weg” is that he, too, can find a place within the last world, just as Naso had when he laid claim to the space of his exile, making it his Metamorphoses text. The “absolutism of reality” which Naso confronted in his exile is overcome in the act of telling each story to its end, by making the exotic and threatening familiar in his collection of transformation myths.

Aus Rom verbannt, aus dem Reich der Notwendigkeit und der Vernunft, hatte der Dichter die Metamorphoses am Schwarzen Meer zu Ende erzählt, hatte eine kahle Steilküste, an der er Heimweh litt und fror, zu seiner Küste gemacht und zu seinen Gestalten jene Barbaren, die ihn

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bedrängten und in die Verlassenheit von Trachila vertrieben. Und Naso hatte schließlich seine Welt von den Menschen befreit, indem er jede Geschichte bis an ihr Ende erzählt. (LW 286-7)

The last world, then, is a place of refuge for those “Staatsflüchtige” like Cotta who have fled the totalitarian order of the Roman state. They come as exiles, others have been shipwrecked, still others come as emigrants. The image of Tomi as a transit camp for these travellers (LW 256) signals their belief in the temporariness of their stay. Most visitors remain, however, passive or exhausted. In contrast, Thies remains voluntarily, isolating himself from the trauma of war he has experienced back in the centre of civilisation in Europe. He has been repelled by his experience of the nature of humanity. He has seen the wolfish nature of humankind in the war and genocide in Europe (LW 266). Symbolically, Thies is the man with the unprotected heart (LW 259). One can see his heart beating through his breast, unprotected by the ribs lost in his escape from the European army. Fleeing the horror of the deaths by gassing he has observed (LW 261- 62) Thies finds refuge in the last world. Here he dedicates himself to the healing powers of nature. His salves and medicines help the sick and he anoints the dead in preparation for burial.

Thies [lebte] in Wahrheit nur für die Toten … in seinem Innersten blieb er doch davon überzeugt, daß den Lebenden nicht mehr zu helfen war, daß es keine Grausamkeit und keine Erniedrigung gab, die nicht jeder von ihnen in seinem Hunger, seiner Wut, Angst oder bloßen Dummheit verüben und erleiden konnte; jeder war zu allem fähig. (LW 265).

“Jeder war zu allem fähig” – Representations of the Inner Nature.

However, the brutal inner nature of man, which Thies so condemns in the first world, also reveals itself in the actions of some last-world villagers and refugees. The domination of the natural landscape has been paralleled by the domination, repression and violence practised upon the human animal. The last world is not immune to the abuse of power, although the decay of the man-made system idealistically anticipates an end to the forced submission of the human subject, as well as of the domination of the natural world. Individual acts of violence and abuse signify the barbarity of the human condition in the last world. In his act of violence against Echo, Cotta is equated with the last world 116

villagers: “ Der da wollte von dem Weib in der Höhle das gleiche wie sie, wie jeder” (LW 154). Tereus, aptly the butcher of Tomi, has the victim of his violence reappear in the town. Philomela is speechless, having had her tongue cut out after her rape by Tereus. She and Echo are two women in the last world who are characterised by a powerlessness based on their sex which is then symbolically represented in their loss of voice. After Procne’s killing of Itys, Tereus returns through the night streets of Tomi and is observed by “Schatten aus schwarzen Fenstern,” the villagers of Tomi. These shadowy spectators wanted to see “wie die Bestie durch die Gassen ging” (LW 280) as Tereus pursues his wife and sister-in-law to exact revenge for his son’s murder. 37 The dialectic developed between the first and last worlds certainly transcends any one particular historical period, despite its twentieth century origins and relevance. Die letzte Welt may indeed be read “als ein Lehrstück zur Philosophie von Thomas Hobbes […]: entweder herrscht der Naturzustand, also das Prinzip der homo homini lupus, oder es gibt eine authoritäre Staatsgewalt.”38 Such a comment, however, ignores the potential of the totalitarian system for its own revelation of the homo homini lupus principle in state terror, violence and repression.39 In Ransmayr’s text it is not simply a condition of human existence in a status naturalis which promotes violence and brutality between human beings, as Hobbes’ writings in Leviathan would suggest. Such violence is also observed in Rome in the acts of repression undertaken by the state system. The assaults on protesters after the production of Naso’s Midas demonstrate the regime’s sensitivity to criticism and its aggressive response. Thies’ escape to the last world and the comfort he finds in nature must be juxtaposed with a human capacity for acts of inhumanity which are seen to occur in any space, be it nominally civilised or not. The natural world in Ransmayr’s work, especially in Die letzte Welt, offers the space of refuge and revelation. The natural world is a place in which “das Wesentliche” may be understood, even when that essential truth indicates the inner nature of humankind to be brutal and violent.

37 These acts of inhumanity will be examined in more detail in my discussion of “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” as a core myth in Ransmayr’s fiction. See Chapter 7. 38 Harbers, 61. 39 Bornemann and Kiedaisch touch upon this point in reference to Thies’ refusal to journey back to Rome. Bornemann and Kiedaisch, 16. 117

The Solace of Stone.

The inorganic world of stone is also seen as a refuge in the natural world. As symbols of permanence in the face of constant change, even a transformation into stone is shown as positive in the context of the last world. The stories which Naso read from the flames in exile became Echo’s Book of Stones in which “Versteinerung” was, even for animals, the “Weg aus dem Chaos des Lebens” (LW 156). Stone was the promise of “Ruhe und Unvergänglichkeit” (LW 157).

…[W]elcher Stoff sei denn besser geeignet, wenigstens eine Ahnung von ungreifbarer Würde, von Dauer, ja Ewigkeit zu tragen, als der aus den raschesten Wechselfällen der Zeit herausgenommene, von aller Weichheit und allem Leben befreite Stein? (LW 157)

In contrast to the nauseating, stinking process of organic decay, petrification is seen “geradezu als eine Erlösung, als grauer Weg ins Paradies der Halden, der Kare und Wüsten” as Naso contemplates the “absolutism of reality” which is the reality of his exile in the last world. After all, stone will long outlast “jedes Imperium und jeden Eroberer” (LW 158). Naso’s subsumation into nature within the last world could have taken several forms. After freeing his world from society’s rules and principles of order, “war er wohl selbst eingetreten in das menschenleere Bild, kollerte als unverwundbare Kiesel die Halden hinab” (LW 287 – my italics). Or perhaps he flew as a cormorant over the waves, or grew as moss on one of the ruined walls of a town. As stone, Naso becomes invulnerable to the pain and decay of organic existence. The transformation of Battus into stone is an ambivalent one. The youth’s existence had been characterised by his shrieks as he grasped the nettles with which Fama protected her goods in the shop. Battus’ attempts to connect authentically with the objects of his desire in life are met with, for him, inexplicable pain. Later, as guardian of the episcope, Battus becomes for the first time “ein M ensch unter M enschen … zum erstenmal drängte man sich an ihn heran … Battus nahm die Hände, die Arme, die Geschenke und schrie und lallte vor Begeisterung.” (LW 211). But as he sits motionless before the episcope’s magical manufactured image, his passivity is transformed into a lasting paralysis. Battus loses his humanity by becoming stone. However in this

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transformation he also is no longer subject to the suffering which has accompanied his human existence. Turned to stone, paralysed by his worship of the episcope’s product, Battus is initially granted a respect and a presence denied him in his organic existence. But consistent with the creeping indifference of the last world population, the stone figure passes into legend and then is forgotten. The story of Battus has become myth and, as such, is less than extraordinary in the last world. Also problematic is the way stone features in Echo’s reporting of the last story in Naso’s Book of Stones, “die nicht mit einer Versteinerung endete, sondern mit der Verwandlung von Geröll in atmende Wesen, in Menschen.” (LW 161). It would be the story “des bevorstehenden Untergangs, eine Offenbarung der Zukunft […] das Ende der wölfischen Menschheit!” (LW 162). Deucalion and Pyrrha survived the Flood to be the means of the birth of the new race of stone. “[A]us jedem Kiesel ein Ungeheuer!… Menschen aus Stein,” cries Echo. The end of a “an seiner wölfischen Gier, seiner Blödheit und Herrschsucht zugrundegegangenen Geschlecht” precedes the birth of what Naso saw as

die eigentliche und wahre Menschheit … eine Brut von mineralischer Härte, das Herz aus Basalt, die Augen aus Serpentin, ohne Gefühle, ohne eine Sprache der Liebe, aber auch ohne jede Regung des Hasses, des Mitgefühls oder der Trauer (LW 169). 40

With the birth of the stone men it appears that the new “absolutism of reality” with which the human race must struggle lies within itself. Finding refuge in stone is possible only in the direction of transformation from organic to inorganic. For men to assume the characteristics of stone and remain human means the loss of sensitivity and emotion. In Die letzte Welt the reality of the human condition is seen to lie in its propensity for extremes of action and feeling, both humane and inhumane.

Nature as the Space of Fantasy, Dream and Madness.

Despite the potential solace of stone in the last world, the contrast between the first and last world centres on the contrast between states of fixedness and fluidity.41 This

40 In contrast, Ovid’s Deucalion and Pyrrha throw stones which the oracle has called “ the bones of your great mother,” the earth. T hese stones lose their hardness and rigidity. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the origins of this new race emphasise its connection with the earth, its hardiness and hard-working character. 119

fixed/fluid dialectic reflects the differing perceptions of reality in the first and last worlds. M y discussion considers the world of nature primarily as a space of fluidity and transformation, manifested variously in fantasy, dream and madness. The last world is characterised by its fluidity of form, the blurring of concepts of time and unpredictability of events. M etamorphoses, confusions and labyrinthine movements starkly contrast with the monolithic system of Rome.42 Cotta must experience (as does the reader) a “Wahrnehmungsveränderung” as a result of “Ransmayrs Provokation des Realitätsbegriff.”43 As a creature of Rome, Cotta is initially disoriented and fearful in the chaotic reality of the last world. The “absolutism of reality” which Cotta must overcome is essentially the perception of reality itself which is questioned in the last world. He slowly adapts to the confronting reality of the last world by going mad, that is, losing the rationality which has characterised him as a Roman. His adaption moves through stages of anxiety, passivity, fear then gleeful acceptance of a world where nature is slowly regaining and manifesting its power and where anything seems possible. For most of the novel Cotta hangs onto the thought of Naso as his ratio, the force which will help him maintain his sanity, his reason – until he finally understands it is Naso’s message in Metamorphoses which will sever his connection with the rationality of Rome. The perceptual alienation which Cotta experiences for much of his time in the last world is a form of exile as much as is his physical (voluntary) exile from Rome. Cotta’s first intimation of the unsettling and alien world of exile is his journey through the hurricane to Tomi. The ground (or sea) literally moves from under him. He and his fellow passengers experience seasickness. Animals are driven mad and violent by the savage tumult of the weather. The voyage on the Trivia warns him to abandon past certainties, securities and importances. He faces the last world already disoriented and anxious. Cotta’s first journey to Trachila reveals what are for him the inconsistency and

41 Scheck takes up this dialectic from another perspective in examining the writing process itself in Ransmayr’s novel. He concludes “ [d]as Fixieren einer ‘flüssigen,’ nicht eindeutig festlegbaren Vergangenheit im Text führt nur immer zu weiteren Metamorphosen des Erzählten.” See Ulrich Scheck, “ Katastrophe und Texte: Zu Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis und Die letzte Welt.” Hinter dem Schwarzen Vorhang. Die Katastrophe und die epische Tradition, ed. Friedrich Gaede (Tübingen: Francke, 1994) 287-90. 42 Salman Rushdie refers to the “ eternally warring myths of stasis and metamorphosis. Stasis the dream of eternity, of a fixed order in human affairs, is the favoured myth of tyrants; metamorphosis, the knowledge that nothing holds its form, is the driving force of art" in his review of Die letzte Welt in the Independent on Sunday, 13 September, 1990. See also Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (London: Granta, 1991) 291-3. 43 Epple, “ Phantasie Contra Realität,” 31. 120

unexpectedness of events in the natural world. His first sight in Naso’s courtyard is of a mulberry tree dropping its mature fruit in purple splashes onto the snow below: “Dort im einem hellen Winkel des Hofes, in der Kälte dieses Gebirges, zwischen Schneeresten und gefrorenen Pfützen, stand sanft und grün ein Maulbeerbaum” (LW 15). The fantastical is literally a part of the landscape in the last world. In his one-sided conversation with Pythagoras, Cotta tries to gain knowledge of this new place but the language of Rome fails him and

… schließlich begriff Cotta, daß er erzählte, um diesem wüsten Gerede aus dem Dunkeln die Ordnung und die Vernunft einer vertrauten Welt entgegenzusetzen: Rom gegen die Unmöglichkeit eines Maulbeerbaumes im Schnee … Rom gegen die in der Einöde hockenden Steinmale” (LW 17-18).

Cotta flees Trachila after his dream vision of

eine Mißgeburt … in einen Fellmantel gehüllten Viehhirten, der an der Stelle des Kopfes ein glitzerndes, schädelgroßes Gebilde trug … auf den Schultern … waren Augen, Dutzende, Hunderte Augen, einen Klumpen, einen Schädel aus Augensternen, schön und furchtbar. (LW 78- 81).

He dreams the story of Io and Argus’ slaying by Mercury. In his stumbling, urgent return through the darkness to Tomi, Cotta seeks to escape the “Drohungen des Schlafes, Trugbilder und der Abgeschiedenheit” (LW 82). Cotta experiences more of these fearful dreams and deceptive images in both Tomi and Trachila. On the carnival night celebrations in Tomi, in the procession of caricatures of Jupiter, Phoebus, Medea and Orpheus, Cotta grabs hold of Naso, to find in his grasp the terrified Battus wearing a huge cardboard nose. The spirit of the coastal wilderness is dionysian in contrast to apollonian Rome. The crowd is drunk, Procne and Thies groan tenderly in each other’s arms on this “Nacht der Verzauberung.” In the fantastical atmosphere of this night Cotta’s own assimilation begins: “[s]chmutzig und betäubt, in seinen im Gebirge und auf dem Pflaster zu Lumpen gewordenen Kleidern, war er nun einer von ihnen” (LW 90). Much later in the mountains, time appears film- like. It appears to slow down, rewind and play forward again as Cotta thinks he sees Naso dictating to Pythagoras. “Ich habe Naso gefunden, ich habe den verbannten, totgeglaubten, verschollenen Dichter Roms gefunden” (LW 239). Cotta’s wild delight at

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finding Naso is crushed as the scene proves another illusion. What he believes to be Naso is revealed to be a pine tree trunk caught up in the rockslide which has overrun Trachila. The nocturnal disappearances of Cotta’s landlord, Lycaon, intrigue Cotta. He observes the wolf skin Lycaon owns and the old man’s broad, clawed feet, shrinking as he does so from the conjectures rationality will not support. His fevered observation of Lycaon bounding wolf-like through the night is suppressed along with much else which is simply fantastical. The disappearance of Lycaon and Cotta’s later discovery of a wolf’s carcass up in the mountains are finally accepted by Cotta. His landlord has become a wolf. The disappearance of Naso and then of Echo remain unexplained. Similarly, the petrification of Battus, and the escape of Procne and Philomela in the form of birds, while utterly fantastical, are simply reality in the last world. Cotta’s sense of exile in the last world ends as he perceives reality in the same way as the Tomi inhabitants. The dream of the dwarf Cyparis particularly illustrates the notion of nature as a space of dream and transformation. A medium of the fantastical himself, Cyparis visits Tomi annually, projecting films on Tereus’ wall for the entertainment of the villagers: “die Schlachthausmauer [wurde] zum Fenster in Urwälder und Wüsten” (LW 24). In the strength of his desire to grow. Cyparis dreams his own transformation

Manchmal schlief er während der Vorführung … und träumte von Bäumen … träumte, daß er Moos auf seiner harten, rissigen Haut trug. Dann sprangen ihm an den Füßen die Nägel auf, und aus seinen krummen Beinen krochen Wurzeln, die rasch stark wurden … und ihn tiefer und tiefer mit seinem Ort zu verbinden begannen. Schützend lebten sich die Ringe seiner Jahre um sein Herz. Er wuchs. (LW 25).

In the last world, the worthy “Erfinder […] Gelehrter” from Samos, Pythagoras is Naso’s crazy servant. Pythagoras couples his master’s philosophy with his own - the transmigration of souls. “[Er] behauptet, in den Augen von Kühen und Schweinen den Blick verlorener, verwandelter Menschen … zu erkennen” (LW 252). Pythagoras “fand in den Antworten und Erzählungen Nasos nach und nach alle seine eigenen Gedanken und Empfindungen wieder” (LW 253). He initially writes his own words and signs in the sand of the last world. The world of nature demonstrates symbolically Pythagoras’ belief in the transience of life as the tides wash away his writings. Pythagoras attempts to record his master’s stories and philosophy on the pennons festooning the landscape. 122

Cotta willingly inherits the task, decking Lycaon’s house with the banners. But nature bleaches the words: they are blown away, torn and lost. What remains is the reality of the stories in the lives of the villagers. Naso’s own claims to immortality through his text are recorded on the stone menhirs of Trachila. But these stones are knocked over in the avalanche that crushes the village and the snails return to obliterate the words with their slimy bodies without Pythagoras’ regular application of the deadly vinegar: The structures of rational perception and cognition prove irrelevant in the last world. They collapse and are replaced by a way of relating to reality which embraces the principle of change and transience. The stories of the Metamorphoses told in the last world indicate the re-appropriation by myth of this existential space.

Narratives from Nature.

The fate of the human individual is revealed in the various texts which Cotta discovers in the last world; in Naso’s stories which were related to Echo in the Book of Stones, and to Arachne who weaves the Book of Birds. The place of the human subject in the landscape of nature faces drastic revision in the action of Die letzte Welt. The human figure is removed from the centre and appears on the very periphery of vision, just like Icarus in Arachne’s tapestry. On the tapestry the human figure draws no focus. Falling, its direction is against the fountains of water it creates on impact. The direction of its fall is also contrary to the desire of all other creatures represented in the scene. In this visual text the natural world is the context within which the human figure is re- positioned. It functions both as a refuge for the questing human subject and an antagonistic force against which the subject must struggle. The natural world in Die letzte Welt is a space in which human individuals and communities attempt to master a reality which threatens their rational perception. The story most relevant to the characters’ understanding and control of the existential horizon of the last world is found in the collection of myths, the Metamorphoses. The last world is identified as the Metamorphoses text itself, its existential principle being the first principle of myth, transformation. Within this context of the natural world, the human figure loses its prominence in an accelerating process of transformation. However the joyous cries with which Cotta seeks his own subsumation into the natural world at the end of the novel indicates that the disappearance of humankind from its position of privilege and power is not necessarily an act to be feared. 123

An examination of the “absolutism of reality” which is potentially overwhelming in both the Roman world and the world of exile indicates that the totalitarian first world is far more threatening to the human subject. The state of exile experienced when one is removed, either voluntarily or not, from the privileged centre is transformed into a state of intimate connection with the world of nature in the last world. Tomi, a place caught between civilised Rome and the natural world, still functions as a transit camp for outsiders, either brutalised or beaten. However, towards the end of the novel, the natural world increasingly encroaches upon Tomi and the rate of transformation of the villagers and the town accelerates. The narrative perspective in Die letzte Welt, similar to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, is from the edge back to the centre. The focus on the last world reveals its fluidity, from the shifting contours of the landscape to the pervasive atmosphere of myth, fantasy and dream. The fluidity of the last world stands in stark contrast to the monolithic nature of the totalitarian system in Rome. The novel presents a strong critique of the totalitarian system’s abuse of reason expressed in the repression practised upon Roman society. These thematic elements in the text further develop the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s second novel. The human subject must accept a new perspective, a new reading of its role with a wider postmodern cosmology. The disappearance of Naso and Cotta signals a radical end to expectations of privilege accorded the human subject in historical modernity. The denial of individuality which occurs in totalitarian Rome is of a different quality. The disappearance of the individual in the last world signals a new relationship between humanity and its natural environment. Domination and exploitation are nominally at an end. The apocalyptic end of the man-made structures of the last world under avalanches and the green onslaught of nature precedes the re- emergence of Olympus, the crowning symbol of fantasy and poetry. In this act of creation, however, a human presence is not separate from, but subsumed into an intimate connection with the world of nature.

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CHAPTER FOUR.

Reversing History. Morbus Kitahara.

Ransmayr’s long-awaited third novel has been described as a “radikales Gegenbild zur Gegenwart – in mehrfacher Hinsicht. Und seine grosse Wirkung beginnt mit einem kleinen Kniff. Als wäre nichts dabei, stellt Christoph Ransmayr ganz einfach die europäische Nachkriegsgeschichte auf den Kopf.”1 The author finds in the trauma of twentieth century history the inspiration for his alternative history in Morbus Kitahara.2 In the text, the manipulation of historical events reveals a questioning of the notion of historical time and its linear forward movement. In fact, the Stellamour peace plan, put in place by the victors in Morbus Kitahara, in effect reverses the flow of historical time in Moor and, as a consequence, the characters and communities of the text revert to personal and communal myths to cope with the post-war “absolutism of reality”. In the tension created between a known (historical) world or “reale Welt” and a fictive “mögliche Welt,” the reader is continually forced “sich zu fragen, was [die] unerhörte Geschichte mit der ihm bekannten Wirklichkeit nun eigentlich zu tun hat.”3 The reading process becomes “ein Einüben von Verunsicherung, allerdings aber auch mit einer positiven Seite: Jede innere Neuformulierung der neuen Welt besagt auch etwas über die alte ‘reale’ Welt und eröffnet damit neue Perspektiven.”4 These new perspectives gained in Morbus Kitahara further develop the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s fiction. The understanding of the so-called real world is deepened by the reading of an alternative history of that world and this reading promotes the realisation that the damage done by humankind is not damage related solely to the natural world or to a social world under a totalitarian system. The impact of

1 Andreas Isenschmid “ Mit den Augen geschrieben,” Die Weltwoche, 5. October, 1995: 73. 2 Günther Herberger’s Die Augen der Kämpfer (1980) begins with the same question as Ransmayr. “ Wie sähe Deutschland aus, wenn der Morgenthau-Plan Wirklichkeit wäre?” Armin Ayren, “ Die Welt nach Morgenthau,” Stuttgarter Zeitung, 10 October, 1995. Robert Harris’ novel Fatherland (1992) is another alternative history of this period with the fictional twist that the Nazis have won the Second World War. 3 This comment by Niekerk, initially in reference to Cees Nooteboom’s In den niederländischen Bergen (1984) is equally applicable to Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara. Niekerk uses Nooteboom’s text to introduce his discussion on Ransmayr’s text. Carl Niekerk, “ Vom Kreislauf der Geschichte. Moderne-Postmoderne-Prämoderne: Ransmayrs Morbus Kitahara,” Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit. Zum Werk von Christoph Ransmayr, ed. Wittstock, 159. 4 Niekerk, 160. 125

acts of inhumanity perpetrated in war extends beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of military aggression. Issues such as culpability, complicity and contrition which are investigated in the text promote a critical confrontation with the grand narratives of modernity’s projections of progress and human betterment - and are set in a context of the re-writing of history and the reversing of historical time. The re-writing of history in Morbus Kitahara illuminates an “absolutism of reality” which results from the experience of “ein Krieg, der nicht vergehen will.”5 The central characters of the novel and the communities to which they belong exist to varying degrees in an existential paralysis, faced with an almost unbearable reality. Although the “absolutism of reality” varies with the experience of each individual, the common denominator of experience is that of war. To investigate further the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels, this chapter on Morbus Kitahara will examine, firstly, the “absolutism of reality” experienced by the characters and, secondly, their responses to the experience, memory and legacy of war. This chapter begins, therefore, with a discussion of points of similarity and divergence between the so-called real and alternative fictional histories upon which the Morbus Kitahara text is based. This is done in order to highlight the new perspectives the text offers on the experience of the European war and its aftermath.6 To fully appreciate the construction of the alternative history represented in Morbus Kitahara, it is also necessary to discuss the manipulation of time and space within the text. The way time and space are manipulated are essential factors in the production of the “absolutism of reality” experienced by the characters. A brief introduction of the way in which time and space are used in the text precedes the incorporation of these within a discussion of representations of nature. The space of nature is privileged in Morbus Kitahara, as it is in Ransmayr’s first two novels. The importance of the natural world lies in its function as a site of confrontation and revelation. The representations of nature and the natural world also serve to symbolically illustrate the “absolutism of reality” experienced by the characters of Bering, Ambras and Lily, and the Moor community. Their responses to this “absolutism of reality” take the forms of individual and social myths, which are

5 Konrad Paul Liessmann, “ Ein Krieg, der nicht vergehen will,” Der Standard, Wien, 16. September, 1995. 6 Aspects of the Austrian “ Vergangenheitsbewältigung” discourse are also briefly discussed to demonstrate a process of social mythologisation to which allegedly real historical events are at times subjected. 126

different in character to those in Ransmayr’s earlier novels. Bering, a member of the post-war generation seeks to avoid the inheritance of war in narratives of escape and flight. Ambras, whose experience of being arrested and of the Moor granite quarry has resulted in an individual “absolutism of reality” of vulnerability, torture and humiliation, develops personal survival narratives based on autonomy and control upon his return to Moor after the war. Lily, from her arrival as a child refugee in Moor, resolutely holds to the myth of a new life in Brazil as her promise of a utopian future. The reality of life in Moor – and, in contrast, the reality of life in the lowland Brand - also develops the recognition of another myth of postwar existence for Bering. He experiences the community denial of historical memory and the development of a social myth of contrition which is hypocritically and unevenly enacted.

An Alternative History.

The impact of the Morbus Kitahara text is, as mentioned above, in no small part due to the confrontation between the reader’s existing historical knowledge of the Second World War in Europe and its aftermath, and the events related in Ransmayr’s alternative history.7 The historical starting point for Ransmayr’s text is the question which faced the Western Allies when Nazi Germany’s defeat in the Second World War seemed inevitable: how should the aggressor be dealt with? Discussions were initially definite on only one point. A defeated Germany should be occupied by Allied troops so that future potential for war could be prevented.8 But many questions remained, for example,

[w]as politisch aus Deutschland werden sollte, ob es nun in Einzelstaaten aufgelöst, oder in Form eines Staatenbundes föderalisiert werden, ob es entindustrialisiert und agrarisiert werden oder ob

7 Foster examines Morbus Kitahara as an alternative history in terms of science fiction theorist Darko Suvin’s definition of the term; that is, as “ that form of SF in which an alternative locus (in space, time etc.) that shares the material and causaI verisimilitude of the writer’s world is used to articulate different possible solutions of societal problems, those problems being of sufficient importance to require an alteration in the overall history of the narrated world.” In his discussion Foster also relates aspects of Ransmayr’s text to actual historical events, programs and personalities. Ian Foster, “ Alternative History in Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara,’ Modern Austrian Literature, 32:1 (1999): 11- 125. 8 Wolfgang Benz, Von der Besatzungsherrschaft zur Bundesrepublik: Stationen einer Staatsgründung, 1946-9 (Fischer: Frankfurt/Main, 1984) 19. 127

seine Bodenschätze und das deutsche Schwerindustriepotential auf Dauer unter fremde Verwaltung kommen sollte …9

The M orgenthau Plan, one of the possible post-war strategies, called for a future “nahezu totale Demontage der Industrie und die Umwandlung Deutschlands in ein Agrarland.”10 Although the Morgenthau Plan was never official US policy, its effect was pervasive. The spirit of the plan was noticeable in Directive JCS 1067, in force in the American zone of occupation at the beginning of the “Besatzungszeit.” At the Yalta Conference in 1945 several aspects of the Morgenthau Plan were still part of the Big Three discussions.11 The Marshall Plan formally introduced the policy of reconstruction in post-war central Europe. The enthusiasm which met the announcement of the Plan in June, 1947 and the acceptance of West Germany into the European Recovery Program (Autumn, 1947) was, however, tempered by the announcement of a “Demontageliste,” detailing the industrial complexes and factories to be dismantled. The “Demontageliste” was seen by the occupied German population to be atavistic and reminiscent of the earlier principles of the rejected M orgenthau Plan. This list resulted in a psychological shock for the German population and a sense of powerlessness in the face of the occupation regime. Officially, the reaction was one of confusion and anger.12 The shock, confusion, powerlessness and anger felt by the German population at this point in time are translated by Ransmayr into the fictional historical context of Morbus Kitahara. But rather than the M arshall Plan, the historically rejected M orgenthau Plan appears the basis for Ransmayr’s Stellamour Plan in Morbus Kitahara.13 With this choice, Ransmayr indicates his intention to provoke a re- evaluation of post-war experiences in an unconventional light, one in which the moral relationship of victor and vanquished comes under scrutiny from a different perspective. This provocation confronts what several German critics have noted as a popular

9 Benz, 21. 10 Benz, 22. 11 Benz, 22. 12 Benz, 81-83. 13 Additional detail on the Morgenthau Plan and its reception in Germany can be found in Benz and F oster. S ee also T homas Neumann, “ Mythenspur des Nationalsozialismus: Der Morgenthau P lan und die deutsche Literaturkritik,” Die Erfindung der Welt. Zum Werk von Christoph Ransmayr, ed. Wittstock. 188-193. 128

ignorance about the attitudes of the Allies and the M orgenthau legend itself.14 As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (10. October, 1992) noted:

Tief eingebrannt ist die Mythenspur des Nationalsozialismus noch immer. Jeder glaubt den Morgenthau-Plan zu kennen. Sein Inhalt sei, meinen die Leute, daß Nachkriegsdeutschland zum Kartoffelacker gemacht werden sollte. Was die Deutschen in fünfundvierzig Jahren über Henry Morgenthau dazugelernt haben, stellt Bernd Greiner in der Hamburger Soziologenzeitschrift Mittelweg 36 vor. Fast nichts nämlich.

This lack of popular critical knowledge which sees the Morgenthau Plan simply as révanchist reawakens old prejudices and antagonisms. In this way, Ransmayr’s novel is doubly provocative. Neumann notes that the popular image associated with the Morgenthau Plan, that of the “Ackerbild,” actually had its origins in a 1944 speech by Goebbels, who saw Old Testament hatred and revenge in the American Jew M orgenthau’s plan for a defeated Germany. This Nazi invective has been able in some quarters to promote a dangerous transformation of perpetrator into victim when an uninformed response to the Morgenthau legend was allowed to thrive.15 Response to the apparent similarity of Morbus Kitahara’s Stellamour Plan16 to the historical Morgenthau Plan has come from a variety of angles. Some critics have found in the Ransmayr text elements they feel to be variously coloured by an all-too-obvious “verordneter Antifaschismus der DDR,” or an “Ersatzbolschewismus,” a “moralischen Rachefeldzug im Namen eines bösen alten Washingtoner Stalin” in the actions of occupation commander M ajor Elliot.17 Once the M orgenthau link was first noted in reviews of Ransmayr’s novel18 it gained critical currency despite contradictory, at times even irrelevant, elements within the text.19 Greiner points out that Morgenthau was, in fact, concerned with showing US and British politicians that the “German Question” would not be resolved solely by the fall of Hitler and the banning of the Nazi Party; the post-war control of the industrial sector

14 Neumann, 190-2. 15 Neumann, 189. 16 The use of the name “ Stellamour” in Ransmayr’s text parallels and parodies the name “ Morgenthau” with its similar evocations of Romantic beauty and idealism. Ironically, associations of light, stars and love are absent in the harsh application of the Stellamour Plan in occupied Moor. 17 Neumann, 189-09. 18 In his FAZ review of Morbus Kitahara, Gustav Seibt confirms Greiner’s assertion that the Germans have learnt little about Henry Morgenthau in the past forty-five years. See Bernd Greiner, Mittelweg 36:6 (1995): 52-55. In Neumann, 191-2. 19 Neumann, 192.

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was vital. Additionally, Morgenthau wanted to create legal requirements for the punishment of criminals within the Nazi government.20 It is clear that the Stellamour Plan imposed on the population of Moor in Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara is not merely a shadow copy of the proposed M orgenthau plan. However the critical perception that this is so, serves to illuminate further the problematic response to notions of responsibility, perpetrator/victim and memory which still remains decades after the war. In this context, Ransmayr’s novel is a valuable spur to contemporary discussion of such issues. In Ransmayr’s alternative history, what never actually occurred in historical reality still appears familiar. This familiarity is experienced in the critical consciousness of the historically aware reader when he/she recognises in the text a set of circumstances which diverges from the accepted history of twentieth century Europe. These circumstances are, however, similar enough to force a critical reappraisal of both what did occur and what may have been possible. A critical response to both histories illuminates issues of human existence in the face of a threatening and potentially overwhelming reality. The interaction between the official history and an alternative history of war-time and post-war central Europe helps illuminate an “absolutism of reality” in Morbus Kitahara. This interaction is experienced at both a conscious and subconscious level in the act of reading the text.

Histories and Stories.

Ransmayr’s text indicates the difficulty in defining and representing historical reality, along with realities of any sort, a difficulty which is highlighted in postmodern discourse. One example of this occurring in historical reality is the way in which history has become mythologised in twentieth century Austria. Because of the direct historical links Morbus Kitahara has with Austrian history it is of interest here to briefly refer to myths which have entered the common domain of Austrian social and political history in the twentieth century.

20 Neumann refers here to Bernd Greiner’s Die Morgenthau-Legende. Zur Geschichte eines umstrittenen Plans. Neumann, 190. 130

A certain ambivalence has been noted by Robert Menasse, among others, in the critical perception of what constitutes an Austrian reality (and an Austrian history) in the twentieth century.21 Menasse describes Austria’s “Entweder-Oder” character.

‘Österreichische Wirklichkeit’ das scheint … eine contradictio in adjecto zu sein. Die Realität in diesem Land zeigt sich auf eine Weise zusammengesetzt, daß alles ununterbrochen in seinem Gegenteil aufgehoben wird und im gesamten nur virtuell als das existiert, was man gerade sehen will …Österreich hat einen gesellschaftlichen Diskurs entwickelt, der dadurch charakterisiert ist, daß nie gesagt wird, was gemeint ist, und umgekehrt, wodurch alles eine symbolische Bedeutung erhält, die aber ihre wirkliche Bedeutung nach Möglichkeit nicht zeigt.22

This characteristic of Austrian historical and political reality is, according to Menasse,

das Dilemma … österreicher Selbstreflexion. Ihr Prinzip ist das Entweder-Oder, eine unerträglich sich spreizende Verrenkung, mit der versucht wird, von jeder Seite des Widerspruchs ein Zipfelchen zu erhaschen, von den historischen Notlügen einerseits, die man nicht wegdiskutiert haben will, und von der historischen Wahrheit andererseits, die man nicht mehr ganz wegdiskutieren kann.”23

The “Entweder-Oder” character or the perception of a “Schein oder Sein” reality in Austria’s political and historical existence points also to the ambivalence inherent in a series of myths which have grown up around the Austrian national experience in the twentieth century. The “Habsburgermythos” of an harmonious multicultural state at the beginning of the twentieth century was the scenario of a secure and structured past viewed sentimentally, if blindly, in the desire for “Kontinuität” in succeeding decades. Most importantly here, in this discussion of Morbus Kitahara, is the fictional adaption in the novel of the historical “Opfermythos” which appeared in Austria at the end of World World Two. The Moscow Declaration of 1943 secured for Austria a collective innocence of any culpability in World War Two and the acts of the Holocaust. This notion of Austria as a victim of Nazism was conveniently and uncritically accepted by a majority of its population up until the Waldheim scandal of 1986, when the delayed

21 Robert Menasse, novelist and essayist, has critically addressed the question of Austrian identity in essay collections such as Die sozialpartnerschaftliche Ästhetik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1990) and Das Land ohne Eigenschaften (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992). 22 Menasse, Land Ohne Eigenschaften (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992) 74 23 Menasse Land Ohne Eigenschaften, 17. 131

debate of an Austrian complicity in the acts of the Third Reich was finally forced into the public arena.24 The victim myth was fiercely defended. As a result of this heated debate, a re-writing of post-war narrative/history was undertaken.25 Menasse describes the historical events of 1986 as a “Systemimplosion” which set in train a process of transformation whose effects are still not ultimately foreseeable. The social division which followed the election of Kurt Waldheim to Bundespräsident and, later, Jörg Haider to party leader of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs “sprengte nachhaltig das harmonisierende Konzept, das den gesellschaftlichen Diskurs in Österreich vierzig Jahre lang geprägt hatte. Nun waren Diskussionen möglich, die kurz davor noch undenkbar erschienen wären.”26 The collapse of the victim myth led to a national identity crisis.27 The post-war “Opfermythos” has problematised notions of guilt and complicity in the postwar Austrian community. This is a process which Morbus Kithara thematises. While this brief excursus into a peculiarly Austrian connection between notions of the real and the fictional, between history and story, is certainly revealing, it is the consideration of the fiction of an alternative history of the events of World War Two and its aftermath in Morbus Kitahara which is central to this chapter. The alternative history of Morbus Kitahara is developed through narrative manipulations of historically identified time and space which emphasise particular human perceptions and experiences during war and post-war times.

The “Absolutism of Reality.” Space-Time Considerations.

The “absolutism of reality” which confronts the inhabitants of this fictive post-war world is created, in part, as a consequence of certain space-time relationships.The structure of Morbus Kitahara is marked by “die Verschiebung von Raum und Zeit, die

24 A degree of blame has been officially acknowledged (in this case, in President Vranitsky’s announcement to the Austrian Parliament forty-six years after the end of World War Two). It was determined, however, that this blame be attributed to a small number of Austrians, as the Austrian state itself remained officially a victim of Nazism .Indeed, in this version, the Austrian state did not actually officially exist after the Anschluß of 1938 and so could not be apportioned blame at all. Josef Haslinger, Politik der Gefühle, Ein Essay über Österreich, (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995), 12 25 “ Seit der Waldheim-Affäre hat sich einiges getan. Zum Beispiel wurden die österreichischen Geschichtsbücher umgeschrieben.” Haslinger, 11 26 Robert Menasse, Überbau und Underground, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 8-9. 27 Josef Haslinger, “ Das Endlose Land,” Gerhard Roth: Das doppelköpfige Österreich, ed. Kristina Pfoser-Schewig (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1995) 12 132

Produktion einer neuen Raumzeit und eines eigenen Zeitraumes.” Space-time relationships in the text not only structure the narrative but are thematised within it.28 The relationship the characters have with the past, for example, is central to an understanding of the text. However my focus at this point is the multiplicity of ways in which time operates in the text, which in turn has implications for the manipulation, too, of the representation of the space of nature in the text. No specific dates are given. References are made to events; to the last night of bombing for example, to the Peace of Oranienburg and later to the dropping of an atomic bomb in the Far East, two and a half decades after the end of war in Europe. Although the narrative spans from 1945 to the 1970s, time in the world of Moor is not frozen in reference to a particular period. While the events recorded in the text are familiar enough to be recognisable in the context of twentieth century history, Ransmayr frees the text from a fixed temporality in order to universalise the specific perceptions and experiences of its characters. For example, one notes that while there is no direct reference to the German people, to Nazism or Hitler, “eine geheime Staatspolizei” and a “schwarze Uniform” are evocative links to the historical period of the Third Reich.29 The following section examines the way time operates in the text.

Time flows backwards.

The reversal of history is a phenomenon already noted in Ransmayr’s re-working of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. While Ovid’s text tells the story of transformation from the earliest beginnings of the world, from chaos to the poet’s own age, Augustan Rome, Ransmayr’s text traces the transformations from Augustan Rome to chaos in the last world. In Morbus Kitahara, however, the occupying forces seek to reverse the flow of time in a programmatic way, in the spirit of the Peace of Oranienburg and the Stellamour Plan,

In der folgenden Woche wurde das Kraftwerk am Fluß stillgelegt; die Turbinen, auch die Transformatoren des Umspannwerks, rollten gemäß Paragraph 9 des Friedenplanes auf russischen Armeelastwagen davon …Unaufhaltsam glitt Moor durch die Jahre zurück. (MK 43)

28 Konrad Paul Liessmann, “ Der Anfang ist das Ende,” Die Erfindung der Welt, 148. 29 Liessmann, 150. 133

Through an official policy of de-industrialisation, in essence, a dismantling of the technology of modernity, Moor is forced into a pre-modern, primitive state. One critic, in fact, argues for a reading of the text as the movement from the modern to the postmodern into the premodern.

Wir finden in Morbus Kitahara einen Vorausblick auf eine Welt, die ihre Grundstoffe allmählich verliert. Das Resultat ist ein Zurück zur Prämoderne: eine Welt nicht nur ohne technische Errungenschaften, sondern auch ohne 'modernes' soziales Gefüge. Mit der Postmoderne hört die Geschichte nicht auf. Es gibt nirgendwo in Morbus Kitahara den Trost eines endgültigen Endes der Geschichte – im Gegenteil nach der Postmoderne kommt die Prämoderne.30

Bering, upon being assaulted by police in Brand, recognises the ever-presence of war on the horizon of his experience. Yes, the bright lights of Brand would soon illuminate M oor; but they would be the “M ündungsblitzen, Granateneinschlägen, Feuersäulen … Block vier. Zielgebiet Moor. Aufmarschgebiet Moor. Manövergelände Moor. Das war die Zukunft.” (MK 335). With the final forced emigration of the Moor population and the closure of the quarry, the world of M oor will disintegrate completely in terms of structures and infrastructures of modern society. The area is emptied of human life and returned to a pre-civilised state. “Die Zukunft Moors war die Vergangenheit” (MK 336). The area is prepared as a practice ground for post-war maneouvres. M ajor Elliot promises a return to the Stone Age for the barbaric population under occupation in Moor. The Stellamour Plan is a call for the end of modern progress. Its effect can be expressed symbolically in the reversal of linear time. Decay, infrastructural and societal collapse indicate a literal “turning back of the clock” in a modern society. In Ransmayr’s Moor “[d]ie Stunde Null wird zur Stunde Minus.”31 This blurring of historical boundaries and ages is achieved on one level through the collage effect Ransmayr creates with his utilisation of a

Vokabular von Zeitaltern …, die wir längst hinter uns dachten. So gibt es … wieder “ Rübenkompagnien”, “ Salzsieder” und “ Sühnegesellschaft”, “ Pferdewagen” und “ Karren” … “ Tauschgeschäfte” … - mit lexikalischen Mitteln ruft Ransmayr … eine frühindustrielle, ins Archaische zurückgelittene Welt hervor. Andere Wörter, wie zB “Lebensmittelkupons”,

30 Niekerk, 173. 31 Ulrich Greiner, Die Zeit, 13.November, 1995. See also Neumann, 189. 134

“ Karbidlampen”, “ Carepakete”, “ Armeezigaretten”, “ Checkpoints” assozieren wir wohl eher mit einer Atmosphäre der Krise oder Besatzung.32

As this reversal of the flow of time occurs, the natural world reasserts its presence, reoccupying the sites of earlier industrialism, sites of social and technological modernity in scenes reminiscent of the “last world” of Ransmayr’s second novel.

“Eine Unzeit”

The time scheme of Morbus Kitahara is additionally complex when one understands that the text also utilises a perception of time which is experienced by many survivors of the historical Holocaust. The past is continually experienced as the present. As Ransmayr himself said in an interview,

Da gibt es lang andauernde Traurigkeiten und Schicksale wie das von Jean Améry oder Primo Levi. Es kann nicht sein, daß der eine sagt: “ vergessen wir’s”, während dem anderen immer noch die Armgelenke verbrennen, die ihm in der Folter aus der Pfanne gezerrt wurden … Es gibt Leute, für die ist die Vergangenheit nicht vergangen, für die gibt es nur die Unzeit, in der alle Zeiten – Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft – zusammenschließen. Leute, die dazu verurteilt sind, in dieser Unzeit zu leben, immer wieder dort zu leben, wo man einmal befreit wurde.33

In the text this experience of an “Unzeit” is seen most particularly in the character of Ambras. The experience he has undergone in his arrest and that of his lover, as well as the horror of the quarry labour camp, are constantly with him.

Es ist eine Illusion zu glauben, die Zeit vergeht und heilt. … Die Vergangenheit ist so übermächtig, daß sie von der Gegenwart ununterscheidbar ist. Obwohl schon in Brasilien, ist Ambras wieder in seiner eigenen Zeit, seiner Vergangenheit. Er geht auf eine Lianenform zu, die ist dann für ihn ein Stacheldraht, und diese weißen Blüten sind Porzellanisolatoren. Mit dem Verlust der Abfolge der Zeiten verliert man die Vergangenheit, auch die Zukunft und die Gegenwart – an eine Unzeit. Jemand, der die Zeiten verloren hat, kann niemals sagen, es ist 34 vorbei, denn er hat nicht die Wahl.

32 Niekerk, 170. 33 Christoph Ransmayr interviewed by Sigrid Löffler, “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” Falter, W ien, 38, 1995: 16. 34 Erna Lackner, Christoph Ransmayr, Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin, 13 October, 1995: 17.

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A sense of this ever-presence of the past is similarly conveyed in Liessmann’s description of Morbus Kitahara as a “Nachkriegsroman im doppelten Sinne des Wortes: geschrieben in einem Frieden über einen Krieg, der nicht vergehen will.”35 The collapse of notions of past, present and future not only dominates the temporal experience of Holocaust survivors but pervades the temporal scheme of the text. The experience of war and man’s inhumanity to man is ever-present in the actions and memories of the characters, so much so that the concepts past, present and future lose their meaning. For example, Ambras’ experience of torture in the labour camp is continually present in the continuing pain in his once-dislocated shoulder joints. When the reason for his return to the Moor granite quarry is queried, Ambras’ response is unambiguous.

Zurückgekommen in den Steinbruch? Ich bin nicht zurückgekommen. Ich war im Steinbruch, wenn ich in den ersten Jahren der Stellamourzeit durch die Schutthalden von Wien oder Dresden oder irgendeine andere dieser umgepflügten Städte gegangen bin… ich bin nicht zurückgekommen. Ich war niemals fort. (MK 210)

The same is true of the perpetrators. Bering’s father, simply designated in the text as a soldier, finally loses himself in the madness of memory and believes himself still at war decades later. He bears the symbolic mark of Cain on his forehead as a result of a wound suffered in northern Africa. This wound is symbolically passed on to Bering as his father returns from the front. Bering’s horrified attempt to flee his father’s arms ends in the child’s fall. Bering’s “Turban aus Lazarettbandagen” (MK 29) recalls for his father his experiences of war in the desert. Years later, in the Stony Sea above Moor, Lily is accosted by Bering’s father, by

ein[em] Krieger mit rußgeschwärztem Gesicht aus dem Trümmerfeld [der] Halt! schrie, Stehenbleiben! Parole! Es war Berings Vater. […] Auf dem Kopf trug er einen verbeulten Helm der Moorer Feuerwehr, um den Hals ein eisernes Kreuz, und an den Aufschlägen seiner Lodenjacke … glänzten Medaillen und Orden … (MK 276).

The psychological mindscape of war knows no temporal parameters, neither for soldier nor prisoner.

35 Liessmann, “ Ein Krieg, der nicht vergehen will,” Der Standard, 16 September, 1995. 136

The concept of an “Unzeit” is extended in the perception that the experience of war and man’s inhumanity to man is not confined to a past but is continually present and is, additionally, projected into the future. The fictional history of Moor is one which Ransmayr himself sees as projecting into the future in this way.36 In the text, Moor is still stamped by war and aggression decades after the cessation of hostilities. The war continues in the acts of the occupation forces and in the violence perpetuated by the skinhead gangs. As stated previously, when the Moor quarry is dismantled and the population removed, the area is destined to be a practice ground for military manoeuvres. The violence is institutionalised at the highest level, in government policy and practice. Bering carries the psychological landscape of war from Moor into the New World of Brazil when he shows his capacity for murderous action on Dog Island. This blurring of temporal boundaries and the paling of distinction between experiences of the past, present and future is reinforced by the narrative structure of the text itself. The first chapter “Ein Feuer im Ozean” is linguistically and narratively linked to the final chapter “Das Feuer im Ozean”. The beginning is structurally the end.37 The chapter titles serve to register the knowledge gained by the reader in the course of the text. The indefinite article “a” attached to “a fire in the ocean” becomes the specific “the” of “the fire in the ocean” which marks the symbolic funeral pyre of Ambras and Bering. The positioning of these chapters also develops a sense of the cyclic nature of time in the text. The past constantly circles into the present and the future - in contrast to the linear model of past to present to future.

