Kafka-Handbuch: Leben—Werk—Wirkung (review)

MLR, .,   already suggested by Elizabeth Boa (‘Global Intimations: Cultural Geography in Buddenbrooks, Tonio Kröger and Der Tod in Venedig’, Oxford German Studies,  (), –), as expressing tensions arranged along numerous geographical and racial axes. e neglected Königliche Hoheit is shown to reproduce Mann’s ambivalence towards Germany in the marriage between the sedate Klaus Heinrich and the unconventional, mixed-race Imma. Without seeking to rehabilitate the confused polemic Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Kontje convincingly shows how remote its conception of Germanness is from the ideas held by Lagarde and his ilk, and points out that Mann there portrays himself as a Frenchified German. On Der Zauberberg, Kontje says less that is new, but does intriguingly examine the Svengali-like control exerted by the sinister, perhaps Jewish Dr Krokowski over the Nordic medium Ellen Brand. e chapter on the Joseph novels, aptly called ‘the elephant in the room of Mann’s fiction’ (p. ), provides an excellent introduction to the tetralogy and identifies Joseph’s role as stirring up the indolent Egyptians as the Jews, in Mann’s opinion, did the Germans. In Doktor Faustus this role of stimulant is assigned to Hetaera Esmeralda, who fosters Leverkühn’s creativity by infecting him, and who disturbingly combines Jewish, Oriental, and South American associations; Kontje might have explored further this deeply problematic cluster of meanings. Finally, Felix Krull breaks off with its protagonist about to travel to South America and thus return to the source of Mann’s exoticism. is sane and balanced study, written with a refreshing lightness, is all the better for not offering ‘final’ interpretations of Mann’s ambivalent art. It can be enthusiastically recommended. T Q’ C, O R R Kaa-Handbuch: Leben — Werk — Wirkung. Ed. by M E and B A. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler. . xviii+ pp. €.. ISBN ––––. Since the publication, in , of the monumental two-volume Kaa-Handbuch edited by Hartmut Binder (Stuttgart: Kroner), Kaa scholarship has witnessed new critical editions and, partly as a result of these, new insights into the work and shis in its critical reception. ere can thus be little doubt that there is a need for a new comprehensive reference work, one which reflects and reports on these developments . e titles of recent publications have flattered to deceive on this count: the volume edited by von Jagow and Jahraus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ), with the identical title to the work reviewed here, is strictly not a handbook, but a collection of essays, and A Franz Kaa Encyclopedia, ed. by Richard T. Gray and others (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, ), is far from encyclopedic in its range and ambition. While both the above volumes may fall foul of the trades descriptions act, this cannot be said of the volume of essays assembled here under the editorship of Manfred Engel and Bernd Auerochs. e clear structure and unity of approach of the contributors, comprehensive ambition and level of detail of the contributions, are precisely what one should expect from the handbook genre.  Reviews e book has four sections: . ‘Leben und Persönlichkeit’; . ‘Einflüsse und Kontexte’; . ‘Dichtungen und Schrien’; . ‘Strukturen, Schreibweisen, emen’. e editors appear to set out to emulate the factual density of Binder, without committing to Binder’s particular psychoanalytical approach to the biography and œuvre. Among the biographers of Kaa, Peter-André Alt (Franz Kaa: Der ewige Sohn. Eine Biographie (Munich: Beck, )) and Reiner Stach (Die Jahre der Entscheidungen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, ); Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, )) are heralded as breaking new ground because they are firmly rooted in the latest philological scholarship. Understandably, it is the third section of the book that occupies the greatest space ( pages). Kaa’s œuvre is divided into three periods, the transitions marked by ‘Das Urteil’ in September , and by the Zürau aphorisms (September ). e works are discussed under a generally consistent scheme: genesis and publication details, a description of the text (‘Textbeschreibung’), specific issues arising, and a bibliography of secondary literature. Recent developments in Kaa scholarship, such as the tighter inclusion of the Amtliche Schrien (office writings, here presented expertly by Benno Wagner...