Die Metamorphosen des “Teufels” bei Daniel Kehlmann by Joachim Rickes (review)

The success of Daniel Kehlmann’s novels and short stories can be explained, according to Joachim Rickes, by their ability to appeal consistently both to ordinary readers and to Kenner. In fact, Rickes refers to this idea of a doppelte Optik not only to account for Kehlmann’s success but also to justify the need for his own short book: as an educated literary scholar he can identify the sophisticated literary allusions that fill the novels and also offer general readers a more complete interpretation of Kehlmann’s works. From the outset, Rickes asserts that writing with this aim and for this audience rather than Fachkollegen necessitates that he eschew complex theoretical discussion and its attendant vocabulary. Although this stance is somewhat surprising from a scholarly perspective, it does fulfill his goal of making his text “nicht nur leserfreundlicher, sondern auch kürzer” (14).

The greater part of Rickes’s text traces the shifting features and roles of marginal figures across Kehlmann’s works. Rickes identifies these Teufelsfiguren through their possession of a series of shared physical characteristics (for instance, discolored or misaligned teeth), their inclination to mock the protagonist, and most importantly their function as taxi drivers. By connecting these marginal characters (Randfiguren) across the various works, Rickes argues that the metamorphoses of Teufelsfiguren gradually reveal the transformation that the Teufel necessarily undergoes when inserted into contemporary society and literature.

Tracing the actions and attributes of characters and their transformations eventually provides us with a more complete understanding of the evolution of this Teufelsfigur insofar as it mirrors how myth itself has become ever more marginal in secular society. In general, these figures exemplify how this transformative process gradually changes formerly terrifying characteristics into minor idiosyncrasies. Thus, in Kehlmann’s works we encounter a recently domesticated Teufelsfigur who wears horn-rimmed glasses (Hornbrille) instead of possessing horns (34) or who is no longer the inhuman Beast but merely vaguely unattractive with “fettige Haare” and “vorstehende Zähne” (31). Moreover, as his traditional role shrinks, the Teufelsfigur appropriates the roles and characteristics of other mythical figures. To maintain any kind of relevance he has to do more than seduce and enable; he has to assume a more passive but simultaneously more pervasive role. Rickes writes: “Der Autodieb, der Taxifahrer und der in die Moderne versetzte Totengleiter sind zu einer Figur verschmolzen” (67). Ultimately, for Rickes, it is as a Taxifahrer, a contemporary Charon, that the devil is immediately identifiable. The inseparability of modern technology and the Teufelsfigur in the trope of the Taxifahrer leads Rickes to devote a significant section of his text to an exploration of the intersection of the Teufelsfigur and Kehlmann’s critique of technology. The rise of technology clearly bears some responsibility for the lamentable state of the traditional devil figure: he no longer whisks his victims magically from place to place, but as a shabby taxi driver shuttles them prosaically onwards. In discussing “Wie ich lob und starb,” a short story in Kehlmann’s collection Ruhm, a further transformation takes place that opens up a series of more interesting questions into Kehlmann’s works. Drawing heavily on published interviews with the novelist, Rickes argues that the impersonal forces of technology replace the figure of the devil and in their seductive promises of happiness and increased leisure themselves become demonic. This is most pronounced in Kehlmann’s critique of the spatially alienating effect of contemporary modes of communication. Rickes quotes from Ruhm: “Wie merkwürdig, dass die Technik uns in eine Welt ohne feste Orte versetzt hat. Man spricht aus dem Nirgendwo, man kann überall sein, und da sich nichts überprüfen lässt, ist alles, was man sich vorstellt, im Grunde wahr” (173). Rickes points out that this connection between relativism and technology raises serious concerns about Kehlmann‘s perceived commitment to postmodernism. In concluding his discussion, however, Rickes acknowledges that for Kehlmann technology is essential for opening new possibilities within the world and the text, and the Taxifahrer embodies the...