Franz Werfel and the Critics by Jennifer E. Michaels (review)

Book Reviews199 continuity of Lowry's oeuvre that, as McCEirthy makes abundantly clear, was virtually impossible to fulfill, but is yet important in adjudicating each individual text. Throughout, but more massively in the conclusion, McCarthy situates Lowry within the romantic aesthetic and the symbolist and modernist reformulations of that aesthetic. When he observes that Lowry's presentations of the self as "fragmented or multiple, a linguistic construct rather than a unitary subject, seem typically modernist, but at other times he appears to agree with the romantics' view that the self is (or should be) fundamentally unitEiry and unique," he identifies a central binary in Lowry that has, one might add, shaped much of modernism's cognitive horizon (210). Other features of Lowry's mind and work McCarthy identifies, such as the deeply symbolic vision of reality, the creative reappropriation of myth and allusion, the belief in original creation (that was in Lowry's case counterbalanced by the obsessive feEir of plagiarism), the impulse toward encyclopedism, as indeed the virtual identification of the self with the work, confirm Lowry's position within the romantic-modernist strain of the Western literary tradition. But while Lowry's work does parallel that of several of his literary predecessors, McCarthy rightly suggests as well that, unlike most of his contemporaries, Lowry was fundamentally "out of touch with the world of modern industrial civilization" (213). Alienated from the world he inhabited , Lowry was torn between his modernist allegiances and practices and his romantic desire to return, at least in theory, to a prelapsarian, de-technologized world: another sign of a schizophrenic, de-centered self. Thus, Forests ofSymbols is a rewarding study of one of the most interesting and complicated figures oflate modernism. Coinciding with the publication of Gordon Bowker's new biography, Pursued By Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry (Toronto: Random House 1993), McCarthy's study should further secure Lowry's reputation as one of the most gifted, albeit erratic, writers of his time. MICHAEL WUTZ Weber State University JENNIFER E. MICHAELS. Franz Werfet and the Critics. Columbia: Camden House, 1994. 178 p. Tranz Werfel was a prolific author of poetic, dramatic, and prose texts in the first half of the twentieth century. Critical response by literary scholars has matched Werfel's work in its breadth, depth, and variety. Jennifer E. Michaels addresses this mass of secondary literature in her contribution to the reputable Camden House series Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture: Literary Criticism in Perspective. Speaking to the disparity in the critique of Werfel's oeuvre, Michaels notes that: "Many admired him as a social critic, while others rejected his views as superficial 200Rocky Mountain Review and reactionary. Even today critics do not agree about how to evaluate Werfe] as a writer and thinker, and there is no consensus among them about the literary quality of his works" (2). Michaels establishes this dissension in both past and present criticism. This results in her organization and presentation ofWerfel's work as an object ofboth critical admiration as well as disdain. The book mirrors trends in Werfel's work: the first three chapters are on specific genres (poetry, drama, prose) and the final two chapters on areas of critical focus (the role of geography and culture, and the significance of Werfel's religious and political thinking). Within the chapters on genre, Michaels presents Werfel's work chronologically, following each individual work with a survey of its respective critical response, ordered according to critical focus. The remaining chapters group the secondary literature thematically . Michaels' structuring of the chapters makes one aware of the vagaries ofWerfel scholarship yet also provides a clear picture of the trends in the reception of his work: for example, with respect to Werfel's poetry, literary scholars still differ on whether it has only "historical value" or also has "literary merit." In all cases Michaels lays out the cycles of favor and disfavor which follow Werfel's work. Three aspects of this book make it more than a simple survey of the secondary literature. Michaels includes information on the reception of Werfel's work in Germany and abroad, portraying him as a significant author not only in Europe but also in...