A Man's Spiritual Dilemma

Every Man a Murderer 
by Heimito von Doderer

"I've always thought how dreadful it must have been to live in such a time, in Spain, I mean, when the Inquisition was active there," Conrad said. "The slightest suspicion, or a denunciation, was enough to put a man in line for horrible tortures.  How could anyone have enjoyed his life or taken up any interests . . ." (203-204)


Every Man a Murderer, published in 1938 even while the author was working on his larger work-The Demons, is a story of personal and political crisis. The political crisis is exemplified by the rise of National Socialism while the personal crisis has its roots in Doderer's relationships, especially his marriage and divorce.
The novel is set in Germany and is monographic in that it is focused on a single figure and his fate, character, love, and death. The narrative is leisurely and thoughtful concerning one Conrad Castiletz, a young man, who becomes fascinated with the story of his sister-in-law who was murdered on a train eight years before he met and married his wife; also how he discovers his own personal connections with this event. It is almost Sophoclean in its exploration of the protagonist's own guilt. The first third, which deals with the hero’s childhood, schooling, sexual initiation, and so on, is fascinating though seemingly not necessary for the rest of the story. It is only upon the accidental death of Conrad and the way it links to the recovery of his youthful world that the themes of accident, fate , and character link together to make the connection. For the author the task of humanization begins with overcoming character.  This may be seen in the opening lines of the novel. "Everyone's childhood is plumped down over his head like a bucket.  The contents of this bucket are at first unknown.  But throughout life, the stuff drips down on him slowly--and there's no sense changing clothes or costume, for the dripping will continue." (p 3)
Only when Conrad begins to respect this is he able to become a person by overcoming his fate.  The oppressive atmosphere of the Gestapo-like society provides a surreal and sinister background for Conrad's story.

The novel is one of ideas, spiritual linkages, and metaphysical drama, reminiscent of Hesse and Conrad or perhaps of Thomas Mann which for some readers is enough to recommend it.
"The man who lay beside the pile of lumber was no longer sick. He was, in a manner of speaking, far healthier than anyone else, for he was dead.” Or: “If anyone says, ‘Nonsense!’ in regard to something, it generally shows that he has not dealt inwardly with the matter."
This is a novel for those interested in ideas and man's spiritual dilemma.

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A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 

by Frederic Morton


"In the first July week of 1888 Mahler sat down in his childhood room at his father's house in Iglau and worked out great sound-metaphors of perdition, the first movement of his Second Symphony. He would call it Totenfeier or Death Celebration. And to [his] friend he would confess: 'It is the hero of my First Symphony I carry to the grave here.  Immediately arise the great questions: Why hast thou lived? . . . Why hast thou suffered? . . . Is it all nothing but a huge, terrible joke?'"




This is a cultural history of a moment in time, less than two years, when the Hapsburg Empire was about to expire. The story of Crown Prince Rudolph and his world during the years of 1888 and 1889 touched upon the lives of many of the most famous people in nineteenth century history; people who would change both our parents' lives and our own  in the twentieth century. Young men are part of this story and they include Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodore Herzl, Hugo Wolf, and Arthur Schnitzler whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. Their cultural elders were present also and Frederic Morton, whose own grandfather lived on the periphery of the story,  narrates many cultural events including the feud between Bruckner (obsessed with Wagner) and Brahms (one of whose followers was a young Arnold Schoenberg). The history reads like a novel that is both exciting and pathetic,  for an era and a century and a world were coming to an end--the great war that would destroy much of what little culture survived into the new century was lurking in the relative near-mist of future history.




A Nervous Splendor by Frederic Morton. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. 1980

Fatal Lies

"He was aware that everything he did was merely a game, merely something to help him over this time at school, this larval period of his existence. It was without relation to his real personality, which would emerge only later, at some time still a long way off in the future."
- The Confusions of Young Torless, Robert Musil


It was, in part, the inspiration of Robert Musil's novella, The Confusions of Young Torless, about a young cadet struggling toward self-definition while experiencing the erotic tensions of puberty, that led Frank Tallis to write the mystery novel Fatal Lies.
The heart of the mystery is the machinations a small group of cadets led by Kiefer Wolf, a precocious underclassman. They are attending a private boys' school, Saint Florian, that is replete with ancient traditions and eccentric teachers. It is this story line that draws on Musil's novella most directly with the addition of explicit Nietzschean influences on young Wolf. But the key to the success of Tallis' novel is his intelligent use of the setting of fin-de-siecle Vienna and the blend of medicine, music, psychology and history that makes this a satisfying read. The lead detective, Reinhardt and his ally, Dr. Max Liebermann, an expert in the new psychiatric methods of Sigmund Freud, are both intelligent and believable characters in this well-constructed mystery. Each of the main characters must deal with their own issues and their stories are only slightly less interesting than the primary mystery. I was eagerly apprehensive most of the novel as the plot and sub-plots moved forward with alacrity. The climax was also satisfying; So much so that I look forward to reading Tallis' two previous mysteries (also set in Vienna).


Fatal Lies by Frank Tallis. Random House, New York. 2009.