Space and Place.

The transposition of time and space, effected by the stymying of the expectations of the signs given in the very first sentence of the text, initiates the understanding that time- space information is going to be presented in deliberately confronting terms and unexpected ways throughout the novel. Take the example of the text’s first sentence, “Zwei Tote lagen schwarz im Januar Braziliens” (M K 7). Spatial information as to where the corpses lay is placed instead with a time sign “January”. In its turn, “the use of “schwarz” unsettles European temporal expectations of winter in January when that

36 Ransmayr voices this thought in an interview in Ireland by the ORF (13. September, 1995) in a program entitled “ Ein Wanderer durch die Welt.” 37 Liessmann, “ Der Anfang ist das Ende,” 148. 137

time sign follows.38 The disorientating effect this has on the reader serves as a warning that all signs are unreliable in the text and that there is no common interpretation or certainty to be gained. Space in the novel, while seemingly concrete in external detail, must be viewed with caution to see how it has been manipulated to serve a thematic purpose. A geographical location for the Morbus Kitahara text is readily identifiable.39 The granite quarry of Moor in the text is based on the quarry at Austria’s infamous Mauthausen concentration camp. The quarry “Stiege” described in the Ransmayr text, the site for the text’s Stellamour Party re-enactments, are based on the Mauthausen quarry “Stiege.” In the text the M oor quarry is located at the end of Upper Austria’s Traunsee at Ebensee.40 In a wider geographical context, the towering rocky cliffs and mountains of Austria’s Salzkammergut also hold the “Totes Gebirge” and “Steinernes Meer” which isolate the upper valleys, on actual tourist maps as well as in the Morbus Kitahara text. While various sites in the novel relate directly to specific places in Austria, the events which occur in Ransmayr’s alternative history may be read on a universal level. As in Die letzte Welt the avoidance of historical names and dates insists on the universal relevance of events and experiences in the text. However specifically identifiable aspects of the historical and geographical landscape of Morbus Kitahara may be, the author uses several devices, apart from the thematised re-writing of history to establish this text as fiction and to link it to his earlier work. For example, in Morbus Kitahara too, the world of nature reflects the existential dilemma of the human subject. The natural world is perceived predominantly as an environment which is physically and psychologically threatening to its human inhabitants. The inhabitants of Moor, including Bering, Ambras and Lily attempt to master the reality with which this natural world physically or symbolically confronts them. In seeking to reduce the anxiety and paralysis that this form of the “absolutism of reality” promotes, the characters of Morbus Kitahara take refuge in individual and social mythmaking involving escape, flight, control, contrition, revenge and violence.

38 Liessmann, 148. 39 Asked why he was drawn to the theme of historical forgetfulness and repression, Ransmayr refers to the geographical immediacy for him of reminders of the Nazi time. “Ich bin an einem Ende des Traunsees zur Schule gegangen und am anderen Ende war Ebensee, ein ehemaliges Außenlager von Matthausen.” Löffler, “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” 16. 40 The Ebensee labour camp itself had been a subsidiary of the larger Mauthausen camp complex. The scars of the actual Ebensee quarry may still be seen as one travels by train alongside the Traunsee.The Ebensee quarry was used during the Second World War as a decoy for the nearby tunnels in which V rockets were stored and tested, hidden from Allied bombing raids. 138

Ultimately, the realisation of how overwhelming this reality is, leads to the understanding in the text that for most characters the reality of war and of human suffering cannot be overcome. Morbus Kitahara offers no vision of a peace-time utopia, rather it reveals the dystopia of a war that never ends. The cyclical nature of the text contributes to the realisation that the past cannot be escaped.

The World of Nature and the “Absolutism of Reality”.

The “absolutism of reality” which confronts various characters in this text is constructed by their experience of war and its aftermath. Various representations of the world of nature in Morbus Kitahara serve to highlight specific features of the experience of the three central characters, but also of human communities directly connected with the war in Europe. As already observed, the space of nature is one which is traditionally open to the making of myth. But the inner nature of the human subject is also linked to a state which is the Other of the rational. Both concepts of nature (the natural world and the inner nature of the human being) are sites of confrontation where the human subject encounters “das Wesentliche” in the human experience of war and further acts of inhumanity promoted by the actions of his/her fellows. The revelation of “das Wesentliche” in the Morbus Kitahara text is of the essential brutality of humankind which is demonstrated both by individuals and groups; “[d]er Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf”. This motif, already present in Ransmayr’s earlier novels structures the narrative in Morbus Kitahara. The landscapes of Morbus Kitahara are similar to those in Ransmayr’s first two novels.41 While these landscapes are predominantly drawn as hostile and inhospitable, images of the natural world are also seen as consolatory in the text. This ambivalence was also noted in the way stone is represented as both refuge and unfeeling stasis in Die letzte Welt. When forced into service as a monument and edifice in Morbus Kitahara, nature symbolically reflects the rape and mutilation caused by human hand, and later reflects the regenerative potential the natural world offers. With the dismantling of structures of modern industrial society, Moor begins to resemble the last world of Tomi.

41 “ Kälte und Eis, Felsen und rauher Grus, verrostetes Eisen und Stein, immer wieder Stein. Sie bilden die Kulisse, vor der sich Christoph Ransmayrs drei Romane abspielen.” André Spoor, “ Der kosmopolitische Dörfler. Christoph Ransmayrs wüste Welten,” Die Erfindung der Welt, 181. 139

In Morbus Kitahara nature also reclaims the areas abandoned to decay by the occupying forces. The landscape of M oor, forced back into a “Steinzeit” becomes a landscape re-colonised by the forces of nature. Moor is geographically isolated from the lowlands and from the culture of amnesia in Brand by the “das Steinerne M eer”. The landscapes of contrast between Moor and Brand form a dialectic of darkness and light which symbolically structures the text’s comment on the discourse of memory and a text-specific “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”. The ways in which the world of nature functions in the text are discussed in detail in the following section.

Nature as Consolation - Refuge in Beauty and Timelessness.

The region of Moor is dominated by mountains of rock and ice towering above the lake. Both natural elements, stone and water, fixed and fluid, are linked in the name of the region at the physical edge of Moor, the “Steinerne Meer.” The mountains separating M oor from the lowlands are symbolically a space of nature where man is not welcome. The area is officially designated a ‘no-man’s land’ on M ajor Elliot’s map. The mountains are described as a place of primitive beauty. Once a prehistoric sea, the way through the mountains is “von Muscheln übersät … immer noch schimmerte das Perlmut Tausender und Abertausender versteinerter Meeresmuscheln” (MK 302). The emeralds in which Ambras so delights are the treasures from this ancient place. In their age, beauty and permanence a refuge from the trauma of the present age may be found. Ambras finds in these stones and in nature the beauty and intimations of eternity he needs to survive the horrors of his arrest and imprisonment.

In diesen winzigen Kristallgärten, deren Blüten und Schleier im Gegenlicht silbergrün glommen, sah er ein geheimnisvolles, laut- und zeitloses Bild der Welt, das ihn die Schrecken seiner eigenen Geschichte und selbst seinen Haß für einen Augenblick vergessen ließ. (MK 110).

He is drawn to a time separate to the “Unzeit” phenomenon into which his wartime experiences have drawn him. Ambras’ special treasure, a lacewing held for eternity in a fragment of amber, combines the beauty of stone with the reassurance of permanence in an age of decay, frailty and suffering.

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Der Bernstein enthielt einen organischen Einschluß von seltener Schönheit, eine Florfliege, die im Aufschwirren von einem Harztropfen überrascht worden und darin erstarrt war … auf welches Alter schätzte er [Bering] diese Fliege im Stein? […] ‘Vierzig Millionen’ sagte der Hundekönig. ‘Vierzig Millionen Jahre.’(MK 258-9)

The beauty and inorganic permanence of Ambras’ collection of stones appear to withstand and transcend the experience of human suffering, at least temporarily. The fact that Ambras constantly seeks more of the stones which Lily finds in the “Steinerne M eer” suggests however that the torturous burden of his war-time experiences needs increasing and continuous comfort from this source. Reminders of a tragic and cruel human presence, however, merge with the rock and ice in the world above Moor. A column of war-time prisoners has disappeared through a cleft in the ice and their suffering remains frozen in time. Later, the skinhead bands which roam the region of Moor penetrate the no-man’s land of the mountains, leave the ashes of their fire and the stink of their violence. Lily in her role as the huntress periodically hunts the skinheads in the mountains, merging with the contours of the natural landscape on her murderous mission. She locates old munitions caches and trades the weapons and ammunition. The precious stones she brings Ambras are brought to the Dog King wrapped alongside guns and bullets. The corpse of the hen thief shot by Bering becomes part of the mountain landscape. After the shooting Lily throws her rifle into a chasm. The consolation offered by nature is contaminated and undermined both by acts of human cruelty and the artefacts of human destruction.

The Granite Quarry - Nature as Monument.42

The granite quarry of Moor lies at the edge of Moor’s lake on the edge of the mountains. From a distance the quarry appears as a wound on the face of the “Steinernes Meer”. It is a symbol of the wounding of the integrity of nature and also of the integrity of humanity. The treatment of the war-time camp inmates labouring in the quarry subverts any modern human pretention to liberal morality or human decency.

42 Landa sees Morbus Kitahara itself as a monument with its “ architectural propensity, statuesques characters and the highly ornamental quality of its imagery” – and its “ horizon of meaning” in Henri Lefebvre’s definition of a monumental work. See Henri Lefebvre, “ The Production of Space,” Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) 140. Landa, “ Fractured Vision in Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara,” 143.

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The wounding of the natural world symbolically serves post-war society as a memorial to the dead labour camp inmates. Hewn out of the stepped wall of the granite quarry stands the declaration of Moor’s guilt.

HIER LIEGEN ELFTAUSENDNEUNHUNDERTDREIUNDSIEBZIG TOTE ERSCHLAGEN VON DEN EINGEBORENEN DIESES LANDES WILLKOMMEN IN MOOR” (MK 33)

In this place nature stands as an edifice announcing man’s inhumanity to man. Inscribed in letters the size of a man, “(j)eden Buchstaben als freistehende, gemauerte Skulptur aus den Trümmern des Barackenlagers am Schotterwerk … So hatte Elliot nicht nur eine aufgegebene Halde des Steinbruchs am See, sondern das ganze Gebirge in ein Denkmal verwandelt” (MK 33). The granite from the quarry is used as building material for other “Tempel der Erinnerung” in other areas. The granite quarry itself operates as an active site of memorial during the Stellamour Parties organised by the occupation commander. The M oor villagers re-enact the work of the camp, carrying, if they choose, cardboard replicas of the blocks of granite on their shoulders. The continuation of quarrying after the war serves the purpose of psychological propaganda. M ajor Elliot has overturned the war-time status quo. The vanquished are now the quarry workforce. That the quarry still operates is also evidence of a human propensity to follow a course of practicality and utility in the face of human catastrophe. The site is finally abandoned only when the quarrying is no longer profitable. In a similar indictment of the (short) duration of memory, moss crawls slowly back over the letters hewn in the quarry walls and no action is taken. Afterall, “(i)n jeder Erde lagen Tote. Aber wer wollte im dritten Jahrzehnt des Friedens von Oranienburg noch Leichen zählen?” (MK 177). Nature takes the burden of acts of inhumanity upon itself. The desired acts of human memory and contemplation have been ineffective. An ongoing act of critical reflection concerning the acts of cruelty perpetrated in the quarry fails. The transformation of the quarry into a memorial has been an act imposed from above by the war victors. From the very first, the memorial inscription had been vandalised by the humiliated and rebellious villagers. The granite quarry as memorial

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has confronted them and been for them a threatening “absolutism of reality” founded on the victors’ assumptions of M oor’s collective guilt. Denial and rejection are voiced in old war songs, the surreptitious re-telling of war stories, the production of war-time insignia. These become the myths of the “Kriegsgeneration” which are told and re-told in an effort to make sense of its version of war-time reality.

“Zurück in die Steinzeit!” - The Stellamour Plan.

The regenerative potential of nature in Morbus Kitahara is consolatory only to an extent. The seasons change, grass and moss grow over the remaining infrastructure of war and Bering’s cemetery of machinery. Snow hides the terrain as a munitions dump is exploded. However, the impact of nature’s cycles and regrowth, in effect, occurs in Moor by default. The occupiers’ imposition of a policy of de-industrialisation meant that the area is forced back into the rhythms of nature and agrarian activities. Major Elliot’s project for the occupation of M oor is revealed in his enraged cry to the villagers at his first Stellamour Party, “Zurück! Zurück mit Euch! Zurück in die Steinzeit!” (MK41). Vegetation and rust slowly reclaim the region. There are numerous descriptions of decay and dereliction. The landscape of Moor is one which superficially resembles that of Tomi in Ransmayr’s second novel. However the decay of M oor is identifiable as the specific intention of the Stellamour Plan, which in the eyes of the Moor population is merely an extended act of retribution.

Seit den Tagen, in denen Major Elliots Pioniere die Bahnlinie ins Tiefland zerschlagen hatten und Moor aus den Fahrplänen verschwunden war, hatten die Bewohner der Besatzungszonen in einem langen Prozeß der Demontage und Verwüstung allmählich begriffen, begreifen müssen, daß Lyndon Porter Stellamour nicht bloß irgendein neuer Name aus dem Heer und Regime der Sieger war, sondern der einzige und wahre Name der Vergeltung. (MK 39)

The Stellamour Plan attacks both the physical environment of the conquered region and is a threat to the population’s physical and psychological survival. The physical infrastructure and machinery of the area is dismantled and M oor is gradually isolated. The machinery of Moor runs out of fuel and breaks down. The garden Bering collects around the forge is an “Eisengarten” of rusted and broken machine parts. The

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natural world does begin to reclaim the world of M oor, but never in the overwhelming abundance and violence of the last world of Ransmayr’s second novel. After Bering’s father is accidentally blinded by flying iron filings, his forge lies cold. The son, Bering “haßte sein Erbe” and under the influence of this hate actively neglects it.

(D)ie Fenster der Werkstatt waren zerschlagen oder blind und die Sterne des Glasbruchs mit Wachspapier verklebt. Dort, wo auch das Papier über diesen Sternen zerrissen war oder fehlte, griffen schon die Zweige eines verwilderten Gartens in das Dunkel der Schmiede” (MK 51-2).

The imagery of prehistory overlies that of modernity in the decaying landscape: “ein auf schwere Holzböcke gewuchteter Motorblock ohne Kolben und Ventile, schwarz, ölverschmiert und … riesig [war] wie das Herz eines Sauriers” (MK 52). Moor sinks further into a more primitive age. The forge’s lifelessness and the death of the industrial age in Moor are reinforced by the description of Bering’s junkyard as an “Eisenfriedhof”. The atmosphere of entropic breakdown is pervasive. The landscape of Moor reflects the collapse of technological modernity. The de-industrialisation of Moor - “keine Fabriken mehr, keine Turbinen und Eisenbahnen, keine Stahlwerke” (MK 42) - returns its inhabitants to the earth, the fields of an agrarian society, a new Dark Ages. This vision is consistent with that vehemently prophesied by Goebbels in his “Deutschland als Kartoffelacker” speech.43 The vision of a return to nature in this form is seen as inescapably apocalyptic, rather than in any way mythic/romantic/idyllic or consolatory. This dismantling of the structures of a modern society is read entirely as a project of punishment and forms the basis of another aspect of the “absolutism of reality” with which the M oor villagers are confronted post-war. Buildings and infrastructure; the Villa Flora, the Bellevue, guesthouses, the promenade, rail tracks and roads, all fall into disrepair or are dismantled. When Ambras moves into the Villa Flora, he allows it to decay further and return to a state of wilderness. “Alle anderen Räume des Hauses, das mit Tüchern verhängte M obiliar, die schimmeligen Tapeten und zerfetzten Brokatvorhänge, die Gipsfaune und auch die geplünderte Bibliothek überließ er einem Dutzend halbwilder Hunde” (MK 70). The villa’s original owner, the hotelier, Goldfarb (a stereotypical name for a tragically

43 “ Das industrialisierte Deutschland soll buchstäblich in einen riesigen Kartoffelacker verwandelt werden.” Thomas Neumann,“ Der Morgenthauplan und die deutsche Literaturkritik,” Mittelweg, 36: 6 (1995): 53. 144

stereotypical fate) was taken away by the secret police during the war. Later the building was occupied by wounded officers, then party functionaries and finally by occupying troops. Its earlier inhabitants present the march of history in microcosm. During Ambras’ residence the villa remains an isolated wilderness, part of the same ‘wild’-ness which characterises the M oor world at large. What the practical application of the Stellamour Plan achieves is a return to wilderness and ‘wild’- ness, when certain structures of modern civilization are dismantled. This wild-ness has both the capacity for regeneration in the natural world, but also reflects the capacity for violence and brutality in human behaviour. Upon his return to M oor, Ambras prefers the company of dogs. At the Villa Flora, the Dog King finds his refuge, and “[d]ie ihn umringende Meute wilder Köter scheint das einzige soziale Modell zu sein, das er noch akzeptiert.”44 What is absent in this comment is the realisation that this social model is the one forced upon Ambras during the horror of his imprisonment. Ambras’ most recent personal history is the life of a human being treated as a dog in the labour camp. At the Villa Flora he is in a familiar world, except that as manager of the quarry post-war he is now the master. Similarly too, his is now the violent hand that breaks the dogs’ spirit at the Villa Flora and forces them into submission. He is disparagingly referred to as the Dog King of Moor, with the title’s multiple associations of Ambras’ servile relation to M ajor Elliot, his life among the curs at the Villa Flora and his attitude to the M oor villagers.

Moor the Wasteland.

The image of M oor as a physical and symbolic wasteland is indicated by the literary allusion to the eponymous T.S. Eliot poem.45 The poet, Eliot, is indeed the creator of “The Wasteland” while El[l]iot, the American occupation commander operates within the terms of the Stellamour Plan to officially create a wasteland in Moor. A pessimistic and uncompromising view of the future in M oor is indicated by Elliot’s attitude to the occupied population. His belief in the bestial character of the inhabitants of Moor is reflected in his treatment of those coming to his office. They are forced to consider their reflection in a mirror upon arrival.

44 Niekerk, 165 45 Reference to this intertextual link is made fleetingly as a concluding comment by Neumann. Neumann, 193. 145

War er [Major Elliot] wütend oder schlecht gelaunt, wiederholte er eine Abfolge immergleicher, bohrender Fragen so lange, bis der Bittsteller endlich beschrieb was der Kommandant hören wollte – einen Schweinschädel, Borsten und Klauen einer Sau (MK 17).

In Elliot’s eyes, this is how the world ends in M oor, with the recognition of the bestial regression of the perpetrators of the concentration camp horrors. As animals themselves, the villagers deserve, in Elliot’s opinion, to live in brutish and primitive conditions. However, the use of such nomenclature as “Schwein” and “Sau” by Elliot is especially provocative when the echoes of his behaviour as commandant so clearly resonate with the actions of earlier fascist commandants. They too had treated their prisoners/workers as animals and had denounced them as “Schwein” in stereotypical anti-semitic propaganda. The indication of the interchangeability of the perpetrator- victim role is established early in the novel in Elliot’s behaviour towards the occupied villagers.46 The occupied population also faces the provocative and threatening antics of the occupation soldiers. One soldier involved in dismantling the Moor rail line confronts the anguished villagers, miming their decapitation with a chant of “Rübe ab! Rübe ab!” while clicking improvised shears. The harvesting of human life, in a cruel parody of the enforced return to an agrarian existence of M oor, threatens to follow a cruel continuation of a cycle of threat and violence in human existence. The M oor villagers become brutalised in a post-war self-fulfilling prophecy determined by the occupiers. The emptiness and despair evoked by the landscape of Moor reflects the progressive loss of hope and alienation wrought by occupation policies upon the inhabitants of the uplands. The physical wasteland of M oor reveals symbolically the inner emptiness of its inhabitants. In the case of three central characters, Bering, Ambras and Lily, “[a]lle drei leben das kümmerliche Leben, das übrigbleibt, wenn die Zivilisation eingebrochen ist; eine Wüste von Feindschaft, Hass und Knappheit um sich, eine von Leere und Einsamkeit in sich.”47 Externally, the scarring and mutilation of the physical landscape of Moor are also mirrored in the bodyscapes of Moor’s characters. Bering’s father’s war wound (his mark of Cain), Ambras’ burning, dislocated shoulders and Bering’s

46 This point is discussed in more detail in my examination of “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” as a “ Grundmythos” in Ransmayr’s fiction. 47 Isenschmid, “ Mit den Augen geschrieben,” 73. 146

wounded vision are bodyscape sites of injury and violation which metaphorically match that of the physical landscape of Moor itself.48

Landscapes of Darkness - Moor

The world of Moor, lying isolated in its mountain valley, is a world synonymous with darkness, both literally and metaphorically. As the occupying forces dismantle electricity lines, confiscate generators and stop the supply of fuel, the physical darkness of the upland region parallels the existential darkness of life in Moor which is associated with the quarry camp and the acts of cruelty perpetrated there. But the darkness of Moor is also a darkness of fear and violence. As the lights of industrialised civilisation run down, the new barbarity emerges .The brutal nature of humankind reveals itself to be an ever-present “absolutism of reality” in the life of Moor. The collapse of community order releases a new wave of violence and hatred. At first the psychological darkness of Moor is manifested in its response to the Stellamour Parties organised by Elliot. The inhabitants mutter mutinously about accepting the very visual announcement of their guilt and inhumanity as the Moor quarry is resurrected as a gigantic memorial. They passively and reluctantly participate in the re-enactment of life in the concentration camp. As mentioned above, they mythologise the past when the war veterans gather together to sing war songs, display the artefacts of war and talk of earlier exploits. As Moor becomes progressively abandoned and isolated, the psychological intimidation of the occupation commander Elliot is replaced by the physical violence of the marauding skinheads. Townsfolk are beaten, burnt, robbed and terrorised. The secretary of Moor is dragged from his bed, beaten, taken to the lake, tied to the ferry’s anchor and thrown in. His fate is living testimony it is better to acquiesce to the demands of the terrorist “Irokesen” (MK 55). Bering, when pursued by the thugs draws his father’s old service weapon and shoots one of his attackers. The practice of violence breeds a vicious cycle through the community.

48 Landa, 141. The fates of other characters such as the secretary of Moor who is terrorised and assaulted by the region’s skinhead gangs (MK 55) and the skinhead shot by Bering (MK 57-9) show that this scarring is characteristic of the community not just restricted to isolated members.

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Myths of Flight, Autonomy and Contrition. Bering – The Myth of Flight.

In response to the darkness which progressively envelops Moor, Bering develops his own strategy to master the “absolutism of reality” which the region’s history and disintegration represent for him. As a baby, Bering “schaukelte, schwebte, segelte” above the world, high in a basket in a darkened room. “Als ob ihn jeder Kontakt mit der Erde in Schrecken versetzte, ertrug der Säugling keinen festen Ort” (MK 18).49 Bering symbolically rejects the world he was born into, blocking out its noise with cries imitating the hens that share the room. “Bering, ein Fliegender unter gefangenen Vögeln, schien die Hühner zu lieben” (MK 19). His affinity with birds is shown in his uncanny ability to imitate their calls. As a child Bering is isolated sensually from the outer world, because of the wax with which his mother stops his ears. Later, his partial blindness serves to demonstrate, among other things, his inability to have anything but a fragmented perception of reality. The dream of flight and movement persist as Bering’s antidote in a community paralysed by a lack of insight, communication and genuine remorse. In several ways Bering is able to achieve temporary escape from the harshness of the reality he was born into. However the reality of his world continues to be shaped exclusively by the experiences of war and occupation. As an adult he is able to effect an ecstatic flight, driving in Ambras’ limousine, the “Krähe.” He is also transported in his response to the music at the Patton’s Orchestra concert. The music and Lily’s physical presence, his first embrace and kiss lift him out of the metaphorical heaviness of his existence in Moor. Bering’s fascination with machinery reveals an intense desire for an ordered world of dependable relationships. He is able to turn his talent into art with the rebuilding of Ambras’ limousine. He combines mechanics with music in the glockenspiel windwheel he gives Lily. But ultimately he is left disappointed with the union of machine and flight.

49 The “ swinging” motif is initially one of freedom and unattachment but is compromised when it is later unavoidably associated with the torturous “ Schaukel” torture which Ambras suffered The image of swinging above the earth is thereby transformed into one of unbearable pain.

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Dieses Hochgehobenwerden, dieses Hocken in einem dunklen, von Bullaugen durchbrochenen Gehäuse, in dem es nach Öl und Schweiß stank, dieses Gerüttel unter dem peitschenden, brüllenden Wirbel des Rotors – das hatte viel mehr mit den Beschränkungen, mit der Trägheit und dem störenden Betriebslärm aller Mechanik zu tun, aber nichts mit dem Zauber des Vogelflugs (MK 356)

Bering is never able to fully achieve his dream of flight and escape. His beloved limousine is burnt by his townspeople, he is rejected by Lily and his experiences in Pantano merely repeat the tragedy of Moor. The “absolutism of reality” Bering experiences in his homeland, the fear and violence of post-war Moor is never entirely mastered. The shooting of his attacker, a “Fremder, ein kahlrasierter, mit Kette und Stahlrohr bewaffneter Städter” (M K 53), initiates the excitement he experiences firing a weapon. The power of taking another’s life is initially overwhelming and finally almost addictive. The fetishisation of the pistol given him by Ambras becomes part of Bering’s mythologising of violence. This shapes Bering’s response to the possibilities of a world which both threatens him (the skinheads, and later the vengeful villagers) and rejects him (in Lily’s indifference to his desperation for emotional and physical contact).

Morbus Kitahara.

The darkness of human nature is addressed in the text’s metaphoric use of the medical condition, Morbus Kitahara. The black holes in Bering’s sight, a gradual “Verfinsterung des Blicks” ironically first appear after the first recorded incident of Bering touching another human being in desire not duty. His first embrace and kiss with Lily are followed by his first official use of the gun Ambras has given him. The tension and frustration engendered by Lily’s later indifference towards him and his suspicions and jealousy of Ambras are to an extent mitigated by his possession of the weapon. The gun elevates him from vulnerability and frustration to power. His use of it on the journey across the Stony Sea ends completely the possibility of connection with Lily. Bering’s shooting of the hen thief is a brutal transference in which Lily must participate. Her rejection of Bering appears to result from her realisation that his actions are her own. Lily the huntress is also a murderess. The shooting of the hen thief in the Stony Sea is a moment of truth for Bering, when the failure of flight, the failure of sight and the failure of his humanity are linked.

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Bering shoots one of the men they stumble upon because the man is covered by a brace of stolen, living, squawking hens, a cloak of feathers (MK 247). Bering’s connection with the world of birds has been reawakened. The security of his childhood days, protectively covered by the soft clucking of the chickens is abruptly torn away to be replaced by the spontaneous fear the shriek of panicking chickens evokes in him.

The City of Light – Brand. A Myth of Contrition.

The name of the lowland city, Brand, indicates yet another tension in terms of the expected dialectic created between it and the upland lake region of Moor. While Moor is held in the grip of an increasing darkness, Brand is characterised by a “Chaos aus Licht” (MK 315). The imagery of light associated with Brand is, as is so much in Ransmayr’s work, ambivalent. Brand may be read as a consumer paradise freed from the restraints of occupation frugality and neglect, or a hellish valley of fire, convulsing in a last bacchanalian frenzy under the symbol of the apocalyptic atomic mushroom cloud which is being projected from huge television screens. Bering descends into the flames of Brand after his murder of the hen thief and yet, while there, is able, metaphorically, to see more clearly. “Brand verpraßte sein Licht so verschwenderisch, daß sich davon selbst die Flecken und Löcher in Berings Blick aufzuhellen und in bloße Trübungen zu verwandeln schienen, die vom Tiefdunkeln ins Grauen spielten und an ihren Rändern schon durchsichtig wurden” (MK 325). While Bering is in the city he is enlightened as to the reality of foreign occupation in the lowlands. Additionally he receives the medical diagnosis for his growing physical blindness. What he remains unaware of, along with the drunken, ecstatic soldiers, is that the nuclear cloud over Nagoya does not signal the end of war but the beginning of a new era of horror, threat and force. The clarity of vision afforded Bering in Brand is one which enlightens him to the injustice he perceives his countryfolk have suffered in Moor. He sees a previously hidden truth about the reality of life in his occupied country.

Schöne Gerechtigkeit: Das Tiefland blinkte und leuchtete wie ein einziger Vergnügungspark, während oben, am Moorer Dampfersteg und unter den Felswänden des Blinden Ufers, zu den Jahrestagen immer noch schwarze Fahnen gehißt und Transparente gespannt wurden. Niemals

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vergessen. Du sollst nicht töten. Bravo! Die Deppen in den Sühnengesellschaften leierten solche Gebote auch noch stundenlang nach und schleppten sie auf Transparente gestickt über die Felder, während über die Fassaden von Brand Leuchtschriften mit Reklamesprüchen flossen. In Moor standen Ruinen. In Brand Kaufhäuser. Das große Sühnentheater des Friedensbringers Stellamour wurde wohl nur dort aufgeführt, wo sonst nicht viel aufzuführen und nicht zu gewinnen war. (MK 335)

The city’s department store displays create a spectacle of abundance and luxury unknown in Moor. The atmosphere is one of carnival, spectacle, consumption and “Rausch.” In this way Brand symbolises the pragmatism of post-war thinking, a superficial ease and comfort which accompanies a turning aside from the pressing issues of the recent past, of the consideration of man’s inhumanity to man.50 In contrast the “Sühnengesellschaften,” who wander in striped garb with ash-smeared faces through the region of M oor, are the other fanatical extreme, whose existence is cynically seen as dependent solely on the money sent them by overseas sponsors. The disparateness of Moor and Brand, darkness and light, paralysis and despair contra freedom from guilt results in Bering’s intense bitterness with his perception of the injustice and scapegoating which his upland community has endured. His naivety and ignorance of the post-war reality in the lowlands are also reinforced by his description as a “Mondmann” (MK 328) when he questions the details and occasion of the celebrations. An atomic bomb dropped on Nagoya? The image of the mushroom cloud being replayed on the shopwindow television screens of Moor reflects the growing mushroom shapes blocking Bering’s vision. The physical destruction of Bering’s gaze when he suffers from Morbus Kitahara reflects the enforced blotting out of full vision, of the knowledge and understanding of the narrative of war, the lack of which knowledge and understanding has been Bering’s inheritance in Moor. Another part of Bering’s inheritance is related in the mushroom image of his partial blindness. The nuclear cloud relayed over huge television screens in Brand is now identified in his gaze as lost innocence as, in this one specific instance, his vision is quite clear. He has recognised the relativism of moral responsibility and the varying degrees of justice and contrition. The thematisation of the relationships of history, memory and amnesia51 are brought out in the contrast between the landscapes

50 The glorious numbing of Western popular culture also gives a temporary escape from the harshness of life in Moor. Patton’s Orchestra holds the inhabitants of Moor, including Bering and Lily, under the spell of rock and roll. 51 Niekerk, 164-169. 151

of Moor and Brand. The two regions represent the contrasting responses to the experience of war and peace: one is forced to confront acts of inhumanity in war and the other enjoys its post-war status as a consumer paradise of short memories. The social myth of contemplation and contrition is destroyed for Bering when he recognises the hypocrisy in Brand. Penitence by the postwar community is selective and entirely dependent on regional, political and commercial importance. The landscape of memory is a pitted and uneven terrain with its own black spots and blurred vision. Some travel through this landscape without opening their eyes at all.

An Enduring Blindness.

When Bering is diagnosed as suffering from the eye disease, M orbus Kitahara, his partial blindness is decreed by Doc Morrison to be a result of a too-fixed focus. Whether this is Bering’s obsession with Lily, or the intense fear that has been part of his life since the skinhead attack, or a moral blindness which first develops when he is seduced by the power of Ambras’ gun, Bering’s physical condition does gradually improve. It is his moral darkness which persists. The burning of his beloved car, his vehicle of flight, the “Krähe,” by vengeful villagers protesting the dismantling of the quarry effects a transformation in Bering. He fashions a metal claw from the remains of Ambras’ Studebaker and violently enforces his role as overseer. One villager warns another, “ Ich habe seine Augen gesehen, und ich sage dir, der starrt dich an wie irgendsoein Vieh, der hat Augen von irgendsoeinem Vieh … Der starrt dich an wie ein Wolf” (MK 367). In this role Bering becomes identifiable with the brutal Kapo figure of Holocaust history. The wolf motif common to Ransmayr’s other novels signals Bering’s violence to his fellow men as representative of human nature in general. On the sea voyage to South America the black holes in Bering’s vision finally close. Symbolically his vision remains darkened, however, when he understands the emotional and physical lack Lily will always represent for him. In searching for Lily on board ship he finally sees her,

sah [ihre] Gesichtszüge klar und doch tief im Schatten vor sich, als rauchte die Dunkelheit, die aus seinen Augen gewichen war, nun aus seinem Innersten wieder empor und verfinsterte ihm mit dem Gesicht einer verlorenen Geliebten auch das Meer, den Himmel, die Welt (MK 408).

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Bering’s fearful rush into Ambras’ bedroom in Pantano only leaves him confronted with proof of his constant fear in Moor; that Ambras and Lily should prove to be lovers. Although his physical vision has cleared, his finger on the trigger during the excursion to Dog Island as he sights on the figure he believes is Lily, links the blind spots in his vision to an entrenched moral paralysis and prevents his escape from the past. “Flecken. Wo Lily ist, sind immer Flecken. Tarnflecken, blinde Flecken, immer ist da etwas, das ihn an Moor und an das erinnert, was er überstanden hat” (MK 435).

The Final Flight.

Bering’s final flight is one undertaken involuntarily. The umbilical connection between perpetrator and victim is seen as Bering is wrenched into open space roped to Ambras. The past which Ambras has lived each day has claimed the former camp inmate. When he steps into space from the ruins of the prison on Dog Island he is following the bushfire smoke he believes to be the floating ash of his friends and his Jewish lover. Bering, tied to him, is finally free of the earth but forever connected to the darkness of a past that never ends. “Also stürzt er, ein Fliegender unter Vögeln, auf einen wirbelnden Himmel zu” (M K 439). The myth of flight and escape fails Bering, as has been intimated all along. He is tied by his historical legacy to a past of violence and horror which, although to all intents and purposes forgotten by sections of his community, he cannot escape.52

Landscapes of Stone - Landscapes of Mud.

Despite the dialectic of Moor’s starkness and stone to Pantano’s abundance and organic fluidity, the two regions subtlely merge. The sense of inevitability, of copy, of eternal repetition, of the paralysis of a pattern is located not only in the nature of human experience and of human nature itself but is located again in the physical representation of the landscape of nature.

52 Ransmayr himself says, “ Es war mir unmöglich, im Salzkammergut, in Ebensee, in Mauthausen an der Kulissen meiner eigenen Geschichte vorübergehen, und auf Gedenktafeln wird zwar an die Kaiserzeit, an die Kaiservilla und die Kaisersommerfrische erinnert, nicht aber an die Ermordeten.” Lö ffl er, Falter, 38 (1995): 16. 153

Ambras, Bering and Lily are offered a new life in Brazil. Despite the fact that “Pantano” is Portugese for “Moor” and of the existence of granite quarries in both regions, Pantano appears at first characterised by fertility and warmth rather than the stone and darkness of Moor. Europe is relegated to the margins with Muyra’s innocently disparaging remarks.

Und von Europa wußte sie, daß es dort eng war, zu eng, und daß Kriege dort rascher aufbrachen und aufeinanderfolgten als in einem Land, das sich trotz seiner Millionenstädte und Wolkenkratzer in der Wildnis verlor, in den Regenwäldern Amazoniens, in den Sümpfen des Mato Grosso (MK 411).

But the isolation of Pantano as a result of massive rainfall and mudslides recalls the natural barriers which separate Moor from the lowlands. In Pantano the project of the domination of both humankind and nature, a destructive technological modernity is also being repeated. The master of Pantano and its quarry, Senhor Plínio de Nacar,

hatte an der Seite Amerikas und unter dem Banner seines geliebten Marechal die europäischen Barbaren besiegt und später die Wildnis selbst …[er hatte] mit einer Armee von Landarbeitern […] Maniok, Kaffee und Bananen gepflanzt und Steinbrüche eröffnet – und hatte schließlich in Volieren und Käfigen, die nun um das Herrenhaus verstreut im Schatten von Aureilien, Fächerpalmen und Bougainvillea standen, alles gefangengesetzt, was er auf erschöpfenden Reisen durch die Dschungelgebiete seiner Heimat in Fallen erjagte: Mähnenwölfe aus Salvador, schwarze Jaguare aus der Serra do Jatapu, Amazonasalligatoren … mehr als ein Dutzend verschiedener Affen - und Papageiarten, zinnoberrote Korallenschlangen und eine baumlange Anakonda (MK 415-16).

It appears at first that the rejuvenative powers of nature have freed the animals and birds. The rusting iron and bamboo cages have merged with the bush that surrounds them, so that one cannot tell where the Patron’s zoo ends and wilderness begins. Wild animals join the captives and outnumber them, hidden in the ever-encroaching bush and vines (MK 416). However the sickness of the jaguar signals the decay and decline of the natural world in Pantano. The exotic Garden of Paradise imagery of earlier pages is undercut by the image of the jaguar who “schritt in einem verstörten, unablässigen Hin und Her …Von Wundschorf und offenen Schwären gefleckt, kümmerte er sich nicht um die Fliegen, die ihn verfolgten … »Er hat die Räude« sagte Muyra. »Senhor Plínio wird ihn erschießen.« (MK 425).

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Smoke and Ashes – A Myth of Autonomy and Control.

The final setting of the text is Dog Island with all the attendant associations of Ambras as Elliot’s “dog” and his having been the Dog King of Moor. This island is Ambras’ world. After the climate of Pantano makes the pain of his crippled shoulder joints almost unbearable, the pain of the past is reignited. His coupling with Lily reawakens the pain of the loss of his Jewish lover. The words he is not able to speak are the words he has repeated silently for decades: “Ich bin gesund. Es geht mir gut. Wo warst du, mein Lieber. Vergiß mich nicht” (MK 424). Wild dogs roam the island, so that Ambras, even in Brazil, remains in the confines of M oor and the Villa Flora. The prison on Dog Island is the prison of Ambras’ past and the “absolutism of reality” that he has never mastered. As he was never in spirit absent from the quarry in Moor, so has Dog Island been his reality ever since his arrest and incarceration in the quarry camp. While Ambras recognises that his past in the labour camp will be ever-present, he has sought to rewrite this personal “absolutism of reality” by attempting to take control in a world that for him had initially symbolised the absolute lack of control and the epitome of human humiliation. The myth of autonomy and control to which Ambras has clung has been established through his role as M ajor Elliot’s favourite. It continues with his appointment as manager at the quarry where he had laboured during the war years and is perpetuated when he moves into the Villa Flora. For Ambras as a labourer in the camp, the far light of the villa back then “[wurde] ihm … schließlich zum einzigen Indiz dafür, daß der Steinbruch von Moor doch nicht alles war und daß jenseits des elektrischen Zauns immer noch eine andere Welt existieren mußte” (M K 76). Later, living as quarry manager in Villa Flora Ambras returns daily across the water to the world of his former misery. Ambras enforces his will onto the wild dogs at the Villa Flora, in a scene chilling in its brutality (M K 76-78). It is a battle for survival, beast against beast. In his maiming and killing of the dogs, Ambras is responsible for the transformation of "die Bestie … in ein Opfer.” His act equates him with those who made him a victim. He attacks the animal with “einem Wut- oder Schmerzensgeschrei, der einem Bellen ähnlicher ist als der menschliche Stimme” (MK 78). However Ambras’ myth of control fails when the physical pain of his tortured shoulders and the tenderness of Lily’s touch create a sensual link to the first moments of his despair. 155

On Dog Island Ambras relives that despair. The bushfire smoke becomes the smoke from the crematoria. “Er riecht die Öfen. Die Toten … Wer nicht beim Morgenappell seine Zahl nicht laut genug schreit, kann am Abend schon brennen” (MK 431). Since the New Year in Pantano, Ambras has been “todmüde” – he is sick unto death and fights his way to the electrified fence as have others in the documented tragedy of the historical Holocaust. But for Ambras, “[h]immelhoch ragt die Felswand vor ihm auf, behängt mit dem Strickwerk blühender Lianen, drahtigen Luftwurzeln, Farnen. Die Drähte laufen durch weiße Blüten, Isolatoren aus weißem Porzellan” (M K 431). He hears a shot, but unafraid keeps on, “Denn er sucht seine Liebe und alles, was ihm schon lange fehlt, dort, wo sich so viel Verlorenes fängt. Er geht in den Zaun” (MK 431). Bering, bringing a rope to secure Ambras on the upper ruins of the prison, becomes for Ambras “nur einer von denen, die im Steinbruch mit Stahlruten zuschlagen” - “[w]ill er [Bering] ihn [Ambras] mit diesem Strick noch einmal fesseln und hochziehen, damit alle ihn noch einmal pendeln sehen?” (MK 439). In stepping out into nothingness, Ambras leaves the weight of a tortured existence behind. The bodies of Ambras, Bering and Muyra (not Lily) remain on Dog Island unnoticed. The tragedy of the Old World has been transferred to the New. The connections formed by cruelty and complicity are unbroken. The final image is also the first in the text. The ruins of a prison lie amidst a still verdant nature, which is patched and darkened by the flames and smoke of the bushfire. The initial evocation of nature in the new world, that of a Garden of Eden, a paradise, is resolved in clearer focus, to be a landscape of memory, of the cruel fate of humanity. Nature reclaims the human victims, but in imagery which also recalls the horror of the concentration camp ovens: “[z]wei Tote lagen schwarz … Das Feuer loderte über die Toten hinweg, löschte ihre Augen und Gesichtszüge … und tanzte auf den zerfallenden Gestalten” (MK 7).

“Die Brasilianerin”.

Lily, the huntress, blackmarketeer and border crosser is adept at crossing many kinds of boundaries, transferring from terrain to terrain with fluidity and ease. Her familiarity with the natural landscape of Moor and the Stony Sea is parallelled by her ease in inhabiting the social landscape of Brand and that of the occupation soldiers. Lily is characterised by movement. She is constantly in motion and facilitates the movement of others and the movement of goods. 156

Her enforced stay in M oor after the disappearance of her father has meant a temporary though unexpectedly prolonged hiatus of some years as she plans for the greatest journey. Lily is nicknamed the “Brasilianerin” who maintains the dream of travelling to a utopia far from the devastated terrain of Europe. Escaping the ruins of Vienna with her parents, Lily intially believes Moor is her hoped for destination, “Brasilien, Brasilien! Wir sind da, wir sind in Brasilien!” (M K 113). Her father, recognised as a former black-shirt, is attacked by the refugees in M oor and is strung up on an improvised gallows before being taken off for questioning. His wife awaits his return by painting over his portrait in his black uniform and medals. She “saß und malte und ersetzte die schwarze Uniform Pinselstrich für Pinselstrich durch einen Lodenanzug mit Hirschhornknöpfen und die Schirmmütze durch einen Filzhut, dem sie ein Sträußchen Heidekraut aufstreckte” (MK 122).53 This symbolic revisioning of personal history and the work of memory is primarily the act of older generations. Lily represents a youth whose focus is elsewhere. In her new refuge in the weather tower, a map of Brazil is the only decoration. For Lily Brazil is the mythical destination which will replace the past with a future, devastation with possibility, fear with security. Her close encounters with the skinhead terrorists in M oor have reinforced her passion for the far-off place. Lily’s impatience to meet the future and relinquish the past is shown symbolically in her inability to remain on Dog Island with the others. By leaving with the fishermen for the mainland, Lily escapes the tragedy played out behind her. Lily is chameleon-like. She is able to blend in with the natural and social contours of each landscape she inhabits. The paralysis which binds Ambras and Bering to the past and an inescapable violence is not experienced by Lily. The mythologising of her world has always had a focus outside of Moor, outside the claustrophobic and overwhelming reality of the war.

53 This scene may be compared with the Waidhof painting in Ransmayr’s article, “ Die vergorene Heimat: Ein Stück Österreich” reprinted in Der Weg nach Surabaya. Though liberally overpainted with the Austrian national colours, the swastikas in the Waidhofen festive street scene periodically reemerge. The revision of personal and national histories is very much a contemporary work in progress in these examples (WS 41-62). 157

History, Myth and Memory.

Morbus Kitahara addresses issues of history and memory in the context of the “war which never ends.” While the text is no political essay54 the responses to an “absolutism of reality” which the characters must attempt to master reflects clearly a culture of “Vergessen und Verdrängung.” Such a culture is similar to that which critics see as characterising the Austrian response to discussion of its complicity in the ideology and acts of the Third Reich. Ransmayr’s text “insistiert […] auf das Konkrete und die Einzelheiten im Hinblick auf die dunklen Seiten der deutschen und österreichischen Geschichte.”55 Ransmayr’s text sets out an alternative history and thematises work on “Erinnerung und Amnesia,” on the loss of history and an historical consciousness56 using the main characters and the populations of Moor and Brand. Responses to the “Unmenschlichkeit” of wartime and the Holocaust span the range between the “exzessive Erinnerungsarbeit” of the “Büßer-und Sühneprozessionen” and the ignorance of hedonistic and hellish Brand.57 Ransmayr’s text takes its place in a body of texts which builds a “schöpferisches Mißtrauen” in response to attempts at a “Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” especially in his homeland. The dialectic of perpetrator and victim is of particular importance in this context with the controversy over the development of Austria’s historical “Opfermythos.” Of continuing concern is the observation of growing popularity of right-wing policies, or the re-emergence of right-wing sympathies in attitudes and treatment directed at minorities and foreigners in the Austrian community. The “Punschkrapfen” as a symbol of Austria’s outwardly “pink” socialist character, while remaining “brown” inside is an uncomfortably comic image of what critics observe as a continuing political reality in the Second Republic.58 The image of the mushroom cloud which dominates Brand is a vision of war which lifts the text out of an comic or fixed Austrian/European context. The “Chaos aus Licht” which characterises Brand is merely a continuation on one level of the firestorm which devastated M oor on the last night of the European war and will be reflected in Moor when it is used as an army training ground. “Bald würde auch Moor von Lichtern

54 Spoor, 187. 55 Niekerk, 164. 56 Niekerk, 164-9 57 Niekerk, 167. 58 See Haslinger, Politik der Gefühle: Ein Essay über Österreich, 74-90. 158

übersät sein – von Mündungsblitzen, Granateneinschlägen, Feuersäulen … (MK 335).

The experience of war is world-wide.

… das Fernsehgerät in der geplündeten Bibliothek der Villa Flora … erleuchtete die Nächte stundenlang mit Bildern vom Krieg. Ein Dschungelkrieg. Ein Krieg im Gebirge. Krieg im Bambuswald und Krieg im Packeis. Wüstenkriege. Vergessene Kriege. Ein Krieg in Japan; einer von vielen” (MK 320).

