Docherty, Vincent John (1984) The reception of Heimito von Doderer as exemplified by the critics' response to Ein Mord den jeder Bericht and Die Merowinger. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5324/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] THE RECEPTION OF HEIMITO VON DODERER AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE CRITICS' RESPONSE TO EIN MORD DEN JEDER BEGEHT AND DIE MEROWINGER TWO VOLUMES BY VINCENT JOHN DOCHERTY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW IN THE FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY JUNE 1984 VOLUME ONE CONTENTS VOLUME I CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 I P4etAoelologieal CoaBiaeIe:tiohS e#lIl$,btPli'iIIT,.",. II Extraneous Influences III Doderer Research: a brief Survey IV Doderer's Popularity Today and the Problem of Literary Endurahce V The Choice of Texts 72 Notes 75 I EIN MORD DEN JEDER BEGEHT 94 I Introduction 94 II The Critical Response to the 1938 Edition 95 III The Critical Response to the 1958 Edition 98 IV The 'Literary Value' of the Detective Novel 103 V The Critical Response to the Detective 108 Element in Doderer's Novel VI The Conventions of the Detective Novel 110 VII Doderer's Novel as a Detective Story 118 A: Castiletz as a Detective 119 B: The Critical Response to Doderer's Use of 130 'Zufall' VIII Doderer's Novel as an Anti-Detective Story 134 IX Doderer and DUrrenmatt 148 X The Detective Novel and the Totalitarian State: 168 Doderer's Anti-Detective Novel in its Historical Context XI Conclusion 180 Notes 184 EXCURSUS: DODERER'S NOVEL ON TELEVISION 200 I Introduction 200 II Hubalek's Adaptation: Variations and Omissions 202 III The Critical Response to Hubalek's Play 210 IV Conclusion 218 Notes 220 II 'DIE MEROWINGER' AND THE 'CANONIZATION' 223 OF THE 'VIENNESE' NOVELS I Introducticn 223 II Die Merowinger 236 III The 'Canonization' of the 'Viennese' Novels 245 IV The 'Viennese' Trilogy 255 V The 'Sigh of Relief' 277 VI Doderer and Vienna 287 VII Doderer in America 298 VIII Doderer's 'Second Reality'? 321 IX Conclusion 325 Notes 330 CONCLUSION 354 Notes 373 VOLUME II BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGE I DODERER 4 A Primary Texts 4 B Articles in Newspapers and Periodicals 5 C Translations 5 1. Ein Umweg 5 2. Ein Mord den jeder begeht 6 3. Die erleuchteten Fenster 6 4. Die Strudlhofstiege 6 5. Die Damonen 7 6. Die Merowinger 7 7. Die Wasserfalle von Slunj 7 8. Die Posaunen von Jericho 7 9. 'Ein anderer Kratki-Baschik' 8 10. Grundlagen und Funktion des Romans 8 11. 'Zwei LUgen oder: Eine antikische Trag6die 8 auf dem Dorfe' 12. 'Eine Person von Porzellan' 8 13. 'Die Peinigung der Lederbeutelchen' 9 14. 'Unter schwarzen Sternen' 9 15. 'Bischof - tollgeworden' 9 16. 'Die Amputation' 9 17. 'Trethofen/Sonatine' 9 18. 'Roman und Leser' 9 19. 'Meine 19 Lebenslaufe' 10 20. 'KUrzestgeschichten'/'Ein Schneegewitter' 10 21. Poems 10 22. Introduction to 'Osterreich: Bilder seiner 10 Landschaft und Kultur' o Secondary Literature 10 1. Full-length Studies 10 2. Unpublished Theses 11 3. Television and Radio 13 4. Individual Works 20 a) Ein Umweg 20 b) Die erleuchteten Fenster 20 c) Die Strud1hofstiege 23 d) Die Damonen 29 e) Ein Weg im Dunke1n 40 f) Ein Mord den jeder begeht 41 i) Doderer's Novel 41 ii) The Television Adaptation of Doderer's 44 Novel g) Die Peinigung der Lederbeute1chen 47 h) Der Fall GUters10h 49 i) Die Merowinger 49 j) Die Wasserfalle von Slunj 54 k) Tangenten 57 1) Unter schwarzen Sternen 60 m) Meine 19 Lebenslaufe 61 n) Der Grenzwald 62 0) FrUhe Prosa 65 p) Repertorium 68 q) Die Wiederkehr der Drachen 70 r) Die Erzah1ungen 72 s) Erinnerungen an Heimito von Doderer 74 t) Commentarii 1951 bis 1956 75 u) Dorothea Zeemann's 'Journals' 76 5. General Articles, Reviews of Doderer's other 77 Publications, Reviews of Publications on Doderer II THE DETECTIVE NOVEL 113. III GENERAL 118 A Books, Periodicals, Newspapers 118 B Further Reference Books Consulted 124 C Dissertations 126 Acknowledgements I should like to record my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Roderick Watt, for his constant readiness to provide constructive criticism of my work. I also gratefully remember the late Dr Konradin Zeller of the Bieder- stein Verlag, Munich, who allowed me unlimited access to the Doderer archive there. Further thanks are due to all the radio stations in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland, for permission to quote from the unpublished radio broadcasts in the Doderer archive. I should also like to thank Professor Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler for giving me permission to work on the Doderer archive in Vienna. I am also grateful to the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen and the Osterreichischer Rundfunk, for providing a copy of.the manuscript and the reviews of Claus Hubalek's television adaptation of Ein Mord den jeder begeht. For some fascinating information and advice, I should particularly like to thank Doderer's sister, Frau Astrid von Stummer-Doderer. I also wish to express my thanks to the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scot- land, without whose financial assistance this work could never have been completed. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Gabrielle, for her in- valuable help in the checking of details in the final stage of revision. Note In the quotations in the text, orthographical idiosyncrasies have been left unaltered. Thus American spellings are to be found in the quotations from the United States. In addition, the somewhat haphazard use of 'ss' and 'B' by the critics and not least by Doderer himself, has been maintained for the sake of authenticity. In the footnotes, places of publication of books, periodicals and newspapers have been given in the native form for reasons of consistency with the bibliography. SUMMARY The primary impulse for this dissertation was the striking disparity between the initial critical reaction to Doderer's works in the 1950s and early 1960s, and the long-term evaluation of his literary stature • .In the Introduction, an outline of the theoretical foundations of the study is followed by a brief survey of the academic criticism devoted to Doderer. This survey attempts to establish whether the 'new begin- ning' in Doderer criticism inspired in the mid-1970s by Anton Reininger and Hans Joachim Schroder has succeeded in clearing the way for a more balanced approach to Doderer's work. The survey reveals, however, that recent Doderer criticism has seen an alarming increase of interest in Doderer the man, as opposed to Doderer the writer. Chapter One is devoted to the reception accorded to Doderer's Ein Mord den jeder begeht. The critical reaction to Doderer's novel can be directly linked to suggestions made by his publishers in their 'Verlags- . prospekt' as to how the novel ought to be read, namely as anything but a detective novel. A detailed examination of Doderer's use of motifs familiar from detective fiction indicates that the author so consistently 'breaks the rules' of classical detective story writing that Ein Mord den jeder begeht might justifiably be regarded as a forerunner of the parodies of the detective novel so common in modern literature. An examination of Doderer's novel in the context of its first publication in 1938 reveals how uncannily closely the detective element in Ein Mord den jeder begeht resembles the official Nazi line on detective fiction, and this throws up the vexed question of whether Doderer's 'anti-detective novel' was an attempt to placate the Nazi censor. However, a comparison with Friedrich DUrrenmatt's anti-detective stories shows that the ideol- ogy of the irrational which informs Doderer's novel is not necessarily fascistic in nature, as some of Doderer's critics imply. A brief 'Excursus' on Claus Hubalek's television adaptation of Ein Mord den jeder begeht is intended to illustrate the difficulties involved in transferring Doderer's work to a visual medium. The critics' reactions to Hubalek's play provide a useful up-to-date picture ofoDoderer's current literary standing. In Chapter Two, the focus is turneq on the critical response provoked by Doderer's most controversial work, Die Merowinger. The outrageous plot and 'scurrilous' style of this novel present the reviewer with an unenviable dilemma, for he is confronted with a new work by a major titerary figure which does not conform with the pattern of the author's past successes. The survey of the reception of Die Merowinger is intended to illuminate how the reviewers were so prejudiced by their familiarity with what many regard as a 'Viennese trilogy', Die strudlhofstiege, Die erleuchteten Fenster and Die D~onen, that they were unable to arrive at a reasonably open-minded evaluation of Die Merowinger. The key problem in Doderer reception is the identification of the author with the image of an amiable Viennese raconteur. An examination of the reception of Doderer's works in America reveals that the author's very conscious 'Vienneseness' presents a major obstacle for many non-Austrian readers, and accounts to a large extent for the accusations of parochialism not infrequently levelled at Doderer.