B. Traven: An Introduction by Michael L. Baumann (review)

Reviews 81 B. Traven: An Introduction. By Michael L. Baumann. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976. 184 pages, $9.50.) Michael L. Baumann’sstudy of the mysterious author B. Traven is aptly titled, B. Traven: An Introduction. As such it is an exemplary work of scholarship treating problems of identifying the author and problems of criticism of his fiction. Combining a bilingual approach — Baumann is proficient in both German and English — the book stresses B. Traven’s inter­ national significance as a writer and thinker. Baumann asserts, “Traven wrote in both German and English and had much to say about Germany, the United States and, of course, Mexico— we know Traven best in this country as the author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Wisely focusing on the intriguing question of identity, Baumann’s first chapter is “Who is B. Traven?” It surveys all the available facts, rumors, and theories about B. Traven’s identity and finally accepts the erlebnistrager (carrier of the experience) hypothesis. In a word, Baumann tentatively believes there were probably two authors involved in the production of the Traven canon — a canon which includes The Death Ship, The Cottonpickers , The Bridge in the Jungle, The Rebellion of the Hanged, to name a few of some thirteen novels and dozens of short stories. These two authors were Ret Marut-Traven (a man who may have been born in the U.S., but who in youth and early adulthood was an actor and political pamphleteer in Germany) and Torsvan-Traven (an American mid-westerner, who prob­ ably lived many of the experiences related in the early Traven stories). The two men met in the 1920’s in Mexico, while living there incognito for various reasons, and in some form of collaboration began to produce the B. Traven fiction. Although Baumann tentatively accepts this erlebnistrager hypothesis, which he stresses was originated by the Swiss, Max Schmid, he also is aware that Schmid could furnish no documentary evidence to support the hypothesis. Baumann writes: Yet the idea of an Erlebnistrager would solve many problems. For the Erlebnistrager would obviously be the American Wobbly, the uneducated Mid-western farmboy-sailor, the adventurous lumpenproletarian , who might have sent his manuscripts to American publishers during the early 1920’s . . . but under a different name, that is, not under the name of B. Traven. The Erlebnistrager’s presence would be the reason why there are more Americanisms in Traven than in Marat, transliterations and actual American words like cop, beachcomber and quarter, which Marat might have retained deliberately in his German renditions of the American manuscripts for their exotic flavor. 82 Western American Literature Since all of B. Traven’s early fiction was first published in Germany, Baumann asserts, “Whatever the original shape or form of the Erlebnistrdger ’s manuscripts may have been, Ret Marut put his signature and seal on them.” By careful study of Ret Marut’s known writing in Germany, before he disappeared in flight from a possible death sentence for revolu­ tionary political actions, Baumann can trace both philosophical and stylistic similarities in B. Traven’s works. Baumann also proves that Marut was under the influence of Max Stimer’s The Ego and His Own and that Stirner’s brand of philosophical anarchism undergirds much of the political and social thought in B. Traven’s fiction. Following the discussion of the identity question, Baumann devotes chapters to Traven as proletarian, philosophical anarchist, bilingual author, and “American.” Baumann carefully threads his way through many knotty problems and keeps an open mind on many issues that, at this point, cannot be given definitive treatment. This is not to say that Baumann does not write with great authority on many of the issues. For example, Baumann effectively traces out the many complex literary allusions in The Death Ship and demonstrates that B. Traven was a man of broad learning and a sensitive reader of world literature. His wide reading and research in Germany, as well as in the U.S., places Baumann in the forefront among B. Traven scholars. His style is readable, his textual scholarship meticulous, and his critical insights cogent. The main critical focus is on The Death Ship...