In the alternative history presented in Morbus Kitahara the ever-presence of war, even after the cessation of hostilities in Europe, indicates the breakdown of the modernist vision of the future. Indeed, the Stellamour Plan of the victors effectively reverses the notion of a forwards flow of time. The modernist notion of history is thwarted and the transition from history to story is revealed in the characters’ responses to the crushing “absolutism of reality” created by war and its aftermath. The characters’ strategy for confronting this traumatic reality is to develop individual and social myths of escape, control or denial. For Bering it is the world of birds and flight which hold the possibility of an escape from a painful world shaped by his inheritance as a child of the war. He symbolically rejects the blacksmith’s hearth of his partially blinded father but later succumbs to a blindness of his own. He is no new Prometheus creating a new man for a new age. He is bound to the past, through his historical heritage, his inarticulateness and emotional paralysis. On the other hand, Ambras’ life is shaped by stone; the blocks he dragged out of the war-time quarry under whip blows, the tonnes of granite blown up by his miners, the quarry where he has been both prisoner and manager. During the Peace of Oranienburg he takes refuge in his collection of gems, marvelling at the age and endurance of stone. He also attempts to regain control of his life by re-writing his personal history after the war. Instead of a camp inmate he becomes the camp manager. But he remains a dog among dogs. In contrast, Lily finds a new terrain, the mythical paradise of her childhood dreams as a refugee. Her successful transition is possible only because of her pragmatic practice of crossing spatial and temporal boundaries. She leaves the past behind her. There is no place for either guilt or reflection in her future. In response to a threatening “absolutism of reality” in the text Bering, Ambras and Lily (and also the populations of Moor and Brand) perform what has been described as the work of myth. That is, they attempt to reduce and make manageable the level of anxiety and paralysis that the “absolutism of reality” experienced has produced. In 159

Morbus Kitahara however the effectiveness of these myths in seeking to master an “absolutism of reality” is reduced. The individual is less and less in control of his/her own fate. The narrative focus is on the individuals and community of Moor where the human subject is represented as peripheral and vulnerable and where the potential for human violence and destructiveness is continually realised. In these narrative elements the text’s aesthetics of humility emerges strongly. The human subject is forced to abdicate a position of centrality and control in the face of the damage wrought by the aggression of humankind. Chapters Two, Three and Four of this study have concentrated on individual novels in Ransmayr’s oeuvre, showing how in each text characters have to confront an “absolutism of reality” which is potentially paralysing and overwhelming. The reality construct recognised by Western modernity has a destructive and alienating effect on the individual subjects represented in the texts. Weyprecht and Payer’s Arctic community, the totalitarian world of Rome and the last world, the dark world of Moor and even the New World of Pantano are represented as worlds in a state of collapse due to a variety of forces. The metanarratives of modernity are invalid and inapplicable in such scenarios. The following chapters examine the new set of narratives the texts offer to replace those of historical and scientific modernity. These “Grundmythen” are age- old stories of eternal recurrence, apocalypse and metamorphosis, and humankind’s inhumanity to its members. These fundamental myths reinforce the message which is integral to the aesthetics of humility developed in the novels. These myths show humankind as part of a wider cosmic order which it does not control. However humankind's unavoidable propensity for causing violence and damage to itself and its physical and psychical environment is such that its impact cannot be ignored.

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CHAPTER FIVE.

The Eternal Recurrence.

Re-structuring the World View.

The preceding three chapters have identified aspects of the collapse and rejection of various perceptual, ideological and social structures of historical modernity in Ransmayr’s novels. The novels deny any altruism in modernity’s Enlightenment heritage, condemn its totalitarian potential and see its failure to eliminate barbarism and hopelessness. In contrast, the following three chapters are concerned with the identification of narratives in Ransmayr’s novels which re-structure a world view in what is essentially a mythological way. Earlier chapters of this study showed that the human subject or human community in the novels have developed individual or group myths to make sense of an overwhelming “absolutism of reality.” But these myths are also located within greater existential patterns, patterns which have a much earlier genesis than that determined by the forces of history and science. These existential patterns are revealed in the “Grundmythen,” the fundamental, core myths, which emerge in the novels. The first two “Grundmythen” which I examine are narratives which are concerned with a concept of time which is cyclical, in direct contrast to the linearity of time as it is perceived in historical modernity. These core myths are, firstly, the eternal recurrence, and secondly, apocalypse and metamorphosis. Both these narratives are based on perceptions of life and life experience as reflecting the recurrence of particular experiences and events. The apocalypse narrative highlights recurrent processes of collapse and rebirth. The act of rebirth in itself anticipates the possibility of a redemptive and healing moment in human experience. A third “Grundmythos” which emerges in Ransmayr’s novel texts is a core narrative which illuminates a tragic repetition in human experience, that is, the human capacity for acts of aggression and cruelty towards his fellows; the Hobbesian vision of homo homini lupus. This core narrative is manifested again and again in human experience but has none of the potential for redemption which the apocalypse narrative anticipates.

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Each of these “Grundmythen” is developed more strongly in one particular Ransmayr novel although elements of each are to be found in each text. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the eternal recurrence functions as a core narrative of human experience in Ransmayr’s texts and to examine how the notion of an eternal recurrence furthers the development of an aesthetics of humility in the novel texts under discussion.

The Eternal Recurrence.

Muß nicht was laufen kann von allen Dingen, schon einmal diese Gasse gelaufen sein? Muß nicht, was geschehen kann von allen Dingen, schon einmal geschehn, getan, vorüber gelaufen sein? Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, III.1

Any reference to a notion of the eternal recurrence, of course, calls to mind the philosophy of Nietzsche whose thoughts on the “ewige Wiederkehr” are to be found throughout his writings but most centrally in Also sprach Zarathustra. For Nietzsche, the self-overcoming which accepts the “ewige Wiederkehr” accepts the existential pattern that everything that occurs does so infinitely and in the same way. The interpretation of the Nietzschean eternal recurrence has inspired much debate. The eternal recurrence has been variously proposed and rejected as a cosmological or ethical doctrine, personal truth or aesthetic construct. However the continued debate as to the exact nature of the Nietzschean eternal recurrence warns of the frustration to be experienced if exact definitions of eternal recurrence are sought from this source.2 The other writer most frequently associated with this concept is M ircea Eliade, and his work, unlike that of Nietzsche, does have a straightforward implication for this study. 3 Eliade sees the eternal return myth as representing a revolt against historical time which is expressed in nostalgia for a periodical return to the mythical time of the beginning. Importantly, the human individual and society is believed to be connected indissolubly to the cosmos in the recurrent cycle of destruction and reconstitution which

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra (München: Hanser,1967) 652. 2 On this point see, for example, Klaus Spiekermann, “ Nietzsches Beweise für die ewige Wiederkehr,” Nietzsche Studien:Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche Forschung, 17, Berlin (1988): 498-538, Robin Small, “ Three Interpretations of Eternal Recurrence,” Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 22:1 March (1983): 91-112. 3 Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Task (New York: Bollingen series XLVI, 1954). 162

archaic and traditional societies experience and incorporate into their world view. The above rejection of historical time is one which is thematically and stylistically developed in Ransmayr’s fiction. The connection of human individual, community, the natural world and the greater cosmos which is discussed in Eliade’s examination of the eternal recurrence is a connection which is central to the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s three novels. Cycles of destruction and renewal are central to Eliade’s treatment of the eternal recurrence. Such cycles are represented in Ransmayr’s fiction to varying degrees. Die letzte Welt most clearly demonstrates the apocalyptic phase of such cycles, without, however, overly emphasising the optimistic potential inherent in the rebirth and regeneration phase which would normally follow. For the purposes of this literary study, however, the eternal recurrence is defined more in stylistic terms; as the narrative pattern of repetitions and circularities which structure the alternative worlds and the experience of the characters in Ransmayr’s fiction texts. The concept of an eternal recurrence refers to a perception of the way in which human experience tends to repeat itself, to an extent, irrespective of the historical parameters which delineate the period of time in which the experience is undergone. However, interestingly, the quality of the experience which is repeated does reveal aspects of the society of each specific time. The thematic and structural use of repetitions and circularities, including inversions, is readily observable in all three Ransmayr texts. The way in which these devices are used may be said to reflect the text’s elucidation of an overall perception of the cyclical character of the world, the rejection of historical time and its perception of the nature of human experience. As an overarching structure of explanation and validation of human experience, the myth of the eternal recurrence seems, then, an appropriate one to explore in the context of Ransmayr’s novels In all three texts the concept of an eternal return is initially suggested by the basic repetition of various actions, experiences or settings. The same characters do not go through exactly the same experiences indefinitely. In both Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Die letzte Welt a second individual or group either deliberately or unintentionally undertakes to repeat the experiences of an earlier individual or group. In Morbus Kitahara, the same set of characters is removed to another setting which proves to be to all intents and purposes the one they have just left behind. However, this repetition of location and trauma which is expressed on a personal, literal level symbolises the recurrence of similar experiences of brutality and suffering on a wider, 163

universal scale throughout the novel. In all three texts, the close similarity of intention and experience between these sets of characters demands the question as to why such repetitions are found necessary within the text. This question will be examined with specific reference to each novel. All three novels involve journeys. Ironically, the new space of experience into which the characters journey, dreaming as they do of new territories, heroism or new beginnings, reveals itself to be the space of the already-occurred, literally and metaphorically. In the first two novels a specific series of actions are repeated by another protagonist who strongly identifies himself with the initial actor/s. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis M azzini, in the most deliberate re-enactment, follows in the footsteps of his Arctic heroes a century before. In Die letzte Welt Cotta leaves Rome repeating Naso’s journey into exile. It is the quality of these re-enactments which is of interest. For example, the way in which Mazzini repeats the actions of those before him emphasises a poststructural sense of the “already written-ness” of human existence and problematises notions of what constitutes reality in the late twentieth century. The eternal recurrence is developed differently in Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara. In this text, the same characters, although removed to a different geographical space, find themselves re-living the events and traumas of the past. Ambras is the most extreme example of this. He constantly re-lives the horror of his days in the Moor labour camp, in a way reminiscent of Nietzsche’s vision of an eternal return: “- ich komme ewig wieder zu diesem gleichen und selbigen Leben, im Größten und auch im Kleinsten.”4 In the final action of the novel, Bering, Ambras and Lily leave the granite quarry of Moor to arrive at the granite quarry of Pantano in Brazil. They go to Dog Island, an overgrown landscape of decay and ruin much like the physical landscape of the Villa Flora, and Ambras’ Holocaust landscape of memory. In Morbus Kitahara not only is there a recurrence of the same events, but the repetition of images used symbolically in the text also stylistically emphasises a recurrence of the same. The repetition of events and images produces a recognition that the cycle into which humankind is bound is predominantly destructive. The experience of human destructiveness in war contradicts modernist intentions of progress and the improvement of the human condition. Morbus Kitahara, by reason of its subject matter, illustrates most forcibly the ‘terror of history’ in Eliade’s terms. Eliade sees the ‘terror of history’

4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, III, 700.

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as the basis for the desire of human communities to escape the absence of meaning and explanation for acts of aggression and suffering to which the linear nature of modern notions of history appear to offer no solution.

The Terror of History.

To see the eternal recurrence or return as a “Grundmythos” in Ransmayr’s texts refocuses the critical eye on the manipulation of time as history within the texts and highlights the cyclical nature of human existence. The tension between the temporal linearity of Christianity and scientific modernity on the one hand and the circularity of a more traditional, primitivist notion of time on the other has already been noted. The privileging of a cyclical view of time in the texts reveals a thematic rejection of notions of historical progress in human relations and the human condition. This privileging of the temporal cycle also signifies in Ransmayr’s texts the importance of the human relationship to the natural world. In each text there is an action in which the protagonists return to the world of nature with various indications of the trauma they have faced or will face. The explorers venture into the world of ice; the exiles are sent away from civilisation in Rome to the chaotic and overgrown last world; and the natural world progressively reclaims the de-industrialised landscape of Moor. The final image of Morbus Kitahara is the partially charred and smoking bushland of Dog Island. As M ircea Eliade elucidates, traditional societies, in their particular relationship to the cosmos, in their particular notion of time, still existed within and as part of nature. In contrast, the modern individual appears autonomous and becomes increasingly alienated, lifted out of the body of nature. Primitive societies are said to exist in transhistorical time, in contrast with modern humanity whose projection of time into the future has established a notion of history both forward and backward. The modern rejection of periodicity is reflected in humanity’s resistance to and separation from nature. Despite the will of historical man/woman being towards establishing his/her autonomy, his/her fate in the making of history appears more and more the result of the actions of the few. The notion of the modern man or woman actually making history or being in control of his/her own fate is illusory. He/she is neither autonomous or free. The resultant sense of helplessness and vulnerability is found in the contemporary desire

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to find an earlier meaning and a transhistorical justification for historical events.5 This same sense of helplessness and vulnerability is strongly developed in all of Ransmayr’s novels, particularly so in Morbus Kitahara. The construction of the “absolutism of reality” in each text has much in common with the perception of the ‘terror of history’ in Eliade’s definition. The terror of history is not assuaged by modern historicist philosophies.

We should wish to know, for example, how it would be possible to tolerate and justify the sufferings and annihilation of so many peoples, who suffer and are annihilated for the simple reason that their geographical situation sets them in the pathway of history … And in our day, when historical pressure no longer allows any escape, how man can tolerate the catastrophes and horrors of history – from collective deportations and massacres to atomic bombings – if beyond them he can glimpse no sign, no transhistorical meaning …6

The desire to find a meaning and justification for historical events has generally manifested itself in the reappearance of cyclical theories in contemporary thought. There appears to be a revolt, not against history, but against historical time; an attempt to restore historical time of human experience, to a place in time that is cosmic, cyclical and infinite. Eliade argues that the rehabilitation of notions of cycle, fluctuation and periodic oscillation has occurred.7 All Ransmayr’s novels are historical to greater or lesser extent. The historical collage of Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis is dominated by archival detail about the Weyprecht and Payer expedition. Die letzte Welt is nominally set in Classical antiquity but abounds with references to a multiplicity of historical periods temporally intermingled. The premise with which Morbus Kitahara begins is that the text is an alternative history of Central/Western Europe post World War Two. However each text demonstrates a jamming of time in which expectations of development and forward progress, in terms of a modern definition of history, are unfulfilled. In their discussion of Die letzte Welt, Bornemann and Kiedaisch build an argument for Ransmayr’s historical pessimism in Die letzte Welt, asserting that in the text he

5 This argument (given here in highly condensed form) is developed by Eliade throughout The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History. 6 David Carrasco, “ The Terror of History,” Waiting for the Dawn: Mircea Eliade in Perspective, ed. David Carrasco and Jane Marie Swanberg (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985) 77. 7 Eliade asserts this in specifically literary examples. The work of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce are saturated with nostalgia for the myth of eternal repetition and for the abolition of time. Eliade, 153.

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reduziert den Verlauf der Geschichte auf die Wiederkehr eines immergleichen Modells, das entweder in den Untergang oder in die Barbarei führt. Durch den Hinweis auf historische Parallelen wird Geschehenes und Gegenwärtiges entaktualisiert und als Wiederholung entlarvt.8

This assertion can be made also in reference to the other two novels. The model that is repeated is repeated, I argue, in order to demonstrate relevant features of the contemporary world which are the target of the author’s critical gaze. The eternal recurrence model developed in Ransmayr’s texts actually emphasises the decline, decay and apocalyptic end of existence as the characters know it, and also shows the descent of humankind into barbarity, in a way which strongly delineates Ransmayr’s critical view of contemporary life in modern Western society. This pessimistic view is more strongly developed in Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara. In the context of a postmodern discourse characterised by commentary on the fragmentation of grand narratives, and the attempt re-authenticate the historical moment by the registering of micro-histories, it seems ironic that a meta-story, or core myth narrative such as that of the eternal return should re-emerge as a thematic and structural tool in literature. However, when one notes the prevailing scepticism and disillusionment with trajectories of modern historical thought and knowledge (which are so dominant in Ransmayr’s work) the impulse to regeneration and new beginnings inherent in the notion of an eternal recurrence earlier documented by those such as Eliade, is most seductive.9 The potential of regeneration is also observed in the way the eternal recurrence myth is used in Ransmayr’s texts. The apocalyptic atmosphere of the end of the twentieth century calls from some hidden cultural memory the dream of a first paradise of humankind in close relation with nature, of the creativity and rebirth which will come from within the destruction and chaos. This is hinted at but not confirmed in Ransmayr’s fiction, especially in the last two novels. The acts of repetition which occur in each text consistently end with the protagonists returning to the natural world and discarding their identity and autonomy in so doing.

8 Kiedaisch and Bornemann, “ Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf – Das Geschichtsbild in der Letzten Welt.” Ovids Metamorphosen und Christoph Ransmayr’s Letzte Welt, 18. 9 In the chapter, ‘Cosmic Cycles and History’, Eliade discusses the cycle of destruction and regeneration found in many traditions and periods, from Buddhism and Jainism, from Plato and Hesiod. T he place of catastrophe as part of the transition to regeneration as recorded in Eliade’s discussion is particularly relevant in an understanding of Ransmayr’s texts. See Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return.

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Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis - In Search of Heroism and Authenticity.

In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Mazzini establishes himself as a character in search of the heroic experience. As a child he is caught between two worlds; the Italian romantic enthusiasm of his mother and his phlegmatic and frustrated Austrian father. He is caught between two languages and two identities and, in searching for the heroic, is searching for an identity drawn in terms of an authenticity and immediacy he perceives to be lacking in his life. He begins creating his own text of life initially literally in the act of writing. His cerebral and abstract adventures amongst the archives reveal M azzini to be a writer who not only wants to reinvent reality, but who wants to establish that, despite the stories he writes having occurred before in time, it is really in the act of creativity, of fantasy, that such acts have their origin. The fact that he later finds records of such adventures in the archives, he sees as proof for his own stories - and a vindication, if not for his actual existence, at least for his creative existence. Indifferent to the criticism that he is merely writing a report in writing in this way, he responds; “ihm genüge schon der private, insgeheime Beweis, die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit geschafft zu haben” (SEF 21). Mazzini covets the heroic, original experience of others and seeks to lay claim to it for himself, if only privately and creatively. In this way, an ambivalent attitude to the original experience and the copy, in Mazzini’s own experience is established early in the novel. Notions such as the real and the authentic stand under the question mark in this text, as they do in contemporary postmodernist discourse generally.10 Mazzini’s fantasies do not merely colonise the reported experiences of others, but attempt to re-invent them within his own story, and then in reality (which, however, turns out to be deadly earnest). In a further act of repetition, the narrator attempts the same feat in his act of re-creating Mazzini’s experiences in the text for the reader. The narrator’s text exists at yet a further distance from the original act of heroism and adventure, which is recorded and re-recorded.

10 Jean Baudrillard’s work on the ‘death of the real’ in texts such as Simulations (New York: Semiotexte, 1983) and America (London:Verso, 1988) obviously defines and examines the notions of simulation and hyperreality in a more extreme context than the way the concept of simulation is used here. Simulation in my discussion refers to a re-enactment and a copying of an earlier experience by human agency. 168

There is a further narrative voice in the novel, one which is often overlooked in critical appraisal of the text. The writer of the Foreword “Vor Allem” stands outside of the action of the text and is not drawn into its mediation, as is the narrator who identifies himself with Mazzini. The narrative voice of the Foreword is directly critical of proxy experience and its reporting to a passive audience. The illusion of experience, and experience at second-hand are roundly condemned.

Wir haben uns nicht damit begnügt, unsere Abenteuer zu bestehen, sondern haben sie zumindest auf Ansichtskarten und in Briefen, vor allem aber in wüst illustrierten Reportagen und Berichten der Öffentlichkeit vorgelegt und so insgeheim die Illusion gefördert, daß selbst das Entlegendste und Entfernteste zugänglich sei wie ein […] blinkender Luna-Park; die Illusion daß die Welt […] kleiner geworden ist… (SEF 9).

Such a comment raises questions of the effectiveness of the written word in any act of recording, interpreting and communicating.11 It problematises perceptions of what is real in the state of the technologically-produced hyperreality of the late twentieth century. The author’s adoption of a self-reflexive stance through the narratorial voice of the Foreword has taken critical notice of the increasing mediation of human experience, in a way similar to those early theorists of the development of a “society of the spectacle.”12 Quotations from Mazzini’s later diaries also condemn an everyday existence whose limitations in terms of experience demand an outlet in a form of recorded fantasy or staged spectacle that results in a further passivity rather than active engagement .

Dem Unterhaltungsbedürfnis ist ohnedies alles gleich […] es ist wohl immer dieselbe verschämte Ausbruchsbereitschaft, die uns nach Dienstschluß von Dschungelmärschen, Karawanen oder flirrenden Treibeisfeldern träumen läßt. Wohin wir selbst nicht kommen, schicken wir unsere Stellvertreter – Berichterstatter, die uns erzählen, wie’s war. Aber so war es meistens nicht … Uns bewegt ja doch nichts mehr. Uns klärt man nicht auf. Uns bewegt man nicht, uns unterhält man… (SEF 21-22)

11 Acts of communication and interpretation are in any case acknowledged as problematic, if not, impossible, in the postmodern context of Derridean différance and slippage. 12 Best and Kellner discuss Guy Debord and the Situationists’ views concerning the production by the prevailing cultural hegemony of such a society, in which “ individuals consume a world fabricated by others rather than producing one of their own.” See Best and Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 82. 169

By allowing adventure to be transformed into entertainment, the “we” referred to in M azzini’s critique accepts a world of experience at second hand, without the certainty that the entertainment actually reflects the authentic moment.13 Mazzini is a little too ingenuous at this point. Up to the moment of his departure for the Arctic, he himself has pursued the archival path to adventure, allowing his own fantasies to reaffirm the past experiences of others. By acting out his own narrative of adventure in the act of writing, Mazzini attempts to assert control over his existence. But he abandons his initial project of the textual reinvention of reality when he enters more completely into what he feels to be the authentic experience of the Arctic and lives the reality of that moment in that space. In travelling to the Arctic Circle he experiences first hand the reality of the ice and darkness. This is a decisive step. M azzini attempts to reject a textual existence based on simulation, of the second-hand, when he plans his expedition northwards. However tension is created when the reader perceives the positivity of Mazzini’s impulse towards authenticity, but simultaneously realises that Mazzini’s expedition is itself an attempted physical simulation. Mazzini’s attempt to repeat faithfully the earlier expedition of Weyprecht and Payer is an attempt to claim its heroic moment as his own. Mazzini’s impulse to follow in the footsteps of the earlier expedition is a twentieth century version of the eternal return demonstrating the “already-writtenness” of experience in the late twentieth century. Even though the traveller’s plans to head northwards appear a response to a perceived need for an authenticity missing in his existence, it has already been noted that Mazzini submits to forces beyond his control in heading to the Arctic: “Es schien, als ob die Dinge tatsächlich ihren Lauf genommen und Mazzini diesen Lauf erst nachträglich als seine Entscheidung auszugeben versucht hätte” (SEF 64). The narrator plots the path M azzini takes, noting the similarities (and the reader the dissimiliarities) between the two expeditions. At issue here is not that M azzini should follow exactly the experiences of the expedition a century earlier, but what it is that impels him to desire it. And what makes it impossible a century later that Mazzini’s experiences be exactly those of Weyprecht and Payer? The obvious response is the

13 Ransmayr’s concern with the representation of reality and the role of entertainment technology in social interaction has also surfaced in articles such as “ Der Blick in der Ferne: Ablenkung am Rande der Gesellschaft,” in Der Weg nach Surabaya, 155-170. (First published in TransAtlantik, 4, 1985) 36-39 under the title “ Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah”). In typical Ransmayr fashion, however, the passivity which television encourages is juxtaposed with the medium’s more positive role of conveying information and bringing the disadvantaged together.

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collapse of time and space with the development of modern technology. However, additional to this must be, in the context of this discussion, a consideration of the existential condition of a young male in the late twentieth century which drives him into a journey to the extremes of the natural landscape. The drive to complete an heroic act and to write a new heroic myth for what are seen as postmodern times reveals, in this text, a desperation to escape a prescribed and proscribed existence. It is a gesture against the passivity and alienation encouraged by modern Western society and its media/technology-dominated construction of social reality.

Identity and Impotence.

It is important to note that Mazzini’s actions in the novel are characterised by continuous attempts to locate an heroic role and a place for himself. In Vienna, the way he attempts to ground a personal identity and reality is through the act of story-telling and its written text. The sites of his heroic adventures are exotic natural landscapes often under extreme conditions.

[Er] schrieb Geschichten, deren Schauplätze auf der Karte meist nur ungefähr zu finden waren. Er ließ Fischkutter in weit entfernten Gewässern versinken, ließ im asiatischen Abseits Steppenbrände ausbrechen oder berichtete als Augenzeuge von Flüchtlingskarawanen und Kämpfen im Irgendwo. Die Grenze zwischen Tatsache und Erfindung verlief dabei stets unsichtbar. (SEF 21)

Mazzini identifies himself strongly with the heroic tradition in his childhood and, in the absence of a fixed place and identity as an adult, he re-finds this earlier identification through fantasy, the imagination and writing. However the identity he seeks is, ironically, that characteristic of another time, another individual and another reality. M azzini is an outsider in each social milieu in which he is found; in Vienna and also later in the Arctic Circle. Mazzini leaves Triest for Vienna, gives up his native Italian for an “höflich[es] Deutsch, [das aus] der Emigration kam” (SEF 20). He appears to have no friends bar Anna Koreth and the acquaintances he meets at her literary evenings. These acquaintances are generally critical and unsupportive of his writing project. Apart from occasionally driving for a transport firm and illegally buying antiques from the Far East, he reads a lot (SEF 19).

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As already noted, in his writing Mazzini moves from reality to fantasy. When he leaves Vienna for the Arctic Circle, he reverses the movement, leaving fantasy for what he hopes to be reality by facing the ice and darkness. First-hand physical experience becomes his text as he seeks to re-enact the Weyprecht-Payer expedition. As a result of this journey he locates another milieu, one in which he believes he belongs. However Mazzini is not spared the chuckling derision with which outsiders are greeted when they visit the outposts of civilisation in the Arctic Circle. He is reportedly clownish and puny in his appearance, and not taken seriously in his project for repeating the route taken by the 1872-4 expedition. Mazzini does believe, however, that he has found his place once he makes the decision to stay in Longyearbyen. At that point, according to the narrator, M azzini abandons his journals. Significantly, the written word and reported speech are abandoned in Mazzini’s desire for authentic experience. But the reader cannot believe so readily. One remembers Mazzini introducing himself as Weyprecht, his being addressed laughingly as “Weyprecht” by Flaherty, his being ‘given’ Cape Payer by Fyrand on deck of the Cradle, and Mazzini’s final attempts to emulate Payer in learning to dogsled. Such references intentionally erase the boundaries between the stories of Weyprecht and Payer, and Mazzini. The sense of repetition which results negates rather than affirms M azzini’s desire for an identity and place which is relevant to his own time and experience. In fact, it is subtlely asserted in the text that M azzini’s resolution to stay in Longyearbyen is not just a result of actively deciding on a place in which he feels he belongs but a result of another experience on the Cradle. M azzini’s viewing of the film, The Barefoot Contessa, results in his recording in his journal “Was geschehen soll, geschieht,” the family motto of the emasculated Count, whose lack of manhood was discovered by his wife on their wedding night. Mazzini’s own sense of impotence is heightened as the research ship must turn back, its path and Mazzini’s objective blocked by ice. Gazing into the emptiness of the horizon, Mazzini sits for hours before Franz Joseph’s Land ranges into sight ahead: “Sein Land. Bergkämme und Grate zerflattern und fügen sich stets neu wieder zusammen, Basaltsäulen, Geröllhalden” (SEF 175). But it is the land of illusion that has appeared. M azzini lays claim to it in much the same mistakenly proprietory fashion as had Payer. Arriving back in Adventsfjord Mazzini does belong to the elite circle of those who have circled Spitzbergen. But his heroic dreams are once more put into perspective. 172

Elling Carlsen, den Eismeister und Harpunier, hatte man für eine solche Fahrt noch mit dem Olafsorden geehrt. Aber lächerlich die Vorstellung, daß nun im Hafen von Longyearbyen auf einem Samtkissen ein Orden [for Mazzini] bereitliegen könnte (SEF 176).

The return journey on the Cradle had been spent with Mazzini feverishly making notes on polar history. He is “ein Sekretär der Erinnerung.” The narrator questions, “[w]ollte er [M azzini] alle Bilder des Nordens sammeln und sie durch die Abschrift zu seinen eigenen machen?” (SEF 176). Mazzini, in retrospect hectically prepares for a release, for freedom from a textually dependent existence. His journal ends soon after. The last scribblings in the journals unheroically concern the calculation of costs living in Longyearbyen. The determination Mazzini displays in learning dogsledding with Fyrand results in the grudging admiration of the locals. However finally this acknowledgement also fades: “Aber was immer Josef M azzini schließlich tat oder ließ – man sprach selbst an der Theke der Trinkstube kaum mehr darüber” (SEF 230). Mazzini is no longer a novelty. He becomes another traveller who is drawn into the emptiness, timelessness and peace of these landscapes of extremity; another outsider who has abandoned an ordered life in the centre of civilisation for the cold and silence of the ice. The actual disappearance of M azzini as the outsider, the transitory tourist, has been gradual. His identity and place have been established, but not in any conventional social context. He has adopted the persona of Payer. He disappears physically from Longyearbyen the moment he clears out his room (“Mazzinis Unterkunft [war] aufgeräumt und leer,” SEF 234) and not seen again. Mazzini has constructed an identity that simultaneously ceases to be that of the impotent M azzini and becomes the historical Payer. In physical terms he can no longer be found in Longyearbyen. His place is in the ice that has already claimed him, even before his physical disappearance. He is lost in history and lost to the reality he once sought to master. Ironically, Mazzini’s impotence against the reality of the ice echoes the impotence experienced by Payer who fails to successfully penetrate the Arctic mystery and fails to win enduring recognition on his return.

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“Der Verschollene.”

But M azzini actually finds an identity and a place constructed in terms of his absence. He becomes “der Verschollene,” the figure of myth. His place is a mystery, his fate continually debated by his acquaintances in Vienna. The narrator initially intends writing Mazzini’s story in an attempt to end this debate; to bring to an end the mystery of Mazzini:

…[Wenn] einer verlorengeht, ohne einen greifbaren Rest zu hinterlassen, etwas was man verbrennen, versenken oder verscharren kann, dann muß er wohl erst in den Geschichten, die man sich nach seinem Verschwinden über ihn zu erzählen beginnt, allmählich und endgültig aus der Welt geschafft werden. Fortgelebt hat in solchen Erzählungen noch keiner (SEF 11).

However the narrator signals the apparent repetition of the narrative cycle by claiming M azzini’s journals as his/her own, by naming each volume.

Es ist nicht Josef Mazzinis Handschrift. Das habe ich geschrieben. Ich. Ich habe auch die anderen Hefte Mazzinis mit Namen versehen … Ich bin mit den Aufzeichnungen verfahren, wie jeder Entdecker mit seinem Land, mit namenlosen Buchten, Kaps und Sunden verfährt – ich habe sie getauft (SEF 177).

The ghost of Payer re-appears in these comments. His likeness is to be found not only in the character of M azzini but also in the persona of the narrator. The narrator undertakes the naming of the geographical or textual landscapes of Mazzini’s experience. When he is confronted by the tabula rasa of the unexplored territory, that is, the empty unwritten page of the mystery of Mazzini’s disappearance, he undertakes to name and record, to fill the emptiness with his own narrative. In the final chapter, the narrator, surrounded by maps of the Polar North, claims them as his own: “Das ist mein Land, sage ich” (SEF 262), although the names and information are changed from a century before and the territory is still characterised by mystery, “ein verbotenes Land: es ist wüst und unzugänglich wie je…” (SEF 262). The narrator hopes for an artefact of certainty within the mystery of M azzini’s disappearance. “ [V]ielleicht liegt dort ein Rest für mich bereit, höre ich mich sagen, vielleicht hat ein Schmelzwasserrinnsal aus einem spitzbergischen Gletscher ein Zeichen für mich herausgewaschen…” (SEF 262). However, the narrator remains “allein mit allen M öglichkeiten einer Geschichte, ein

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Chronist, dem der Trost des Endes fehlt” (SEF 263). Just as Mazzini has attempted to claim the authenticity and reality of the earlier Weyprecht-Payer expedition, so the narrator has attempted to follow Mazzini’s path.14 The cycle of repetition continues through recurrent images, desires and experiences, from the written page to the ice to the written page once more. The narrator understands there will be no ending. The use of the notion of the eternal recurrence as a “Grundmythos” of human existence in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis functions to highlight the way in which individuals in the late twentieth century appear bereft of an authenticity that they believe is characteristic of an earlier age. This authenticity (or lack thereof) is related to the perception of an identity, role, purpose and place which are uncertain, unstable or unavailable in the late modernity or postmodern times. Ironically, social isolation and alienation appear as a result of greater possibility, choice and mobility. The technology of the end of the twentieth century has created the expectation that all experience is accessible, but in the attempt the second-hand nature of the experience is revealed. The only alternative, for Mazzini, is to abandon the technologised reality of the twentieth century in a complete sentimental identification with the past which then, however, denies the existence of the contemporary subject. The imagination or fantasy, and the creative act are suggested as satisfactory initial responses to a lack of meaning in everyday experience. But the written word as a mediator of experience and reality is ultimately abandoned by Mazzini. The narrator, remaining in Vienna, is also left dissatisfied, surrounded by his texts. What is left is silence and mystery. The way in which the structuring principle of the eternal recurrence is used in tracking the journeys of Weyprecht and Payer, Mazzini and then the narrator reveals that all experience is finally second-hand. It has all happened before and will happen again, in whatever mediated form. This repetition heightens the sense of isolation and abstraction in the text, and gives an increased sense of paralysis in the novel, as each re- enactment event assumes greater distance from the original experience. Although Mazzini passively enters the cycle of the Arctic journey, his disappearance did not end his existence. His experiences are returned to the textual through the actions of the narrator - just as the experience of the expedition a hundred years before was/is available to be re-read and re-experienced (potentially) infinitely in the library archives.

14 T he reader also becomes a part of the cycle, repeating Mazzini’s earlier experiences within in the act of reading. 175

Die letzte Welt - Master and Acolyte.

In Die letzte Welt the story of Naso’s exile is re-played when Cotta journeys to Tomi. Cotta’s existence has already been strongly shaped by Naso’s influence. As an awed student at San Lorenzo he has had an opportunity to see the famous poet’s profile in the flesh rather than from newspaper cuttings, when Naso is the official visitor for the school’s centenary,

Selbst aus der ersten Reihe der Zuhörer war dem Zögling Cotta der Dichter Publius Ovidius Naso von einer solchen Unberührbarkeit und Entrücktheit erschienen, daß er den Lesenden kaum länger als einem Atemzug unausgesetzt zu betrachten wagte, um nicht von einem jähen, zufälligen Blick aus dem Moosgrün dieser Augen getroffen und beschämt zu werden. (LW 110)

Naso became the focus for Cotta’s adolescent admiration and the source of his “pubertären Weltschmerz” when he comes to understand Naso’s truth, “Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt.” (LW 15). The fate of his hero signals for Cotta the universal fate of nature and civilisation,

Wenn ein Mensch aus einer solchen Verehrung und Unnahbarkeit in die Verachtung stürzen konnte […] mußten doch nicht auch in den prunkvollsten Palästen der Residenz schon die Umrisse der Schutthaufen erkennbar werden, zu denen sie im Flug der Zeit wieder zerfallen würden? Und erkennbar in den Blütenwolken der Gärten und Parks schon das Gleißen künftiger Wüsten und noch in den unbekümmerten oder begeisterten Mienen des Komödien- und Zirkuspublikums die Blässe des Todes (LW 110-11).

Later, as a member of Naso’s circle of friends in Rome, Cotta’s respect and admiration continue after Naso’s exile. The circle read the poet’s banned books, “bis Hunderte von Wendungen und Versen unauslöschlich in ihrem Gedächtnis bewahrt waren” (LW 111). When news of Naso’s death reaches Rome, Cotta sets out for Tomi to find the truth. While the acolyte’s motives for pursuing this action are ostensibly unselfish, it is progressively revealed both to Cotta and to the reader that it is Cotta’s boredom in Rome that drives him to solve the mystery of Naso’s disappearance, and also his desire to find Naso’s text, the Metamorphoses. The same vanity attributed to Naso and parodied in the image of the group of triumphant orators leaving the Stadium of the Seven Refuges (LW 65-6) resurfaces in Cotta’s fantasy of his own triumphant and celebrated return to Rome with the Metamorphoses intact. 176

Cotta’s dreams of heroically rescuing the Metamorphoses text reveal the depth of his identification with Naso and his unconscious desire to gain a similar fame to his hero despite knowing its transience. In fact, with the possibility of ascertaining Naso’s death, Cotta stands ready to become Naso. His path in the last world, both literally and metaphorically, is the path of Naso before him. His journeys to Trachila, his conversations with Echo, his reading of Arachne’s tapestries and questions of the villagers are all accessionings of Naso’s experience in exile. The last act of the character Cotta is not revealed to the reader, but it is obvious that in his wildly exuberant departure from Tomi into the mountains, he sees (or believes he sees) the world in exactly the way Naso has.

Das Schlachthaus war nur noch ein bemooster Felsen, an dem ein Schar Nebelkrähen ihre Schnäbel schärfte; die Gassen waren Hohlwege durch dorniges blühendes Dickicht und ihre Bewohner in Steine verwandelt oder in Vögel, in Wölfe und leeren Hall (LW 286).

Cotta has followed Naso’s path - “Hier war Naso gegangen. Dies war Nasos Weg.” (LW 286) - and discovers that it leads to a world freed “von den Menschen und ihren Ordnungen” (LW 287). The story of this stage of existence has been told to its end, and each figure has been transformed. Naso, the poet, is stone or bird, or moss. Cotta seeks his similar metamorphosis, his own place in the text. The two syllables which Cotta strains to hear as an echo in his mad scrambling into the mountains can equally be the two syllables of “Naso” or “Cotta.” The repetition of Naso’s fate by Cotta, despite Cotta’s less than heroic motivations and later stumbling solution to the mystery of existence in the last world, functions as a recurrence of the same in the text. Cotta repeats Naso’s experiences in exile in uncertainty and growing desperation, but it ends in the confidence and knowledge of human experience that Cotta believes his master also held. Cotta’s experiences in the last world in following the path taken by Naso reinforce the notion of the cycle in Ransmayr’s work. The acolyte follows his master along the same path through the fantastical landscape of the last world. The eternal recurrence in this novel emphasises the difference between the Nietzschean notion of the eternal return and the way the concept is used in Ransmayr’s fiction. In Ransmayr’s work the concept really refers to the recurrence of the similar. Naso believes he follows Naso’s path because he identifies so closely with the poet, as did M azzini with the earlier explorers in Die

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Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. As with M azzini’s experience in the earlier novel, the reader understands that Cotta cannot repeat Naso’s experience exactly. If one reads the stories of Naso and Cotta as an allegory of the act of writing and its reception in the act of reading, one perceives the parallel explorations undertaken by both writer and reader. And just as Cotta is the ‘reader’ of Naso’s Metamorphoses text in the last world, Cotta as reader can only follow the author’s path without having exactly the same textual experience. The reader follows the path taken by the writer, following the signs set out before him/her. This act is undertaken literally by Cotta in gathering Pythagoras’ flags inscribed with Naso’s characters and their stories. The reader then may be seen as creating his/her own version of the text in his/her individual reading of it. The eternal recurrence is also enacted in the fate of Naso’s Metamorphoses text. Its stories are told in Rome, repeated around last world campfires and enacted in the lives of the last world inhabitants. In each place, the stories take a slightly different form, in their transmission or audience. The Metamorphoses tales related in Rome were tantalisingly fragmentary, in the last world they were wholely embraced by the villagers and enacted by them, even if unwittingly.

Images and Copies in the Last World.

In the last world Cotta’s desperate attempt to cling to reason is constantly buffeted by the inexplicable and chaotic series of events which confront him. Fantastical myths come alive in Cotta’s nightmares at Trachila. He becomes caught up in the drunken carnival parade in which the brutish Tomi inhabitants are costumed crazily as caricatures of gods and goddesses of Rome. In the last world the world of myth, which has been petrified into mythic images of stone, statue and sculpture in Rome, is revived and re-lived with a primitive energy in the antics and fates of the Tomi villagers. However the gods they embrace are their neighbours adorned with cardboard, wire and light globes. The last world is a world of copies and illusions. The Tomi villagers’ desire for fantasy and illusion is also seen in their response to Battus’ episcope and Cyparis’ films. Cyparis brings stories of heroes and heroines, stories of love, passion and tragedy back to life again in the shimmering light of his projector focused on the wall of Tereus’

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slaughterhouse. Even his wagon carries the painted image of mythical figures and scenes (LW 23). He brings a world

die den Menschen der eisernen Stadt so fern ihrer eigenen erschien, so unerreichbar und zauberhaft, daß sie noch Wochen, nachdem Cyparis wieder in der Weitläufigkeit der Zeit verschwunden war, keine anderen Geschichten besprachen als Versionen und Nacherzählungen der nun für ein weiteres Jahr wieder erloschenen Lichtspiele (LW 24).

These myths are re-lived by the villagers, desiring an intensity of experience absent in their lives in the last world. The films open a window into a new reality. With the departure of Cyparis, it seems the hope of consolation brought by the dwarf’s stories and pictures disappeared too (LW 113). Gradually, during the course of the text, selected villagers literally re-live the stories of the Metamorphoses as they are transformed out of human existence into stones, birds and animals. There is a sense of inevitability and predestination about the fates of the villagers. Their existence is already written. They are ultimately freed in various transformations from the dark brutishness of their human existence but the transformations reflect the essence of their human lives. For example, Tereus still pursues his transformed wife and sister- in-law as the murderous hopoe. The recurrence of the same is also located on a literal level in Die letzte Welt in the repetition of images produced by Battus’ episcope. The villagers’ adoration of the episcope emphasises the way in which in the last world the copy or simulation has gained as much validity and admiration as the original, if not more. The actual reflected copy of objects seem miraculous. The episcope functions in much the same way as have Cyparis’ films. The act of transformation of the ordinary into the beautiful is another act of affirmation of the need for fantasy and the healing that beauty and fantasy affords the human spirit. However, once again, irony is apparent. What Battus and the villagers are held spellbound by is a reflection, a copy of the original. The almost ritual honouring of the image of the episcope in the “Wundergrotte” which is lined by candles and offerings ends in the petrification of Battus. He becomes a metaphor for his own passivity before the reproduced image, despite its capacity for transformation into the beautiful. Battus too has been transformed into his heart’s desire, “ein Mensch unter Menschen,” but his final transformation is found in the act of being lifted out of organic existence, the loss of his existence as an individual. In this context

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the repetition of the same relates to the reproduction of the image and the object and raises questions about the role of the spectator and quality of experience in a similar way to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis.15 The response of Battus and the villagers to the reproduction of the image through technological means both highlights the human need for fantasy and transformation, and the vicarious and passive nature of this experience in both the last world and the modern “society of the spectacle.”

The Past is the Present is the Future in Morbus Kitahara.

The continuous presence of the horror endured during the European war in Morbus Kitahara has already been noted in Chapter Four. One way in which the eternal recurrence occurs in Ransmayr’s third novel is the constantly repeated act of memory by the figure of Ambras. However, apart from Ambras’ memories, images of war and the Holocaust experience constantly recur thoughout the text. These images recur either in symbolic form, in the form of setting, action or character. The Stellamour Parties held by the occupying forces are part of a re-education program for the defeated. The euphemistically termed Parties are essentially re-enactments of the work done at the Moor quarry. The image of the quarry, as a hole in the wholeness of the massive Stony Sea, is also repeated in later imagery of the novel. The dark shapes which invade Bering’s sight and destroy the wholeness and accuracy of his sight are described as mushroom-shaped. The metaphorical link to the mushroom cloud image of the nuclear explosion is clearly established. The way in which these actions and images are repeated through the novel is the focus of the following section.

The Stellamour Parties.

The inhabitants of Moor must learn about their collective guilt in the acts of war-time brutality by ritually performing the roles of the prisoners four times a year in the quarry. The American commander, M ajor Elliot, insists on recreating earlier scenes of the camp. By means of these re-enactments, Elliot sets up living copies of photographs he has found of the original camp, using the villagers as extras.

15 Walter Benjamin’s writings on the aura of a work of art which is lost in this age of reproducibility is symbolically represented in the way the episcope functions in Die letzte Welt. See Walter Benjamin, Schriften /Illuminationen (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1955). 180

In Januar … entdeckte Elliot unter … Akten eine Mappe mit Fotografien. Es waren vom Löschwasser gefleckte Momentaufnahmen der Tortur des Lagerlebens, Häftlinge im Steinbruch, Häftlinge in gestreiften Drillichanzügen, Häftlinge strammstehend vor ihren Baracken … Und über diesem Album erfand Elliot eine Pflicht, die ihn weit über die Grenzen seines Kommandobereichs hinaus unvergeßlich machte:

Er begann, die Bilder als Vorlagen für gespenstische Massenszenen zu nehmen, die er im Verlauf einer Party von den Bewohnern des Seeufers nachstellen – und von einem Regimentsfotografen festhalten ließ. Die Bilder mußten sich gleichen. Gemäß den Häftlingsklassen, die Elliot in den geretteten Akten verbucht fand, bestand er dabei auch auf einer wirklichkeitsgetreuen Kostümierung … (MK 45)

The events of these earlier times are forcibly re-lived through their re-enactment. The population of Moor must dress as Jews, prisoners of war, gypsies, communists or race defilers “in gestreiften Drillichanzügen mit aufgenähten Nationalitätsabzeichen, Erkennungswinkeln und Davidsternen” (MK 45-6). So costumed they are set the task of carrying granite slabs up the notorious steps from the quarry. In an act of apparent humanitarianism, Elliot allows cardboard replicas of the stone blocks to be carried, a concession rejected by some stubborn villagers. However, the resentment of the older generations and the incomprehension of the younger ones make such a simulation of doubtful value. The reader is aware also of the shocking offensiveness of what can be seen as a painful parody from the point of view of the actual victims of such acts. Such an enforced, official re-enactment of the horror of the labour camps serves also to point out the impossibility of revisiting, in all its authentic horror, the experience of the original camps. The image of the Stellamour Parties is further problematised in the text when, instead of play-acting scenes from the war-time camp, the M oor villagers work in the quarry, as had the war-time prisoners. They are later forced to dismantle the quarry machinery in an atmosphere of hatred and violence with Bering the dreaded Kapo figure. This time the re-enactment is not artificially conceived. The earlier play-acting of the villagers is transformed into the fearful, flinching behaviour of the earlier prisoners. It is the same situation of threat and brutality but the roles of perpetrator and victim are reversed.

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The Mushroom Cloud Motif.

The granite quarry is “das Loch” which represents the geographical and moral history of M oor. The image of “das Loch” becomes personalised in the experience of Bering as his sight deteriorates. He first becomes aware of the holes in his sight after the Patton’s Orchestra concert when he swerves to avoid driving into “eine Grube.” On the same night, as if anticipating his later actions in the novel, Bering “fuhr weiter und fuhr auf das Loch in seiner Welt” (MK 186). Morrison later compares the holes in Bering’s sight to jelly fish drifting through the sea of Bering’s vision. In response to Bering’s lack of comprehension, Morrison tries again. The blind spots are described as “Pilze.” The image of the mushroom cloud has already been communicated through the television screens of Brand as the ultimate symbol of humankind’s arrogance and destructiveness. The image of the destructive nuclear “Pilz” is repeated in those dark clouds that appear in Bering’s eyes and comes to symbolise both the moral blindness of national governments and of the individual. Here, the recurrence of the same is experienced as a visual motif evoking the human propensity for acts of violence and destruction. The blindness motif is itself also revisited from generation to generation in the novel. Faulty sight is experienced both by Bering and his father. A symbolic moral blindness is a phenomenon passed from the “Kriegsgeneration” to the “Nachkriegsgeneration.” The final dark cloud image of the text is the bushfire smoke above Dog Island, which Ambras believes is the smoke from the camp crematorium.

Pantano is Moor.

