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Summary: A Darker Schnitzler
Review: Until recently Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was known outside German-speaking countries primarily for his cycle of one-act plays, 'Reigen,' often called--even in English translation--'La Ronde' because of the deservedly famous movie version of that name by Max Ophuls. More recently though, his name has occasionally been heard because another of his works, 'Traumnovelle,' ('Dream Novella') served as a basis for Stanley Kubrick's last film, 'Eyes Wide Shut.' In this book we have three novellas in sparkling translations by Schnitzler scholar, Margret Schaefer, who had earlier translated several of the shorter stories (including 'Traumnovelle') in a volume called "Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas." Her translations are vernacular and swift.Schnitzler came of age in the Vienna of the period christened memorably by Frederic Morton 'A Nervous Splendor.' This was the fin-de-siècle Vienna in the waning days of its glory and power, a city consumed by social ritual, death, art, gossip. It was the city of Mahler, Freud, Klimt, and the tragic murder-suicide of Crown Price Rudolf and his mistress, Mary Vetsera, at Mayerling. The three novellas here--'Flight into Darkness,' 'Dying,' and 'Fraülein Else'--are very much concerned with those subjects that consumed the city. Indeed, they are very much darker than the rather more light-heartedly sophisticated, even frivolous (if sometimes ominous) subjects of 'Reigen' or 'Anatol' or 'Flirtation.' A brief comment about each of the three novellas (without giving too much away): 'Flight into Darkness' describes the gradual and never straight-line psychological disintegration of its protagonist, Robert. It is said that Schnitzler himself served as model for his hero although he certainly was never clinically insane. Still, he had an obsessive nature and a tendency towards jealousy and paranoia. Stylistically, the novella, which took Schnitzler over two decades to put the finishing touches to, has an omniscient narrator privy to Robert's sometimes reeling ruminations. 'Dying' is about a man who may or may not be dying; we're never quite sure and that's part of the fascination. There are elements that remind one of Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress, but it is not quite THAT story. Ms Schaefer comments that its applicability to our present day concern over AIDS is entirely apt, although Felix's illness is never specified. 'Fraülein Else' is remarkable in that it is a full-fledged example of stream-of-consciousness, the inner life of a 19-year-old girl, in writing that is entirely convincing and manages to be charming, amusing, shocking all at the same time. Ms Schaefer, in her excellent foreword, makes the claim that Schnitzler's stream-of-consciousness technique antedates that of Joyce or Woolf since it was first used in his earlier story, 'Lieutenant Gustl,' published in 1900. This collection makes a strong case for Schnitzler as a writer who understands the human psyche as well as most later writers, and better than any of his contemporaries except Freud who, of course, was not a writer of fiction (most people would say). His ability to conjure up the physical environs and social milieu of Vienna is near unmatched. These are engrossing and disturbing stories leavened with wit--after all it was Schnitzler who said 'The way of wisdom is to take everything seriously, but nothing too seriously'--and informed by perspicacity. Scott Morrison
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