Detectives, Dystopias, and Poplit: Studies in Modern German Genre Fiction ed. by Bruce B. Campbell, Alison Guenther-Pal, and Vibeke Rützou Petersen (review)

In their introduction to this volume, the editors acknowledge the still-persistent divide in German academia between products of high culture and low culture; the types of fiction that the contributors analyze have traditionally belonged to the latter. With their carefully researched and engaging articles, this anthology’s editors and contributors make a strong case for including their primary works in more serious scholarship of German language and culture.

As the editors note, the field of Germanistik in the United States has expanded to “German Studies” or “German Cultural Studies,” designations that allow for the inclusion of writings that in Germany still fall into the category of Trivialliteratur, a term that the editors argue is outdated and static, yet still standard in Germany. Instead of suggesting a direct English equivalent for that term such as “trivial literature,” the editors have chosen “genre fiction.”

Beyond simply stating what genre fiction is, the editors further validate it by describing in clear and convincing terms what genre fiction can do: “successful works of genre fiction are able to balance the demand for recognizable patterns with generic innovation and rule-breaking” (5). When it accomplishes this combination of relying on tradition and emphasizing innovation, genre fiction, in the words of the editors, “provides a nuanced reflection of the culture that produces it, and it can also critique that culture” (18). As the title indicates, the book provides analyses of works of science fiction, detective fiction, and pop literature. The editors have also compiled a comprehensive bibliography. With no more than four essays comprising each of the three sub-sections, the anthology introduces readers to each of these areas, while also arousing curiosity to explore the works and individual authors further.

One of the volume’s greatest strengths is each contributor’s adeptness at situating his or her primary texts within the larger tradition of German literary and cultural criticism. This acts as a strategy not only to “validate” these works because of their intersections with canonical works, but also to show exactly how these works join in critical dialogues that have characterized traditional Germanistik for centuries.

In Part I, “Science Fiction and Dystopia,” Vibeke Rützou Petersen, Evan Torner, and Sonja Fritzsche discuss science fiction works of diverse temporal and thematic complexions. Petersen addresses the thematization of Germany’s Nazi past in science-fiction books of the twentieth century. In Petersen’s words, the “abundance of German science-fiction texts resonates with historical themes or settings that take on special significance in the German historical context” (44). Petersen demonstrates the utility of these novels for engaging with larger and persistent questions of German historical identity. While the reader of this anthology might think at first glance that it contains treatments of contemporary, to-date obscure novels, Torner examines a 1924 Alfred Döblin novel as an example of “expressionist science fiction” (50). Making important connections to well-known artists who have attempted the same thing, such as Fritz Lang, Torner persuasively argues for the placement of this forgotten Döblin novel within the expressionist movement, while not downplaying its sciencefiction attributes. Fritzsche investigates the writing of Andreas Eschbach, one of the most popular contemporary German science fiction writers, from an ecocritical point of view. She links contemporary German science fiction to trends of the German Green Movement from the 1970s and 1980s. Relating to her emphasis on the changing role of nature in various literary movements, Fritzsche details inspiration from German high literature, including Goethe (78). In their very different essays, the authors consistently argue for the serious reception of this sub-genre of German genre fiction.

In Part II, “Detection and Crime,” contributors confirm the above-mentioned talent of genre-fiction writers to promote innovation while relying on established patterns. In her discussion of Hermynia Zur Mühlen’s...