The impossibility of escaping an “absolutism of reality,” in this case the eternal recurrence of brutality and moral blindness reaches its most potent expression in the change of geographical setting towards the end of the novel. The scenario of Moor is translated to its equivalent in Brazil, Pantano. Pantano has green granite as beautiful as the original mineral treasure of Moor. As in Moor, Ambras is appointed quarry manager in Pantano. The machinery of the Moor quarry is to be re-assembled and re-used in the new Brazilian quarry. Yet it seems as though the cycle may be broken. The natural abundance and beauty of the area appear to suggest an optimistic new beginning. The tropical rain 182

conspires to prevent the Europeans from taking over the mine and re-enacting the old- world scenario. However the floods and mudslides, and the confinement and desperate condition of the exotic animals in Senhor Plínio de Nacar’s private zoo evoke symbolically the sense of entrapment and desperation the new arrivals have brought with them and which is a part of their existence wherever they are. Despite the renewing and purifying rituals of New Year, the suggestion of an excursion to Dog Island signals the inevitable return and re-enactment of the past. When Ambras, Lily, Bering and Muyra visit Dog Island, it is the end of a phase of existence. For Lily it brings escape. Her resolution is to waste no more time in fulfilling her childhood dream and she leaves with the fishermen. Muyra becomes her unwitting substitute. Rather than becoming a redemptive figure for Bering (they have embraced in the cleansing New Year’s ritual), M uyra takes Lily’s place as the European tragedy of violence and death is once more enacted in another country. On Dog Island, Ambras returns to a familiar place. This time he is not the master but the victim once more. The “Dog King of M oor” is once again a mocking epithet for Ambras as his ‘kingdom’ on Dog Island lies in ruins and is for him the familiar prison of his past. Bering, who has tried to fly from his moral inheritance since birth, flies once again, a bodyguard drawn to his death by his master. The final action of the last chapter, ‘Das Feuer im Ozean’ repeats in content the novel’s first chapter, ‘Ein Feuer im Ozean’ (MK 8). The story has come full circle. The cycle is complete. The replacement of Lily with Muyra merely reinforces the notion of the haphazard and indifferent violence of war and human brutality.

The Eternal Recurrence and the Aesthetics of Humility.

The mythologising responses which were discussed in earlier chapters show individuals or groups acting, with lesser or greater success, against an “absolutism of reality.” These responses take the form of the development of specific individual, social or historical myths. “Grundmythen,” as core narratives of human existence, however, shape and illuminate the experience of characters in each text revealing human experience in larger existential patterns. The ways in which these fundamental core myths are used in all three of Ransmayr’s novels serve to illustrate the way myth functions to illuminate the author’s vision of the condition humaine at the end of the twentieth century.

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Whether an eternal recurrence in each text is a function of the recurrence of intention, action, setting, image or motif, the sense of repetition and circularity so developed establishes the perception of an over-arching cosmic pattern of which the human individual is merely a part. The three novels show that meaning and explanation may be located in existential schemas unrelated to the historic, scientific and rational. This chapter has examined the concept of an eternal recurrence as a fundamental narrative of human existence which refutes the modernist project of progress and recognises a cyclical schema of human experience. Additionally, as a structuring narrative of human experience, the eternal recurrence symbolically highlights postmodern simulation and addresses notions of inauthenticity and the “already written- ness” of human experience in each novel. The eternal recurrence also emphasises tragic constants in human existence which are revisited in every age. Violence and moral blindness are not site-based or culture-based but apparently universal in terms of the world view developed in Morbus Kitahara. Tension is created between two perspectives of the eternal return. On the one hand a sense of entrapment is created when the recurrence of the same is viewed in a Nietzschean fashion as a pattern of human existence which is unable to be transcended (as in Morbus Kitahara). On the other hand, however, the eternal recurrence suggests the existence of an existential cycle which promises renewal and regeneration (as in Die letzte Welt). At the end of each text the stage is set for another cycle. Will it be a return of the same? Is humanity destined to experience and re-enact the acts of inhumanity it practises and which are practised upon it? Or will there be a transcendence of this human condition? The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that such a transcendence of the human condition is unlikely. However the following chapter examines a further complex core myth which is developed in the three novels. This “Grundmythos” consists of several parts and sees the catastrophic in human experience as part of the natural transition to rebirth, regeneration and new beginnings; apocalypse and metamorphosis.

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CHAPTER SIX.

“Eine Endzeit” – or a New Beginning? Apocalypse and Transformation in Die letzte Welt.

The Interplay between “Entropie,” “Untergang” and “Verwandlung.”

The discussion in this chapter will focus primarily on Die letzte Welt as the novel in which the “Grundmythen” of apocalypse and transformation are most strongly developed. In Die letzte Welt the representation of the cycle of existence paradoxically begins with an entropic running down towards a catastrophic “Apokalypse.” In the last world on the edge of the Roman Empire, the structures and systems which determine the reality-construct in Augustus’ Rome progressively collapse. Other narratives of human existence begin to emerge. Within a context of decay and entropic breakdown, a last world apocalypse narrative relates the “Untergang” of humanity. The first part of the discussion in this chapter treats apocalypse in its secular, modern definition, concentrating on terms such as “Katastrophe,” “Untergang” and “Endzeit.” Initially, discussion in these terms treats the Die letzte Welt as a piece of “Katastrophenliteratur” and traces the “Untergang” and “Endzeit” scenarios of the novel as a function of entropic breakdown. However in the second part of the chapter, a second notion of apocalypse will be discussed which includes the perception in the text that there is no definitive end-state of existence. In the face of transience and decline, the dynamic principle of metamorphosis or “Verwandlung” acts to signal the potentiality of a rebirth in a new form. In a tension typical of Ransmayr’s thematics, the more severe the apocalyptic threat and more intense the sense of final catastrophe in this context, the more frequent the “Verwandlung” of both the natural world and characters. The entropic disorder and breakdown of the natural world and the town of Tomi trigger the fantastical metamorphoses of the villagers and their environment. The “Grundmythos” of “Verwandlung” is therefore also fundamental to the interpretation and explanation of human existence. The narrative of transformation is present in the novel both in the form of Naso’s lost text, the Metamorphoses, and in the dynamic principle of change that underlies all the events in the last world.

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“Verwandlung” as a further dimension of the apocalypse narrative has more in common with the biblical definition of apocalypse, which sees apocalypse as a final catastrophic event which precedes a cleansing and rebirth. In this context, the “Grundmythos” of “Verwandlung” signals the potential of a new form, a new paradigm and a new age after the destruction of the old. Whether this potential is realised is a further focus of discussion. The liberatory powers of transformation in Die letzte Welt suggest an escape is possible from a predestinatory treadmill of human experience. However, the post-apocalyptic scenario represented in Morbus Kitahara confirms an earlier pessimism concerning the fate of the human subject in Ransmayr’s fiction. This pessimism is manifested both in the sense of a “running down” in the last world and the quality of the transformations which occur there. Both the entropic and the apocalyptic dimension of “Verwandlung” give notice that the metamorphoses of the last world are not solely liberatory for the characters. In fact, “Verwandlung” for the human characters in the text is actually a “Selbstauflösung.” It results in the ending of an autonomous human identity and place within the natural landscape. A world stage finally empty of the human form appears to confirm an “Untergang” of human civilisation in its present form; that is, Knoll puts it, “das Ende des Endes als Abgang der Menschheit” with “schiere Natur als Schlußszene des Untergangs.”1 An examination of specific myth stories of “Untergang” and “Verwandlung” in Die letzte Welt is undertaken in light of the above.

“Aufklärung als Anti-Apokalyptik, Apokalypse als Anti-Aufklärung.”

In Die letzte Welt the “Grundmythen” of “Untergang,” “Apokalypse” and “Verwandlung” structure and interpret the story of the last world on a number of levels. They forecast and explain the events which occur there. The historical linearity characteristic of Rome in the Ransmayr text is subverted in the last world by the re- imposition of a cycle of destruction and rebirth. The discussion in this chapter will, of necessity, concentrate on the last world, the world of exile, characterised as it is by apocalyptic events and atmosphere.2

1 Heike Knoll, “ Untergang und kein Ende: Zur Apokalyptik in Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt und Morbus Kitahara,” Literatur für Leser, 4 (München, Oldenbourg Verlag: 1997) 223. 2 T he entropic tendencies of the closed social system of Ransmayr’s Rome are discussed, however, as evidence of the tendency to breakdown of even the most rigidly structured totalitarian state. 186

In this context Rome and the last world are once more juxtaposed. Augustus’ Rome in Die letzte Welt is anti-apocalyptic in political and social ideology and structure. The Roman bureaucracy responds to threat and catastrophe as did the Enlightenment with an insistence on “staatliche Ordnung, Gewaltmonopol, sittliche Vernunft, wissenschaftliche Disziplin und technischen Fortschritt.”3 In the absence of threat or catastrophe from without, the state deals with any perceived threat or opposition from within by increasing repression through the mechanisms of social order. “Untergang” and “Apokalypse” narratives stand in direct opposition to narratives characteristic of the Enlightenment and scientific modernity such as progress, development and betterment of human society. “Fortschrittsglaube ist der Versuch einer rationalen Überbietung der Apokalypse-Angst und Apokalypse-Hoffnung. Vom Ort der befestigten Rationalität aus wird apokalyptisches Denken denunziert.”4 In the Rome of Ransmayr’s novel, the rigid hierarchy acts to reinforce the perception of a glorious celebration of Augustus’ rule and its projection into the future. The triumph of humankind over nature is celebrated and huge monuments are erected to human achievement. For the elite, any other vision of human history is anathema and is dealt with accordingly. For Naso, the result is exile – to a place where there is no more history.

Apocalypse Now, Then or When?

Apocalyptic thinking and apocalypse as represented in aesthetic production have undergone their own transformations over the centuries. Millennial thinking and apocalypse compulsion have not just been confined to specific communities or temporal signposts.5 Despite this, it has been asserted that the Germans as a particular national and cultural community have a “Hang zur Apokalyptik” which has extended over several centuries.6 Ransmayr’s country of birth, Austria, according to the critic Robert

3 Hartmut Boehme, “ Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Apokalypse,” Natur und Subjekt (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1988) 391. 4 Boehme, 391. 5 “ Als Untergangsvision ist die apokalyptische Rede … Ausdruck eines Epochenumbruchs, zumindest aber eine Bewußtseinskrise. Bei aller Präsenz durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch kann man nicht übersehen, daß apokalyptische Verkündigungen in welthistorischen Krisen Hochkunjuktur hatten.” Gerhard Kaiser, “ Apokalypsedrohung, Apokalypsegerede, Literatur und Apokalypse. Verstreute Bemerkungen zur Einleitung,” Poesie der Apokalypse (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1991) 13. 6 Vondung particularly marks periods and movements such as the Napoleonic Wars, Expressionism, the First World War, the T hird Reich and the postwar World War decades as particularly important periods for the expression of this apocalypticism in Germany. See Klaus Vondung, Die Apokalypse in Deutschland. (München: DTV, 1988). See also Joanna Jabtkowska, Literatur ohne Hoffnung. Die 187

M enasse, shares this “Hang zur Endzeiten” particularly in reference to the events of the twentieth century.7 “Angst vor dem Untergang und Sehnsucht nach Erlösung” is a syndrome which, as Vondung argues, has appeared frequently and strongly in Germany especially in connection with its experience of Nazism, the syndrome’s most extreme recent manifestation.8 In the twentieth century, the apocalyptic atmosphere in Germany intensified with the country’s experience of two world wars, severe economic depression and hyperinflation, the ideology and practice of the Nazi totalitarian regime, the wide-scale destruction and dislocation of World War Two and the post-war nuclear threat. In such an atmosphere, Vondung’s explanation of the genesis of a modern apocalypse mentality is particularly appropriate: “[d]ie Apokalypse entsteht in Krisensituationen, produziert von Menschen, die sich in ihrer gesamten Existenz – spirituell, politisch, sozial – gefährdet und gedemütigt, unterdrückt und verfolgt empfinden, zu Recht oder zu Unrecht.” 9 This existential-apocalyptic condition is eminently translatable into a perception of an “absolutism of reality” in the twentieth century such as that which has been discussed previously, particularly in reference to Ransmayr’s last two novels. The cast of characters in both Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara experience such crisis situations, situations which are characteristically repressive, isolating and devoid of life- affirming experience. Historical references in the texts to traumatic events identifiable as those of the Nazi period, the Second World War and the Holocaust further intensify the impact of the apocalyptic atmosphere in both Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara.

The Modern Apocalypse.

In general, apocalyptic events such as the world wars in the twentieth century and the explosion of the first atom bomb have made the twentieth century particularly ripe for considerations of the possible nature of a modern and, later, a postmodern apocalypse.

Krise der Utopie in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur. (Wiesbaden: DUV Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1993) 87. However the assertion that the Germans have “ein besonders enges Verhältnis zur Apokalypse” is a contested one. See Kaiser, 22. 7 Menasse’s description of Austria’s “ Hang zu Endzeiten” has already been mentioned in Chapter 1. Menasse, Das Land ohne Eigenschaften, 10. 8 Klaus Vondung, “ Angst vor dem Untergang und Sehnsucht nach Erlösung – ein deutsches Syndrom?” Gift daß du unbewusst eintrinkst: Der Nationalismus und die deutsche Sprache. ed. Werner Bohleber and Jorg Drews (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1991) 101. 9 Vondung, “ Angst vor dem Untergang …,” 101. 188

A modern definition of apocalypse, informed by scientific and technological innovation and their destructive potential, has focused on “Ende, Untergang, Katastrophe.” Apocalyptic thinking has distinguished itself in modern times from its religious origins with the most obvious characteristic that:

das Ende der Welt nicht durch Gottes Gericht bevorsteht, sondern durch die Menschen selbst technisch machbar ist … es geht nicht mehr um den himmlischen Sieg der Gerechten, sondern um das irdische Überleben.10

Technology becomes the metaphysics of the nuclear age.11 In the second half of the twentieth century,

Die Allgegenwart der apokalyptischen Rede und der um sie entbrannte Streit wären unverständlich ohne die realen Gefahren, die das menschliche Leben heute und in jeder vorstellbaren Zukunft bedrohen. Die Fähigkeit zur atomaren Selbstvernichtung, das ungebremste Bevölkerungswachstum und die fortschreitende Zerstörung der natürlichen Ressourcen sind […] konkret erfahrbare Wirklichkeit: Tschernobyl, Bevölkerungsmigrationen in Richtung der nördlichen Hemisphäre, sterbende Wälder und Gewässer sind prägende Erfahrungen der letzten Jahrzehnte. Die apokalyptischen Ängste der Gegenwart haben ihren Ursprung nicht mehr in religiösen oder geschichtsphilosophischen Untergangs- und Erneuerungsfantasmen, sondern im Prozeß der Zivilisation selbst.12

Kaiser’s comment above is particularly relevant to Die letzte Welt and is consistent with the “Zivilisationskritik” the text develops. The text, examined on a purely literal level, constructs images of a last world as a place which has been despoiled and contaminated, and is in a process of decay and decline. The last world consists of the township of Tomi which is a collection of increasingly derelict buildings, collapsing under the combined workings of rust and nature. It includes the surrounding countryside which is scarred by ghost villages clustered around abandoned mines; and Trachila, Naso’s last known abode, where the natural world has reassumed control of the landscape. Any vision of the natural world as a power of rejuvenation is deliberately ambivalent here.

10 Marianne Kesting, “ Warten auf das Ende. Apokalypse und Endzeit in der Moderne,” Poesie der Apokalypse, ed. Kaiser, 169. 11 Hans Martin Schönherr, “ Abschied von der Apokalypse - Anmerkungen zur Postmoderne- Diskussion,” Neue Deutsche Hefte, 35: 4/200 (1988): 747. 12 Kaiser, 9. 189

The way in which representations of the natural world in Ransmayr’s novels illuminate the actions of human society in the modern industrial age has already been discussed. In a discussion of the apocalypse as a “Grundmythos” of human existence in the last world, the world of nature operates literally and metaphorically as a signpost indicating the stages of downfall of humankind. In Ransmayr’s Letzte Welt the use of “eine ungestüme Natur – vom Donnerwetter zum Sturmwind, von Malstrom zur Sintflut, vom Feuerbrand zum Inferno” also serves “als Metapher für historische Visionen und ihre oft apokalyptische Deutung.”13 In Die letzte Welt a series of catastrophic and, at times, ecologically abnormal events in the natural world; a two-year long winter, the abnormally heated sea, torrential rains, earthquakes, all signal the ultimate historical “Epochenumbruch,” the collapse of human civilisation. The actions of human civilisation are causally implicated in this collapse. Through Cotta’s eyes, the familiar and known in nature (the four seasons, climate and weather, the behaviour of animals, birds and insects, the growth of plants and vines) have become disrupted, unpredictable and alien. However, this perspective is one which is developed from the viewpoint of a separation from nature, one that sees the natural world as regular and regulated by the ministrations of human civilisation. The effect of nature’s irregularity on the inhabitants of the last world is to see the agency of the natural world as creating a threatening “absolutism of reality.” Die letzte Welt abounds with references to the illogicality, chaos and extremity of events in the last world. On a symbolic level, the reader sees the chaotic and irrational last world of nature through Cotta’s eyes, initially fresh from the reason-based perception of Rome. As Cotta abandons the rationality characteristic of his former home for an ecstatic embrace of the madness of the last world, however, the physical representation of the last world does not alter; in fact the intensity of its apparently inexplicable transformation heightens. The representation of nature in Die letzte Welt text is very much informed by a Western obsession with an apocalyptic “Endzeit” mentality in the 1970s and 1980s. This fascination with an “Endzeit” also typified German literature of the time, shaping and responding to the protest culture which emerged in response to particular political events during this period.14 For a readership increasingly aware of the ecological dangers posed by the pollution of and damage to the atmosphere, stratosphere, earth,

13 Hinrich C. Seeba, “ Der Untergang der Utopie: Ein Schiffbruch in der Gegenwartsliteratur,” German Studies Review, 4:2 May (1981): 282. 14 For example, the controversy over the proposed stationing of Pershing rockets in Germany in 1983. 190

rivers and sea, the description of the abnormalities of the natural world in Die letzte Welt evokes a familiar picture of catastrophic collapse and ecological “Untergang.” Controversies such as the 1983 German “Nachrüstungsdebatte” gave “Katastrophenliteratur” an intensified relevance in the actuality of a renewal of the threat of major human catastrophe; in this case, nuclear confrontation between the USSR and the West in Europe. This atmosphere of potential threat resulted in an increased output in the “catastrophe” genre, not only in the German speaking countries, but also in Britain, America and France.15 During the 1980s, the “Katastrophenvirus” did not restrict itself as a motif complex in literature but spread into other aesthetic media. As Paul Konrad Kurz stated in the late 1980s, “ ‘Apokalypse now’ heißt nicht nur unter Schlager- und Chansonsängern das Codewort. Apokalyptische Szenenfolgen sind ‘in’ im kommerziellen Film. M an denke an Apocalypse Now, Atomic Café, War Games, The Day After.”16 In an overview of German “Katastrophenliteratur,” Lilienthal discusses a variety of texts which show the wide span of approaches to this literature of catastrophe. Of particular relevance to a discussion of the apocalyptic in Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt (and also in Morbus Kitahara) is the description of one approach typical to the literature of the apocalypse. It shows “eine Welt des Zerfalls ohne Hoffnung auf lebenswerte Zukunft” and reveals the “Verlust der Normalität gesicherter Lebensverhältnisse.”17 The textual depiction of worlds physically, socially and morally in collapse mirrored metaphorically a potential reality for those thousands who attended demonstrations against the stationing of NATO’s Pershing rockets in Western Europe in the early 1980s. The ways in which other “Katastrophen” texts have approached their theme are less serious. After all, “Katastrophen [können] auch Spaß machen, [so lange man Zuschauer bleibt].”18 In examining catastrophe in literature, there comes a point of divergence, that is, the “Spannung zwischen dem Kunst- und Gedankenspiel, ästhetischer Aufhebung des Untergangs und dem real-politischen Ernst des Problems.”19

15 Volker Lilienthal, “ Irrlichter aus dem Dunkel der Zukunft. Zur neueren deutschen Katastrophenliteratur,” Pluralismus und Postmodernismus Beiträge zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der 80er Jahre, ed. Helmut Kreuzer (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1989) 197. 16 Paul Konrad Kurz, Apokalyptische Zeit. Zur Literatur der mittleren 80er Jahre (Frankfurt/Main 1987) 137. 17 Lilienthal describes Reinhold Batberger’s Skalp (1987) in this fashion. Lilienthal, 198-99. The critic believes that the “ Ästhetik des Häßlichens” that Karl Heinz Bohrer had long demanded is realised in such examples of 1980s “ Katastrophenliteratur.” 18 Lilienthal, 200. 19 Jabtkowska observes this duality in the context of her discussion of “die moderne Apokalyptik,” 99.

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Within the context of this comparative study of the three Ransmayr novels, discussion of the serious socio-political aspect of the modern apocalypse is directed by the “Zivilisationskritik” the texts develop. “[D]er Untergang von Mensch und Natur in grausam-rettungsloser Bildvorstellung” is characteristic of the Letzte Welt text and is crucial to the text’s interpretation.20 The following discussion adopts a similar seriousness of interpretation as being appropriate to a socio-critical examination of the 21 way in which scenarios of “Untergang” are developed in the text.

“Untergang” in the Last World.

Any discussion of the downfall of humankind as integral to the apocalypse “Grundmythos” of human existence understands “Untergang” to be a narrative which functions in obvious opposition to the progress metanarrative of historical modernity. Such a narrative of “Untergang” is developed in Die letzte Welt through the physical erasure of human achievement, which had been seen in terms of human society’s domination of the world of nature. A natural principle of breakdown, expressed in terms of entropy, is observed to operate within the physical and social structures of human society. The downfall of humankind in Ransmayr’s second novel is examined in the following in a general context of “Untergang” in the text, and in specific, discrete “Untergang” micro-narratives adapted in most part from the original Metamorphoses. In these discrete narratives, the author’s work on myth (in Blumenberg’s terms) is evident. The pervasive nature of a narrative of “Untergang” in Die letzte Welt is obviously signalled by the novel’s title. Although a sense of ahistoricity is developed in the text by the deliberate bricolage of artefacts, the description of the site of Naso’s exile as the last

20 Ibsch provides an extensive list of critics’ positions on this point. Elrud Ibsch, “ Zur politischen Rezeption von Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” Literarische und Politische Aktualität, 243-4 21 A consideration of apocalypse as a “ Kunst-und Gedankenspiel” is certainly relevant to a study of Die letzte Welt as a postmodern text but is not appropriate to the overall approach and focus of this thesis. Ransmayr’s early reportage also targets the nature of “Untergang” in contemporary society in a socio-critical way. In Der Weg nach Surabaya, the ‘Porträt einer untergehenden Gesellschaft’ tells of the “ Untergang” of a unique way of life on the island of Hooge. Similarly, the world of Habach, a village in Upper Bavaria, stands “ kurz vor ihrem Vergehen unter den Erneuerungsmaßnahmen der Ingenieure.” A farmer from the Austrian “ Mostviertel” speaks of changes in his world, “ [I]ch war etwas. Jetzt bin ich nichts mehr,” as he comments on the “Untergang seiner Welt” However, as Schaper states in his article in Die Zeit, “ Der Fortschritt verbraucht Menschen und Landschaften, und doch will keiner zurück. ‘Wie es ist, ist es gut,’ sagen alle, die fast schon aus der Zeit gefallen sind’.” (See Rainer Michael Schaper, “ Rattengesänge: Christoph Ransmayrs kleine Prosa und Reportagen,” Die Zeit, 31, 25. July, 1997.)

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world shows it to be not only geographically far-flung from the first world of Rome,22 but temporally at a crucial end-state of human civilisation. The last world also reveals an end point in the relationship between humankind and nature.

Mit dem Eisernen Zeitalter setzen in der Schöpfungsgeschichte Ovids Verbrechen und Aggression ein, die Epoche der moralischen Verwilderung und der kulturellen Verderbnis des Menschen, die Zerstörung des friedlichen Miteinanders zwischen Mensch und Natur. In der Weltalter–Theorie, die Ovid in den Metamorphoses entwickelt, bringen der Bergbau und seine sozialen Folgen eine historische Dynamik in Gang, die die harmonische Übereinstimmung von Natur und Mensch zerstört. Im desolaten Bild von Tomi als Stadt der Bergleute und Erzkocher wird die Vergeblichkeit und Hoffnungslosigkeit einer Zivilisationsanstrengung vor Augen geführt, die auf Ausbeutung der Natur beruht und die deshalb statt der erhofften Lebensverbesserung nur Unglück und Verderbnis mit sich bringt.23

Seen in mythical terms, the actions of nature in Die letzte Welt are very similar to those identified by Hinrich Seeba in his examination of the shipwreck as a motif of “Untergang” in the last decades of the twentieth century. He relates the 1912 sinking of the Titanic in mythical terms as revealing “der Wille der modernen Titanen zur Bezwingung der Natur durch die Technik als Hybris, die von den herausgeforderten Elementen bestraft wurde.”24 The disembowelling of the natural world around Tomi, through its mining for copper and iron, creates an image of humankind’s exploitation of natural riches which is ultimately met by nature’s casting up, not of icebergs, but new mountains and new valleys to recover from invasion and penetration.25 These convulsions of the natural world cause the collapse of the human structures imposed upon it. In the last world humankind’s hubris appears well and truly punished by the elemental forces of nature, although existing evidence of human achievement in terms of industrial modernity is scanty. Also, no direct link of causality is established between humankind’s actions and the way the natural world operates to erase the presence of the

22 That is, the original Ovid’s “ orbis ultima” in his Epistolae ex Ponto lamentations. 23 Schiffermühler, “ Untergang und Metamorphose: Allegorische Bilder in Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid- Roman Die letzte Welt,” 238. 24 Seeba, 284. 25 One may also consider the fate of Weyprecht and Payer’s ship, the Tegetthoff, trapped and assaulted by ice, to be an expression of nature’s response to humankind’s hubris. Interestingly, images of shipwreck are scattered through Die letzte Welt. Cotta fears shipwreck on his voyage through the hurricane to Tomi, various villagers are stranded in the last world because of shipwreck, and Ceyx drowns after the wreck of his ship. To an extent, the scuttled Schlafende Griechin in Morbus Kitahara in also symbolises the “ Untergang” of Moor as an innocent, pre-war “ Erholungsort.”

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human race. For example, at one point storms sweep Tomi without anyone else noticing. While this scene emphasises the different perception of events in Tomi Cotta has from the other villagers it also serves as an indicator for the extremity of alienation existing between humankind and the natural world in Tomi.

[E]in vom Meer heraufziehendes Unwetter […] fiel mit einer solchen Wut über die eiserne Stadt her, daß Cotta sich plötzlich in Echos Erzählungen von der Flut versetzt glaubte. Als er einen im Sturm schlagenden Fensterladen seiner Kammer schloß und dabei in die Gassen hinabblickte, sah er, wie Moos, Schiefer und Schilf von den Dächern gerissen und von den Böen in den Bach geschleudert wurden, der die Stadt durchtoste. Unrat, zersplittertes Holz, Einfriedigungen und entwurzelte Sträuche tanzten diesen Bach hinab, der innerhalb weniger Minuten so weiß und mächtig wurde, daß er an den Fundamenten einer auf die Uferfelsen gesetzten Häuserzeile und an den Verankerungen der Holzstege zu reißen begann … Aber Cotta wartete … vergeblich … auf gestikulierende Gestalten und ihr Geschrei. (LW 172).

The attack by nature on the physical structure of Tomi itself, and other man-made structures of the region, villages, mines and machinery, does not necessarily occur in grand gestures of storm, flood and earthquake. As already mentioned, the attack by rust on the “town of iron” is far more surreptitious. The invasion of vines, webs and insects is also more subversive in its relentless progress which proceeds without the notice or interest of the villagers. In total, all actions in the natural world, whether grand or small- scale, signal an apocalyptic end to human presence in the last world, in the face of the human community’s complete inability to perceive the reality of its environment. The domination of nature by modern humanity is ultimately a failure in the last world. In fact, in the final scenes of the text, “[d]er menschenleere Raum mahnt in barocker M anier an die Nichtigkeit alles M enschlichen.”26 While the world of nature also plays a role as refuge and consolation in the text, in the story of “Untergang” and “Apocalypse” being played out in the last world, nature is predominantly an active agent procuring the entropic collapse of human structures and artefacts. The abnormalities of nature, the entropic collapse of the man-made structures of the last world and the perception of nature’s role in punishing the human beings who remain in the last world create an atmosphere of constant and intensifying disaster, which locate Die letzte Welt in the genre of “Katastrophentext.” In this context, the text

26 Juliane Vogel, “ Letzte Momente/Letzte Welten. Zu Christoph Ransmayrs ovidischen Etüden,” Jenseits des Diskurses, ed. Albert Berger and G.E. Moser (Wien: Passagen Verlag, 1994) 317.

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is seen as “eine der zahlreichen Darstellungen der aussichtslosen Lage der westlichen Zivilisation in der heutigen deutschsprachigen, insbesondere der österreichischen und schweizerischen Literatur.”27

Breakdowns.

In considering the deterioration and breakdown of natural, physical and social structures as a modern version of “Untergang” in the last world, the scientific concept of entropy, in the second law of thermodynamics, proves a useful term. Entropy defines the tendency of any system towards disorder and collapse, and forecasts that system’s inability to be maintained without the input of energy. For more than a hundred years, thermodynamics has played an integrating role in the natural sciences, finding application in the solution of problems in branches of science and technology.28 The laws of thermodynamics have since been appropriated by other fields, including the humanities. Analogies using these scientific laws have been utilised to explain a variety of phenomena not of natural scientific origin. In its scientific definition, thermodynamics designates the relationship between heat and movement. Accepting that the amount of energy contained within a closed system remains constant, the conversion of energy does not result in the loss of energy. However the quality of energy resulting may be different.

Die Hauptsätze [der Thermodynamik] enthalten zwei Grundgedanken: erstens daß Energie verschiedene Formen hat und daß Umwandlungen von einer Form in die andere immer so verlaufen, daß die Energie–Summe erhalten bleibt, eine Art Null-summenspiel, bei dem die Zunahme in einer Energieform immer genau kompensiert wird durch die Abnahme in einer anderen Energieform; zweitens, daß die Umwandlung allgemein nicht symmetrisch ist, das heißt, daß verschiedene Energieformen zwar quantativ gleich, aber qualitativ nicht gleich sind. Qualitativ betrachtet sind einige Formen höherwertig als andere. Eine hochwertige Form kann immer in eine niedrige umgewandelt werden, aber umgekehrt ist eine vollkommene Umwandlung nicht immer möglich … Zur quantitativen Beschreibung des qualitativen Wertes wurde die Entropie erfunden.29

The classical definition of entropy by Clausius sees entropy as a property able to be measured, that is, a measurement obtainable by scientific experiment. However, more

27 Harbers, “ Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit: Zu Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” 58. 28 John M. Prausnitz, “ Thermodynamik und die anderen Geisteswissenschaften,” Merkur, 39 (1985): 1053.

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applicable to the way in which the concept of entropy is used in analogy outside of a purely scientific context is Boltzmann’s definition. Boltzmann sees entropy as a measurement of the disorder within a system; “Ein ordentlicher Zustand hat eine kleine, ein unordentlicher Zustand eine große Entropie.” By using a simple experiment, he concludes that there is more possibility of disorder than order existing in a system.30 In fact, as Paul Davies puts it,

The unpalatable truth appears to be that the inexorable disintegration of the universe as we know it seems assured, the organisation which sustains all ordered activities from men to galaxies, is slowly but inevitably running down, and may even by overtaken by gravitational collapse into oblivion.31

Entropy in the Physical System.

Appropriating the concept of entropy to serve the literary interpretation, one observes similar processes of breakdown operating in the action of Die letzte Welt. The physical system of the last world displays signs of increasing disorder, as has been indicated in the above discussion of “Untergang.” The progressive collapse of the infrastructure and civilisation of Tomi and other villages in the last world signals an entropic decline which is drawn out over the months of Cotta’s sojourn and has also preceded this time. The disorder and abnormalities in the seasons, climate, of animals and insects have already been noted. These suggest an ecological catastrophe, caused by the breakdown of the natural system. Even the sea becomes too hot for the fish, which beach themselves in a collective suicide. More poetically, the budding and fruiting of the mulberry tree in the courtyard at Trachila suggests a similar disorder, confusion and mutability in natural cycles of growth and decay. Whatever the cause of these extreme changes, the predominant perception of their impact on the last world is one of mutation, decay and breakdown, if not in the individual act, then in the order and balance of the pattern behind it. The invasion of the iron structure of Tomi by rust is both a natural process and symbolic of the disintegration of the physical structure of civilisation in the last world. The age of iron is grinding to a halt as its infrastructure collapses. “Aus Eisen waren die Türen, aus Eisen die Fensterläden, die Einfriedungen, die Giebelfiguren und schmalen

29 Prausnitz, 1054. 30 Prausnitz, 1056. 31 Paul Davies, The Runaway Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) 197.

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Stege[…] Und an allem fraß der salzige Wind, fraß der Rost. Der Rost war die Farbe der Stadt” (LW 10). The fate of Limyra also reveals the past “Untergang” of a civilisation. As noted previously, Limyra, symbolically representing the age of copper, lies in ruins, its mines and shafts collapsed, the landscape barren, yet being periodically pillaged by greedy visitors. The representation of Tomi’s progressive disintegration is the symbolic breakdown of a post-industrial landscape (the last world’s abandoned mines and rusting conveyor belts) and of social order. An examination of these breakdowns in the last world may be read on both this level of structural decay and also that of the collapse of human relationships.

Entropy in the Social System.

Outside the scientific context wild conclusions have been drawn as to the entropic tendencies of the systems of belief and social organisation that structure human existence. For example, some commentators have expressed the belief that the increase of entropy has to do with humankind’s sinfulness, and that the decline of the western world, or periodic falls on the share market are related to this second law of thermodynamics.32 However, it is possible within the bounds of sense to draw analogies in a social context using the concept of entropy. Some early examples of such analogies include the views of the American social critic, Henry Adams, who, in the early twentieth century, saw the closed system of human society as victim of an entropic process which drained it of vital energies. Evidence for such comment was found, he asserted, in increasing suicide rates, increases in drug and alcohol consumption, the growing de-personalisation of society, and human attacks on the environment in the form of the waste of energy resources and raw materials, and the destruction of animal species.33 While Ransmayr’s last world is hardly typical of the society to which Adams was referring, some similarities are evident in the social breakdown of the last world community. The human inhabitants of the last world are typically rejects from the Roman world of order, logic and rationality. The creatures of the last world have spilt out

32 Prausnitz, 1055 33 Ulrich Broich, “ Apokalypse und Entropie als konkurrierende Konzepte zur Beschreibung des Weltendes in der englischsprachigen Literatur der Gegenwart,” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch – im Auftrag der Görres Gesellschaft, 29, Berlin: 293. 197

of the Roman system. They are the castaways, the shipwrecked, the conned and the eccentric. Their brutalisation reflects the breakdown of civic order and social relationships in the last world. One notes in the text “zeittypische Phänomene wie die wachsende Unfähigkeit des Menschen zur Kommunikation, zur Liebe, zu Spontaneität oder zu kreativem Handeln nur als Ausdruck einer generellen und irreversiblen Tendenz der gesamten Welt zur Entropie.”34 The last world villagers are predominantly solitary misfits sunk either into indifference or a bestial brutality. The only relationship of emotional reciprocity appears to be between Cotta and Echo. However this only exists for a time until Cotta’s rape of the girl. In this act, Cotta behaviour also reveals the breakdown of so-called civilised mores of behaviour. Other relationships between last world characters are characterised by indifference, repulsion and brutality. Tereus verbally abuses his neighbours. He physically assaults his wife.

Tereus schlug sie [Procne] oft wortlos und ohne Zorn wie ein ihm zur Schlachtung anvertrautes Tier, so als diente jeder Schlag allein dem Zweck, einen kümmerlichen Rest ihres Willens und den Ekel zu betäuben, den sie vor ihm empfand. (LW 30)

Tereus rapes and cuts the tongue out of his sister-in-law, Philomela, before throwing her down a ravine. He almost drowns the drunken Marsyas. Phineas, specialist home-brewer, settles in Tomi, cheered by the fear which his rage inspires there (LW 258). Other relationships incur dissatisfaction and unwitting pain. There are continuous arguments between Thies and Proserpina. Fama uses stinging nettles to control her epileptic son, Battus. However Thies and Procne do find temporary solace with each other in their bacchanalian tryst on the carnival night in Tomi, when fantasy and revelry are re-awakened in a place of brutality and despair. Predominantly however, the text shows the last world community to be one characterised by rumour-mongering, distrust, envy, indifference or violence.

34 Broich, 296. These social tendencies are also identifiable in the other two Ransmayr novels. Characters such as Mazzini in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis and Bering in Morbus Kitahara are also apparently caught within a similar breakdown of social connections and communication. Their failure to have and maintain physical and emotional contact with others contributes to the perceived collapse of their identity within the world they inhabit.

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Violence is always a backdrop to the villagers’ existence. Even when the villagers are transported from the frustration and ugliness of their lives by living vicariously through Cyparis’ films, these films are projected onto the whitewashed wall of Tereus’ slaughter-house and Tereus’ aggressive comments and bellows punctuate the action of the films. In the final scenes of the novel, arguments and assaults between the villagers increase. What counts as civil order in the last world finally crumbles. As the rain drives the mountain dwellers down to the coast,

[k]aum ein Tag verging ohne Streit und Prügeleien […]. Manche Erzkocher hielten nun die Fensterläden ihrer Häuser auch tagsüber geschlossen und warfen Steine und Abfall über die Mauer […] wenn Flüchtlinge durch die Gassen gingen (LW 246).

In the face of a continuing assault from nature the villagers turn on each other.

Wenn der Regen manchmal für Stunden nachließ […] standen sie in Gruppen vor ihren Zufluchten, starrten in die Wolken und gerieten regelmäßig darüber in Streit ob dieser schmale Streifen helleren Graus am Horizont tatsächlich das Zeichen einer Wetterbesserung sei […] Manchmal standen sie noch gestikulierend in Schlammrinnsalen und beschimpfen einander schreiend, wenn sich die Wolken längst wieder zu einer tiefziehenden, eintönigen Front geschlossen hatten … (LW 269-70).

Human society’s entropic tendency, observed on a socio-political level, is seen in the increasing chaos within a system of ‘anything goes’ as in Tomi. But this tendency may also be reflected in the fate of the individual suffocating within the confining hold of an over-administered or regimented state.35 The closed, hierarchical system of Augustus’ Rome in Die letzte Welt also may be said to demonstrate, with the repression of its citizens, the beginning of the breakdown of the system. Naso’s actions in Rome parallel disorder occurring within the system. A chain reaction of disorder appears to follow the poet’s initial acts of individualistic thought and speech. With the exile of Naso, others, including Cotta, leave Rome. The bureaucratic system clamps down increasingly on those remaining. An underground movement begins to agitate. Violence erupts following acts of criticism and protest. However in this model of Rome while the disorder of entropic action increases, a corresponding output of energy by the totalitarian

35 Broich, 293.

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administration, in the form of an increase of political repression, attempts to contain the disorder and maintain the status quo of power. But it is the chaotic ‘anything goes’ in the last world which shows the movement towards a final-stage entropic breakdown. In Cotta’s eyes, anything is possible in this space of exile. Echo disappears, Cotta’s host, Lycaon turns into a wolf, Battus turns into stone and Cotta’s sightings of Naso all prove to be an illusion. The disappearance of Lycaon does not raise any interest. The disappearance of Echo and the petrification of Battus cause an initial stir but are quickly assimilated into the community narrative without question. The indifference of the villagers to these events suggests a breakdown in the rational perception and understanding of events which shape reality in the last world.

Narratives of “Untergang.”

Die letzte Welt details a succession of discrete “Untergang” narratives and scenarios within the general context of “Untergang.” Already in Rome, Naso’s speech at the stadium “Zu den sieben Zufluchten” tells of the end of the world by plague – then the subsequent birth of the ant people. The psychological atmosphere of the last world is developed and structured by these stories of “Untergang.” In fact Naso’s personal fall from grace in Augustus’ Rome to exile in the last world, the story of the poet’s downfall, provides the narrative premise of the novel. Naso’s story of Deucalion and Pyrrha tells of the end of the world by flood, a narrative which Echo relates to Cotta as Naso’s Book of Stones. Arachne’s Book of Birds told through the medium of her weavings relates Naso’s story of “Untergang” in the imagery of Icarus plunging from the skies. The story of Alcyone and Ceyx relates an “Untergang” and its impact on both the social and personal level. Cyparis’ films further reveal the fall of Troy and its hero, Hector; the fall of Hercules, and later of the poet Orpheus, to the horrified yet enthralled spectators of Tomi. The fate of these mythic heroes concentrates on the fall of humankind, from the epic scale to the personal. The scenes of warfare and suffering in Europe which drive Thies to flight also depict an “Endzeit” there, an end to humanity on a metaphorical level. These stories are delivered in various forms, through various mouthpieces to various audiences in a collage of narratives, but their message is resoundingly and cumulatively the same. There is an “Endzeit” to be faced. In some cases these stories of 200

“Untergang” are located in the past, at other times they are located in the immediate present or possible future. Although Naso’s story of the birth of the ant race, and Echo’s retelling of the birth of the men of stone also tell of a rebirth, of a time after the initial “Untergang,” the birth of these new races already define the end of an age. That is, the end of the age of individual action and thought, and the end of empathy and pity, respectively. Other stories end in transformation, a change of form – including Naso’s.

“Untergang” as Film - Alcyone and Ceyx.

The story of Alcyone and Ceyx combines many of the elements common to the “Grundmythen” sequence of “Untergang” and “Verwandlung.”36 Ceyx’s kingdom is initially described in images reminiscent of a mythic paradise, “Kuppeln, Arkaden, Freitreppen und hängenden Gärten […] In den Gärten des Palastes waren die Zikaden laut und die Zitronenbäume schwer von Früchten” (LW 27). The description of his palace, “[Er lag] wie ein erleuchtetes, festliches Schiff in der Nacht” (LW 27), metaphorically prophesies the tragic end of Ceyx and his kingdom. The story of a lovers’ separation ends in a literal “Untergang,” Ceyx’s shipwreck and his drowning. The tragedy is enacted on both a personal and social level. The shipwreck and Ceyx’s death have already occurred in Alcyone’s dreams before her husband departs.

Alcyone sah ein nächtliches Meer und einen Himmel wie in Trümmern, Wogen und Wolken zu einem tosenden Einerlei zusammengeworfen, das sich im Rhythmus ihrer Atemzüge zu Gebirgen erhob und niederstürzte. Dann rauschten von den Steilhängen Gischtlawinen herab. […] Lautlos brach ein Mast. […] Das Schiff sank. Und was zuvor über Bord gegangen war oder sich fürs ertse hatte retten können, folgte ihm in langsamen, dann schneller und schneller werdenden Spiralen in die T iefe nach. (LW 31-2)

The “Untergang” of Ceyx’s kingdom occurs after his disappearance exactly as it was rehearsed by his unruly subjects on the night he declares his plans to leave.

Als die Nachricht von Ceyx Abschied die Enge der Kammern und Gänge verließ und die Höfe erreichte, wurde es laut. Betrunkene Stallburschen rannten Weibern nach, denen sie zuvor Roßwut in die Suppe und in den heißen Gewürzwein getan hatten und glaubten nun, dieser Sud, ein

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Liebestrank, würde ihnen in der Dunkelheit endlich zutreiben, was am Tag vor ihnen floh.[…] In einem der Ställe brach um die Mitternacht Feuer aus.[…] Das Gesinde, der ganze Hofstaat, hatte begonnen, sich von seinem Herrn, seinen Gesetzen und Ordnungen zu lösen, als wäre er längst fort und verschollen. (LW 28-9)

When Alcyone abandons the palace for a solitary vigil on shore,

Die Herrschaft des Verschollenen verfiel. Stallknechte torkelten in Ceyx Kleidern über die Kais und Marktplätze, äfften seine Gesten und seinen Tonfall nach und warfen mit Flaschen und Steinen nach seinem Standbild.[…] Pferde und Schweine, Tauben, Pfauen und selbst Schoßhunde rannten und stoben aus offenen Käfigen, Schlägen, Ställen und Einfriedigungen in die Wildnis davon. Was zurückblieb wurde weggezerrt oder geschlachtet (LW 36-7).

Alcyone finally sees Ceyx’ss corpse washed up on shore. When she flies to his side, she is transformed into a kingfisher. As her beak caresses the face of Ceyx he too is transformed into a bird. In this “Untergang” scenario, tragedy follows the realisation that the Tomi spectators share with Alcyone, “daß einer fortgehen konnte, wo er liebte.” (LW 28). Leaving the charmed circle of love and kingdom, Ceyx - whether driven by the need to consult the Delphic oracle or to do battle (LW 28) - is denied a return. The world he leaves behind collapses without his presence.

The Downfall of Three Heroes.

Cyparis the dwarf shows three films, “drei Tragödien […] ausgeschmückte Versionen des Untergangs dreier Helden, deren Namen in der eisernen Stadt bis dahin fremd gewesen waren: Hector, Hercules und Orpheus” (LW 106). The downfall of Troy is shown in images of “lodernde Felder aus Helmbüschen und bis an den Horizont wogende Plantagen starrender Lanzenschäfte, verwehrende Brände, Rauchwolken, die größer waren als der Himmel über die Stadt” (LW 107). The fiery canvas of the end of Troy is set against the dreadful death of its defender, Hector, torn apart by a pack of dogs. The second film in Cyparis’ trilogy of “Untergang,” tells of the fate of Hercules,

der alle Mühsal der Welt ertragen und alle ihre Gefahren überstehen und besiegen mußte, um sich schließlich mit seinen eigenen Händen zu zerfleischen; [er] verging […] am Zauber eines

36 The transformations wrought in the story will be dealt with in more detail in the later discussion of “ Verwandlung” in this chapter. 202

vergifteten Hemdes, das er sich ahnungslos überstreifte und dessen Gewebe augenblicklich mit seiner Haut verwuchs, auf seinem Leib wie siedendes Öl zu brennen begann und nicht anders wieder abzustreifen war als mit dem Leben selbst.(LW 107-8)

What fells Hercules here is the experience of mortality. He is reduced to the pain of being flesh and blood. Cyparis’ film of Hercules is confined to this experience in the Ransmayr text although further very brief information about the hero’s exploits is given in the Ovidisches Repertoire. The fate of Orpheus, which the third film of the hero trilogy portrays, is interrupted by the loud protestations of the missionary who denounces the villagers’ lack of respect on Good Friday. Enough of Orpheus’ death is revealed - “[er sollte] von in Pantherfelle und Rehdecken gehüllten Frauen gesteinigt werden, gehäutet und mit Beilen und Sicheln zerstückelt […]” (LW 108) - for the third of Cyparis’ films to be as gruesomely evocative of the torturous and agonising end of his fellow heroes. All three films are narratives of punishment and pain, which in the Ransmayr text centre on an individual subject experiencing the extremity of human suffering removed from a context of causality. Each subject, in literally being torn apart, is fragmented and essentially dissolved from human form. Each of these stories then forecasts a form of the “Auflösung” which is human fate at the end of the text. Of the three only Hercules’s transformation is described in the Ransmayr text (LW 108).

Naso – Exile as “Untergang.”

Cotta’s response to the fates of Hector, Hercules and Orpheus does not take the same form as that of the Tomi villagers, who groan in horrified sympathy. Cotta is transported back via the films’ images to his childhood schooldays in San Lorenzo, to the study rooms and the library, where the myths of these gods and heroes became the stuff of classroom lessons. “Leben und Tod des Hercules! Leben und Tod des Orpheus! Aus dem Gedächtnis und in Hexametern!” (LW 107). Further associations lead Cotta back to his hero Naso and the downfall of the great poet. “Wenn ein Mensch aus einer solchen Verehrung und Unnahbarkeit in die Verachtung stürzen konnte” (LW 110), then any downfall was possible. All was subject to transience, collapse and decline, when viewed in the context of Naso’s “Untergang.”

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Als Naso tatsächlich fiel, nahm Cotta das Wasserzeichen der Vergänglichkeit selbst an den Steinen wahr. Am Vergleich zwischen dem gläsernen Bild von San Lorenzo und dem schluchzenden Mann, der an einem wolkenlosen Dienstag im März sein Haus an der Piazza del Moro für immer verließ, wurde ihm zum erstenmal die federleichte Bauweise der Welt bewußt, die Anfälligkeit der zu Sand verfliegenden Gebirge, die Flüchtigkeit der Meere, die zu Wolkenspiralen verdampften und das Strohfeuer der Sterne (LW 111).

Despite this transience of fame and prestige, Naso’s banishment to the last world does not end the poet’s vision of himself as grand creator, a god rivalling Augustus. The Trachila garden menhirs proclaim “Ich habe ein Werk vollendet / das dem Feuer standhalten wird / und dem Eisen/selbst dem Zorn Gottes und/der allesvernichtenden Zeit” (LW 50). Exile from Rome, the “Untergang” of the popular poet, has resulted in the transformation of the author as well as his text. “Der Literat erhebt sich zum Schöpfer … sein Lebenswerk gehört nicht mehr in den Bereich der Literatur, es fällt schon unter der Sphäre der Schöpfung … Ransmayrs Naso hat die Welt in seinem Sinne verändert, ist eine Art Gott geworden.” 37

The Plague on Aegina.

Naso’s “Untergang,” his fall from grace in Rome and his banishment, his “Weg in die äußerste Einsamkeit, sein Weg an das Schwarze Meer” (LW 100) began with the narrative of “Untergang” which he related in his speech on the occasion of the opening of the stadium “Zu den Sieben Zufluchten.” The plague on Aegina is described in terms of catastrophe. After drought come “als erstes Zeichen des Unheils M illionen von Schlangen durch den Staub der Felder gekrochen,” animals die under harness and plough, and black boils burst forth on the bodies of the townsfolk. Misery and death were so widespread that:

[w]em bis zu dieser Stunde noch die Kraft dazu geblieben war, […] der tötete seinen Nächsten aus Mitleid und legte dann Hand as sich, stach zu, stürzte in eine Schlinge oder die Kalkklippen hinab oder fraß als letzte Arznei Kristallscherben und Glas (LW 62).

37 See Weihrauch, “ Metamorphoses und Metamorphosenschreiber.” Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt. Ovids ‘Metamorphosen’ und Christoph Ransmayrs ‘Letzte Welt’, 119. The transformation of Naso is further discussed in the following section. 204

Soon there is no earth left to bury the dead, no one to do the burying. Flies cover the cadavers in fields of corpses in their shimmering emerald and blue. M ost bodies have piled up under the shadow of an oak tree,38 the oldest tree of the island. The scenario of disease and death is still only for a moment before hordes of ants pour from the oak tree and stream over the bodies. The vision of “Untergang” is only temporary. The ants effect the transformation of the decaying human bodies. Naso’s story establishes a scene of environmental extremity, of plague and abnormality. These images stay with the reader as he/she walks with Cotta through the last world and notes the increasing similarity of events in the last world landscape; the heat, the plague proportions of animals (spiders, for example) and the abnormal behaviour of creatures in the last world. This first stage of Naso’s story of the plague on Aegina emphasises disease and decay as the fate of all organic, living things. Such images link the story to the wider narrative of existence in the last world.

“ … eine Offenbarung der Zukunft”

Echo literally becomes the mouthpiece for Naso’s stories in the last world, following Naso’s disappearance and Cotta’s arrival. Rather than merely echoing the final words or phrases of those speaking to her, her memories of Naso reproduce whole narratives which she communicates to the eager Cotta. Only one of these stories does not end with a “Versteinerung” scenario, “sondern mit der Verwandlung von Geröll in atmende Wesen, in Menschen” (LW 161).39 It is “die Geschichte des bevorstehenden Untergangs der Welt […], eine Offenbarung der Zukunft” (LW 162), the story of:

[d]er Untergang […] das Ende der wölfischen Menschheit – Naso habe die katastrophale Zukunft wie kein anderer erkannt, und vielleicht sei diese Prophetie auch der wahre Grund seiner Vertreibung aus Rom gewesen; wer wollte denn ausgerechnet in der größten und herrlichsten Stadt

38 From such images critics have, with justification, drawn the historical links between Ransmayr’s text and the Third Reich period. For example, “ Der direkte Bezug zu den Nationalsozialisten ergibt sich durch die Ideologievokabel “ Herren” und den Eichbaum, der seit je ein heiliger Baum des germanischen Gottes Donar ist, darüber hinaus ein Sinnbild für Sieg und Stärke.” From the oak is later born “ ein Heer von Arbeitern.” See Bornemann and Kiedaisch, “ Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt. Ovids ‘Metamorphosen’ und Christoph Ransmayrs ‘Letzte Welt’, 15. 39 This story from Echo’s Book of Stones will be further discussed as a narrative of transformation, one central to the homo homini lupus “ Grundmythos” in Ransmayr’s texts. However, at this point, my sole focus is its relevance as an “ Untergang” narrative. 205

der Welt an das Ende aller Größe und Herrlichkeit mit jener Leidenschaft erinnert werden, mit der Naso den Untergang vorhergesagt hatte? (LW 162)

However this story of the end of the wolfish human race is one unfamiliar to Cotta from his days as Naso’s acolyte in Rome. Echo tells of this future apocalyptic flood as though it has already happened. She communicates this narrative of flood and stone in fragmentary form, both hindered and aided by the booming of the breakers. The crashing waves become the flood of which she narrates. Echo leads Cotta through the narrative, much as she guides him through the “Bucht der Balustraden” (LW 161). He struggles to follow her, to hear her (LW 155). The Bay of Balustrades is appropriately the site of performance and spectating, the cliffs around it function as an ampitheatre overlooking the enactment of the rise and fall of the rhythms of nature and human existence. In Echo’s narrative the spectacle of “Untergang” is revealed; the flood sweeps all before it, ships rot and sink, birds settle exhausted down onto the waves and the ruins, “in den kahlen Alleen, durch Säulengänge und Arkaden glitten Delphine dahin; auf den Dachfirsten wuchsen Seeanemonen, auf Schornsteinen Korallen” (LW 164). Nature reclaims the spaces of human civilisation and the earth returns to stillness. But “diese Ruhe war keine Erlösung, sondern nur das böse Ende”(LW 164). In the face of Echo’s desire for a more consoling conclusion to this story (LW 165), Naso had apparently originally added two survivors, Deucalion and Pyrrha, whose story tells of the birth of the race of stone.40 At the point of “Untergang” in Echo’s retelling of Naso’s story, it is important to draw parallels between the sweeping clean of the human race from the face of the earth in Naso’s narrative and the process undergone in the last world. Unlike the historical Ovid’s narrative in which Jupiter’s rage at Lycaon gives grounds for the punishment of humankind, Naso’s story simply sets out the downfall of brutalised humanity as the future with no causal links. It is presented as a given that this destruction be enacted and the world of nature reassert a natural dominance. Similarly, in the last world, the rains, mudslides and earthquakes of the final scenes of the novel anticipate a “menschenleere” landscape. However, both Naso’s plague from the Aegina narrative and Echo’s “Untergang” fate of wolfish mankind have a second phase in the birth of a new race.

40 T he story of the birth of this new race of humankind is examined under “ Verwandlung” in this chapter. 206

The beginning of a new cycle is established. The quality of these transformations, however, gives ground for thought.

Arachne’s Book of Birds.

A vision of a natural landscape without the disturbing presence of humankind is represented in Arachne’s weavings. While Echo’s Book of Stones had related a world tied to the earth, albeit buffeted by rain, storm and flood; in Arachne’s Book of Birds, tapestry after tapestry revealed, “[…] der Himmel, leer, blau bewölkt oder stürmisch verhangen, immer aber belebt, gemustert von Vögeln im Flug und unterteilt von ihren Schwärmen” (LW 196). In the representation of birds in flight one could read:

Die Zeichen der Befreiung von aller Schwere […]. Wie abgründig die Erde auch war, stets zogen Vögel hoch oben über alle Hindernisse und Fallen hinweg; heiter, schwerelos […] als sei ihr Flug eine einzige, variantenreiche Verspottung der Erdgebundenheit und des aufrechten Ganges (LW 196).

In one of the last pictures Arachne shows Cotta, the soaring and liberating nature of flight is counterposed by the image of a literal “Untergang.”

Sehr fern, hart an der Schneide des Horizonts, sah Cotta zwei graue Schwingen wie die Arme eines Ertrinkenden im Wasser verschwinden, hochgereckt, hilflos […]. Dort in der Ferne war etwas Großes, Gefiedertes in die Wellen gestürzt, während die Möwen ungerührt im Aufwind standen […] … Icarus. (LW 197).

In seeking to conquer the alien element of sky, Icarus in Die letzte Welt has crashed back to the earth. The original Ovid myth finds intertextual echoes in the scene revealed in Arachne’s tapestry. Humankind’s ignorance, ambition and vanity appear the motivations behind the human penetration of the space of nature. Effortlessly, in contrast, the seagulls hold their space. Slowly, through such media, the revelation of Naso’s Metamorphoses was becoming clear; it was “eine große, von den Steinen bis zu den Wolken aufsteigende Geschichte der Natur” (LW 198). For the reader an integral part of this perception of Naso’s Metamorphoses text as being a story of nature is the consideration of the unimportant role that the human being plays within the world of nature in the last world in terms of the “Untergang” scenarios and narratives produced.

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The final “Untergang” narrative of Die letzte Welt is Arachne’s visual text, one which shows no new beginning in terms of human existence. The narratives of “Untergang” related by Naso, Echo and Arachne in their various forms in Die letzte Welt reveal the role of the human being within a wider realm of existence to be a disruptive one and ultimately temporary.

Thies’ Nightmares.

In considering the role of the human being within this wider realm of existence it is necessary to look at the “Endzeit” narrative which Thies brings to Tomi. Although the naming of Thies places this character within the mythic milieu of Naso’s Metamorphoses characters, his experiences, rather than being lifted from Naso’s classical text, are identifiable as belonging to the history of the twentieth century - a temporal site outside of the last world, but directly linked to it through this “Endzeit” narrative. In this way, similar to Echo’s “Untergang” narrative, the temporal dimension of apocalypse is problematised. Is the last world a post-apocalyptic space?41 Echo describes “die künftige Flut so bestimmt wie eine Katastrophe der Vergangenheit” (LW 163). In the last world Thies dreams still of his experiences as a soldier in a European war. These dreams are visions of hell, expressed in apocalyptic images of fire and water. “[Er] war der letzte Veteran einer geschlagenen versprengten Armee, die auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Wut selbst das Meer in Brand gesetzt hat” (LW 260). A vision of the “Untergang” of the human race is replayed for Thies through the medium of his nightmares. He sees and hears once more the thunder of artillery fire, the sinking of cruisers and hospital ships, seas and cities in flame. The central image of Thies’ “Untergang” vision, however, is one familiar to the reader. The twentieth century cataclysm, the Holocaust, is played out continuously for Thies.

In diesem steinernen, fensterlosen Raum waren die Bewohner eines ganzen Straßenzuges zusammengepfercht und mit Giftgas erstickt worden. Das Tor hatte dem Ansturm der Todesangst, der Qual und Verzweiflung standgehalten, einer Welle keuchender, um Atem ringender Menschen,

41 In the context of posthistoire, the apocalypse has already occurred. As Baudrillard asserts, “Das wirkliche nukleare Ereignis wird nicht stattfinden, weil es schon stattgefunden hat.” His “ Endzeit” is the end of the real, all that follows being simulation. Jean Baudrillard, Der Tod der Moderne, Eine Diskussion, (Tübingen, 1983) 104. See Klaus R Scherpe, “ Dramatisierung und Entdramatisierung des Untergangs,” Die rekonstruierte Moderne: Studien zur deutschen Literatur nach 1945, Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte (Köln; Böhlau, 1992) 216.

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die in den Ritzen und Fugen des Tores vergeblich nach einem Hauch Zugluft gesucht hatten; die Starken waren auf den Leichnamen der Schwachen höher und höher gekrochen […] Der Kampf war jedesmal längst vorüber, und die Opfer lagen mit offenen Mündern, in Krämpfen erstarrt, wenn Thies den ersten Torflügel öffnete und aus einer Wolke bestialischen Gestanks die Ordnung der Menschen auf sich zustürzen sah (LW 261-2).

Thies remains in the underworld, in the realm of death through the medium of these nightmares.42 And “[in Wahrheit] lebte Thies nur noch für die Toten […] Allein in den Gesichtern der Toten glaubte er manchmal einen Ausdruck der Unschuld zu entdecken” (LW 265). His “ungeschütztes Herz” identifies Thies as symbolically more vulnerable and sensitive than most to the fate of all humankind, mortality and more perceptive regarding revelations of the brutality of humankind. Thies’ personal narrative of “Untergang” began “[i]rgendwann in [den] Kriegsjahren, als beinah alles was zu vernichten war und zu verlieren, vernichtet und verloren war und viel umkämpftes Land wieder an die Wildnis zurückfiel” (LW 262). In deserting, he flees down ravines and passes, which were “[v]on Trümmern, Kadavern und Toten gesäumt” (LW 263). The image of the fields of corpses found in Naso’s vision of the plague of Aegina reappears, this time in the human-made tragedy of war in Thies’ narrative. Attention is drawn to this particular narrative of Thies’ by the way it steps outside of the intertextual play between Naso and Ovid’s Metamorphoses texts in Die letzte Welt. Thies’ nightmares lift catastrophe and “Untergang” out of a literary context into a modern historical one. The short narratives of “Untergang” in Die letzte Welt are predominantly works on myth within a greater structure, the “Grundmythos” of “Untergang,” which acts to interpret the collapse in the last world of a reality based on rationality. The experience of “Untergang” confirms “[eine] zum Inventar der Moderne gehörende Absage an Fortschrittsdenken und Geschichtsteleologie.”43 This “Untergang” is evident in the cumulative changes to the physical, social and psychological environment of the last world. It is not a “weltvernichtendes Inferno sondern [ein] allmähliches Ende menschlicher Zivilisation.”44

42 Ransmayr’s “ Ovidisches Repertoire” establishes Thies the character as intimately connected with the world of death, his namesake Dis (or Pluto) “ Gott der Unterwelt und Herr der Schatten” (LW 317). 43 Knoll, “ Untergang und kein Ende: Zur Apokalyptik in Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt und Morbus Kitahara,” 219. 44 Knoll, 214.

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In fact, the way in which these narratives are related and enacted in the last world suggests that the experience of apocalypse is simultaneously occurring in the present, has already happened, will be happening. Seen through the medium of Thies “Untergang” nightmares, the last world is temporally located for the reader post- Holocaust; an event which may be claimed to be the definitive apocalyptic experience of the twentieth century. Echo’s story of the race of stone is told as though their birth has already occurred. Once again, historical echoes resound through the text. Yet Echo’s narrative of the Flood is said to be a vision of the future. For Pythagoras the apocalyptic end of the world is already occurring. When questioned by Cotta whether Naso had told him stories of the “Untergang der Welt” Pythagoras reponds,

Dort unten, am Strand, in Tomi! werde das Ende der Welt doch deutlicher sichtbar als in erträumten oder erfundenen Schreckbildern. In diesen Ruinen, diesen verrauchten, verwilderten Gassen und brachliegenden Feldern, in diesen Dreckslöchern und den Rußgesichtern ihrer Bewohner, in jedem Winkel und Grunzlaut Tomis sei die Zukunft doch bereits hörbar, sichtbar, greifbar. Wozu Hirngespinste? Im nächstbesten Jauchetümpel der eisernen Stadt spiegle sich doch die Zukunft bereits, jeder Tümpel ein Fenster in die von der Zeit verwüstete Welt. (LW 188-9).

In the final deluge of the text, Cotta believes himself transplanted into Echo’s Book of Stones. The flood is beginning now in earnest. Cotta experiences the last world as an apocalyptic space, its cataclysm pulsing about him. But the last world is paradoxically also post-apocalyptic and potentially apocalyptic. Catastrophe is its past, present and its future, as shown in the narratives and events which structure its reality. Put simply, apocalypse is a constant reality in the last world.

The Last World of Morbus Kitahara.

Although Morbus Kitahara is not the main focus of discussion in this chapter, the novel is also structured by narratives of “Untergang” and “Apokalypse.” More so than Die letzte Welt, Morbus Kitahara represents a post-apocalyptic world. The landscape of Moor and the uplands is decidedly dystopic, a post-war wasteland, torn up by human hand rather than spontaneously re-colonised by nature. For characters such as Ambras, the end has already happened and yet he lives on in this state of the suspended past. The definitive rupture in historical experience in this text is the European war - and as becomes more apparent – specifically, as the Holocaust experience of one of the central

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characters. The concentration camp experience fragmentarily depicted in the text through Ambras and the experience of other minor characters refers to a “central and defining trauma – an apocalyptic event – in Western culture.”45 The apocalyptic event, in order to be properly apocalyptic, clarifies and illuminates in its destructive moment the true nature of what has been brought to an end.46 In Morbus Kitahara, what has been brought to an end is the possibility for innocence in human relations after the revelation of human potential for cruelty and denial. It is this recognition, that “der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf,” which most comprehensively informs the core myth of human existence in the novel. A causal chain of events leading to the downfall of humankind is more clearly defined in Ransmayr’s third novel. The “Untergang” in central Europe begins with war, with the Holocaust as its apocalyptic defining moment. The period post-war in Morbus Kitahara is still resonant with catastrophe, as the Stellamour plan enacts the re- barbarisation of the occupied populations. The community of Moor lives in a post- apocalyptic world which becomes increasingly dark and brutal with no possibility of redemption. In contrast, the apocalypse narrative developed in Die letzte Welt admits the possibility of change, that is in the “Verwandlung” of characters and the world of nature.

The “Grundmythos” of “Verwandlung.”

According to the laws of thermodynamics and entropy, matter cannot be created or destroyed. Energy also can neither be created not destroyed, but it may be transformed. This physical principle applies symbolically in the last world as well. The disorder within the last world intensifies, especially in the final scenes of Die letzte Welt, but no symbolic “Kältetod” or “Wärmetod” result. In fact, the abnormalities in nature, the disorder and entropic decline of man-made structures of civilisation, and the disintegration of social relationships in the last world occur in a context of reconstitution, re-growth and transformation which, at times, occur discontinuously with the breakdowns listed.

45 James Berger, After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999) Introduction, xvi. 46 Berger, 5. 211

Apocalypse begins with “Untergang,”47 but despite catastrophic decline no definitive apocalyptic end is reached in the novel.48 Instead the landscape and characters are transformed. With this in mind, then, it is necessary to examine “Verwandlung” as a core myth in Die letzte Welt. Transformation is defined here in terms of a change of form or being which signals a new beginning. While it is, of course, possible to define the entropic breakdown characteristic of the last world as a transformation in negative terms, it is the liberatory dimension of “Verwandlung” which is of most interest here. The phenomenon of “Verwandlung” increasingly demands the focus and structures the story of the last world. A liberatory “Verwandlung” acts as a creative and opposing principle in the face of what initially is the dominant narrative of “Untergang.” In response to the overwhelming “absolutism of reality,” characters in the last world appear to change their form and become elements of the natural world; stones, animals, birds, even sound. Even the transformation of the text itself, whether defined as work on myth or a poststructuralist act of reception, occurs – along with a transformation of the concept of authorship.49 The examination of “Verwandlung” in this context necessitates the revisiting of earlier and further definitions of apocalypse. Despite the fact that for apocalypse “der moderne Wortgebrauch teilt mit dem biblischen nur den Aspekt der Vernichtung, nicht der Erneuerung,”50 a number of contemporary critics have continued to emphasise the notion of apocalypse as a story of rebirth after destruction.51 The biblical Apocalypse is not a pessimistic concept despite the Last Judgement and the end of the world.52 Apocalypse, while presenting the final battle between the Christ and the Anti-Christ as a “Weltuntergang” scenario is, after all, a “Heilsgeschichte” which ends with the return of Christ and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. To see apocalypse in the last decades of the twentieth century as postmodern is to ascribe to it a meaning other than that of a catastrophic final-point destruction. Apocalypse revisits, incorporates and at times, subverts a whole host of

47 Vondung, Die Apokalypse in Deutschland, 340. 48 As Knoll states, “ Untergang stellt bei Ransmayr nicht Zäsur, sondern Zustand dar,” although I would add that the intensification of catastrophic events in the natural world does similarly intensify the atmosphere of “Untergang” in the text. Knoll, 220. 49 A detailed examination of this aspect of transformation in Die letzte Welt may be found in Angela Fitz, “ Wir blicken in ein ersonnenes Sehen: Wirklichkeits- und Selbstkonstruktion in zeitgenössischen Romanen, Sten Nadolny - Christoph Ransmayr - Ulrich Woelk.” Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft 60 (Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1998) 215-304. 50 Kaiser presents a summary of the various transformations of the concept of apocalypse in his introduction. Kaiser, Poesie der Apokalypse, 11. 51 See, for example, Lilienthal and Kaiser. 52 Broich,”Apokalypse und Entropie als konkurrierende Konzepte zur Beschreibung des Weltendes in der englischsprachigen Literature der Gegenwart,” 292. 212

earlier definitions and is also problematised in its temporal location as a future event.53 In Ransmayr’s text, the transformation of the last world results in the disintegration of human form while the natural world is reshaped. Furthermore, the transformations which characterise the text in specific micro-narratives are part of a textual transformation which revivifies the original Ovid text and reasserts its relevance to a late twentieth century readership.

The Transformation of Texts and Authors.

The experience of “Verwandlung” is widespread in Die letzte Welt. “Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt” is simultaneously the phrase read by Cotta on Pythagoras’ pennons at Trachila (LW 15) and the operating principle of the last world. Before examining how “Verwandlung” operates as a narrative of hope, a brief examination of the transformation of the text itself will be undertaken. As stated previously, the inherent nature of myth itself is protean, and the myth narrative is not fixed and definitive, but capable of constant flexibility and alteration. In fact, this characteristic is the very one which assures the continued relevance of myth through the ages, as a narrative which reflects and communicates the “Zeitgeist” by the way it is transformed by each author and received by its reader. An examination of “Verwandlung” as a “Grundmythos” of human existence begins in Die letzte Welt with the recognition that Ransmayr’s novel itself is ‘transformed’ – a re-worked Metamorphoses text. Moreover the historical Ovid in producing his Metamorphoses had also worked with myths already familiar and established as creative material.54 He had transformed these stories in his own text. As Krättli points out, the creator of the original Metamorphoses,

53 The postmodern apocalypse is read as a function of the individual theorist’s agenda, for example. “ [Die Apokalypse] ist ein Aphrodisiakum. Sie ist ein Angsttraum. Sie ist eine Ware wie jede andere. Sie ist, meinetwegen, eine Metapher für den Zusammenbruch des Kapitalismus […] Sie tritt uns in allen möglichen Gestalten und Verkleidungen entgegen, als warnende Zeigefinger, und als wissenschaftliche Prognose, als kollektive Fiktion und als sektiererischer Weckruf, als Produkt der Unterhaltungsindustrie, als Aberglauben, als Trivialmythos, als Vexierbild, als Kick, als Jux, als Projektion […] eine zweite Realität, ein Bild das wir uns machen, eine unaufhörliche Produktion unserer Phantasie, die Katastrophe im Kopf.” Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “Zwei Randbemerkungen zum Weltuntergang” Kursbuch, May (1978): 1. 54 “ …schon Ovid selbst [greift] griechische bzw. römische Mythen in den Metamorphoses produktiv auf und arbeitet sie um.” Fitz, 241. 213

erweist sich darin als ein Spätling der Kultur, ein Alexandriner, der über die alten Sagen Bescheid weiss und darüber verfügt, aber nicht mehr in ihrem Bann steht. Er denkt und fühlt nicht mythisch, sondern bedient sich der Stoffe und Gestalten, der tausenderlei Begebenheiten und Geschichten, die sich um sie ranken.55

Bartsch adds, “aber ihm sei doch die ‘psychologische Berechtigung’ des naiven mythischen Weltbildes ebenso selbstverständlich wie das naturwissenschaftliche Wissen seiner Zeit.”56 With this objectivity, and yet with a validation of the mythic, Ovid in his Metamophoses created a potent and enduring source of material for work on myth in the centuries to come. In fact, “[d]ie europäische Phantasie ist ein weitgehend auf Ovid zentriertes Beziehungsgeflecht.”57 Ransmayr’s project in writing Die letzte Welt was to write a Metamorphoses for contemporary times, a project initiated by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and commissioned for his series, Die andere Bibliothek. His work on myth was to be a work of fantasy and transformation for a twentieth century audience. Already

[a]n [d]em Text [“ Das Labyrinth” in Das Wasserzeichen der Poesie] wird deutlich, daß Ransmayr bereits in der Anfangsphase seiner Beschäftigung mit Ovid nicht an einer reinen Übersetzung interessiert ist, sondern Ovids Metamorphosen als Ausgangsmaterial für eigenes literarisches Arbeiten verwendet.58

Of interest, of course, is the way in which the transformation of the original Ovid’s myth material into Die letzte Welt text reveals Ransmayr’s perception of a certain “Zeitgeist” which structures the last world. This perception may be revealed in the differences between the original myth material and the way it is used in Ransmayr’s text. These differences will be briefly commented upon when relevant. These specific differences are not, however, the central focus in the following discussion. They are seen as part of a larger context of “Verwandlung.”

55 Krättli continues, “ Er spielt damit. Hätte er das Kino, das Tonband, den Computer gekannt, er hätte sie wahrscheinlich eingesetzt, um zu kombinieren und die grenzenlosen Möglichkeiten der Kybernetik daran auszuprobieren.” Krättli’s comment stresses Ovid’s innovative and fluid approach. Anton Krättli, “ Metamorphosen; zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt,” Schweitzer Monatshefte, 68/12 December (1988): 1025. 56 Bartsch cites Michael von Albrecht, the translator of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (München) Afterword, 387. In Bartsch, “ Dialog mit Antike und Mythos. Christoph Ransmays Ovid-Roman Die letzte Welt,” 125. 57 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 383. 58 Fitz, 215. 214

In terms of the novel’s thematics and style, “in der Letzten Welt wird … geradezu exemplarisch durchgespielt, was die literarische Mythen- und Metamorphoses-Tradition schon immer ausgemacht hat: das M oment des Wandels.” 59 Die letzte Welt is not just a contemporary version of Ovid’s history of the world from its primitive origins in chaos to the glory of civilisation in Rome under Augustus. It sets this story in reverse and portrays the history of the world from the high point of civilisation back to the state of chaos. But, in describing the rising of a Mount Olympus from out of the heaving earth at the end of the text, an indication of the beginning of a new cycle is clear. In this reversal, the notion of the historical development of civilisation in terms of a linear progression (linked as it is in the text to the world of Rome) is rejected. Its reversal culminates in a state of chaos which is antithetical to and subversive of the Roman structures of order and repression. This state of chaos in the epic of antiquity is, according to Blumenberg, a condition which demands a cosmic transformation.60 Seen from the perspective of those repressed under a totalitarian system in Rome, the state of chaos and the transformations possible in the last world may be deemed to be liberating. The mad joyousness communicated by Cotta in his revelation concerning Naso’s project in the final vision of an earth free of humankind is condemnatory not just of a Rome become totalitarian, but supportive of an exploited and damaged nature which shrugs off the last vestiges of human civilisation. As Cotta realises,

Naso hatte schließlich seine Welt von den Menschen und ihren Ordnungen befreit, indem er jede Geschichte bis an ihr Ende erzählte. Dann war er wohl auch selbst eingetreten in das menschenleere Bild … (LW 287).

A Narrative of Hope?

To see Ransmayr’s Die letzte Welt as more than a “Katastrophentext” focused solely on “Untergang” is to understand how apocalypse operates in the text under the extended definition of apocalypse as redemptive and renewing. Such an understanding re- introduces the notion of hope and a utopic dimension to Ransmayr’s depiction of human existence. The following discussion questions how successfully “Verwandlung”

59 Fitz, 241. 60 Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos, 384.

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operates as a narrative of hope within Die letzte Welt. The way in which nature is instrumental in recovering the space denied it under human civilisation and culture problematises the place to which human beings are entitled after the collapse of the structures of order and power in the last world. The nature of specific transformations in the novel also impacts to an extent on the narrative of hope which “Verwandlung” develops. In Die letzte Welt this narrative of hope relates also to the place human beings occupy within a reconstituted last world space of nature and, thus, is strongly related to the aesthetics of humility in the text. As previously discussed, despite exhibiting an entropic breakdown characteristic of the last world, nature is also potentially the vehicle and crucible for the act of its healing. The objectification of nature effected by the human policy of domination and exploitation has resulted in the scars nature bears in the last world. As the systems of civilisation that have wrought this damage collapse, nature once more becomes active rather than passive in the face of a human presence. This action consists of the reclaiming of excavated and built sites of human work and habitation. The further Cotta ventures from Rome in his journey through the mountains to Trachila, the more clearly the ruins of the civilised presence in the last world are seen. In Trachila the work of nature in reclaiming territory is most evident.

Trachila. Diese eingebrochenen Mauern aus Kalkstein, Erkerfenster, aus denen Föhren und Krüppelkiefern ihre Äste streckten, diese geborstenen, in rußgeschwärzte Küchen, in Schlafkammern und Stuben gesunkenen Dächer aus Schilf und Schiefer, und die im Leeren stehengebliebenen Torbögen, durch die hindurch nur noch die Zeit verflog – das mußten einmal fünf, sechs Häuser gewesen sein, Ställe, Scheunen… (LW 14)

Later, the fate of Trachila after rockslides and earth tremors was such that;

Trachila lag unter Steinen: In jener wüsten Abgeschiedenheit, in die sich Roms Dichter vor der Feindseligkeit der eisernen Stadt geflüchtet hatte, konnten selbst Ruinen nicht bestehen. Die zerfallenen Mauern des Weilers, das Haus des Verbannten, der Brunnen – fast alles was hier noch an das Dasein von Menschen erinnert hatte, war zermalmt und fortgerissen worden von einer Steinlawine, deren breite, von Trümmern und Splittern übersäte Bahn hinaufwies an ein Bollwerk von Schroffen und Überhängen. Aus diesen Wänden dort oben mußte die Lawine losgebrochen sein, ein Sturm aus Steinen, der innerhalb von Sekunden auf Trachila zu und über Trachila hinweggerast war […] Kaum ein Mauerrest, kaum ein Fundament hatte dieser Gewalt widerstanden. (LW 235-6)

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The rain, mudslides and earthquakes transform the landscape in the final scenes in Die letzte Welt. The start of the rain sets in train a revival of the world of nature while the “Endzeit” scenario of humankind appears confirmed in the image of flood. It is the natural world which holds the key to the cleansing, rebirth and transformation of the last world.

Die Zeit der Menschen schien in diesem Regen stillzustehen, die Zeit der Pflanzen zu fliegen. Die Luft war so warm und schwer, daß noch in den dünnsten Krumen und Nährböden Sporen keimten, Samen aufsprangen und namenlose Sprößlinge ihre Blätter entrollten. Wer nach einer einzigen Stunde Schlaf erwachte, glaubte sich von Schimmelfäden umsponnen […] Verstohlen und mit glasigen Wurzeln zuerst, dann mit grünen Fingerchen, betörenden Blüten und schließlich mit zähen, von bemooster Rinde gepanzerten Armen griff die Wildnis nach der eisernen Stadt. […] Das wuchernde Grün ahmte die Formen, die es umfing, anfänglich spielerisch und wie zum Spott nach, wuchs dann aber nur noch seinen eigenen Gesetzen von Form und Schönheit gehorchend weiter und unnachgiebig über alle Zeichen menschlicher Kunstfertigkeit hinweg. (LW 270-71).

Even the menhirs of Trachila, testament to Naso, the omniscient author’s assertion of immortality, are overrun with snails and their slime, then finally overturned and shattered by the earthquakes in the upper valley. The shattering of stone reveals a wealth of natural treasure. “Erz. Das Geröll, das Trachilas Ruinen unter sich begraben oder fortgerissen hatte, war Bleiglanz und Silbererz; eine schreckliche Welle des Reichtums […]” (LW 237). Stone sweeps away the ruins of human habitation, revealing to Cotta the underlying beauty of nature. With one tectonic upsurge, these metals which had been desperately mined for, scrambled after by humans (who had imposed what is essentially an arbitrary value upon them) lie exposed as the simple geographical structures of nature. This transformation of nature may be read as a narrative of hope. Nature reasserts its power and beauty which had been lost or exploited in its domination by human hand. The transformation of characters and Metamorphoses stories also signal new (textual) possibilities, new (textual) potential and infinite (textual) variety in the last world. Ransmayr transforms the historical Ovid’s Metamorphoses stories in Die letzte Welt into events occurring within the conscious and subconscious experiences of the last world inhabitants. The pennons and rags covered in Pythagoras’ scribblings had also survived the onslaught of nature in Trachila, and fragmentarily offer up Naso’s

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narratives of transformation strung across the landscape. The stories of Alcyone and Ceyx, Io and Argus, Hector, Hercules and Orpheus are also related in fragmentary yet recognisable form, through the media of film and dream. Other inhabitants of the last world such as Lycaon, Echo, Arachne, Tereus, Procne, Philomela, Cyparis, Battus are gradually revealed as characters within the Metamorphoses text. Their metamorphoses in the last world bear varying degrees of similarity to the original text. The gods of the Metamorphoses, however, are reduced to masks in the carnival parade in Die letzte Welt. Otherwise they are absent. They have been usurped by Naso in his role as writer/creator. Other figures from the original Metamorphoses had become characters in Naso’s plays in Rome (Midas, performed to scandal and protest) or visit the shores of exile as other minor characters. (Iason on board his Argo brings supplies to Tomi). The characters of the last world are held in thrall by the images of their own mythic milieu. They re-tell and re-live each story endlessly and await the dwarf’s return.

Alljährlich erstand so auf Tereus Mauer, unter den Handgriffen des Liliputaners eine Welt, die den Menschen der eisernen Stadt so fern ihrer eigenen schien, so unerreichbar und zauberhaft, daß sie noch Wochen, nachdem Cyparis wieder in der Weitläufigkeit der Zeit verschwunden war, keine andere Geschichten besprachen als Versionen und Nacherzählungen der nun für ein weiteres Jahr wieder erloschenen Lichtspiele. (LW 24)

The villagers had a similar experience around the fire with Naso. They find their own stories in Naso’s text of life, which he reads out of the flames and ashes. Naso turns their lives into poetry, the inhabitants of the last world then transform Naso’s stories into their own.61 They re-live these stories in their imagination and conversation. The textual transformation of the characters of the last world is, on a very direct level, made accessible by Ransmayr’s attachment of the Ovidisches Repertoire to the main body of the text. “Gestalten der Letzten Welt” are listed in parallel with “Gestalten der Alten Welt,” which is compiled with detail taken either from Ovid’s mythology or his Epistolae ex Ponto (LW 289). The attachment of the Ovidisches Repertoire obviously reinforces the perception of Die letzte Welt as a “work on myth.” The novel’s intertextuality is served up to the reader without any great demand on his/her experience in classic mythology. However, any criticism of Ransmayr’s acceptance of a lazy or less-than-erudite readership for his text ignores the postmodern intentionality of using such a device. After all, the transformation of the original Ovid text is the opening

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premise of Die letzte Welt’s production. Subtlety, we must assume, is not the stuff of stylistic devices such as intertextuality in this text. For Naso, also, the Metamorphoses text he recreates in exile is transformed from that which he wrote in Rome. From the glowing embers of his fire in Tomi he draws inspiration in the recreation of those stories he last left in ashes before his exile. For Cotta too, the Metamorphoses he finds in the last world differs from the text possible in Rome. The Metamorphoses text in Rome is only revealed in fragments by Naso who, provocatively, leaves his audience/readership speculating. In contrast to modernity’s notion of text, history and society as institution, Die letzte Welt’s last world undercuts the belief in structure for both the text itself and the world it represents. Events in the last world reveal that a text is in a continual process of being rewritten and received in the experiences of the characters. The transformation of many of the Metamorphoses stories in the last world reflects the identification and connection that the last world cast as well as the reader find in the narratives. In this context “Verwandlung” is a narrative of hope offering the promise of limitless scope, inspiration and magic. The characters of the last world are themselves transformed. Cotta metamorphoses into a creature of the last world, relinquishing the Roman identity with which he had arrived. In the absence of Naso, Cotta interprets the last world through Pythagoras’ philosophy, Echo and Arachne’s interpretations of Naso’s visions and Fama’s everyday gossip. Cotta’s search for Naso intensifies after Echo’s disappearance. It is a confirmation of his transformation that he comes to recognise the Metamorphoses text in the fabric of reality in the last world. His final act of transformation is his seeking of his place within this text: “Die einzige Schrift, die noch zu entdecken blieb, lockte Cotta ins Gebirge: [es] würde ein schmales Fähnchen sein – [es] hatte doch nur zwei Silben zu tragen […] sein eigener Name.” (LW 287-8). Other characters are also transformed, although their metamorphoses may be seen more in terms of work on myth, their stories adapted from the original Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These characters undergo physical, external changes which in some cases appear to reflect an inner quality or desire. Similar to the experience of “Untergang” in the novel, the “Verwandlung” of last world characters is not developed in terms of causes and reasons. No punishment is handed down from the gods. Augustus is feared but is too far away. His punishments are confined to the realm of banishments and surveillance. There appears no moral or ethical reason for the transformations in

61 See Fitz, 268-71. 219

Tomi; there is no context of punishment, help or reward.62 In this context, the reading of “Verwandlung” as a narrative of hope becomes increasingly problematic. Lycaon, for example, in the Ransmayr text is Cotta’s laconic landlord. His transformation into a wolf has none of the correlation of essence and form of Ovid’s murderous and treacherous Lycaon.63 Cotta finds the wolf’s cadaver feasted upon by vultures and flies in the ruins of Trachila (LW 236). Battus, in being turned to stone, is removed from his compulsion to touch and feel everything - but is also removed from the experience of being accepted as “ein M ensch unter Menschen” (LW 211). He is left frozen in an attitude of worship before the episcope. The murderous search of Tereus for Procne and Philomela after his discovery of Itys’ body ends in the transformation of all three. Procne whose corpulence had worked as a defence against Tereus’ blows refinds a sleek beauty as a swallow, Philomela regains her voice as a nightingale. However the bird which pursues them is the hoopoe, whose appearance suggests a readiness for battle.64 However other transformations in Die letzte Welt are presented more positively. The dwarf, Cyparis, “sehnte sich […] nach Schlankheit, nach Größe und Erhabenheit. Aufragen wollte er” (LW 24). Falling asleep during a film, he would dream of trees,

[d]ann sprangen ihm an den Füßen die Nägel auf, und aus seinen krummen Beinen krochen Wurzeln, die rasch stark wurden und zäh und ihn tiefer und tiefer mit seinem Ort zu verbinden begannen. Schützend lebten sich die Ringe seiner Jahre um sein Herz. Er wuchs. (LW 25)

In fantasy the dwarf grew, his size and strength that of a tree, anchored fast in the ground. His transformation is one which takes him literally back to nature and brings Cyparis an experience of “den Trost und die Kühle der Erde” (LW 25). Other stories of transformation serve other purposes. In Trachila Cotta dreams the story of Io and Argos in Naso’s hut and sees the transformation of Argos into a peacock (LW 79-81). At this early stage of Cotta’s sojourn in the last world such an event could only happen for him in the realm of dreams. Later he accepts Battus’ turning to stone as a conscious, everyday experience, as do the Tomi villagers. Echo’s

62 Weihrauch, “ Metamorphosen und Metamorphosenschreiber,” ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt’ Ovids ‘Metamorphoses’ und Christoph Ransmays ‘Letzte Welt,’ 10. 63 The fate of Lycaon is described thus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: “ Lycaon, a man notorious for his savagery … uttered howling noises …His clothes changed into bristling hairs, his arms to legs … His own savage nature showed in his rabid jaws, and he now directed against the flocks his innate lust for killing.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Innes, 34-5.

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disappearance/transformation, however, occurs at a stage of Cotta’s own transformation into a creature of the last world, when he still is driven to seek explanations and answers.65 Echo suffers from the absence of the top, protective layer of skin, a condition which periodically ravages and transforms her beauty. She is akin to stone. Cotta sees her as “eine zierlicher Skulptur aus einem Konglomerat brüchiger Steine” (LW 170). Echo is herself a medium of metamorphosis.

Viehhirten wie Erzkocher suchten sie im Schutz der Dunkelheit manchmal in ihrer Höhle auf, um sich in Echos Armen, fern von ihren harten, geplagten Frauen in Säuglinge, in Herren oder in Tiere zu verwandeln. Ihre Liebhaber wußten sich durch Echos undurchdringliche Verschwiegenheit vor allen Vorwürfen und aller Scham geschützt. (LW 103).

After Echo’s revelation of the “Untergang” of humanity and the birth of the men of stone, her function in the last world is at an end. The echoes which resound as Cotta calls for her show the reader the quality of transformation the last world nymph has undergone. Pythagoras, in Die letzte Welt, is the mad servant of Naso. He is an expert in the philosophy and practice of the transience of existence. In the Ransmayr text Pythagoras still maintains his belief in the transmigration of souls (LW 252). He finds in Naso’s answers and stories all of his own ideas – and in the face of such confirmation begins to record them on every possible surface. In this way, Pythagoras is able to mutter when Cotta approaches him as to Naso’s whereabouts and that of the Metamorphoses with, “der da will unser Buch” (my italics). Pythagoras’ actions in attempting to fix the revelations of “Verwandlung” in signs across the last world landscape controvert his earlier philosophy. He abandons his mission later to the constant transformation wrought by time and nature in the garden at Trachila. The graveyard of signs bearing witness to the author’s vanity is overgrown and covered with the slime of snails. The characters discussed above are subject to the dynamics of change in the last world or are agents of the communication of this existential truth or both. Their experience and actions reveal the all-pervasive character of “Verwandlung” in the last

64 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. McInnes, 153. 65 Pachale calls Cotta “ der Aufklärer,” the seeker of explanations in the last world. Such a designation again reinforces a perception of Cotta as a creature of Rome, before his prolonged stay in Tomi and his transformation into a creature of the last world. Eva Pachale, “ Metamorphose als Prinzip,” ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt’. Ovids ‘Metamorphoses’ und Christoph Ransmayr ‘Letzte Welt,’ 7.

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world. Some of these transformations would strongly indicate that the phenomenon of metamorphosis is a narrative of hope in the novel while others may be interpreted in a more ambivalent fashion. However, the two stories of transformation discussed in the following section leave no doubt that “Verwandlung” cannot finally be judged a narrative of hope, of redemption and re-birth in Die letzte Welt.

From Ants and Stone.

Two earlier stories of “Untergang” discussed above, the plague of Aegina and the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, also end in transformations and it is appropriate at this point to examine the quality of these transformations. After the plague on Aegina, the corpses piled under the huge oak are transformed by the hordes of ants which pour from the tree.

[Sie] verteilten sich in vielen Adern über die Leichenfelder und ergriffen dort von allen Leerräumen Besitz eroberten, gegen die Übermacht der Fliegen die Augenhöhlen, die offenen Münder, die Bäuche, Gehörgänge und die flachen Senken, die an der Stelle der Pestbeulen geblieben waren […] verdichteten sich zu neuen, zuckenden Muskeln, zu Augen, Zungen und Herzen […] wurden zu Armen und Beinen […] auch zu Gesichtszügen, zum Ausdruck und Mienenspiel; […] wurden so vollends zum neuen Geschlecht von Aegina.(LW 63)

Despite the at times quite repellent imagery of this transformation, Naso ends his speech using the analogy of the oak tree and the ant people to show the triumph of the new stadium and the potential of the citizens of Rome. The stadium will also be “ein Ort der Verwandlung und Wiedergeburt, ein steinerner Kessel, in dem aus hunderttausenden Ausgelieferten, Untertanen und Hilflosen ein Volk gekocht werde.” However the ant people are described as an unquestioning mass, following its leaders in both triumph and misery to the extremes of the earth. In war they are fighters, in defeat they are slaves (LW 64). Such a description subverts the expectation of a glorious new beginning, a liberation from the bonds of mortal disease and decay. Indeed, in terms of the imagery used, as Kiedaisch and Bornemann point out, the race born from the

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propaganda of the Third Reich is eerily similar to this race born of ants.66 This transformation appears to offer a new human race adapted perfectly to a totalitarian system. Deucalion and Pyrrha in Echo’s Book of Stones are the sole survivors after the cataclysmic flood. The Ransmayr narrative differs subtlely from the original Metamorphoses text. Both sets of survivors are left in awful isolation. Ovid’s Deucalion and Pyrrha appeal to Themis for advice on how to repair the destruction of the earth and are given an oracle upon the interpretation of which follows the birth of a new race. In the absence of the gods in Die letzte Welt, the two are the uncomprehending progenitors of the new race, a birth which appears random and accidental - in contrast to the action following the oracle’s pronouncement in the original Metamorphoses.

Pyrrha […] griff also in den Morast und bekam einen Stein zu fassen […] den sie beroch wie ein Tier seine Beute […] und doch schon vergessen zu haben schien, als sie ihn endlich mit einer nachlässigen Bewegung in einen der Tümpel zurückwarf. Dann lag sie mit der abwesenden Miene einer Verrückten […] und ließ ihre Hand wieder und wieder in den Schlamm hinabgleiten, ergriff einen zweiten Kiesel und noch einen [...] und warf sie alle ins Wasser zurück […] mechanisch und stetig. (LW 167).

The resulting human race, in the historical Ovid’s words are “hardy […] well accustomed to toil.”67 But the Ransmayr text, this physical hardiness extends to a stoniness of emotion.

[A]us jedem Kiesel ein Ungeheuer […] Menschen aus Stein […] eine Brut von mineralischer Härte, das Herz aus Basalt, die Augen aus Serpentin, ohne Gefühle, ohne eine Sprache der Liebe, aber auch ohne jede Regung des Hasses, des Mitgefühls oder der Trauer. (LW 169).

In the new human race there appears little compassion, kindness and mercy. Again, in this narrative of “Verwandlung” the transformed (reborn) race of humankind is described in terms of an unreflecting, unresponsive race whose mass action is easily steered by others. Unavoidable in terms of such imagery is the reflection on the transformation of a nation under the aegis of Nazism in twentieth century Europe.

66 Kiedaisch and Bornemann, “ Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf’: Das Geschichtsbild in der Letzten Welt,” ‘Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt’ Ovids ‘Metamorphoses’ und Christoph Ransmayrs ‘Letzte Welt,’ 15. 67 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Innes, 40.

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In contrast with Augustan Rome, the last world, in its fluidity and chaotic irrationality appears to offer a liberating alternative to repressive structures. Here, nothing is what it seems, everything may change its shape, anything is possible. This is possible because “Verwandlung” is the “Grundmythos” which dominates the perception of reality in this place. Transformation liberates an exploited natural landscape. Characters of the last world are freed from human form back into nature as birds, animals and stones. And nature is offered as a site of refuge in this way. There is a sense of release from imposed structures and identities which characterise reality in the first world. But these transformations (as is characteristic of the last world) operate apparently at random and without cause – except as discernible works on myth in their intertextual resonances. To consider “Verwandlung” solely as a narrative of hope disregards the message of two central micro-narratives of transformation in Die letzte Welt; Naso’s speech on the birth of the ant people in Rome and the last world story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and the birth of the race of stone. In these narratives, transformation reveals a new breed of humanity, which while not immediately threatening, is potentially so in its lack of reflectivity, compassion and autonomy of action. Through the medium of the reader’s historical awareness a link may be drawn from these images of transformation to a further important narrative in Die letzte Welt: the Hobbesian “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” Thies’ experiences had shown him “jeder war zu allem fähig” (LW 265). His experiences of the brutality and inhumanity of his race precede the transformation of Procne, Philomela and Tereus, which is the final narrative in the text. This micro- narrative reveals the human capacity for violence, cruelty and murderous intent in the most intimate family context. Procne’s revenge on her brutal husband leads to a tense search through the town, Tereus searching for his wife with axe raised. The villagers follow his murderous progress. “In manchen Wohnungen wurden die Lichter gelöscht, damit die Schatten aus schwarzen Fenstern sehen konnten, wie die Bestie durch die Gassen ging” (LW 280). Tereus continues his pursuit of the women even after their transformation into birds. This final horrific example of the series of transformation narratives in the text denies the attribution of a liberatory impulse to “Verwandlung” in Ransmayr’s last world, when seen in this socio-critical context. A tension is apparent in Die letzte Welt between the liberating impulse of change and that of a prevailing historico-pessimistic judgement. 224

The following chapter will trace this path of pessimism through Ransmayr’s third novel, Morbus Kitahara. Thies’ saying “der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” is treated in this text as a “Grundmythos” – as a fundamental narrative of explanation which (tragically, in this case) illuminates the reality of the human condition in the author’s vision of post-war Europe.

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CHAPTER SEVEN.

“Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” Morbus Kitahara.

This chapter examines the physical and psychological brutality of human relationships as a tragic “Grundmythos” of human existence in Ransmayr’s novels, with particular concentration on Morbus Kitahara. “Der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” functions as a thematic scaffolding upon which all the events of the novel hang. The Hobbesian dictum is already familiar to the reader from the experiences of Thies in Die letzte Welt. It is also developed thematically in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis in respect to the disintegration of the veneer of civilisation which occurs as the expedition is trapped in the ice. In Morbus Kitahara, however, while the warfare which Hobbes saw as the natural existential state of humankind has officially ended, the brutal and violent nature of humankind continues to be apparent in the interpersonal dealings narrated. It appears immaterial in the novel whether these acts of aggression occur while a civil state is in place or during the period in which the structures and mechanisms of civilisation are being dismantled. Ransmayr’s third novel is also a narrative of “Untergang” and ending.1 “Untergang” in Morbus Kitahara takes the form of an official program enforced by victors over the defeated.2 The Stellamour Plan effectively reduces the community of Moor to a state of desperation through its demolition of the machinery and infrastructure of modernity. On a wider scale, “Untergang” in the text also signifies a process which reflects the present and future state of human civilisation. This is conveyed through the text’s representation of the human race’s horrific capacity to inflict harm and suffering on its members. In Morbus Kitahara “Untergang” is integral to the core myth “der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf.” In contrast to Die letzte Welt, the sense of “Untergang” in Morbus Kitahara is consistently serious.

1 References to a biblical Last Judgement are scattered throughout Morbus Kitahara: the occupation forces were not the riders of the apocalypse expected (MK 15); Bering learns to shoot a gun using a clockface showing the riders of the Last Judgement as his target (MK 107); Lily’s mother paints the Last Judgement on the rebuilt cemetery chapel after the disappearance of her husband (MK 121). 2 Knoll, “ Untergänge und kein Ende: Zur Apokalyptik in Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt und Morbus Kitahara,” 216. 226

Humankind’s downfall in Morbus Kitahara is not alleviated by the suspicion of any postmodern game with signification and fantasy. No liberation from a perpetual repetition of events is evident for the male characters of the text. In Morbus Kitahara, the working of an eternal repetition which directs human fate suggests that ultimately the suffering caused by man’s inhumanity to man is inescapable, a point which has already been discussed in Chapter Five. The novel is post-apocalyptic in the sense that the defining trauma of the war and the Holocaust (here symbolised in the events which occurred in the Moor quarry) has already occurred, yet the experiences and impact of this time are never-ending. The third Ransmayr novel is profoundly disturbing and unequivocally confronting in its representation of the “Grundmythos” of humankind’s relationships of power and violence. M ost disturbing is the way the text reveals the cycle of perpetrator – victim – perpetrator. Roles and relationships are consciously and unconsciously traversed and reversed. Perpetrator and victim, victor and defeated, innocent and guilty, the collective community, splinter groups and individuals are juxtaposed in such a way as to force a reassessment of the human potential and capability for violence and compassion.3 Acts carried out during the war by the enforcers of a brutal regime, the personnel of the Moor quarry camp and members of the population of Moor itself are conveyed through flashback. After the war has officially finished, the acts of Major Elliot and the occupation troops, the “Kahlköpfe” gangs, the Americans in Brand and Nagoya - and also individuals such as Bering and Ambras - are also the focus of a discussion of the inversion of roles of perpetrator and victim in the text. These roles and the relationship between perpetrator and victim are illuminated in an unrelenting fashion.

Precursors. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis.

The historical pessimism evident in Morbus Kitahara casts retrospective shadows over the earlier novels, especially Die letzte Welt. Ransmayr has long had a preoccupation

3 Such a reassessment is also the focus of Ulrich Horstmann’s Das Untier. Horstmann’s text more severely delineates the history of humankind as a “ Schlachthof,” with humanity’s talent lying in its “ Massenvernichtungskunst” practised and refined over centuries. See Ulrich Horstmann, Das Untier: Konturen einer Philosophie der Menschenflucht (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1983) 93. 227

with this aspect of human nature and human experience.4 The wolf motif is established in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis in the context of man’s vulnerability and fear within an extreme natural landscape. With their ship locked in the Arctic ice Weyprecht fears that those overlying behaviours which characterise the rational, civilised human being will be swept away in the face of the struggle for physical survival. The human being potentially reverts to acting as an animal under such a threat. The precedent has already been set in the series of excerpts from the text’s “Chronik des Scheiterns” with reports of cannibalism in earlier expeditions. The jettisoning of codes of honour occurs in the desperate hope for rescue. Leaders leave their crews to starve to death. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, the officers decide, that, if the attempt to escape through the ice is doomed to failure, suicide will be the only honourable course of action if they are to avoid the acts of selfish brutality of other failed expeditions.

Denn der Tod durch Erschießen sei gewiß gnädiger als der allmähliche, entwürdigende Verfall und sei vor allem jenen Schrecken vorzuziehen, die den Untergang arktischer Expeditionen schon so oft begleitet hätten – den viehischen Kämpfen um einen Fetzen Fleisch, dem Zusammenbruch der menschlichen Ordnung, dem Kannibalismus schließlich und Wahnsinn. Nein, eine kaiserlich- königliche Nordpolexpedition konnte … durfte nicht zugrunde gehen wie ein Rudel ausgezehrter Wölfe. (SEF 242)

Despite all honourable intentions during the expedition’s retreat, the process of social disintegration begins. Crew members attack each other, the officers and crew brawl, even the commandants, at the pinnacle of established order, threaten each other when their survival is threatened. The veneer of civilisation proves equally as thin for the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition as for any other.

Und jeder für sich. Marola hat sich mit Lettis um eine Ration Seehundfett geprügelt, und Scarpa schlägt sich mit Carlsen um ein paar Krümel Tabak […] Daß aber jetzt auch der Eismeister zuschlägt und selbst die Offiziere und Kommandanten ihren Streit, ja, ihren Haß nicht mehr verhehlen […] (SEF 243).

4 Ransmayr had from the early 1980s – before the publication of his first two novels - planned a story involving “ eine Figur eines Leibwächters, der an einer solchen Blickverfinsterung [Morbus Kitahara] leidet […].” T he events of the historical Holocaust, their continuation in the present experience of the victims and the theme of “Verdrängung/Vergeßlichkeit” have occupied Ransmayr from the beginning of his writing career. Löffler, “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” 16.

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The perception of the bestial nature of humankind is also developed in other ways. Payer treats his sled expeditioners as beasts of burden in his ambitious bid for the furthest northern parallel. He ignores their exhaustion and injuries in his single-minded pursuit of personal glory. M an as animal and mortal is succinctly recorded in the biblical inscription painted by Klotz on the cross for Krisch’s grave. This essential truth is ironically enacted in the developing conflict of the expedition, desperate to effect their return to Europe and civilisation.

Der Mensch in seiner Herrlichkeit Kann nicht bestehen Sondern er muß davon wie das Vieh. (SEF 205)

The fate which the Weyprecht-Payer expedition managed to escape is symbolically reflected in the later Mazzini narrative when, after Mazzini’s disappearance, the two remaining dogs from Fyrand’s sled team reappear out of the ice.

Sie schleiften ein zerfetztes Zuggeschirr hinter sich her und waren so verstört und fremd, daß Kjetil Fyrand einen Augenblick zögerte, bevor er in diesen Wölfen Anore und Imiag aus seinem Gespann wiedererkannte […] sie […] blieben so unnahbar, bissig und toll, daß der Ozeanograph sie am vierten Tag nach ihrer Rückkehr erschoß. (SEF 248).

The assertion of homo homini lupus in this first Ransmayr novel is a revelation of what occurs in the human subject’s attempt to conquer and occupy unknown space, far removed from the civilised norms of the centre. In the Weyprecht-Payer expedition, their failure to overcome the extreme conditions of cold and darkness, the entrapment of the Tegetthoff, the desperation involved in the almost impossible attempt to escape the ice by foot and rowing boats, all result in the progressive abandonment of acts of social cohesion and the assumption of aggressive, even violent behaviour. The enactment of Hobbes’ jus naturale5 appears inevitable when the struggle for survival is paramount. The transformation of man into desperate animal is halted only by the expedition’s rescue.

5 Johann P. Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context (New York: St Martins Press, 1992) 29. 229

Die letzte Welt.

The last world of Ransmayr’s second novel is set in the age of iron. Tomi is “die eiserne Stadt” (LW 9). Intertextual links with the original Metamorphoses create the expectation of the last world being one of conflict and aggression, as was Ovid’s age of iron.

By this time iron had been discovered, to the hurt of mankind […] War made its appearance […] shaking clashing weapons in bloodstained hands. Men lived on what they could plunder: friend was not safe from friend […] All proper affection lay vanquished and, last of the immortals, the maiden Justice left the blood-soaked earth.6

The experiences and visions of the army deserter, Thies, more graphically than any other narrator of “Untergang” in Die letzte Welt encapsulate the human propensity for aggression and cruelty. It is fitting that this character continually utters the statement, “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf,” in conversation in his last world refuge. Specifically identified as German in the text, Thies embodies the aggressor who rejects his violent heritage, yet, in the last world, remains confined in the domain of death and suffering. “Nach so vielen Toten, die er gesehen, und so viel Vernichtungswut, die er erlebt hatte, glaubte er den Weg zurück zu den Küsten seiner Herkunft für immer verloren; nichts konnte wieder werden wie es war” (LW 264). In growing his healing herbs, mixing medicines for his own wounds and those of the Tomi villagers, Thies attempts to heal the wounds that humanity itself has suffered. But he believes true innocence only resides in death. He honours this in the loving care he accords the corpses he prepares for burial.7 But Thies’ revelation has become trivialised in the last world. “Der Mensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” is referred to as a “Kalenderspruch” in the text. The villagers take bets on how often Thies will include the statement in conversation. However Thies is not deterred by their mockery. The sentence for him “enthielt, [alles] was er erlebt und was die Welt ihm gezeigt hatte” (LW 266). A generalised brutalisation obvious amongst the population of the last world, most strongly developed in the characters of

6 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Innes, 33. 7 One of the fascinating things about Ransmayr’s writing is the way in which characters from his journalistic career walk from reality into his fiction. The character of Thies seems very familiar when reading about Idam, the gravedigger of Hallstatt. See Christoph Ransmayr, “Die ersten Jahre der Ewigkeit: Der Totengräber von Hallstatt.” (WS 63-74). 230

Tereus and Phineus, suggests that Thies’ vision of man’s brutish nature is not confined to his homeland. Tereus’ role as the butcher of Tomi is particularly appropriate, considering his bloody and brutal treatment of Procne and Philomela. Ransmayr’s vision of the last world community conforms unsurprisingly to Hobbes’s description of humankind in Leviathan: the lives of the last world villagers are also “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short.”8 In Rome, one would imagine, an all-powerful state would function, as Hobbes believed, “die Wolfsnatur des Menschen in Zaum zu halten.” But as Epple points out, the state, imperial Rome in this case, also embodies to an extent this “Wolfsnatur.”9 The organisation and control of the state depends on acts of repression and brutality. The acts of subversive forces too are both covert and overt acts of aggression and social conflict. The text shows history exhausting itself in the brutality of totalitarian systems and archaic cultures. Ransmayr’s vision contradicts a modern progress-based view of history. Progress is an illusion. All tends towards decay and regresses into barbarity.

Of Wolves and Dogs - Morbus Kitahara.

Whereas the statement “Der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” finds its first literal expression in Die letzte Welt and despite its thematic relevance in the earlier two novels, it is in Morbus Kitahara that the dictum is transformed into a “Grundmythos” of life experience. The “Untergang” of Moor is entirely a consequence of the brutish and violent actions of human beings towards their fellows. This “Untergang” presents no possibility of a liberatory or cleansing movement as found in earlier definitions of apocalypse. There is no sense of a rebirth or a new beginning, except for Lily’s dream of Brazil. The final chapters establish that there is no escape from the past for Ambras and Bering. The core narrative, “Der Mensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf,” is enacted in the past, present and the future of human existence, as one sees in the experiences of the central characters of Moor.10 The sense of inexorable downfall in Morbus Kitahara is directly related to the acts of inhumanity which the text ascribes, from the universal manifestation of such behaviour, to the

8 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) 186. 9 Epple, “ Phantasie kontra Realität – eine Untersuchung zur zentralen Thematik von Christoph Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt,” 36. 10 The future in this context is seen to be Ambras and Bering’s experiences in Pantano and Dog Island. This final setting is the future to which all three (including Lily) had looked after leaving Moor.

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nature of being human11. No one is exempt from the repercussions of these acts, neither victor, victim nor subsequent generations. The state of war, which had seen the cruelty of the treatment of prisoners in the Moor camp, had been ended by the defeat of Bering’s people. However war is perpetuated unofficially in a multiplicity of forms. It is shown in the acts of occupation troops, the brutality and terrorism of skin head gangs, in the acts of violence in personal defence or crusades, in social power plays and in the final resumption of the territory of Moor as a training ground for the military. The following discussion concentrates on the way “Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” encapsulates and structures a core story of human existence. This notion shapes the interpretation of human relationships in this alternative history of post-World War Two Europe.

The “Steinbruch” of/as History.

The village of M oor is directly implicated in an apocalyptic moment in the history of man’s inhumanity to man. The brutal history of Moor is revealed by the statistics inscribed on the quarry wall. M ajor Elliot transforms the whole mountain into a memorial of this crime against humanity. The inhabitants of M oor are held collectively accountable for the acts of cruelty perpetrated on those forced to labour there. There is no comprehensive account of these acts in the novel.12 The reader is expected to utilise a certain historical capital from Second World War and Holocaust history in response to certain scenes from the text. Details are provided about the quarry; for example, the transportation of forced labour to the quarry camp. Trains to Moor are either “weiss” or “blind.”

Weiße Züge hatten auch im Krieg die gleichen Passagiere wie im Frieden an den See gebracht – Kurgäste mit pfeifenden Atem, fette Gichtpatienten […] Mit der Dauer ferner Schlachten waren dazu mehr und mehr Fronturlauber gekommen […] und schwerverwundete Offiziere …

11 Yet again Horstmann’s dark view of the human “ Untier” seems relevant here. The real nature of the human being is revealed, Horstmann argues, in historical facts such as the following. In 3,400 years of human history only 243 years are recorded as being free of warfare. Cited in Horstmann, Das Untier, 61. 12 This is consistent with Ransmayr’s adoption of a stylistic approach akin to telescopic vision. As Landa points out, “ such a telescopic vision, simultaneously focused and distorted, random and selective, fragments cohesion and continuity.” Landa, “ Fractured Vision in Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara,” 138.

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Blinde Züge […] das bedeutete: ohne Fenster, bedeutete: ein Zug ohne Beschilderung und Hinweis auf Herkunft und Ziel. Blind, das waren die geschlossenen Güter- und Viehwagons der Gefangenenzüge […] [Sie] rollten […] abwärts, an ein staubbedecktes Ufer, das undeutlich in der Ferne lag. An das Ufer des Steinbruchs. (MK 31)

To reconstruct the history of the camp Eliot uses half burnt and confiscated rolls, punishment registers, statistics, “Sterbebücher” and photographs, the “vom Löschwasser gefleckte Momentaufnahmen der Tortur des Lagerlebens” (MK 45) all of which document the acts of inhumanity perpetrated there. One photo labelled “Die Stiege” shows,

Hunderte und Aberhunderte gekrümmter Rücken zu sehen, ein langer Zug von Häftlingen, auf jedem Rücken eine hölzerne Trage, auf jeder Trage ein großer, zum Quader gehauener Stein[…] Diese Stiege, die den Krieg, die Befreiung und Zerstörung des Lagers und auch die ersten Jahre des Friedens unbeschadet überstanden hatte, war so steil und unregelmäßig, daß sie auch ohne Last nur mit Mühe zu überwinden war. (MK 47)

These scenes are also reconstructed in the Stellamour Parties staged by M ajor Elliot. However, in recreating the tableau from the “Die Stiege” photograph, Elliot

verlangte auch diesesmal nur den äußeren Schein und zwang keinen seiner Statisten, einen der echten, zentnerschweren Steinquader, die wie Denkmäler ausgestandener Todesqualen immer noch am Fuß der Treppe verstreut lagen, auf sein Traggestell zu wuchten.(MK 47)

On one occasion Bering’s father along with two others assert their personal rejection of the guilt narrative by taking up a real granite block and attempting to climb the “Stiege.” His collapse and fall leave him struggling “wie ein Käfer auf dem Rücken” - and the object of his son’s delighted squeals at the unfamiliar game (M K 48). The lack of comprehension by the child is merely a more explicit and open manifestation of the lack of empathy of the father for the experiences of the war-time “Steinbruch” labourers. However the image of Bering’s father as a helpless insect, less than human and easily crushed, links him to those whose fates he is forced into playacting. The character of Ambras also functions as a medium for the reconstruction of the inhumane past of the granite quarry. “Häftling Nr. 4273” returns to Moor to become manager of the quarry nine years after his liberation from it as an inmate. He is later unrecognisable as the skeletal being who had whispered “Ich lebe noch” as he is thrown

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onto the pile of corpses when the camp is liberated. Ambras is able to draw upon his memories to communicate to M ajor Elliot the physical details of the camp: “der Gerrettete [vermochte] in seinem ersten Gespräch mit M ajor Elliot die Wäscherei, das Krematorium, die Bunker, Tunnels und Baracken des Lagers am Schotterwerk auf einem Bogen Kanzleipapier maßstabgetreu wiederzugeben” (MK 74). Ransmayr deliberately avoids specific names and events connected with the Third Reich, the Second World War and the Holocaust although the historical context is at all times readily identifiable.13 The early story of Ambras is a tragic collection of the experiences of many victims. His story of suffering begins with abuse, assault and arrest for having a relationship with a Jewess. The only sign of Ambras’ lover’s fate is a “Lagerpostbrief” from Poland with the standard “Ich bin gesund. Es geht mir gut.” Ambras communicates to Bering the reality of such postcards and such greetings:

Solche Sätze waren Vorschrift. Solche Sätze haben wir in unsere Baracke am Schotterwerk auch geschrieben. Solche Sätze haben selbst Leute nach Hause geschrieben, die einen Tag später im Krematorium verraucht sind. Wir waren alle gesund. Uns ging es allen gut. (MK 217)

Ambras’ lover is not named and so joins the anonymous millions whose lives ended in concentration camps, in Poland or elsewhere. Ambras remembers her now in terms of his camp experiences. Hair such as hers he saw again in the camp: “abgeschnittene Zöpfe, Locken und Büschel lagen, zu einem Haufen zusammengeworfen, in Leinensäcken gestopft, Rohmaterial für Matten, Perücken, Matrazen, was weiß ich” (MK 214). The pain from the physical torture Ambras suffered is also a constant reminder of the acts of cruelty perpetrated in the camp. He suffers from “die Moorer Krankheit, die [viele] sich am Blinden Ufer geholt hat, […] beim Schaukeln” MK 173). Swinging, until his shoulders dislocated, has left Ambras with permanent pain, such that at times his bodyguard, Bering, must minister to him as an invalid, as a child; comb his hair and help him dress and undress. Ambras speaks of this torture and the pain.

13 In Volker Hage’s words, “ Anders als sein gleichaltriger Landsmann Erich Hackl, der sich etwa in der Erzählung “ Abschied von Sidonie” ganz auf Fakten stützte, um die Geschichte eines Opfers von Auschwitz sorgsam und eindringlich zu rekonstruieren, hat Ransmayr stets eine zwitterhafte Inszenierung bevorzugt: die Vermengung von Fiktion und durchaus exakt recherchierten Zeugnissen.” Volker Hage, “ Zertrümmerte Zeiten,” Der Spiegel 38 (1995): 210.

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Du versuchst dich schreiend und um Himmelswillen und mit aller Kraft in irgendeiner Schräglage zu halten, damit um Himmelswillen nicht geschieht, was geschieht: Dein eigenes Körpergewicht zieht dir die gefesselten Armen hoch und immer höher, bis du mit deiner Kraft am Ende bist und dir dein furchbares Gewicht die Arme von hinten über den Kopf reißt und die Kugeln aus den Pfannen deiner Schultergelenke springen… Du pendelst in einem Schmerz, von dem du niemals geglaubt hättest, daß man ihn empfinden kann, ohne zu sterben, und du heulst mit einer Stimme, von der du bis zu diesem Augenblick nicht gewußt hast” (MK 174-5).

For the first time, Bering hears the words directly from one of the victims. Before this, information about the acts against humanity in the camp had come from Stellamour’s “Prediger” (as they had been disparagingly labelled by the population of Moor). The “Prediger” had told of the torture and misery at the granite quarry in school rooms and army tents (MK 175). In Major Elliot’s time as occupation commandant army concerts also served as sources of information about the camp horror. These scenes show how information thus conveyed becomes the resented propaganda of guilt. The stages were hung with banners with slogans such as “Niemals vergessen” and the entry to the concert hall is only accessible through a huge army tent:

in dem auf mehreren Leinwänden zugleich Dokumentarfilme liefen, Stummfilme in Endlosschleifen, die wieder und wieder einen Leichenstapel in einem weiß gekachelten Raum, einen Krematoriumsofen mit offener Feuertür, eine Häftlingskolonne am Seeufer – und im Hintergrund […] die verschneiten und sonnendurchglühten und regennassen und vereisten Wände des Steinbruchs von Moor (MK 145-6).

The avoidance of a critical confrontation with the acts and events of war and the Holocaust has, of course, informed the belated discourse of a real “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” in post-war Austria, as it does in Ransmayr’s fictional world of Moor. The measures undertaken by Major Elliot and his successors constitute an attempt to reconstruct the horrific past, to enforce a simulated experience of these acts of cruelty upon the observer. Such an organised program serves to stimulate resentment and to stymy attempts to address the issues of M oor’s immediate past.14 Just

14 Ransmayr states, “ Einsicht, Reue, Aufklärung ist etwas Individuelles. Bewußtsein kann nur im einzelnen Kopf stattfinden. Jeder Versuch, diesen Prozeß der Einsicht, der wahren Empfindung, der Aufklärung, der Erkenntnis in ein Programm zu kleiden, das man dann nur organisatorisch durchziehen müßte, und schon wäre Aufklärung das Zwingende Resultat – jeder solche Versuch wäre eine heillose Hoffnung.” Löffler, “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” 17.

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as the symbols and artefacts of Moor’s past were hidden and buried, so too was the infamy of the granite quarry buried in local memory.

[D]ie Ehrenzeichen, Orden und Heldenbüsten sanken, in Fahnen und abgestreifte Uniformen gewickelt, zum Grund von Jauchegruben hinab oder verschwanden auf Dachböden, in Kellerverstecken, auch im Feuer und in hastig geschaufelten Erdlöchern (MK 14).

The response of the post-war population, represented here by the Moor community is an antagonised indifference to what has occurred – a response where the target audience knows itself targeted and resents it on a level under a professed and enacted lack of interest. Such indifference is a trait also identifiable in the apocalypse and post-apocalyptic discourse. In the face of the about-to-occur or already-occurred, force-fed horrors dull the perception: “Das Publikum unterdrückt ein Gähnen” as Enzensberger puts it.15 What Günther Anders speaks of as an “Apokalypse–Indifferenz” is also a phenomenon in Morbus Kitahara which is seen in the response of those forced to confront the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man.

[U]nser [der menschliche] emotionale Wahrnehmungs- und Verarbeitungsapparat [ist] noch auf archaische Umweltreize programmiert, d.h. beweinen können wir einen Ermordeten, vorstellen können wir uns zur Not ein Dutzend, aber bei Tausenden oder gar Millionen von Leichen versagt 16 die Vorstellungskraft, versiegt das Mitleid und Einfühlungsvermögen.

Humankind’s brutality is often as painfully pronounced in its indifference to the sufferings of its fellows as the actions of the M oor villagers would suggest.

The Peace of Oranienburg.17

The peace of Oranienburg paradoxically leads to a continuation of war-like intimidation and punishment after the official cessation of hostilities. Its practical manifestation, the Stellamour Plan, harshly determines the fate of the vanquished. The first stage of the

15 Enzensberger is referring to a generalised threat of potential apocalyptic events with this remark. See Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “ Zwei Randbemerkungen zum Weltuntergang,” Kursbuch, May (1978) 2. 16 Günther Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. (München: Beck, 1956) 269. See also Horstmann, Das Untier, 109-10. 17 Links with Holocaust experience are created with a variety of intruded items in the text. T he name of the Oranienburg concentration camp becomes the title of the peace treaty of Morbus Kitahara. 236

foreign occupation of M oor appears to enact the “Racheträume” of the Polish woman, Celina.

In Moor wurden Bürger aus ihren Häusern gejagt. Die Höfe von geschlagenen Parteigängern des Krieges brannten. In Moor mußten ehemals gefürchtete Aufseher aus dem Steinbruch jede Demütigung schweigend ertragen; zwei von ihnen pendelten am siebenten Tag nach der Befreiung […] an Drahtseilen im Wind. (MK 14)

The embodiment of the revenge which Moor believes is practised upon its population is found in the figure of “Hoher Richter Stellamour/Aus Poughkeepsie im blühenden Empire State/ Empire State New York” (M K 38). The visual presence of Stellamour dominates the social space of occupied M oor in a way characteristic of a totalitarian leader. Hitleresque or stalinesque, his image occupies walls, doors on houses, burnt out factories or camps. His name is repeated as the refrain of “einer seltsamen Hymne – halb Schlager, halb Kinderlied” during parades and festivals (MK 38). Stellamour becomes a mythic monster for Moor, his name synonymous with retribution as the long process of deconstruction and devastation of the occupied region takes hold (MK 39). M ajor Elliot functions as the mouthpiece of Stellamour philosophy in Moor. His cry “Zurück! Zurück mit euch! Zurück in die Steinzeit!” (M K 42) signals the Stellamour Plan-induced “Untergang” of Moor. Images of stone also serve to emphasise the harshness of the peace plan and the primitivity of their lives after the war.18 The re- barbarisation of the occupied territories forces a return to the “Steinzeit.” The “Steinbruch” is the symbol of humanity’s acts of cruelty in the region. The people of M oor assume characteristics of “Troglodyten”19 in their behaviour to their fellows. Time is “versteinert” in M oor, frozen in the past. The immovability and endurance of stone dominates the physical and psychological landscape of Moor. War continues to be fought on several fronts. The vanquished fight now for physical survival as “M oor glitt durch die Jahre züruck” into a time of deprivation and darkness. Apart from the dismantled infrastructure which closes M oor away from the rest of the world, bans on generators and the empty shop windows, the population of

18 See also Alexander Honold, “ Die Steinerne Schuld: Gebirge und Geschichte in Christoph Ransmayrs Morbus Kitahara,” Sinn und Form, 51/2, March/April (1999): 255. 19 Honold recalls Karl Kraus’ condemnation of his fellow Austrians in the use of this description. The people of Moor, “ grobschlächtig, von der Zivilisation unbefleckte Höhlen- und Bergmenschen,” are interchangeable with the characters of the last world in this way. Honold, 254. 237

M oor face the terror of gangs which prey upon them. A terrifying jus naturale reappears.

Schlägerbanden […] kamen immer wieder aus den Ruinen aufgegebene Städte, auch aus labyrinthischen Höhlenverstecken im Gebirge in wehrlose Kaffs wie Moor und seine Nachbardörfer. Seit die Armee sich aus den Einöden der Seeregion ins Tiefland zurückgezogen und diese verlorenen Winkel sich selbst überlassen hatte, war hier jede entschlossene, auch nur mit Schlagwaffen gerüstete Horde unbesiegbar (MK 54).

The horrific attack on the secretary of M oor illustrates the degree to which the people of Moor exist under a state of siege, with threats, intimidation and senseless violence the currency of this new social order. The wailing man is doused with petrol, threatened with being set on fire and dragged to the wharf. He is tied to the anchor of a derelict excursion boat and dragged to the edge of the wharf. Begging for his life, he is just as inexplicably abandoned, the amusement over for the gang (MK 56). Apart from their casual violence for entertainment, the gangs demand protection money, “Feuergroschen” (M K 55).

Victims and Perpetrators – Bering and Lily.

Bering also becomes a victim of one of the gangs. This experience is the beginning of his transformation from victim to perpetrator, a process which illustrates graphically the observation that violence breeds violence. Initially, the experience of blood being shed is enough to drive Bering from the house of his parents, to drive him symbolically from his bloodied “Erbe” (MK 52). Later, however, chased by skinheads armed with chains and steel pipes, Bering runs for his father’s hidden gun. His race to the smithy represents for Bering “einen einzigen Sprung aus der Wehrlosigkeit in die Allmacht eines Bewaffneten” (MK 56). Shooting his attacker, Bering stares at the unbelievable transformation wrought by “[z]wei kochende Augen in einer schwarzen ledergepanzerten Brust, Wundmale, die einen metallischen M ann in eine weiche, unendlich weiche, knochenlose Gestalt verwandelten” (MK 53). Lily, the huntress, has a munitions depot in the “Steinernes Meer,” and access to the weapons of war. She trades them and other artefacts of war which she has found in the mountains. She uses these for her own protection and in her own personal crusade against the gangs. At times, hiding in clefts of rock in the “Steinernes M eer,” she was 238

the victim und “kauerte […] mit rasendem Herz und machte sich mit einem Klappmesser in der Faust bereit […]” (MK 125). But:

[…] zweimal, auch dreimal im Jahr, es geschah ohne jede Regel und Vorhersehbarkeit, verwandelte sich Lily von einem schnellfüßigen, kaum zu erjagenden Opfer in eine ebenso schnelle Jägerin, die stets unsichtbar hoch oben in den Felsen blieb und die ihre Beute noch auf fünfhundert Meter Schußdistanz ins Fadenkreuz bannte und tötete (MK 125).

Lily’s hunts take on the features of a religious crusade. A higher authority demands her complicity. Lily believes her orders to pursue earthly justice emanate from the mouth of the munitions cave. She does “was das Maul befahl” (MK 127) and arms herself. Her hunt is single-minded and her passion for her mission revealed in “das immergleiche Fieber, das sie befiel, ein überwältigendes Gefühl, Angst, Triumph, und Wut” (MK 129) when she locates her enemy. She is indifferent to the identity of her prey, “Veteranen, die seit Jahrzehnten vor den M ilitärgerichten der Sieger flüchteten […] oder […] die nachgeborene Brut aus den Ruinenstädten […] stumpfsinnige Schläger” (MK 130). Ironically, while she judges the young gangs to be absolutely without pity and compassion, Lily herself becomes a killing machine.20 When she takes aim, “ihre Hände, ihre Arme, Schultern und Augen [waren] mit dem Zielfernrohr und der M echanik der Waffe zu einer einzigen, halb organischen, halb metallischen M aschine verschmolzen” (MK 130). The objectivity with which Lily fulfils her mission is subverted in her final giggling when she sees the gang scramble desperately away once one of its members has been shot. Predominantly, however, Lily’s actions are determined by her physical and emotional distance from her mission. Her “Beute” remains “winzig, bewegungslos […] etwas Dunkles” below (MK 131). Considering Lily’s perspective on killing it seems ironic she should have such an intense response to Bering’s killing of the chicken thief on their journey to Brand. Her ethics of killing appear to be connected to the emotional distance achieved by her physical position far above her target. On the other hand Bering’s perspective on killing is one determined by emotion: the first time by immediate fear and physical proximity

20 In terms of their physical description, these “ Schläger” are the next generation of Die letzte Welt’s men of stone living in and prowling through the “ Steinernes Meer” and Moor without compassion or pity for their victims. 239

to his attackers. Each time Bering uses the gun he is ruled by an emotional impulse although the physical distance from his target grows.21 The pistol given to Ambras by M ajor Elliot is described ironically by Ambras as “ein Werkzeug zur Verbesserung der Welt” (MK 104). This statement is taken literally by Bering and the gun put to practical purpose. The gun invests Bering with the glory of power. The weapon of war, to be used by one human being against his/her fellow, identifies Bering as Ambras’ bodyguard, accords him status by association and by the possession of the gun. When Bering finds Ambras surrounded by threatening punks after the rock concert, he brandishes the gun and in biblical fashion “die Menge teilte sich vor ihm wie das Rote Meer” (MK 180). He is invulnerable, “[w]as waren Fackeln und brennende Äste, was waren Steine, Holzprügel und bloße Fäuste gegen den Nickelglanz der Waffe in seiner Faust? Es war ein betäuberndes Gefühl […]” (MK 180). However, initially, as Bering reaches to take the gun from Ambras, he is conscious of another desire. “[…] als Bering mit dem alten Zauber der Waffe das plötzliche Verlangen danach ergriff, die Hände dieser Frau [Lily], ihre flüchtiger Berührung, noch einmal zu spüren” (MK 107). Later crossing the “Steinernes Meer” on the way, Bering also has a symbolic choice between the weapon and Lily. But this choice is not as straightforward as it may appear.

The Road Already Taken.

Bering’s anger at the hen thieves in the mountains is based on two memories; firstly, the attack upon him by the skinheads in Moor and secondly, the solace hens have offered him as a child. Despite the flight of the thieves, their axes and slingshots being no match for Lily’s rifle, Bering attempts to turn back time, to eliminate the fear and restore the images which for him construct a time of comfort and certainty. Despite the dark holes in his vision at this moment Bering is clearsighted enough to be able to shoot and kill.

Ihm ist schon einmal ein Kahlkopf ins Dunkel davon, eine gaffende Fratze, die ihm dann in den Nächten wieder erschien. Er will die Erscheinung für immer löschen. Er will auch die Hühner flattern sehen und ihre Stimmen hören und sieht die Entfernung zwischen sich und seinen Feinden

21 The skinhead who chases Bering is shot at close range, the hen thieves at middle range. Muyra is fifty metres away when Bering pulls the trigger. 240

Schritt für Schritt wachsen und weiß, daß eine Pistole nicht mehr ausreicht, um seinen Haß bis ins Ziel zu tragen. Wenn er die Fratze löschen will, braucht er ein Gewehr, Lilys Gewehr. (MK 310).

As Bering lines up and shoots the fleeing hen thieves, Lily recognises herself in him. “so liegt doch sie auf ihren Jagdzügen auf der Lauer. Dieser Scharfschütze dort, das ist sie. Und es ist ihr Gewehr, das auf flüchtende Hühnedieber angelegt wird” (MK 310). Her judgement of Bering is a judgement on herself. “Ein Jäger? Das ist kein Jäger. Das ist ein Totschläger, ein M örder, nicht besser als seine tätowierten Feinde, auf die er/jetzt/schießt” (MK 311). The crack of bullets being fired awakens Lily to the consequences of her own acts as a huntress and kills, not only the remaining hen thief, but any emotional connection between Bering and Lily. From the perspective of the dying eyes of the thief, the two

haben nur Augen für einander. Die starren sich an. Die hassen sich. Die trennen sich in diesem Augenblick für immer von einander, so wie auch er, der Kahlkopf, der Hühnerdieb, der sterbende Vogelmensch, sich jetzt von ihnen und allem trennen muß (MK 314).

The final ebbing of the thief’s life, so quietly evoked by the previous lines could have been the occasion for Bering’s empathetic understanding that as a “Vogelmensch” himself, he is irrevocably tied to his victim – and has symbolically killed the humane part of himself in this shooting. However Bering has moved to a point beyond self- reflection. In observing the final gestures of the thief shot, Bering considers “ob Ambras wohl an der Stelle des Getroffenen dort seine Arme ebenso hoch über den Kopf erhoben hätte? Ob ihn der Schuß befreit hätte von seinem Gebrechen? Für immer befreit.” (M K 313). . He identifies Ambras with the victim. The curiously cruel questioning of whether Ambras’ arms could in spite of earlier torture be lifted in such a way suggests a strange objectivity entering Bering’s approach to his fellow men, just as Lily, conversely, rediscovers her humanity. Additionally, Bering seems to see the act of shooting to be a liberating one. Perhaps Ambras could be freed from his pain and affliction in such a way. Could such a shooting be, perversely, an act of salvation? The killing of the hen thieves on the journey through the Stony Sea and Bering’s experiences in Brand are decisive in the transformation which Bering undergoes. Bering, himself the victim of violence, becomes the perpetrator of violence, once given the power which a weapon invests. The relationship of violence is inverted and Bering’s

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acts towards his fellows also demonstrates that “der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf.” The transformation which Bering undergoes is indicated on a metaphorical level by the “schwarze Flecken” which obscure his vision. Whereas Bering’s father wears an overt physical mark of Cain - his forehead war wound – Bering’s scars, as a member of the “Nachkriegsgeneration,” are hidden. On the night on which Bering for the first time kisses a woman and rescues his master from the punks, his happiness is jarred by the series of black shadows he tries to negotiate on the return drive. Turning from the road the black shadow moves with him and rests on Lily’s face. Bering’s blindness is always, on an emotional level, connected with Lily. It is a little too facile to promote the black shadows in Bering’s vision as solely symptomatic of a moral blindness at this point. While Bering has discovered the power and invulnerability of the weapon, until he leaves for Brand he does not use or abuse this power. In terms of an inheritance of moral guilt, Bering is said to have hated his “Erbe” of aggression and cruelty and has left his parental home to offer his services to a victim of war, Ambras. Despite this, Bering suffers an increasing impairment of his vision, in a fashion similar to his father’s from the moment Bering actively engages in the role as Ambras’ bodyguard. The physical failing of Bering’s vision follows two thematic projectories associated with the two characters who shape his world. On the one hand, Bering is desperate not to lose his position in Ambras’ household, but is unable or unwilling to empathise with Ambras’ tragedy. This unwillingness is expressed in his inability to listen and comprehend what horror Ambras has undergone. Physical and emotional closeness has been denied Bering, and he in turn is unable or unwilling to confront Ambras’ suffering. On the other hand, Bering’s passion for Lily becomes a frustrated obsession as she casually rejects his attempts at closeness. This lack of communication on every human plane identifies in Bering a sense of hopelessness and meaninglessness, and the acceptance of violence which is a part of a generalised “Verwilderung” in his society. Bering has learnt duty, silence and distance from his parents. The parent-child relationship (along with Bering’s other relationships in the text) is not, however, developed and this lack of development further emphasises Bering’s isolation. He has symbolically rejected his father from the moment of the war veteran’s homecoming. Bering’s mother becomes increasingly and obsessively otherworldy in her penitence and 242

visions.22 In leaving their home for Ambras and the Villa Flora, Bering embraces a new father, but is only able to relate to this older man on a familiar level of duty and service. Fear of losing this relationship leads Bering to be silent about his fear of blindness. He works even harder, “[d]abei gewöhnt sich Bering in Wahrheit nur an das Loch in seiner Welt, an ein Gebrechen, das er an manchen Tagen stärker, an anderen schwächer empfand und gegen das er kein besseres Mittel wußte als das Verschweigen” (MK 192). Silence is both a refuge and a prison for Bering. It reduces him to paralysis in relating to others. After a couple of initial questions, silence is also Bering’s response to Ambras’ revelation of the circumstances of his arrest and his love for his woman. As Bering pictures the attack on Ambras’ lover, he sees Lily instead. His identification with Ambras’ story is strong up to this point. But his response is not empathetic, but self- engrossed. When Ambras speaks of his failure to find his lover after the war, Bering’s attention shifts. He is more concerned that his carelessness in searching through Ambras’ belongings, in his desperate search for proof that Ambras and Lily were lovers, will give him away. As Bering rows away after Ambras’ revelation of the circumstances of his arrest, “[er] ruderte kraftvoll und so schnell, als ob er sich mit jedem Schlag ins Wasser nicht bloß den Leyser Schilffeldern nähern, sondern damit auch Ambras Erinnerungen wieder entfernen wollte” (MK 220). As Bering and Ambras reach the broken down ferry, Bering buries himself in the mechanics of repair, “als suchte [er] Zuflucht vor der Erinnerung an das Getrommel an eine Wohnungstür, Zuflucht vor der Erinnerung an die Knüppelhiebe auf ein umschlungenes Paar und an das Verschwinden einer Frau im roten Kleid” (MK 222). The detailed description of how Bering listens in such a concentrated fashion to the boat’s machinery contrasts poignantly with the way he seeks to avoid Ambras’ painful revelation.23 Bering demonstrates a marked lack of empathy with his fellow man in this incident.

22 Her attempt at “ Vergangenheitsbewältigung” takes the form of escape and refuge in religion. 23 This absence of empathetic self-reflexivity and dialogue is also central to several articles written by Ransmayr in response to Austria’s belated discourse of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” In ‘Die Vergorene Heimat: Ein Stück Österreich’ (WS 41), Karl Piaty of Waidhofen an der Ybbs has captured his life on slides, his “ Lichtbilder.” Memory takes on a political dimension as Piaty’s private museum is seen to recreate his world with one exception. There is no place for Nazi memorabilia and no slides of the Anschluß years, “ In der Heimat war es immer schön: es wurden Brautbäume und Maibäume errichtet, aber keine Galgen.” (WS 58). The inability or reluctance to confront this period of history is subtlely highlighted. Similarly, the article ‘Kaprun: Oder die Errichtung einer Mauer’ (S 75) also visits issues of history, as well as a national identity and the impact of technology. Just as Austria had disappeared into the Nazi Reich at the time of Anschluß, so 243

Bering’s obsession with Lily dominates his life. The holes in Bering’s vision are less important to him than Lily’s behaviour towards him.

Als Bering sie dennoch einmal zärtlich berührte […] entzog sie sich ihm zwar nicht, sprach aber mit Ambras einfach weiter und sah ihm zum Abschied in der Dämmerung so leer in die Augen, daß er an seiner Erinnerung zu zweifeln begann. Diese Frau hatte er in den Armen gehalten? Sie war doch auf ihn zugekommen und hatte ihm ihre Arme auf die Schultern gelegt, ihn dorthin entführt, wo er jetzt schlaflos vor Sehnsucht nach ihr war. Gegen das Loch, das Lilys rätselhalfte Entfernung in sein Leben riß, verlor das Loch in seinem Auge an Bedeutung […] (MK 193).

Ambras’ advice for Bering - “Laß sie in Ruhe” – becomes grounds for Bering’s suspicion of an affair between the two. His obsession becomes quite paranoid. “Lachen sie dann über ihn? War er der Betrogene in einem Spiel?” (MK 199). During this period of rejection and isolation the defects in Bering’s vision increase. Progressively the physical “schwarze Flecken” Bering experiences enlarge and increase in number. Later, in a humanitarian gesture, the bodyguard runs onto a detonation range to warn a column of penitents of the imminent explosion of a munitions dump. In this act, as the wave of the explosion tears his hands from his eyes, he understands the how his partial blindness has both a physical and metaphorical dimension.

Daß das Loch in seiner Welt nur der lächerliche Fetzen einer größeren Dunkelheit war, nur einer von unzähligen blinden Flecken, die ihn umwirbeln und über ihm schießen zu einem einzigen Abgrund, einer einzigen Finsternis, durch die im nächsten Augenblick doch wieder die Wintersonne bricht (MK 252).

The darkness in Bering’s world is one he perceives at this point to be a general one, linked with the actions and weaponry of war. The explosion he experiences here as

did the true history of the building of the dam disappear into the past and selective memories. The existence of three to four thousand foreign workers who had suffered through avalanches, earthslides, rockfalls, cold and exhaustion is remembered only by one Russian memorial, hidden from sight specifically honouring 87 Soviet citizens who died during the war construction. No memorial exists for the Poles, Czechs and Yugoslavs who suffered the same fate. Literally as well as figuratively the slate was washed clean, like the official history of Austria after the Allies’ absolution.

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a momentary blackening out of the light is linked metaphorically to the later explosion of the atomic bomb in Nagoya.24 In Brand Bering also sees differently, at this time on the level of critical comprehension. Bering understands the duplicity of acts of contrition and commemoration. His alienation from and bitterness at Lily is compounded by his realisation that “[d]ie kannte das alles. Die hat immer gewußt, daß dieses ganze Scheißgerede von Sühne, von Besinnung und Erinnerung ein riesiger Schwindel war” (MK 332). As well as being enlightened in Brand as to the lowland’s post-war affluence and short-term memory, the cause of Bering’s physical blindness is also revealed. Doc Morrison’s observation of the “Pilze. Wolkenpilze […] oder Quallen […], Rauchwolken” obscuring Bering’s vision and his diagnosis of the eye disease, Morbus Kitahara, release Bering from his fear of permanent blindness. The reader and critic, however, attempt to make sense of Morrison’s following comments and advice.

Worauf starrt einer wie du? Was will einem wie dir nicht aus dem Kopf. Ich habe solche Flecken in den Augen von Infanteristen und von Scharfschützern gesehen […] Alles Leute, die sich aus Angst oder Haß oder eiserner Wachsamkeit ein Loch ins eigene Auge starren […] Aber du …? […] hast du einen Feind in der Gabel deiner Steinschleuder? Eine Braut? Mach dich nicht verrückt. Schau anderswo hin (MK 350).

The object of Bering’s obsessive gaze over months of frustration and distance has always been Lily. He is able to physically see more clearly after his journey to Brand and also turns away from Lily in the face of her indifference. However if one cleaves firmly to an interpretation of the physical black holes in Bering’s vision as metaphoric evidence for an obscured moral vision, Morrison’s advice is morally problematic.

Soll dies die Heilung von Stellamours grotesken Bußübungen sein: Vergessen contra Erinnern? Ist dies Ransmayrs Absage an die Gedächtnis- und Erinnerungskultur, seine Art von

24 Bering’s vision of the world through the shocked lens of the explosion is extended in the vision which his mother has in the next chapter. From the darkness of the cellar where she has done penitence praying for the salvation of her son, the same explosion signals for her the arrival of the Madonna. As she climbs out into the blinding light, she observes what she believes is the miracle of the flowers and the fire on the horizon. But the Madonna stays beyond reach. Bering’s mother, denied a miracle, freezes to death, a snow covered statue, her eyes still open and focussed on a non- existent salvation (MK 253-8).

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Vergangenheitsbewältigung, seine Antwort auf Ilse Aichingers ‘Genau hinsehen, was geschieht’?25

However the partial physical blindness from which Bering suffers is a precursory device to prepare the reader for an awareness of the intensification of a moral blindness which directs his later actions – ironically this occurs as his physical sight begins to improve. Morrison’s advice is less offensive in this interpretation, and in fact instructs Bering to open the range of his gaze. Initially, in his jubilation at Doc Morrison’s diagnosis, Bering anticipates his recovery: “die Wolken über seinem Gesichtsfeld würden aufhellen und verschwinden als hätte sie die künstliche Sonne von Nagoya zum Verdampfen gebracht” (MK 352). The “Chaos aus Licht” in Brand already seems to bleach away these shadows (M K 325). The dazzling illumination Bering experiences in Brand has, then, two apparently quite contradictory results. The moral outrage he experiences in Brand is a result of his seeing clearly the deception practised upon the uplands, while the lowlands enjoy the fruits of short memories and consumer abundance. However the brightening of his sight is also metaphorically linked to the nuclear sun over Nagoya. His blindness this time is not linked to the darkness of the barbarism of Moor, but, paradoxically, to a blinding light. This blinding light is linked to the ultimate weapon the Americans have discovered to comprehensively destroy their enemy – and the world. In this way, the moral outrage Bering experiences in Moor is linked through the imagery of light and insight to the explosion of the nuclear bomb. On Bering’s return to Moor the intensity of his stare finds another destructive focus. In Bering’s absence his work of art, his beloved vehicle and medium of flight, the “Krähe,” is set alight by a drunken worker while others watch. The rage engendered by this act of sabotage effects a further transformation of Bering. He arms himself to take revenge.

[Er] hatte an der Werkbank der leeren Garage die Teleskopfeder eines Rüttelsiebes aus dem Steinbruch in eine Stahlrute verwandelt und an den Griff dieser Rute eine der geschmiedeten Vogelkrallen vom Kühlergrill der Krähe festgeschraubt. Er hatte die ausgeglühte, vom noch heißen Wrack gesägte Kralle zurechtgefeilt und geschliffen, bis sie so scharf war wie die Klinge seines Springmessers. Für einen Brandstifter aus Moor brauchte er keine Pistole. Dem schlug, dem hackte er mit dieser Kralle den Brandsatz aus der Faust (MK 368).

25 Christoph Janacs, “ Die Verdunkelung des Blicks,” Literatur und Kritik, November, 1995: 69. 246

Bering’s rage at the destruction of the car sinks him into hatred of his townsfolk. He dreams of destroying them in return, of smashing their faces with the metal claws he has fashioned (MK 369). “Er trauerte um seine Maschine” more than he grieved for his parents. Forced labour begins again in the quarry, under threat and punishment. Bering is a Kapo figure overseeing the demolition. “Bering schlug Bitten ab. Bering befahl. Bering drohte. Im Schatten der Armee rächte sich Bering für die Verbrennung der Krähe” (MK 379). Bering gradually assumes Ambras’ position of manager of the quarry’s demontage and assumes in doing so the epithet “dog,” as had his predecessor (MK 380). As Morrison had predicted, Bering’s physical sight begins to clear. But his capacity for violence increases.

[Bering] schlug und verletzte einen aufsässigen Lastträger mit der Stahlrute […] schlug […] so plötzlich auf Brust, Kopf und Schultern, daß der kaum Zeit fand, auch nur seine Arme zu erheben, und unter der Wucht der Schläge taumelte und in die Knie sank und sich blutend unter weiteren Schlägen krümmte (MK 381)

When Ambras, Lily and Bering sail with the quarry machinery to Brazil. Bering’s preoccupation with Lily resurfaces. In the course of the action in Brazil, his moral blindness becomes complete. While the holes in Bering’s vision have physically closed, he still sees Lily’s face in shadow, “als rauchte die Dunkelheit, die aus seinen Augen gewichen war, nun aus seinem Innersten wieder empor und verfinsterte ihm mit dem Gesicht einer verlorenen Geliebten auch das M eer, den Himmel, die Welt” (M K 408). The double metaphoric use of darkness and sight is reasserted here and is repeated upon Bering’s sighting of Lily in his gun sights on Dog Island. Rejected by Lily, Bering has no experience of love or physical affection. He is denied the love of a fellow human being and is denied the opportunity to express his own love. Being’s former jealousy of Lily and Ambras is reawakened in Brazil. The sound of their love-making triggers memories of the attack by the skinheads and of Ambras’ story of his lover’s cries as she is assaulted by those who come to arrest her. Bering sees Lily’s nakedness but cannot bear her gaze on him. “Lily soll ihn nicht ansehen! Sie sollte ihn nicht anstarren! Sie soll verschwinden!” (MK 423). Observing the pair, Bering drops his pistol, the (masculine) symbol of his invulnerability and power, but takes it up once more on Dog Island. Mistaking Muyra for Lily, he takes aim and kills the woman

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who had come to replace Lily in his dreams of love and passion. He has literally attempted to make Lily disappear, to remove the blindness he suffers in her presence. “Wo Lily ist, sind immer Flecken. Tarnflecken, blinde Flecken, immer ist da etwas, das ihn an Moor und an das erinnert, was er überstanden hat” (MK 435). In shooting Muyra Bering appears removed from his actions and takes no moral responsibility for them.

Und daß der Karabiner in seinen Händen plötzlich hochschlägt […] und daß dieses Krachen […] aus den Ruinen und von der Felswand zurückhallt … das alles gehört nicht zu ihm. Das hat nichts mit ihm zu tun […] Er hat nichts getan” (MK 426).

In the final scene of the novel, Ambras recognises in Bering “einen von denen, die im Steinbruch mit Stahlruten zuschlagen” (MK 439) – and that is exactly what Bering has become, although several decades after Ambras’ incarceration. The two, master and bodyguard fall to their deaths symbolically connected by a red rope. This rope joins their stories in the problematic binaries of master/servant, victim/perpetrator and links them also in their human frailty. In Morbus Kitahara, the character of Bering shows the capacity of the human individual to inflict violence and suffering on his/her fellows. At first the victim of the fear and violence of others, he becomes a perpetrator of murderous brutality against his own kind. Bering “ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” This potential, in Bering’s case, is related to a perception of a generation’s heritage of violence and cruelty which has been denied and buried within the collective unconscious of a community. He has demonstrated a lack of empathy for the victims of violence and cruelty – and is met with a similar lack of empathy from the one whose love he seeks. While rejecting his “Erbe,” Bering’s attempt to escape it is thwarted. Tragically, the very person who may make possible Bering’s escape from the cycle of suffering and violence, Muyra, is Bering’s last victim. The pull of the cycle is too strong. His isolation and sense of frustration and entrapment led to rage and violence after his return from Brand. He was seduced by the power and invulnerability symbolised by technology and weaponry. He has been excluded from the circle of human warmth and communication which is most strongly developed by the relationship between Ambras and Lily. Bering

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takes his place in the continuing warfare of human existence, assuming a role which the past has constructed for him.26 His fate is seemingly inevitable.

The Dog King – “Wer jetzt am Leben bleiben will, muß töten.”

The experiences of Ambras, the survivor of the M oor quarry camp, graphically illustrate how “der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” However his story is not simply that of the victim. The dog imagery associated with Ambras adds another dimension to the core myth in Morbus Kitahara. Ambras, the Dog King, lives in a “Zwischenwelt.” He is no longer an inmate of the quarry camp, but its manager. He is no longer a victim, but a master. Yet he is not accepted as belonging to any side in the battle of the peace. He belongs to the ocupying force’s bureaucracy, but is not one of them. He is designated as M ajor Elliot’s “dog” in occupation circles. The problematic relationship between occupier and victim of the defeated regime is indicated in Elliot’s farewell gift to Ambras. Ambras is nonplussed to find the bundle secured by a dog’s leash, which Elliot had said Ambras had left at the military camp. “Vergessen? Ich habe noch nie in keiner Kaserne etwas vergessen” (MK 102). Inside is a pistol wrapped in an American flag. Ambras’ status is reaffirmed in this act. Even to the occupier he is not recognised as a human being in his own right. He knows to whom he must offer allegiance in the struggle for survival. The Moor villagers see him as M ajor Elliot’s proxy and hate him as they had hated the occupation commander. Ambras’ soon-to-be mythologised battle with the wild dogs of Villa Flora leads to him becoming known as the Dog King in Moor.27 The Villa Flora, known locally as the “Hundehaus,” becomes Ambras’ home. His decision to live in the Villa Flora after his liberation is a symbolic attempt to escape from his past, to the “Jenseits” which the lights of the Villa Flora represented during his years in the camp. The lights reflected in

26 Ransmayr’s long-held challenge to address the themes of “das Erbe unserer Väter, die Saat der Gewalt und unserer aller […] Verführbarkeit …” comes together in the figure of Bering. Brita Steinwendtner, “ Christoph Ransmayr; Morbus Kitahara, Ein Monolith der Düsternis,” L iteratur und Kritik, November (1995): 66. 27 Ransmayr had rejected Der Hundekönig as an earlier title for his third novel as being too restrictive (along with Das Tote Gebirge and Das Steinerne Meer – the last a title used by Clemens Eich for his novel published in the same year). Löffler, “ Das Thema hat mich bedroht,” 16. As Landa points out, the use of the Dog King as the title of the English translation indicated its projected reception in the American market as a Holocaust text. See Landa, “ Fractured Vision In Christoph Ransmayrs Morbus Kitahara,” 136.

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the setting sun dazzled him so that he was “einen Moment lang taub und blind gegen das Inferno seiner Gegenwart geworden” (MK 76).

In der Ewigkeit seiner Lagerjahre wurden ihm diese Lichtspuren schließlich zum eigenen Indiz dafür, daß der Steinbruch von Moor doch nicht alles war und daß jenseits des elektrischen Zauns immer noch eine andere Welt existieren mußte – auch wenn sie ihn und seinesgleichen längst vergessen zu haben schien. (MK 76)

After the war Ambras views the quarry literally and metaphorically from another perspective. Each day he travels from the Villa Flora to the quarry to oversee the excavation. Yet, emotionally and geographically he relives his experiences as a victim. He responds to Bering’s question,

Zurückgekommen in den Steinbruch? Ich bin nicht zurückgekommen. Ich war im Steinbruch, wenn ich in den ersten Jahren der Stellamourzeit durch die Schutthalden von Wien oder Dresden oder durch irgendeine andere dieser umgepflügten Städte gegangen bin […] Ich war niemals fort. (MK 210)

Ambras’ experiences in the quarry camp appear to deny him any egress to the world of human society. The lessons he has learned in desperation and brutality from the prisoners and the guards in the labour camp stand him in good stead, however, when he moves into the villa (M K 76).

Aber Ambras brauchte im Umgang mit Feinden schon lange keine Warnungen mehr. Er schlägt dem Angreifer das Eisenrohr mit einer solchen Wucht über Augen und Schnauze, daß der Hund aus seinem Sprung auf den Kiesweg zurückstürzt. Dort hustet, dort bellt er Blut […]

A second dog attacks,

Dann trifft auch ihn das Eisenrohr, fährt ihm wie eine Lanze in den aufgerissenen Rachen, feilt an seinen Reißzähnen und stopft ihm Fetzen seines Gaumens tief in den Hals. […] Wer jetzt am Leben bleiben will, muß töten […] Und so ist es Ambras, der sich mit einem Wut- oder Schmerzensschrei, der einem Bellen ähnlicher ist als der menschlichen Stimme, auf den Hund wirft und ihm das Maul mit beiden Händen zudrückt […] [E]r reißt den Hundeschädel in der Klammer seiner Arme nach hinten, zwingt diesen Schädel mit aller Kraft zurück […]. Mit einem weithin hörbaren Laut bricht das Genick (MK 77-9).

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Ambras never escapes from the world of beasts which he entered when he entered the Moor quarry camp. Upon his return to Moor, he demonstrates the brutal efficiency needed to subdue his attackers, then takes up residence sharing his home with the prowling semi-wild beasts. To establish his power and status in the world of men, however, Ambras relies on his bodyguard. Ambras accepts the anger and aggression of the M oor villagers. In Brazil the cycle of experience is re-enacted and Ambras is delivered to the physical and emotional space of the past. He is delivered to Dog Island where wild dogs still roam. The ruins of the prison on the island are transformed into the prison where he was forced to labour under inhuman conditions in Moor. Bering, carrying the rope, is transformed in Ambras’ eyes into a camp guard come to string Ambras up once more for the “Schaukel” torture. The bushfire smoke carries him back to the crematorium he had been liberated from decades before. For both Bering and Ambras the attempt to escape the past is ultimately impossible. For Ambras, “der M ensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf.” That was the lesson of war and the Holocaust, and it is relived continuously in his experience. He survived the quarry only to live as a dog amongst dogs. The effects of the brutalisation suffered in the concentration camps are also seen in the fate of those who were then in a position of power. In Moor, Lily’s father is recognised as “eine[r] von denen, die in ihren schwarzen Uniformen auf den Bahnsteigen, in den Lagern, Steinbrüchen und unter den Galgen und überall dort aufgetaucht waren, wo nicht nur das Glück und das Leben ihrer Opfer, sondern eine ganze Welt zu Ende ging” (MK 116). Lily’s father is dragged down to the lake through the wet snow and thrown into the darkness. Was he the one who poured water over naked prisoners so they lay in a glassy, winter frost? Or was he the one who threw wounded hostages into open graves? Or the one who idly smoked a cigarette while people packed into cattle wagons died of thirst? (MK 116-7) Although the hate of his primary accuser “viel kleiner geworden [ist] als der Schmerz” (MK 118) and the rage of others has also subsided, the remainder of the mob string Lily’s father up on the old diving board. Cut down by occupation troops, he disappears forever. After his disappearance his transformation from black shirt into an innocent civilian is attempted by his wife.

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Die Mutter saß und malte und ersetzte die schwarze Uniform Pinselstrich für Pinselstrich durch einen Lodenanzug mit Hirschhornknöpfen und die Schirmmütze durch einen Filzhut, dem sie ein 28 Sträußchen Heidekraut aufsteckte (MK 122).

The reversal of roles of perpetrator and vicim is a problematic one that is repeated through the text and rests uneasily within existing discourses of guilt and penance. It does, however, develop the complexity of an interpretation of the homo homini lupus narrative. The pictorial transformation too of Lily’s father by his wife also symbolises the transformation from willing accomplice into unwilling victim in actual history, a transformation which so many of the “Kriegsgeneration” in Austria post-World War Two later attempted.

“Ein Krieg im Gebirge. Krieg im Bambuswald und Krieg im Packeis.”

The acts of the victors in the international theatre of war are not overlooked in the development of “der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” as a “Grundmythos” in Morbus Kitahara. Primarily, in this context, the critical emphasis is on the dropping of the atom bomb by the Americans three decades after the cessation of war in Europe. The inclusion of such information reinforces the reader's perception of the ever- presence of war in human experience. Since Bering’s childhood, the images of war have been the background of his life experience and he has become desensitised to them.

Das Fernsehgerät […] erleuchtete die Nächte stundenlang mit Bildern vom Krieg. Ein Dschungelkrieg. Ein Krieg im Gebirge. Krieg im Bambuswald und Krieg im Packeis. Wüstenkriege. Vergessene Kriege. Ein Krieg in Japan; einer von vielen: […] Nein, solche Berichte und Verkündigungen rührten keinen mehr in Moor (MK 320).

The “harnessing of the basic power of the universe” (original text - MK 320) in the development of the atom bomb shows to what perverse lengths humankind has gone to harness the power of nature to ensure the destruction of its own kind. The drunken

28 Lily’s father is posthumously granted a symbolic “ Persil-schein” by the act of his wife’s painting. One notes here the similarity of the transformation undertaken in Waidhofen’s town hall. A painting of the village bedecked in Nazi regalia is simply overpainted after the war. Swastikas are covered by the red-white-red post war national colours. Symbolically, the colours fade, the swastikas reappear and need to be periodically painted over once more! Christoph Ransmayr, “Die vergorene Heimat,” (WS 60).

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revelry of celebration in Brand after the capitulation of Japan is blind to the inevitability of the war front simply shifting to another part of the globe. The image of the mushroom cloud becomes the literal and subconscious background to human experience as soldiers carouse and television screens continuously replay the news coverage. Two points need to be made here. It is problematic to assert blithely in a fictional text which is so clearly connected to the experience of the Second World War and its aftermath, that a state of warfare is natural in the experience of humankind and therefore acceptable on some level. Such an assertion reawakens anxieties of apologism. What is clear, is that the Americans, who are specifically named in the text (when the Nazis are not) are made responsible for crimes against humanity by the bombing of Nagoya.29 The text apparently feels itself on easy ground when expressing a certain anti-American content. However quantitive and qualitive weighing of guilt and responsibility are ultimately not the purpose of the text. Far from being an apologist, Ransmayr has demonstrated a long established engagement with issues of Nazi crimes and Holocaust victims. 30 The post-war generations, symbolised by Bering and Lily in Morbus Kitahara must come to terms with their heritage of war and narratives of guilt and culpability. The way in which no character or group is shown to be exempt from a generalised

29 Such a judgement in Ransmayr’s text may be seen as entirely in character with anti-US protests in Europe during the Vietnam war during the 1960s – and, in a similar context, with anti-Israeli protests in the face of the reported mistreatment of Palestinians. Other anti-U.S. critique follows standard lines of the global colonisation of American consumer values and popular culture. 30 In interviews about Morbus Kitahara the author stresses that the experience of Ambras as representative of the Holocaust generation is the textual focus as well as the post-war generation of Bering and Lily. The writing of any “ third-generation” holocaust text will of necessity be an extremely delicate task.The term “ third generation” Holocaust text has been used to indicate how the Holocaust exerience has been opened to general appropriation, after its original restriction to representation by eyewitnesses and testimonies of non-surviving victims. (See Berger, After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse, xvi.) Ransmayr’s compassionate honouring of the survivors is seen in the dedication of the Morbus Kitahara text to Fred Rotblatt, a Holocaust survivor with whom Ransmayr became friends in Brazil. Ransmayr’s early journalism also reflects a close concern with the Nazi regime and its impact on its victims. He has written about the death of Erich Mühsam, about Jura Soyfer, forced labour camps, the quarries of Mauthausen and Ebensee. See Erna Lackner, “ Christoph Ransmayr,” FAZ Magazin, 13. October, 1995: 15. The homo homini lupus motif not only recurs in Ransmayr’s own work but also in collections with which he has worked as editor. In Im blinden Winkel: Nachrichten aus Mitteleuropa pessimistic scenarios of the lack of human understanding and cooperation are visited in a variety of short texts. Ransmayr’s own ‘Przemysl: Ein mitteleuropäisches Lehrstück’’ (BW 7) reports on the short-lived, utopian republic in which euphoric hope of a new Golden Age ends in the death of a “ Pole mosaischen Bekenntnisses” after inter-ethnic violence. Such issues are developed further in, among others, Robert Wagner’s ‘Unter Brüdern: Ein osteuropaischer Haßregister.’ (BW 207) and also Martin Pollack’s ‘Jäger und Gejagter: Das Überleben der SS. Nr 107136’ (BW 169). The reader stands “ sprachlos … vor Martin Pollack’s Recherche über das von einem SS-Führer […] verfasste Memorandum über eine ‘Humane Lösung der Judenfrage’.” (“ Geistesverwandschaft über Grenzen hinweg: eine Aufsammlung über Mitteleuropa,” Neue Züricher Zeitung, 18. December, 1985: 38. 253

human potential for violence and cruelty is captured by the complexity of relationships of power in the text and emphasises the text’s provocative and confronting nature. The universal state of warfare as developed in the novel is enacted on different levels. It is manifested as “hot” acts of violence on an international scale, violence on a community level, but also as conflict and misunderstanding on the level of inter-personal relationships. The reports of acts of inhumanity in the last war, the violence on the streets of Moor and the televised images of nuclear destruction show “der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf” in both the social microcosm and macrocosm.

Survivors.

In Morbus Kitahara few escape the experience of war intact. The exception appears to be Lily. The female roles in Ransmayr’s novels are generally minor. They are marginalised in a male-centred space.31 But Lily is the only character in Morbus Kitahara who easily crosses borders and transgresses expectations. In Brand and on the ship to Brazil, Lily is able to blend into the existing milieu and enjoy the benfits of this. She is finally impatient with images and personalities of the past and, intent on pursuing her dream in Brazil, she leaves Dog Island with strangers. Lily’s ability to break free and move forward is perhaps that which finally denies Bering emotional ties with her. He is bound in the vicious cycle of an unmastered history while she is focused on the future. Uneasily though, the reader understands that Lily’s ability to create a future depends on her ability to flexibly adapt to the post-war status quo without confronting any of the issues of the past. She deals with the war in terms of trading its artefacts, but she is untouched by them: they are a means to an end. Lily is morally pragmatic, altering her allegiance when it is appropriate to her greater plan. But she is capable of self-reflection and action, in a way of which Bering is incapable. Her time as a huntress ends after seeing herself in Bering’s murderous attack on the hen thieves. But as stated above, Lily, as a survivor, is an exception. Predominantly the text details a generalised pessimistic anthropology. Whether consciously or by default, the human individual suffers through the acts of his/her fellows. These acts are carried out or condoned by the state, which in Hobbes’ philosophy should serve to protect the individual from others. In Morbus Kitahara, the homo homini lupus dictum is enacted

31 Anna Koreth (SEF) and Echo (LW) for example, inspire males such Mazzini and Cotta respectively to make discoveries in the recreation of perceived realities, while they themselves fade from the text. 254

on an historical scale in the acts of war and on a social and personal scale by acts of violence, cruelty and the breakdown of meaningful dialogue. The notion of victim and perpetrator is problematic. The victim may become a perpetrator, the perpetrator may become a victim. The “Wolfsnatur” of humankind is read in the text as a fundamental myth which reflects and explains the horrors of human experience in the actions and fate of both perpetrator and victim. However, apart from Ambras, no other character in Morbus Kithara confronts the reality of this tragic “Grundmythos” of human existence. Both Bering and Lily, in different ways, refuse to listen and turn away.

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CHAPTER EIGHT.

“Menschenleer.” The Aesthetics of Humility.

All three of Ransmayr’s novels describe worlds in which the main characters are potentially overwhelmed by an “absolutism of reality” which corresponds to either the threatening unknown or the repressive known of their existence. In the texts this “absolutism of reality” is largely constructed by the impact of abuses of scientific modernity upon the individual. As a response to this “absolutism of reality” certain myths emerge on both an individual and community level .The re-emergence of myth as a strategy with which to confront the “absolutism of reality” reflects the novels’ privileging of a changed mode of perception. This changed mode of perception is related to the novels’ rejection of the destructive manifestations of the project of scientific modernity noted above. The critique of modernity is also developed on a symbolic level in the novels by the way the human subject is represented. The aesthetics of humility which operates in Ransmayr’s novels depends essentially on the way each text symbolically reviews the humanist assumption that the human subject has a privileged status and autonomy of action. This chapter examines the disappearance of the human subject which is the radical culmination of this reviewing and re-positioning as it is enacted in each novel. The intention and quality of this disappearance will be integrated into the aesthetics of humility already elaborated. In previous chapters, I have shown that the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s novels initially depends on the reader’s recognition of the way in which the character representing the human subject is removed, voluntarily or not, to the extreme edge of the world. In this act, the human subject is also symbolically removed from its position of privilege and power. The subject initially experiences disorientation in this relocation to the edge of modern civilisation. The expeditions undertaken by Weyprecht and Payer, and later by Mazzini, in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, for example, symbolically enact the change to the Western humanist perspective adopted in the text. A re-mythologising of the narrative of human experience occurs in this change of perspective. Similarly, Naso’s exile in Die letzte Welt, and Cotta’s voyage to the last world also symbolically represent their alienation

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and dislocation from the rational centre of Rome. In the landscape of exile Naso and Cotta share the same fate as all other characters, becoming increasingly aware of transience and change. Symbolically, all certainties and structures are under attack. Totalitarian Rome’s claims to structure and endurance are similarly challenged by the very existence of the last world. The collapse of systems and structures in Die letzte Welt reveals the text’s critical postmodernist intentions. The novel shows a general loss of certainty and power as the fate of modernist hegemonies. In all three texts, the natural world is privileged as the Other of civilisation and culture. Nature is represented in terms of its transforming potential and refuge value, or in its role as monument and sentinel of memory. The damage suffered by nature, particularly in Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara, reflects the damage perpetrated by, but also suffered by, human society on a number of levels. The blame for this damage is apportioned to the abuse or mismanagement of various projects of historical and scientific modernity, such as the subjugation and containment of the natural world, and those projects promoting industrialisation and war. The texts illuminate human culpability in such abuse or mismanagement . The manipulation of time and space in each text assists the novels’ confrontation with the critique of historical and scientific modernity and the implications of this critique on the role of the human subject. Morbus Kitahara in particular, illustrates the collapse of liberalist and progress narratives of historical modernity. In the text, the forward linear projection of history is reversed. In this rejection of a perception of time which is synonymous with historical modernity, the notion of time is freed from modern constraints and, as in the first two novels, is increasingly perceived as cyclical. The first four chapters of my study have examined the way in which a critique of historical modernity is developed by the response of individual subjects to a perceived “absolutism of reality.” In all three texts, the human subject is represented as having lost control of the reality within which he/she exists.1 On a physical level this operates in the form of the threat posed by the extremity of conditions, either in the Arctic or in the climatic abnormalities, earthquakes and avalanches of the last world. On a psychological level the subject’s loss of control is conveyed in terms of the irrelevance of rational thought in an irrational, fantastical environment. In Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara this loss of control experienced by individual characters is also

1 T hose characters, such as Lily, who appear to have control of their situation are, as mentioned earlier, very much the exception in Ransmayr’s fiction. 257

manifested politically; as seen in the repression enacted by the Roman regime on its opponents and in the program of re-barbarisation carried out by occupation forces in Moor. From this, the rejection of the project of historical modernity largely takes both the afore-mentioned form of the individual subject’s symbolic relocation from the central space of humanistic privilege and the illustration of the collapse of modern metanarratives. However, the following chapters of my study have sought to reveal how the aesthetics of humility is also developed in the re-structuring and re-writing of narratives of human existence, a role which is taken by core myth narratives. The human subject’s loss of autonomy and power is emphasised in the examination of the eternal recurrence as a “Grundmythos” of human existence. In the context of a narrative of the eternal recurrence, the human subject is an integral, yet not dominant, part of the natural world, and experiences the recurring challenges and dilemmas of human existence time after time. In each text, but particularly so in Die letzte Welt, the importance of the human subject and modern institutions is undercut by the representation of the transient nature of human, and in fact, all existence. “Grundmythen” of downfall, apocalypse and metamorphosis illustrate the dynamic cycle of change which characterises the last world. In such a context of transformation, the privileged position of the modern human subject is temporary. The fate of the acclaimed Roman poet, Naso, is specific testimony to this. The “Grundmythos” which attempts to explain the human capacity for violence and cruelty by declaring that “der M ensch ist dem M enschen ein Wolf” extends the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr’s fiction. Not only is the human subject represented as increasingly displaced and irrelevant, it is condemned as destructive and morally irredeemable. The aesthetics of humility highlights not only an acceptance of the changed and lowered status of the modern subject, but the recognition of human complicity in acts detrimental to both the natural and civilised world. This acceptance and recognition is only partially achieved by certain characters in the texts. The primary act of perception must lie with the reader. The final aspect of the aesthetics of humility is the disappearance of the human subject altogether. The subject initially becomes objectified in the writings of, or through the treatment of others, then literally disappears in each text. The physical disappearance of the human subject and its subsumation by the natural world is equated in the texts with the death of the self which 258

effectively ends the subject/object binary. It is this subject/object binary which has promoted the human subject’s privileged role in a modern Western cosmography. The disappearance of the human subject takes place within a return to nature which is enacted in the novels.

The Return to Nature.

Any discussion of a return to nature necessitates reference to its great advocate, Jean- Jacques Rousseau. However, whereas for Rousseau the return to nature was primarily a philosophical reflection on the perfectability of the inner nature of man, my reading of Ransmayr’s novels examines on a geo-physical and a symbolic level the return to the natural landscape undertaken by the protagonists of each novel. The physical return to a natural landscape symbolically represents the characters’ exposure to unfamiliar irrational forces that confront and force a reassessment of “das Wesentliche” in each specific text. As already shown, Ransmayr’s reading of the true inner nature of humankind has much more to do with Hobbes’ view of the aggressive and combative nature of the human animal rather than Rousseau’s view which sees human primal nature as essentially good. However, Rousseau’s belief that “we can return to nature” by abandoning pride, casting away a world of illusion and rediscovering our own self2 does anticipate the project of the New Science in Strahlender Untergang. This short text ends in a revelation of “das Wesentliche” almost simultaneously with the ‘death’ of the human subject. In the following discussion, Strahlender Untergang will be examined, along with each of the three novels, in terms of this disappearance of the human subject. The disappearance of the human subject which occurs in all three novels begins with a physical voyage or journey, a geo-physical return to nature, which is undertaken by the protagonists in each text. The journey has the potential of a robinsonnade, as the questing characters seek a utopia removed from the known, repressive or calamitous world from which they departed. The return to nature, when observed with the gaze attuned to a mythical reading of human existence, however, also symbolically suggests a return to an original unity of human being and cosmos before the separation caused by a symbolic Fall (whether biblical or epistemological). In this way, the modernist assertion of the human being as an autonomous entity is ultimately withdrawn in the

2 Ernest Hunter Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963) 31.

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novels. The end of the characters’ path back to nature is the disintegration of human identity and the dissolution of a subject-object binary. No longer does the human form, embodied in its philosophical projects and physical structures, dominate the natural landscape. The human subject not only relinquishes its place at the humanistic centre but is subsumed in a greater cosmic design. A disintegration of human identity, the human notion of self, in a “Selbstauflösung” relates to the physical dissolution and disappearance of human form. The death of the self as an escape from a destructive existential cycle is represented in the texts through the metamorphoses of form. All three novels suggest such a “Selbstauflösung” may occur only in the natural world, remote from civilisation. In each text the primary characters are subsumed into the natural world, in a way which underlines a perception of the essential unity of the cosmos, a mythic state of one-ness.3 This subsumation takes a different form in each novel. While the “Grundmythen” discussed in previous chapters structure the novels, to greater or lesser extent, the return to nature is a narrative common to each of the texts. The following section will examine the return to nature related in the three novels. The return to nature narrative is a precursor not only for the disappearance of the human subject, but also for the moment of revelation of “das Wesentliche” in each text. The author’s short piece Strahlender Untergang, is, I argue, a prototype of the project of disappearance which appears in various forms in Ransmayr’s later work. Discussion of Strahlender Untergang at this later point in my study is justified by the text’s direct reference to the particular focus of this chapter. The short text highlights in unequivocal fashion aspects of an, in this case, enforced return to nature and the disappearance of the human subject as an intended consequence of a scientific project. In so doing, Strahlender Untergang, demonstrates the author’s early critique of scientific modernity. Strahlender Untergang is typically less sophisticated in its treatment of this critique than are the later novels, both in terms of its (far shorter) length and (far greater) lack of subtlety.

3 Bachmann, however, believes that the utopic reconciliation between the human subject and nature is a “ Heimkehrwunsch” which, in Die letzte Welt, is only apparently fulfilled in myth. The last world is “ eine Welt ohne Menschen, ein Totenreich” and myth loses its power in the face of the “ Abschaffung” [[of the fear] of death. See Peter Bachmann, “ Die Auferstehung des Mythos in der Postmoderne. Philosophische Voraussetzungen zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt,” Diskussion Deutsch, 1990: 645.

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“Am Anfang war die Sonne”

Strahlender Untergang illustrates a movement “zurück zur Natur” where the desert is the perfect site for a revelation concerning “das Wesentliche” in human existence.4 The desert in which the action occurs is the extreme edge of Western/ European civilisation. This natural space has been chosen to be the site of the New Science project because of its inhospitality to human life: it is the “Wüste der Wüsten” (SU 1). The desert is a space historically inimical to human life. “[D]ie teils verwesten, teils mumifizierten Überreste von zweitausend Mann und eintausendachthundert Kamelen” (SU 2) which were found in 1809 testify to the desert’s inhospitality. According to lorry drivers, “[d]iese Gegend … sei vormals nur unter dem Zwang größter Not, des dringenden Warenbedarfs oder aber des Irrsinns durchquert worden” (SU 1). The extreme temperatures and constant sandstorms assert the natural world’s capacity to withstand human incursion. The natural world, in general, is described in terms of its power and complexity. Both the massivity and, conversely, the intricate, miniscule detail of nature are emphasised throughout the text. The epigraph, a quotation from Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)5, establishes from the outset the omnipotence of the sun in the natural cosmos.6

Seit Millionen von Jahren umgibt uns das Brüllen der Sonne Ein gigantisches Feuerofen-Brüllen Über einhundertfünfzig Millionen Kilometer, Das so vollkommen gleichförmig ist, Daß Generationen von Menschen in ihm geboren werden, Leben, sterben konnten, ohne es jemals zu bemerken. (SU 1)

4 Biblical associations of the desert with purification and revelation are consistent here with the later fate of the “ Herr der Welt” who is sacrificed for his people. The parodic program of the New Science, which is discussed later in detail, undermines, however, humanist pretensions to take the place of the Son of God as saviour of the human race. 5 Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (London: Jonathan Cape, 1973). In German, Die Enden der Parabel, trans. Elfriede Jelinek and Thomas Piltz (Hamburg: Reinbek, 1984) 6 Pynchon’s “ grandiose Parabel” also establishes the omnipotence of the “ phantasmagorischen Energien, die der militärisch-industrielle Komplex freisetzt.” See Bernhard Fetz, “ Der ‘Herr der Welt’,” Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit, 30.

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The Speaker in the first chapter rhapsodises through a biological world history, tracing the origins of life back to single-celled organisms which became fossilized three billion eight hundred million years ago. Such an observation places the brief temporal span of humankind’s presence on earth into perspective. The chemical processes which spawn elementary life forms all relate back to the powerful generator of heat and light, the sun - “am Anfang war die Sonne” (SU 6). However the architects of the New Science Project intend the power of the sun to be harnessed in a new way - not to generate life but to effect its end.7 To achieve the ideal conditions for this destruction, the desert is transformed by the project work force. Two thousand three hundred workers have levelled approximately seventy square kilometers of desert. This area has been enclosed by a four metre-high aluminium fence. Free of water and vegetation, this terrarium is “das Bild der Zukunft” (SU 5). The New Scientists believe they can perfect upon the desert’s potential for inhospitality with their construction of the terrarium. “Das von Erosionskräften und vulkanischem Druck mißgestaltete Land ist von jeder planlos natürlich verlaufenden Folge von Niederungen und Erhebungen, Einbrüchen und Rissen zu befreien” (SU 10). The massivity and power of nature, symbolised by the sun in Strahlender Untergang and the attempt by human civilisation to master it, is echoed in all three Ransmayr novels. The natural world of crushing ice floes, the extreme cold and the months of polar night in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis is also recorded in imagery of majestic white frozen cliffs and fantastic polar lights. The beauty and challenge of the wilderness is the dominant impression of Payer’s lyrical journal entries. In the arctic landscape the human male adventurer is puny and subject to terrors of ice and darkness. He is physically vulnerable to cold and hunger, and psychically vulnerable to the understanding of the human being’s unimportance in this space. He becomes increasingly disorientated in the isolation of the ice. Despite this disorientation, or perhaps in spite of it, the expedition crew tries to force the contours of their European reality onto the ice. Trapped by the ice, they, like the “Proband” in the desert terrarium must confront the power of nature, in this case, in order to de-mystify it through scientific investigation. Unlike the “Proband” in Strahlender Untergang, the expedition, after months of almost unendurable hardship, is able to escape the confines of the ice and return to civilisation.

7 Fetz sees the collective death wish expressed in Pynchon’s work transformed in Ransmayr’s Strahlender Untergang into the “ Projekt der Selbstabschaffung der weißen Herrenrasse.” Fetz,, 31. 262

Although the natural world in Die letzte Welt is represented as damaged and vengeful in contrast to the silent superiority of the polar ice, nature in the last world, as already discussed, is powerful and is capable of progressively throwing off the artefacts of its colonisation by human civilisation. Human agency has imposed its presence on the landscape. Now largely abandoned, the mines and tunnels through the last world valleys have destabilised the terrain. New mountain peaks, new valleys, flows of glittering ore are formed, webs and skeins of new growth bedeck Tomi. In this world the human subject is dazed and uncomprehending, especially when newly arrived from Rome. Finally, the transformation of the landscape sweeps away the human presence. As in Strahlender Untergang, the power of the natural world, disturbed and damaged as it is, is the context and agency of the physical disappearance of the human subject. In Morbus Kitahara, the massive natural barrier between Moor and the lowlands formed by the lake and the mountain range, dominates the horizon and swallows the human beings who venture there, or transforms them.8 Like the natural space of the last world, the no-man’s land of the “Steinernes M eer” bears the scars of human activity. The mines and erosion of the last world reveal an exploitation of the wealth of the earth, whereas the granite quarry also testifies to the exploitation of the human workers held captive there. The natural world in Morbus Kitahara, released from the structures and infrastructures of modernity, under the de-industrialisation program of the occupation forces, dominates and oppresses the cowed human community of Moor. Under the industrial demontage project of the Stellamour Plan, Bering the blacksmith and mechanic is subject to urgent demand.

[d]enn auf den verwahrlosten Höfen, vom Unkraut verfilzten Äckern und sauren Wiesen brauchte man die Dienste eines Grobschmieds, der gesprungene Pflüge schweißen und Mähbalken schärfen konnte (MK 49)

The M oor villagers struggle to keep nature at bay but slowly Bering’s collection of tools and spare parts rust and are overgrown in the “Eisenfriedhof” at the smithy. In all three novels the natural world, pure or despoiled, is a crucible for the transformation of the human subjects who, for a variety of reasons, journey to it. M azzini becomes part of the ice and darkness, Naso, Cotta and other Tomi villagers

8 One thinks in this context of the lost prisoners who were thrown by their captors down one of the ravines of “das Steinerne Meer” and the hen thief shot by Bering.

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become stone, sound, birds and animals. In Morbus Kitahara, the final scene on Dog Island shows three characters slowly being subsumed into the natural world through the agency of fire and decay. A similar subsumation occurs in Strahlender Untergang as the human guinea pig succumbs to dehydration and burning under the blazing sun. This moment of transformation is simultaneously the “Probands” moment of revelation in the recognition of “das Wesentliche.” 9 In Strahlender Untergang an ever-increasing stream of human participants enthusiastically enters the desert terraria for their organised disappearance. The central characters in the three novels, however, seek out or are thrust into a world of nature for a variety of reasons. The world of nature in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis takes the form, for Payer in particular, of a paradise. As already noted, the voyage northwards, for him, may lead to the discovery of a utopian place, an island “ein schönes Land, still und sanft.” Payer dreams of an unspoiled Eden, “[s]eine Thäler dachten wir damals mit Weiden geschmückt und von Renthieren belebt, welche im ungestörten Genuß ihrer Freistätte weilen, fern von allen Feinden” (SEF 38). Weyprecht, on the other hand, seeks a paradise of knowledge. His dreams are focused in the realms of scientific knowledge which may be gained from the voyage of discovery. Later, M azzini actively seeks out the world of nature and adventure, extreme spaces and exotic experiences, in his own response to the “unverschämte Ausbruchsbereitschaft, die uns nach Dienstschluß von Dschungelmärschen, Karawanen oder flirrenden Treibeisfelden träumen läßt” (SEF 21). His dreams and fantasies concentrate on the arctic emptiness, which he sees as unspoilt by human presence. Naso’s banishment to the last world is an enforced re-location from the culture and civilisation of Rome to a world increasingly re-colonised by nature. The Metamorphoses text demonstrates the principle of transformation so active in the natural world in and around Tomi; a principle which the structure-bound hierarchy in Rome attempts to deny through civil repression. Under such conditions the life dynamic of metamorphoses can only be revealed in tantalising fragments. The cosmopolitan Naso has written a text whose existential relevance can only be realised against an appropriate backdrop. This backdrop is the chaotic and fantastical last world in which nature continually and in a multiplicity of forms demonstrates the principle of transformation. Cotta’s return to nature in Die letzte Welt is, as in all things, a re-

9 The revelations of “das Wesentliche” in Strahlender Untergang and the three novels will be discussed later in this chapter. 264

enactment of Naso’s. As the vestiges of his Roman identity drop away, Cotta becomes much more attuned to the operation of the natural world and is able to read it in a way formerly impossible. The natural space of the last world has been too much intruded upon by human presence to have maintained a pristine quality. It is no Eden, no ideal enclave10 separate from the vicissitudes and brutalities of the outside world. However in its remoteness and chaotic unpredictability, the last world, and nature which dominates within its space, functions to reassert lost perceptions of the interconnectedness of life, of human beings and nature. Pythagoras’s vision of the transmigration of souls also supports such a perception.

Pythagoras behauptete, in den Augen von Kühen und Schweinen den Blick verlorener, verwandelter Menschen ebenso zu erkennen wie im Gestarre eines betrunkenen Erzkochers schon das Lauern des Raubtiers; behauptete, im Verlauf der Wanderung seiner eigenen Seele die gepanzerten Körper von Echsen und Offizieren bewohnt zu haben … (LW 252).

Cotta’s recognition of the transience of form-in-existence makes his final understanding of the pattern of life (which the Metamorphoses reveals) complete.

Das Schlachthaus war nur noch ein bemooster Felsen, an dem eine Schar Nebelkrähen ihre Schnäbel schärfte; die Gassen waren Hohlwege durch dorniges, blühendes Dickicht und ihre Bewohner in Steine verwandelt oder in Vögel, in Wölfe und leeren Hall (LW 286).

A return to nature in Morbus Kitahara operates on two levels. The Stellamour Plan’s policy to reduce the occupied territories to a basic agrarian society begins the re- barbarisation of the defeated. The destruction of the physical structures of industrialised civilisation begins the rejuvenation of the natural world. However the central image of a return to nature is found when the trio of Ambras, Lily and Bering sail to Brazil. After experiencing the catastrophe of war in Europe, Lily sees Brazil as her dream land. By setting sail for the New World, the three embark on what for Lily is the voyage to her own utopia, a place entirely separate from the Old World in Europe.11 She is able to

10 John Armstrong, The Paradise Myth, (London: Oxford University Press, 1969) 3. 11 Müller points out that the classic island utopia is seen as perfect because it has nothing to do with European society, it is totally separate from it. For Lily Brazil was any place remote from war, even Moor in the early post-war years. See Götz Müller, Gegenwelten: Die Utopie in der deutschen Literatur(Stuttgart, Metzler, 1989) 10.

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maintain focus on this dream after the temporary delay in Pantano and on Dog Island. Pantano, the New World Moor, is described in terms similar to an overgrown Garden of Eden. On closer inspection the luxuriant growth reveals the bars of cages and the diseased animals confined within. Lily, Ambras and Bering are forcibly kept isolated in Pantano by tropical rains, floods and mudslides. This enforced isolation and Pantano’s natural landscape are increasingly reminiscent of the experience of M oor for both characters and the reader. The robinsonnade enacted by Lily, Bering and Ambras continues with the boat ride to the uninhabited island, Dog Island, with its prison ruins and wild dogs. However the dystopia of the world they had left behind in Moor awaits them there.12 Both Ambras and Bering remain on Dog Island. They complete a return to nature, their corpses and M uyra’s licked over by bushfire flames, burnt or decaying. Like so many in the history in whose bitter fist they are held, the two characters are subject to a stronger force than they understand.13 Their only escape from this history is to return to a more primeval story, one that reinforces an acceptance of the mortality and relative unimportance of the human subject. Bering and Ambras’ return to nature is one which ends in fire and organic decay. Nature is once more the crucible for a change of form and not only physical death, but a death of self. The corpses of the two men while still lying separately are recognisably bound by Bering's rope. In death, and through the agency of the fire, the characteristics which distinguish one from another are dissolved.

Das Feuer loderte über die Toten hinweg, löschte ihre Augen und Gesichtszüge, entfernte sich prasselnd, kehrte im Sog der eigenen Hitze noch einmal wieder und tanzte auf den zerfallenen Gestalten…” (MK 7).

Another Icarus.

With the voluntary or involuntary return to nature in each text, the stage is set for the disappearance of the human subject. At this point I would like to examine the reasoning behind the project of disappearance in Strahlender Untergang, and, following that, to examine the critical statement made by the disappearance of the human subject in each

12 They cannot escape the hell of the past. Imagery of boat journeys, hell and the dogs that roam Dog Island reinforce the classic mythical dimension of this part of Ransmayr’s text. Cerberus guards this “ Abode of the Accursed.” See Ovid, Metamorphoses. Book IV. trans. Mary M. Innes, 106. 13 This stronger force is that of man’s inhumanity to man: it may be that of the aggressor in the European war or that of the post-war occupier.

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of the three Ransmayr novels. In the case of Strahlender Untergang both the parodic project of the New Science and its predecessor are effectively communicated in the image of the mythical Icarus. The intention of the New Science project in Strahlender Untergang is to redress the wrong action taken by scientific modernity. However the New Science proves itself guilty of the same excesses and vanity of its predecessor. The New Science’s “planmässiger Untergang” of humankind, (in the text specifically noted as white European), is under way in terraria in the deserts of Africa – and, as the cities in Europe empty, in future terraria there too (SU 13). The project is planned to enact consciously and deliberately the destruction of humankind, something which scientific modernity has achieved in a less conscious and deliberate way. The project intends to achieve the “Verwüstung der Erde und das Verschwinden der Menschen” which it perceives to be the essence of (modern) human history.14 Such a project follows a scientifically objective, dispassionate approach to effect the end of humankind. The proposal for an organised “Untergang” of humankind in Strahlender Untergang has much in common with Ulrich Horstmann’s vision of the end of humankind.15 This common approach includes a satirical seriousness in the proposed undertaking of each.16 Horstmann’s Das Untier presents an ostentatiously objective commentary on the contemporary apocalypse, in which the author “fantasiert eine Erlösung der Menschheit im ebenso notwendigen wie wünschenswerten kollektiven Selbstmord.”17 The privileging of “ein anthropofugales Denken”18 (whose philosophical lineage Horstmann traces through past centuries) asserts that the propensity of the

14 Bockelmann, “ Christoph Ransmayr,” Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, 53, 2. (Such a description is also strongly evocative the programmatic destruction of the Jews during the general destruction of the Second World War.) 15 Horstmann, Das Untier. Konturen einer Philosophie der Menschenflucht. 16 Jabtkowska points out that the dedication which begins Horstmann’s text intimates another perspective on his apparent seriousness of intention in presenting his pessimistic thesis of humankind’s destructive history. “ GEWIDMET DEM UNGEBORENEN/UND JENEN YAHOOS/DIE WISSENSCHAFT VON SATIRE/ WOHL ZU UNTERSCHEIDEN VERMÖGEN” (Horstmann, 5). Joanna Jabkowska, Literatur ohne Hoffnung: Die Krise der Utopie in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur, 101. 17 Horstmann, 8. 18 Horstmann compares the anthropofugal perspective to a space ship which circles the earth in ever- widening ellipses, one day being released from the earth’s gravity. At this point “[der Raumfahrer] hat Fluchtgeschwindigkeit erreicht – nun aber freilich keine physikalische, sondern eine intellektuelle. Wie sich der Astronaut aus dem Schwerefeld der Erde löst, so ist es jenem gelungen, der Gravitation des Humanismus, d.h. jener ideologischen Einflußsphäre und Kraft zu entkommen …,” Horstmann, 9.

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“Untier” for brutality and destructiveness allows only one end to world history; that is, the conscious pursuit of humankind’s self-destruction. For Horstmann,

Die Apokalypse steht ins Haus. Wir Untiere wissen es längst, und wir wissen es alle. Hinter dem Parteigezänk, den Auf- und Abrüstungsdebatten, den Militärparaden und Anti-Kriegsmärschen, hinter der Fassade des Friedenswillens und der endlosen Waffenstillstände gibt es eine heimliche Übereinkunft, ein unausgesprochenes großes Einverständnis: daß wir ein Ende machen müssen mit uns und unseresgleichen, so bald und so gründlich wie möglich – ohne Pardon, ohne Skrupel und ohne Überlebende.19

The pseudo-scientific logic which structures the argument of Horstmann’s text is similar to that of the New Science project in Strahlender Untergang. The New Scientists, like Horstmann’s commentator, also judge harshly the mistakes made by the Western imperialist subject, the “Herr der Welt.” The “Herr der Welt” has confused “Kultur mit Zivilisation, die blinde Entwicklung seiner Technik mit Fortschritt, Ideologie mit Bewußtsein, Herrschaft schließlich mit Ordnung” (SU 5). Knowledge has become paralysed in a mire of “fruchtloser Daten, ein zielloses System kapillarer Verästelung, das parasitär am Wesentlichen klebt” (SU 4). Western scientific rationalism and its objective pursuit of power has created an overwhelming “absolutism of reality,” culminating in the exploitation, subjugation of other peoples and the destruction of the physical environment.

Der Helle, der Weiße, der Schwachpigmentierter […] räkelte sich, dehnte sich aus auf dem Rücken ihm fremder Kulturen und erklärte das Fremde zum Rohstoff und Baumaterial der eigenen Zivilisation. Er bediente sich der zweckmäßigsten Formen des Denkens, errichtete so Industrien und gelegentlich Weltreiche und alles geriet ihm zur Herrschaft (SU 8).

The “Herr der Welt,” as the representative of the project of modern scientific and cultural imperialism, now faces destruction at its hands. In the first chapter of Strahlender Untergang, the Speaker praises the new Project to an academic delegation.20 The emergence of the human being on to the biological world stage,

19 Horstmann, 7. 20 In one of several ironic intertextual echoes in Strahlender Untergang, Fetz comments on the Speaker’s ‘Rede vor einer akademischen Delegation in der Oase Bordj T oktar’ comparing it to Franz Kafka’s ‘Ein Bericht für eine Akademie.’ Both speak “ von der Menschwerdung eines Affen.” However, in contrast, in Kafka’s short story, “ der Affe in Menschengestalt hat sein Affentum weit hinter sich gelassen” but in Strahlender Untergang, “ das Vieh in Menschengestalt jedoch gebärdet 268

however, is described critically in terms of a beast going upright, “[ein] Vieh […] Zerstörend, gewaltsam und ohne Bedenken” (SU 7). The Speaker apologises for this insensitive description, not wanting to antagonise his audience. The comparison of man to beast anticipates the later “wolf” motif/core narrative in Ransmayr’s novels. The advocate of the New Science decries the vanity, ignorance and shortsightedness of the practice of traditional science. Its thoughtlessness and wastefulness is contrasted to the practicality and ecological forward planning of the Bedouin. The nomad sews a date seed in his clothing so that if he is lost in the desert sands, a seed may spring out of the dung his corpse provides (SU 8). In contrast, “Der Herr der Welt […] kennt solche Nähvorschriften nicht und nichts steckt in seiner Arbeit, in seinen Gewändern, seinen Automaten und dem Torf seiner Vorgärten, das über ihn hinausweist” (SU 8). The anti-modernity critique which characterises the later novels is developed in the Strahlender Untergang text through the use of a heavy irony and directness of comment absent in Ransmayr’s later works. A similar critique of the discourses of modern Western power and imperialism is most evident in Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Weyprecht’s naïve hope of opening scientific frontiers in the Austro- Hungarian 1872-4 expedition to the North Pole is allied with the assumption of superiority and right which explorers and later colonists brought to the new spaces they penetrated, dominated and exploited. The greed and violence practised on other cultures parallels the assault on the natural world.21 Ambition, greed and rivalry emphasise the failed promise of the Enlightenment project in this nineteenth century context. The technical sophistication of late historical modernity and the existence of the hyperreal, as defined by postmodern discourse, also promote the technological and cultural imperialism experienced by the masses of the late twentieth century. Characters such as M azzini feel denied an authenticity of experience and obsessively seek it in the reconstruction of the past. But rather than being a first-hand experience Mazzini’s reconstruction of Weyprecht and Payer’s expedition is a simulation. Mazzini’s experiences suggest that, indeed, everything has already been done and been written. The writer of the foreword to Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis notes the

sich als das vernunftbegabteste aller Wesen und ist doch Vieh geblieben.” See Fetz, Die Erfindung der Welt, 37.

21 The fate of the Aztec Empire is specifically referred to in this context (SEF 52-54).

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transformation of “das Entlegenste und Entfernteste” into “ein Vergnügungsgelände, ein blinkender Luna-Park” (SEF 9). Science and mass technologies have rendered all experience as reproduceable entertainment. The demystification of the natural world, and the abstraction and instrumentalisation of the project of reason are integral to the critique of totalitarian reason found in Die letzte Welt. The re-mystification of nature and the revitalising of the mythic in the last world show the way in which this world functions as the Other of Rome. The last world atmosphere of progressive collapse, deconstruction and decay, as already noted in earlier chapters, creates a sharp critical perspective of the impact of industrialisation in the text. This sense of entropic collapse, deconstruction and decay is continued into the scenarios of Moor and Pantano in Morbus Kitahara. The project of mastery over human beings and nature in each of the novels threatens the survival of both, as it has in Strahlender Untergang. In Strahlender Untergang scientific modernity is condemned in ironic praise when the first speaker uses its own logics to attack it. The pseudo-scientific method which the New Science Project itself uses is an unreflecting parody of the very thing it supposedly abhors. The New Science Project also has its own protocol, its ignorant workers, its machinery, its plans and information systems. It even arrogantly plans improvements upon the natural conditions of the desert to ensure the most efficient means of dehydration and death for its human guinea pigs.22 The terrarium must be a geometrically structured, precisely measured space, even though it is supposedly “die Wiederholung, die Nachäffung einer leeren Wüste” (SU 3). Just like the earlier science project of historical modernity, the New Science shapes the environment to serve its own ends. The desert must be freed from its natural form.

Die Projektvorschrift verbietet mit allem Nachdruck der ihr zugrundeliegende Einsicht, daß der Protagonist des Verschwindens einer gewordenen Wildnis aus Sedimenten, Sandverwehungen und Geröll ausgesetzt werde; er ist auszusetzen allein den geschaffenen Bedingungen der Wissenschaft (SU 10)

The New Science is a systemic second Icarus in such intentions and acts. Its new project demonstrates breathtaking vanity, arrogance and ignorance. Its adherents seem

22 The planning and construction of the desert terrarium elicits images of Kafka’s “ In der Strafkolonie” where man’s ingenuity is utilised for the revelation of “das Wesentliche” through the medium of a machine which (at least usually) effects a slow and torturous death.

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as uncomprehending as their predecessors as to the ultimate consequences of their new project. They can mouthe the judgemental words which seal the fate of the “Herr der Welt” without a true understanding of the horror of the coming experiment. The “Entwässerungsprojekt” is a systematic scientific madness which, when communicated through plans, lectures, schedules and observations, assumes the status of an objective and valid project. Proud of their new vision of the future, the new Scientists denounce traditional modern science as the unwitting cause of “Untergang” then blithely set up and commercialise the most efficient means of carrying the “Untergang” to completion, using parties, fairs, festivals and propaganda to enrol willing participants.23 In Strahlender Untergang, “Untergang” becomes a spectacle to enthrall and enthuse the masses.24 On the wings of a new arrogance and ignorance, the New Science planners set a metaphoric course for the sun. They are blinded by their new glorious theoretical and philosophical vision. It is left to the reader below to identify the need for an attitude of humility in view of the unreflective actions of the New Scientists. The New Scientists have deliberately initiated a project to achieve the end of humankind, ostensibly to gain a revelation of “das Wesentliche” in the “Verwüstung der Erde und das Verschwinden der Menschen.” Yet the tone and manner of its advocates and the uncomprehending enthusiasm of its guinea pigs all testify to the continuing lack of awareness of the New Science planners as to the real ramifications of their project.

Projects of Disappearance and “das Wesentliche.”

A world which is “menschenleer” is a vision which Ransmayr shares with other writers of his generation, among them Peter Rosei. In Rosei’s Entwurf für eine Welt ohne Menschen. Entwurf zu einer Reise ohne Ziel (1980), he “phantasiert das Verschwinden des Menschen erzähltechnisch aus, das für Ransmayr später zum Programm wird.”25

23 While I agree with Federico that the project of the New Science does place the “ Herr der Welt” in a position to “ recover the sacred” in the moment of death through dehydration, the fact that such a recovery is dependent on the same attitudes and processes as the destructive positivist science the New Scientists rail against, is finally ambiguous. The way the New Science sets up its project as a business venture, while obviously intended ironically, additionally problematicises the New Science’s idealistic intentions. 24 Fetz argues successfully that “ der ironische Gestus” of the text “ macht [ihn] resistent gegen die inflationäre Flut der Apokalypsen, die um das Jahr 1980 herum sich in zahlreichen Büchern […] ereigneten.” Fetz, 29. 25 Preußer locates Rosei’s prose in a developmental progression between Ingeborg Bachmann’s Der Fall Franza and Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. See Preußer “ Reisen an das 271

For both writers, the nature of the world from which human characters leave or are removed is so comprehensively defined, analysed and recorded that individual experience becomes epistemologically problematic.26 In a similar fashion both Strahlender Untergang and Ransmayr’s later two novels, the nature of the world represented by a hegemonic centre often confines and paralyses the human subject.27 The following section discusses how the project of disappearance undertaken in Strahlender Untergang and the disappearance of the main characters in the three novels actuate a revelation of “das Wesentliche” specific to each text. Although Strahlender Untergang is strongly ironic in its support for the organised disappearance of humanity, the New Science’s manifesto anticipates the way characters in Ransmayr’s later novels depart the centre for the edge of civilisation with a more serious motivation. Their disappearance ends in what is essentially a death of self. In Strahlender Untergang this death of self is initially observed as a physical death, undertaken under conditions of a scientific experiment where the phases of burning, blistering and dehydration are recorded.28

Die brandrote Haut wirft Blasen. Alles Wasser will jetzt nach draußen […] Gelb und prall wachsen die Brandblasen, die Lichtschwielen, zur Größe von Schafsaugen an […] Der Durst ist unerträglich. Zwei Tage hat es geheißen, allerhöchstens ein paar Stunden mehr, bis zum hyperosmolaren Koma, und dann Halluzination, Bewußtlosigkeit, Schmerzfreiheit, Herzstillstand, Denkstopp, aus (SU 13-14).

Conditions are scientifically controlled. It is never cooler than fifty degrees Celsius or more than ten percent humidity in the terrarium. Denied the requisite ten litres of water a day, “der Herr der Welt” is transformed. In the text’s parodic inversion, the Lord of the World is nothing more than a human test animal. However the transformation of the subject into object which occurs at this point in Strahlender Untergang is a central element of the aesthetics of humility Ransmayr’s novels reveal.

Ende der Welt. Bilder des Katastrophismus in der neueren österreichischen Literatur. Bachmann – Handke – Ransmayr,” 388. 26 Preußer, 388-9. 27 For example, the paralysis of knowledge in a mire of data of data, which the Speaker sees as characteristic of scientific modernity, has already been noted in Strahlender Untergang (SU 4). 28 This recording of physical symptoms under conditions of temperature extremity anticipates the obsessive nature of Payer’s recording of his physiological changes in the freezing Arctic landscape during his sled expedition northwards.

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In Ransmayr’s fiction the objectification of the human subject is a preliminary stage which leads to the final dissolving of the boundaries between subject and object. The final chapter of Strahlender Untergang is narrated by one of those volunteers who have chosen the desert terrarium over the restrictive and debilitating reality in Europe. “Es war eng in der Heimat: Klein und dunkel die Räume, die Zeit knapp und bedeutungslos jede Anstrengung, die Arbeit” (SU 12). The narrator’s once daily preoccupations, “[d]ie Reise nach Oregon, die Investitionspläne fürs nächste Jahr, der lächerliche Aufstieg in einer Firma, die sich mit Waren ohne jeden Gebrauchswert abgab, […] die genormten Gespräche, und Anna und alle” (SU 12), recede quickly into the past. In contrast, the desert is immediate, its description sensual.

Wie hier jeder Schritt tönt. Der Sand ist so trocken, daß er sich unter den Füßen und im Wind zu kurzen Fontänen erhebt und gleich wieder hinlegt und dabei klingt, als ob man Nadeln mit einer säenden Handbewegungen gegen einen Acker aus Glas schleudern würde. Und sonst ist da nur noch das Atemgeräusch (SU 12).

The narrator consciously records his thoughts, his knowledge, symptoms and experience of heat and dehydration as he approaches the moment of revelation of “das Wesentliche.” A final hallucination connects the narrator of Strahlender Untergang with both Payer and Mazzini. The narrator of Strahlender Untergang, expiring in the desert, sees “eine rissige Schürze aus Packeis […] ein Zug Schlittenhunde […] Tragtieren, Fahnen […] eine gewaltige Eisprozession” (SU 15). The physical death which occurs also represents a death of the self in the text, that is, a disappearance of the autonomous, individual human subject. The death of the self is also evident in the progressive remoteness and objectivity with which the process is recorded. The major characters in Ransmayr’ novels, who represent the human subject in each text, experience a similar death of the self. Each subject in his/her own way experiences “das Wesentliche” in this dissolution of identity. Once again, Strahlender Untergang offers an insight into this experience in a way which is relevant to the later novels. In Strahlender Untergang the white European male subject, the “Herr der Welt” is the object of this final experiment. As the guinea pig exposed to the devastating heat of the desert and denied water, he achieves a recognition of the essential in the experience of human life. He finally identifies himself (as the representative of humankind) as the victim of the destruction caused by his own hand. “Ich bin es, ich,

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der da untergeht” (SU 5). The “Ich” who now understands his end is near is identified too as representing an entire ecological and epistemological system. The project of the organised disappearance of humankind, having subjected the human animal to the intensity of the sun’s heat and progressive dehydration, fulfils its purpose, that is, to facilitate “die Entdeckung des Wesentlichen,” once this identification has been made.29 The “Herr der Welt” is no longer physically or psychically remote from scientific cause and effect. However, of particular importance to my reading of the later novels, another moment of identification and revelation occurs as the “Proband” succumbs to the physical extremity of the conditions. The narrator identifies himself with and becomes the biological processes of life from which he has been distanced, as life ebbs from him. In this moment of catharsis, he realises,

[j]etzt bin ich die hypertone Dehydration. Jetzt bin ich der Anstieg des Hämatokrits, ich bin die Verkleinerung des Volumens aller Zellen […] Ich bin die rasende gesteigerte Herzfrequenz, die Weitstellung aller Gefäße, die Eindickung des Bluts […] Ich bin der Zusammenbruch der Thermoregulation, ich bin der allumfassende Verlust. Ich konzentriere mich in allem und werde weniger.[…]

He has a revelation of the essential unity of human life and the natural world.30 “Jetzt weiß ich wieder, daß ich der Sommergast war; ich war auch der Häftling, das Schwein und der Schlachter […]” (SU 15). A concept of the inter-relatedness of life rejects all notions of domination and discourses of power and hierarchies, which in this context are reduced to the distinction between subject and object. The narrator’s final first person “I” is no longer the autonomous identity of the white imperialist or the scientist, but is transformed into the “I” of the commonality, unity and intimacy of all life. This revelation is re-won. The narrator says, “Jetzt weiß ich wieder […]” (my italics) at the moment of the “Auslöschung” of organic life and an “Auflösung” of the autonomous identity of the human subject. This revelation relates to a form of first principle, an initial primeval state of being which has been lost over the centuries of human civilisation and separation from nature. The fate of the “Herr der

29 The problem here is that the “ strahlender Untergang” of the “Proband” is parodically and ironically represented as well as shown in a serious light. I argue, however, that despite the author’s parody of the scientific project in the text the fate of the “ Proband” ultimately carries the warning of the destructive dimension of an unreflective and irresponsible science.

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Welt” is “der Wüste gleich zu werden und in ihr zu enden.”31 He has returned to nature in a physical and spiritual sense.32 In the beginning was the sun, and also in the end. The fate of the “Herr der Welt” re-establishes a cosmic design and reaffirms the cyclical nature of human life and the natural world.33 The recognition of life as a interconnecting whole necessitates the perception of the dissolution of the subject-object binary. This dissolution is physically and symbolically enacted in the disappearance and death of the “Herr der Welt.” As Fetz states,

Im Moment des Verschwindens, da der Proband im abgeschlossenen System den Wärmetod stirbt, ist die Dialektik der Aufklärung an ihr Ende gekommen, ist die Trennung von erkennendem, herrschendem Subjekt und beherrschtem Objekt aufgehoben. Denn es ist die gleiche zerstörerische Rationalität, die für den Zustand des Planeten verantwortlich ist, die jetzt an ihrer eigenen Abschaffung arbeitet.34

The revelation of “das Wesentliche” in Strahlender Untergang through the organised project of disappearance is an attempt to make sense of and to confront the horror that the modern abuse of reason has produced. In this, Ransmayr’s vision has much in common with Gunther Kunert’s vision of humankind’s fall from grace being read terms of the victory of the Enlightenment. “Der Mensch der Frühzeit lebte noch in einem Kosmos, in einem spirituell belebten Ganzen, das ihm kollektive Identität vermittelte. Er kannte noch nicht die Trennung zwischen dem Geist und der Welt der Objekte”35 In Strahlender Untergang, the final moments of the “Proband’s” existence testify to a reawakening of the consciousness of this collective identity and essential

30 Ironically, of course, this revelation occurs brief moment before the “ Proband”/narrator’s death. It is left to the reader to assimilate the full impact of the narrator’s last insight. 31 Bockelman, 2. 32 The Australian writer, David Malouf in his story of Ovid’s exile, An Imaginary Life, also tells of such a return to nature and disappearance. Ovid, in the company of the Child, rediscovers first principles of language and existence in the land of the Getae. At the moment of his death, “ [I]t is the moment I dreamt of so often … but could never find in all my wanderings in sleep – the point on the earth’s surface where I disappear … It is summer. It is spring. I am immeasurably, unbearably happy. I am three years old. I am sixty. I am six. I am there.” David Malouf, An Imaginary Life (London: Chatto and Windus, 1978) 150-52. 33 The nominalisation of the human “ Proband” as the “Herr der Welt” has, of course, religious connotations as well as implications for the hegemony of the modern Western white male. The sacrifice of “der Herr der Welt” on the altar of positivistic science, however, is less relevant to my reading of the text than the myth image of the New Science as the new Icarus. 34 Fetz, 28. 35 Gunther Kunert, “ Vor der Sintflut,” Frankfurter Vorlesungen (München, 1985) 12. 275

one-ness of the cosmos. This consciousness had been lost with the loss of a mythical gaze to interpret the essential inter-relatedness of all forms of life. This sense of connectivity and one-ness is familiar from writings of the a state of being which goes under many names; paradise, the Garden of Eden, the Golden Age, Arcadia; that is, an ideal landscape of peace and innocence.36 These names tap into a “Mythos von einer besseren, aber leider verlorengegangen Vorzeit” which stands in opposition to the structures of culture and civilisation.37 When the European scientists and their human guinea pig leave the cities for the desert in Strahlender Untergang the action is re-located to the space of nature, that is, mythic space, as defined in earlier chapters of my study. Even in the terrarium constructed by man in the desert wilderness, the scientific project aimed at directing the human race back to its organic beginnings re-enters the mythic moment and may be represented using narratives of mythology, such as that of the failed flight of Icarus. The mythic “verlorene Paradies der Einheit” is re-discovered as the death of the self occurs. Each of the three Ransmayr novels in its own way deals with disappearance and the death of the self. This disappearance corresponds with the fragmentation and disintegration of individual identity. Each text reports the physical disappearance of characters. Weyprecht and Payer are both shattered by their experiences in the ice and darkness, even though they physically survive their time there. Mazzini never returns from the Arctic. His body is simply never found after his dogsled expedition. Naso disappears in the last world. Ecstatically Cotta follows his hero’s way into the mountains. Both Naso and Cotta no longer exist in human form at the end of Die letzte Welt. The bodies of Bering and Ambras lie unacknowledged and unclaimed on Dog Island, an island which is designated by passing survey planes as “unbewohnt.” Ransmayr’s final vision in each novel is consistently “menschenleer.” One is reminded again of the author’s comment in reference to Die letzte Welt,

36 In Ovid’s Golden Age, “ men of their own accord, without threat or punishment, without laws, maintained good faith and did what was right … The earth itself, without compulsion, untouched by the hoe, unfurrowed by any share, produced all things spontaneously.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Innes, 31-2. 37 Michael Rössner, Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Paradies: Studien zu den Aspekten mythischen Bewußteins in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts (Universität Wien, Habilitationsdissertation, 1986). 276

Die vom Homo sapiens entleerte Erde müsse ja nicht unbedingt die apokalyptische, atomar verseuchte Wüste sein, “ Was aber ist so schrecklich an einer wuchernden, blühenden Wildnis ohne uns?”38

“Das Wesentliche” is revealed in Ransmayr’s three novels at the moment of disappearance enacted by the central characters of each text. The reader, therefore, is granted an insight which the main characters are denied in any complete form. Similar to Strahlender Untergang, in each novel the human subject, as represented by the central characters in each text, is confronted with the disintegration of identity and the death of self. In Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, while archival material of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition is transformed into literature, the character of Mazzini “[versucht] den Büchern in die Realität zu entkommen.”39 The surfeit of mass- produced, mass directed stimuli creates a simulated and textual reality whose mediation Mazzini rejects. During his journey north in the Arctic Circle, he abandons his own journals for the intimacy of ice and begins a process of disappearance which is simultaneously the abandoning of his previous European identity. Mazzini’s disappearance begins with the fragmentation of this identity. On his expedition he actively seeks to represent himself in the borrowed identity, both heroic and historic, of others. He is known and variously addressed as Mazzini, Antonio Scarpa, Weyprecht and Payer. Under the spell of Arctic space, he symbolically relinquishes his twentieth century identity.

Seine Existenz schien mit jedem Tag unscheinbarer und spurloser zu werden, nur ein Beweis für die Kraft jenes Sogs, der in der Leere, der Zeitlosigkeit und dem Frieden der Wüste seinen Ursprung hat und der seine Opfer ohne jede Auswahl erfaßt und noch aus der wärmsten Geborgenheit eines geordneten Lebens fortholt in die Stille, in die Kälte, in das Eis (SEF 230-1).

However Mazzini as subject disappears in another fashion. The narrator in colonising Mazzini’s journey and project, and writing his own text effectively transforms Mazzini from subject into object. Just as Mazzini has transformed the Weyprecht and Payer expedition into his own subjective experience, so does the

38 Just, “ Erfolg macht müde,” 50. 39 Axel Gellhaus, “ Das allmähliche Verblassen der Schrift: Zur Prosa von Peter Handke und Christoph Ransmayr,” Poetica 22:1/2 (1990): 134.

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narrator make himself the subject of the text. M azzini’s experiences are left in the third person, while the narrator, although not obtrusive, subtlely asserts his own presence and responsibility for the text. Finally no physical trace of M azzini’s existence remains. The reports confirm that “Josef Mazzinis Unterkunft [war] aufgeräumt und leer.” The search parties “bestätigen aber nur, daß auch die großen Routen ohne Spuren waren; die Gletscher leer” (SEF 235). Mazzini’s final moments are unrecorded. This is symbolic in itself. For a character whose reality has been text-based, Mazzini’s rejection of his mediated and textual existence achieves a final desired authenticity in his disappearance. In a world where all is known, measured and recorded, Mazzini’s disappearance is a refreshing mystery. Mazzini’s disappearance is uniquely his own, the single act of the text uninformed by the earlier Weyprecht and Payer expedition. Mazzini’s subsumation into the world of darkness and ice in this context is interpreted as a release from the creatively stifling simulacra-world of late twentieth century society. For M azzini, the reader sees that “das Wesentliche” is a theoretical consolation which is revealed in the uniquely authentic moment of his disappearance. M azzini finds his place as an integral part of the natural world whose extremes had so fascinated him. In Die letzte Welt too the process of disappearance is inextricably connected with the loss of identity. In understanding “keinem bleibt seine Gestalt” in the last world, the reader understands that Naso’s text, Metamorphoses, deals in the disintegration of identity, and the metamorphosis of form. Again the privileged subject of the text becomes objectified. Naso, who has already disappeared, becomes the object of Cotta’s search. In the final pages of the text, Cotta willingly resigns himself to his ascribed role in the Metamorphoses. The metamorphoses which characterise the last world progressively include the cast of characters in the text: Naso, Cotta, several of the Tomi villagers and the natural world itself. The disappearance of Naso is the death of the author literally enacted. However, Naso, in direct contravention of his own creative theme and principle, lays an edifice to his achievement in the menhir engravings in Trachila to demonstrate his immortality as author. This attempt at permanence and structure fails, although the creative principle of his writing lives on translated to other contexts in the form of other texts. The scribblings of Pythagoras also attempt to record and maintain meanings, truths, characters and moments which the transience of life whisks away or leaves stranded and fragmented across the landscape. Metamorphosis is

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a dynamic of reality to which all authors of the text of life can fleetingly put names, before they and their creation are also transformed. The loss of form, the disintegration of identity and the death of the self are integral to the process of transformation found in the last world. The disappearance of Naso in the context of my discussion is also a transformation back into the natural world, into the fabric of life which his text the Metamorphoses had given form to. The disintegration of autonomous identity of the author, the poet, the exile, occurs in the crucible of nature, and his human form becomes one with the stones, birds, sea foam and moss. For Naso, his transformation confronts him (and the reader) with the realisation that “das Wesentliche” in the last world is the impermanence of human form and human importance. The author is transformed and the text also. Cotta, too, in finally finding the answer to the mystery of Naso’s disappearance, also understands the final transience of ambition, vanity and individual importance. Cotta’s own disappearance is defined in terms of his finding a place within the fictional cosmos of the Metamorphoses text in the last world. This must, however, be preceded by Cotta finding the way to himself.

Was er bei seinem letzten Gang sucht, sind nicht mehr Spuren des verschollenen Dichters, sondern ein Stoffähnchen, auf dem sein, Cottas Name verzeichnet stehen würde. Dieser Name begegnet ihm schließlich als Echo der eigenen Stimme von den Steinwänden. Ausgangs- und Endpunkt des 40 Echos ist Cotta. Am Ende hat er sich selbst gefunden.

Like Naso, Cotta is subsumed into a greater pattern of life, losing his identity as Naso’s acolyte, Roman citizen, even last world familiar, as he wanders, like Naso, into the mountains.

In dieser Stille kehrte er aus der Höhe der Felsen wieder zurück in sein Herz, in seinen Atem, seine Augen. Der quälende Widerspruch zwischen der Vernunft Roms und den unbegreiflichen Tatsachen des Schwarzen Meeres verfiel. Die Zeiten streiften ihre Namen ab, gingen ineinander über. Nun […] konnten Menschen zu Bestien werden oder zu Kalk und eine tropische Flora im Eis aufblühen und wieder vergehen […] (LW 241).

Such an understanding of the world may only be reached with an initial intense revelation of self which leads directly to the dissolution of individual identity in the

40 Fetz, 33. 279

moment of the recognition of a wider cosmic truth; here, anything, and everything is possible. The loss of human identity equates with the loss of human control. The transformation of other characters of the last world, in losing their human form, also effects their subsumation into a cosmic picture redrawn without the humanist centre, alien and remote from Rome. The fate of Naso, Cotta and other last world identities, representative of human subject in the last world, is recorded on Arachne’s tapestry. Icarus falls from the sun, no longer dominant and triumphant, but becoming part of the natural world, sinking below the waves. His death is an “Auflösung” of human identity, a disintegration of the autonomous self, a death of the self in the symbolic relinquishing of human power and control. The rising up of nature which occurs in the tapestry is symbolically matched by the rising up of new mountain ranges in the last world. Indeed, the re-emergence of Olympus in the final pages of the text signals the possibility of a new Golden Age of unity and harmony. But this landscape is swept clean of human form. In Morbus Kitahara, the entire text develops a sense of loss and disappearance. Firstly, the war results in the collective loss of humanity in the acts of the perpetrators and the treatment of the victims. Secondly, a sense of loss is communicated by the absence of dialogue to address the acts perpetrated during war-time. The rupture in human relationships and the absence of empathy characterises the last world scenario in Moor. Generations are lost to one another. Bering and his father remain strangers. Ambras, along with millions of others, loses his loved one but, unlike millions of others, survives the physical ordeal of the labour camps. The sense of physical and personal loss is widespread, along with a loss of innocence and justice. In contrast, the disappearance of Ambras and Bering, dead on Dog Island, has no impact on any other character. Lily has already left the island with the fishermen, keen to pursue her new life in Santos. Like so many back in the war-torn world they had believed to be behind them, Ambras and Bering disappear, leaving only such traces as the bushfire, insects and decay allow them. The disappearance of Ambras and Bering in Morbus Kitahara also demonstrates a reduction of the human form in a form appropriate to the thematic context of the novel. In this case the partly burnt, partly decayed corpses lie in a landscape which is also damaged by fire. The smouldering landscape in which the bodies (including Muyra’s) lie is the site of murder, suicide and accident, a microcosm of the landscape of warfare which has shaped the whole of the text. The transformation of the corpses of Bering and Ambras, wrought by the bushfire 280

flames, recreates the action of the crematorium. Again, “[d]as Feuer lodert über die Toten hinweg, löschte ihre Augen und Gesichtszüge, entfernte sich prasselnd, kehrte im Sog der eigenen Hitze noch einmal wieder und tanzte auf den zerfallenen Gestalten […]” (MK 7). In this image a physical disintegration of identity is apparent which has ramifications for “das Wesentliche” in this text. The way in which individual features of each character are erased through the action of the fire suggests the interchangeability of identity, that is, the equality of all victims of mortality and the erasure of differences and enmities through death.41 Already the circumstances of Ambras and Bering’s deaths have initiated a problematisation of the characters’ identities. The bodyguard cannot fulfil his role. He cannot save his master’s life. In fact the master drags his bodyguard to death. Neither stereotypical identity is enacted. Another breakdown of identity occurs in Bering’s mistaking Muyra for Lily. The army coat Lily gives Muyra wrongly identifies the Brazilian with the trauma of the Old World and Bering’s legacy of war and frustrated love. A metaphorical link of fire connects Ambras’ final hallucination of the concentration camp and the ovens with the purifying renewing flame of the bushfire which licks the bodies. The reader recognises that the “das Wesentliche” in this scene lies in the connection between Ambras and Bering which is symbolically established by the red rope that ties one to the other. The two are bound together in the historical trauma which neither has been able to escape or master. One human fate is bonded irrevocably to the fate of his/her fellows and to the larger cosmos. This is also illustrated in the fate of Muyra .Muyra’s body, spared the fire, is “ein Labyrinth der Käfer, Larven und Fliegen” (MK 7). The poetic description of the organic collapse and disintegration of the human form of the three characters, both aestheticises the tragedy which has brought the three bodies to this place and evokes the beauty and interrelatedness of life in all its forms. The description of Muyra’s body echoes earlier descriptions of the intricate workings of life in Strahlender Untergang. But in this scene, Muyra’s corpse, while feeding new generations of organisms, is simultaneously the grisly reminder of Bering’s murderous rage against Lily. Muyra tragically connects the dumb solitude and frustration of Bering’s past in Moor to the potential of rejuvenation and new beginnings in Pantano. The final image of her decaying corpse on Dog Island contrasts with the

41 One thinks here of Kenneth Slessor’s wonderful poem Beach Burial in which the bodies of sailors, from both sides in World War T wo, are washed up on the beaches of North Africa, unable to be told apart. 281

warmth and easiness with which she had greeted Bering into the New Year and a new life in Pantano.

In sieben Wellen, rief Muyra Bering durch das Brandungsrauschen zu, in sieben Brecher müsse sich ein Mensch in dieser Nacht stürzen, um das vergangene Jahr von sich abzuwaschen und frei und leicht zu werden für alles Neue. Und Bering […] spürte wie ihm die erste Welle den weichen sandigen Grund unter den Füßen entzog. Und dann war Muyra bei ihm […] Sie steckte ihre Arme nach ihm aus, hielt ihn in der Schwebe – und zog ihn dann an sich und umarmte ihn und küßte lachend auf beide Wangen[…] (MK 421).

The fate of Ambras, Bering and Muyra also demonstrates the transformation of subject to object in Morbus Kithara. During the war, Ambras was treated as an object under the labour camp regime, faceless and less than human. He was something to be strung up by its hands and left to swing in almost unbearable pain. In later becoming the Dog King of Moor Ambras is able to assert a new identity, but it is one which is never able to be separated from his experiences as a camp survivor. His physical death on Dog Island is merely delayed two decades. He dies as a camp inmate. M uyra in contrast is untouched by the European war until the arrival of Ambras, Bering and Lily in Brazil. However, as Bering aims at her with his gun, she is no longer Muyra (or Lily) but an object which symbolises his frustration, isolation and pain. Throughout the novel Bering is more acted upon than acting. Initially the blacksmith of M oor (after his father’s accident), Bering’s identity in the novel is later defined only in relation to Ambras. He is the Dog King’s bodyguard and this relationship dominates his life. He does not exist in his own right. In contrast, Lily’s moral pragmatism and social adaptibility give her the drive to find her long-held vision of a Brazilian utopia and to depart from Dog Island with the fishermen. She remains a questing subject while also physically disappearing from the face of the text. The reader uneasily accepts that Lily’s place in this tragedy has been taken unwittingly by Muyra. The final scene of the novel shows the gradual physical subsumation of the dead into the damaged natural landscape of Dog Island. As the bodies of Bering, Ambras and Muyra physically deteriorate, their organic dissolution parallels their symbolic loss of identity and the anonymity of their tragedy.

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“Das leere Bild der Zukunft.”

In Ransmayr’s vision there is no end of the natural world. The natural world has endured the violent penetrations of human endeavour and the imposition of human history. But in Strahlender Untergang and the three novels the final image is of “das leere Bild der Zukunft” (SU 11). There is no human presence. And from the point of view of the modern human subject the future must be empty if there is no human presence. The notion of the future is one determined by an historical awareness only available through human agency. But the aesthetics of humility which is developed in Ransmayr’s novels shows there must be a radical change in how human beings live with each other and the world around them. This is symbolised by the initial displacement of the human subject from the centre of civilisation and out of the metanarrative of progress and history. In the disappearance of the protagonists of Ransmayr’s novels, there is an acceptance that humankind has abrogated a position of privilege because of its unwitting or conscious acts of domination or destruction. Ransmayr’s novels show more than a mere “Endzeitpathos.” In a way consistent with Magris’ interpretation of the “Zeitgeist” at the end of the twentieth century, the novels show a “tiefe Überzeugung, daß die Kultur und der Mensch selbst in einem radikalen Wandel begriffen sind […].” The texts show an “Überzeugung vom unleugbaren Ende nicht von der Welt, sondern einer jahrhundertalten Art und Weise, die Welt zu erleben, zu erfassen und zu verwalten.”42 In the face of the collapse of the metanarratives of scientific modernity, new narratives emerge which have more in common with a myth- based interpretation of reality. In Ransmayr’s novels, following the argument of this thesis, the radical change to the status of the human subject and the adoption of a myth-based mode of perception is the end-stage of the aesthetics of humility developed in the texts. The disappearance of the subject is both an acceptance of the Other as relevant and of value in the world of the text and also a fragmentation and disintegration of the notion of the modern subject. The human subject in literal and metaphorical terms disappears. The dissolution of the subject-object binary is rendered symbolically in each text. The human subject is no longer distinguishable or privileged. Instead it is subsumed into an inclusive cosmos.

42 Claudio Magris, Utopie und Entzauberung, (Salzburg, Wien: Residenz, 1996) 8.

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CONCLUSION.

“Die Wirklichkeit der Erfindung.”

In the spirit of Ransmayr’s authorial predilection for dichotomies, inversions and entwinements in his novels, my study, rather than focusing on “die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit,” has instead concentrated on what I see as “Die Wirklichkeit der Erfindung.” That is, my study has concentrated on the reality constructed by the author’s narrative invention. As Harbers points out, in reference to Die letzte Welt, “[d]ie ‘Erfindung der Wirklichkeit’ ist ein literarisches Spiel mit der Wirklichkeit, ist ein Verbleiben im Ästhetischen – und zugleich unerbittlich wahre Wirklichkeit.”1 In examining, then, Ransmayr’s representation of reality in his novel texts, I have attempted to critically define the “Wirklichkeit” developed by the author’s “Erfindung.” My study has linked Ransmayr’s critique of scientific and historical modernity with his aesthetic practice which, I argue, utilises the work of myth to problematise and dismantle metanarratives of modernity, replacing them with core myths, “Grundmythen.” The shift of perspectives from the centre to the periphery, the rejection of structures and history, and the disappearance of the subject are all aspects of the aesthetics of humility which I have shown to characterise Ransmayr’s novels. Although I would concur with Spoor’s comment, “Ransmayrs Bücher sind nicht die Entwürfe eines Predigers oder Analytikers … [e]in engagierter Moralist ist er [Ransmayr] nicht,” Spoor's assertion that the thematics of Ransmayr’s texts are secondary to the language and symbolism of the novels is insupportable in my reading of the texts. In making the above comment Spoor, this time with justification, excludes Ransmayr from the Austrian tradition of eminent critics such as Karl Kraus and Thomas Bernhard, “die mit alttestamentarischer Entrüstung den Bannfluch gegen das eigene Volk aussprechen.” 2 However Ransmayr does, I believe, make his own textual “Aufruf zum Mißtrauen” in a more subtle form. Ilse Aichinger’s “Aufruf zum Mißtrauen” her programmatic warning published in 1949, cautions against a dishonest poetry, against false representations and a false consciousness of historical experience. Ransmayr’s narrative project in his three novels

1 Harbers, “ Die Erfindung der Wirklichkeit: Zu Christoph Ransmayrs Die letze Welt,” 63. 2 André Spoor, “ Der kosmopolitische Dörfler,” Die Erfindung der Welt: Zum Werk von Christoph Ransmayr, 184.

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has its genesis in this post-war “Aufruf.” Aichinger exhorts her fellow citizens to be self-reflective and self-critical, to see clearly and not to take false comfort in blaming others.

Beruhigen Sie sich, armer, bleicher Bürger des 20. Jahrhunderts! Weinen Sie nicht! Sie sollen nur geimpft werden. Sie sollen ein Serum bekommen, damit Sie das nächste Mal um so widerstandskräftiger sind! Sie sollen im kleinsten Maß die Krankheit an sich erfahren, damit sie sich im größten nicht wiederhole. Verstehen Sie richtig! An sich sollen Sie die Krankheit erfahren! Sie sollen nicht Ihrem Bruder mißtrauen, nicht Amerika, nicht Rußland und nicht Gott. Sich selbst müssen Sie mißtrauen! Ja? Haben Sie richtig verstanden? Uns selbst müssen wir mißtrauen. 3

In a later context and a different creative framework Ransmayr’s novels give the same warning. Ransmayr’s distrust of aspects of modern European ideology and history reveal themselves in his novels' preoccupation with the abuse inherent in the instrumentalisation of reason and the excesses of totalitarianism. These preoccupations find their primary outlet in the novels’ representation of geographical and economic imperialism, political repression and the acts of violence and cruelty perpetrated in war. Ransmayr’s engagement with his country’s history and its complicity in Third Reich acts of inhumanity, and, further, with what he sees as the general human potential for such acts, finds expression in Morbus Kitahara. This engagement finds its culmination in Ransmayr’s third novel. In Morbus Kitahara, the “Wirklichkeit der Erfindung” is located in the author’s strategy of writing an “erfundene Geschichte,” an alternative history, whose textual reality is commensurable with the trauma, silences and evasions of actual twentieth century history. In this novel in particular, the “Bestie” whose existence necessitates Aichinger’s call to suspicion and distrust thrives again and is shown to be a constant in human experience.4 A general warning and call to be on guard against this “Bestie” is a narrative corollary to Ransmayr’s universal condemnation of war and injustice in Morbus Kitahara. The capacity for self-reflectivity is only available to a limited extent to the characters in Ransmayr’s novels, especially the three central characters in Morbus

3 Ilse Aichinger, “ Aufruf zum Mißtrauen,” Der Plan (1946): 588. 4 “ Jeder, der einen vollen Magen und ein weißes Hemd hatte, traute sich selbst. Man pries seine Vernunft, seine Güte, seine Menschlichkeit. Und bot tausend Sicherungen auf, um sich gegen die Schmutzigen, Zerissenen und Verhungerten zu schützen. Aber keiner sicherte sich gegen sich selbst. So wuchs die Bestie unbewacht und unbeobachtet durch die Generationen.” Ilse Aichinger, “Aufruf zum Mißtrauen.” See also Caroline Markolin ed. Modern Austrian Writing (New York: Peter Lang, 1995) 33. 285

Kitahara. Rather, the warning is directed towards the reader who is in a position to respond critically to the “Wirklichkeit der Erfindung” in the texts and to the aesthetics of humility the thematic and stylistic elements in the three novels develop. In the light of recent political events in Austria and also the popular opposition to these developments,5 the contemporary relevance of the critical aspect of Ransmayr’s writing is clear. In rejecting a manifesto approach to his “Zivilisationskritik,” Ransmayr does not abrogate the role of commentator. The reality of the invention which characterises all three of Ransmayr’s novels has a serious underlying implication for the contemporary condition humaine. Whether the individual critic believes that the widely- praised lyrical and technical beauty of Ransmayr’s prose masks in a too-aesthetically pleasing form the critique the novels develop, the ugliness of economic and political imperialism and the trauma of war in torture, loss and destruction do emerge clearly in his novels. The disappearances which are central to my reading of Strahlender Untergang and Ransmayr’s novels are certainly representative of the notion that “der Tod [ist] nur eine Rückkehr und Verwandlung ins Wesentliche”; which is, however, only “ein Trost der Theorie.”6 In this theoretical context, the “Untergang” scenario, which is developed most particularly in Die letzte Welt, Harbers argues, may be read “nicht als Verlust, sondern … als Gewinn.”7 However the consolation of theory does not effectively communicate the seriousness of intention which increasingly characterises Ransmayr’s fiction. Harbers believes the fact that Ransmayr’s work is written from an external perspective, which is a position more conducive to an objective, theoretical critical response, neglects the important inner perspective which promotes the reader’s personal identification with the action and issues of the text. The perspective adopted in Ransmayr’s writing does promote a sense of distance which lends itself to a purely theoretical, aesthetic interpretation. This deliberate distancing, however, functions to produce a certain discomfort which is entirely appropriate to what, I think, is Ransmayr’s intention in the novels under discussion. This discomfort results from the reader’s attempt to find access to what are emotive issues in the texts but which are

5 The success of Jörg Haider and his rightist Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the 2000 Austrian elections and the Freedom Party’s ensuing power as a coalition partner resulted in a series of popular demonstrations, bans by the European Union and Israel’s threat to remove its ambassador from Austria. 6 Harbers sees the end of Die letzte Welt as embodying Schopenhauer’s consolatory reading of death from Part 2, Chapter 41, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. See Harbers, 69. 7 Harbers, 69. 286

continually moved out of the range of the reader’s identification. By default the reader provides the inner personal perspective unavailable in the texts. The confrontation of the two perspectives, the objective narrative perspective and the reader’s desire for personal identification and emotional access to the text promotes an uneasiness and questioning when the reader is confronted with imagery such as that, for example, associated with Thies’ memories of the European concentration camps. Indeed, the two-dimensionality of Ransmayr's representation of the major characters in Morbus Kitahara is a deliberate strategy to maintain a narrative objectivity in the text.8 It intentionally denies the reader an identification with the individual story of each character while depicting a wider reality which is coloured by violence and tragedy. The very bloodlessness of Ransmayr's novels, in terms of individual passion and the limited human relationships represented, reinforces the discomfort the reader experiences in a reading of the texts. The technical beauty and brilliance of Ransmayr's writing paradoxically adds to the sense of distance and discomfort wrought by the aestheticisation of horror. The inversions, dichotomies, dichotomies and shifts of perspective which characterise the novels also deliberately produce an instability which in turn unsettles the reader. While each of Ransmayr’s novels develops a critique of modernity, this critique tends increasingly to turn towards a critique of the brutal inner nature of humankind, which no philosophical or ideological project, modern or not, has eliminated. Ransmayr’s vision of the human condition darkens from the heady if misdirected project of Enlightenment exploration, through the last world apocalypse to the perpetual cycle of human aggression. If Ransmayr’s view of reality in his novels becomes progressively more pessimistic, this pessimism progressively drives out the availability of aesthetic consolation from the texts. This pessimism is primarily generated by the unrelenting representation of the “absolutism of reality” in each text which remains consistently overwhelming and paralysing for the main characters. While the revelation of “das Wesentliche” and the quality of the disappearances are different in each text, what unites the three novels above all is the final landscape of each. The representation of the natural world as “menschenleer” leaves the reader with the question of what comes next? The aesthetics of humility developed in the novels suggests that whatever comes after, if consistent with the projected vision and warning of the author, will rest upon the self-questioning

8 Ransmayr took the advice of Fred Rotblatt (to whom Morbus Kitahara is dedicated) who believed an undertaking such as Ransmayr's Holocaust novel, would be best served by such an approach. 287

and a re-evaluation of the human subject in its relationship with the world around it. In the symbolic dissolution of identity which occurs with the disappearance of the human subject in the texts, this questioning and re-evaluation must be undertaken by the reader. The reader is called to respond to Ransmayr’s “Aufruf zum Mißtrauen” and to take the author’s warning outside of the self-congratulatory realms of theory and back into the real world.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Primary Literature – Ransmayr.

Ransmayr, Christoph. Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1984.

---. Die letzte Welt, Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1988.

---. Morbus Kitahara. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1995.

---. Der Weg nach Surabaya: Reportagen und kleine Prosa. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1997.

---. “ Entwurf zu einem Roman.” Jahresring (1987-8): 196-8.

Ransmayr, Christoph (Text) and Puchner, Willy (Photography). Strahlender Untergang. Wien: Brandstätter, 1982.

Ransmayr, Christoph ed. Im blinden Winkel: Nachrichten aus Mitteleuropa. München: Brandstätter, 1985.

(For reasons of accessibility Fischer Taschenbuch editions of Ransmayr’s first two novels were used in this study.)

Secondary Literature - Ransmayr.

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Baron, Ulrich. “ Verfinsterung des Blicks.” Die neue Gesellschaft/ Frankfurter Hefte. 11 (1995): 1046- 1049.

Bartsch, Kurt. “ Dialog mit Antike und Mythos. Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid-Roman Die letzte Welt.” Modern Austrian Literature, 23: 3/4 (1990): 127-131.

---. “ Und den Mythos zerstört man nicht ohne Opfer. Zu den Ovid-Romanen An Imaginary Life von David Malouf und Die letzte Welt von Christoph Ransmayr. Lesen und Schreiben. Literatur-Kritik- Germanistik. Ed. Volker Wolf. Tübingen: Franke, 1995. 15-22.

Bernsmeier, Helmut. “ Keinem bleibt seine Gestalt – Ransmayrs Letzte Welt.” Euphorion 85 (1991): 168- 181.

Bleckwenn, Helga.“ Gegründete Häuser, verschwindende Spuren. Vom Wandel der Menschen und der Dinge bei Stifter und Ransmayr.” Acta Austriaca-Belgica 1 (1994): 31-40.

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Cook, Lynne. “ Variations of the Lost Hero: Blood on the Ice in Christoph Ransmayr’s Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis.” 1000 Jahre Österreich im Spiegel seiner Literatur, Ed. August Obermayer, (Dunedin: University of Otago, 1997): 214 – 233.

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---. Die letzte Welt: Interpretationen. München: Oldenbourg, 1992.

Fitz, Angela. “ Wir blicken in ein ersonnenes Sehen: Wirklichkeits- und Selbstkonstruktion in zeitgenössischen Romanen, Sten Nadolny - Christoph Ransmayr - Ulrich Woelk.” Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft 60. Röhrig Universitätsverlag. 1998.

Foster, Ian. “ Alternative History in Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara.” Modern Austrian Literature 32:1 (1999): 111-125.

Fuhrmann, Manfred. “ Mythos und Herrschaft in Ch. Wolfs Kassandra und Ch. Ransmayrs Die letzte Welt.” Altsprachlicher Unterricht 2: March (1994): 11-24.

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Gellhaus, Axel. “ Das allmähliche Verblassen der Schrift. Zur Prosa von Peter Handke und Christoph Ransmayr.” Poetica 22 (1990): 106-142.

Glei, Reinhold F. “ Ovid in den Zeiten der Postmoderne. Bemerkungen zu Christoph Ransmayrs Roman Die letzte Welt.”Poetica 26 (1994): 409-427.

Gorse, Dursan “ Einige Aspekte der Metaphorik im Roman Die letzte Welt.” Acta Neologica 23 (1990): 75-86.

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Academic Theses.

Adelung, Andrea. A decade of ‘time rebels.’ Tempo and temporality in the German Literature of the 1980s. PhD dissertation. Washington University. 1993.

Bader, Christian. Antike und Mythos – Deduktion und Produktion von Mythen in Christoph Ransmayrs Ovid-Roman ‘Die letzte Welt.’ Diplomarbeit, Universität Wien: 1993.

Cook, Lynne. An Examination of Issues of Exile, Identity and Transformation in David Malouf’s ‘An Imaginary Life’ and Christoph Ransmayr’s ‘Die letzte Welt’, M.A/Honours thesis. University of New South Wales, Australia: 1994.

Garvey, Brigid. Reconstruction and Projection in Christoph Ransmayr’s Prose. PhD dissertation. Dalhousie University, Canada: 1993

Kiel, Martin. Nexus: Postmoderne Mythenbilder – Vexierbilder zwischen Spiel und Erkenntnis: mit einem Kommentar zu Christoph Ransmayrs ‘Die letzte Welt’, PhD dissertation. Universität Bochum. Also published Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1996.

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Uebel, Anke Maria.“alles gleichzeitig nah und fern.” The Spatialization of Time in Narratives by Thomas Bernhard, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Jürgen Becker, Sten Nadolny and Christoph Ransmayr. PhD dissertation. Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada: 1998.

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