BOOKS
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The uneven nature of his prose also contributes to Demetz's ap–
parent refusal to take a convincing stance. Numerous plays , poems,
and novels are served up merely with the generic "remarkable,"
while at other times his forms of praise border on the ridiculous.
Describing Handke's play ,
About the Villages,
Demetz commends it by
obliquely stating that it "touches a nerve of the age and paradoxically
fascinates by its combination of ideological mush and occasional
poetic energy ." Similar!y, in summing up a novel by Adolf Muschg,
he describes it as "a highly intimate , disturbing, cryptic, and largely
uneven book in which bold psychological and social analysis has not
entirely pushed aside his readiness to please the reader, at least in
passing, by predictable situations and Swiss stock characters ."
Meanwhile, it would be nice to know what the book is really like.
It is sad that
After the Fires
is not more stimulating. That Peter
Demetz chose not to write an intricate book of high-powered literary
criticism is not the source of the disappointment; it is rather the
slackness of his approach to some of the vital questions still facing
German writers. His sensitivity to the role of language in culture
and history would seem to qualify him for the undertaking, but it is a
role only fleetingly addressed in this book. That German literature
has survived and prospered is amply demonstrated by the integrity
and inventiveness of the writers catalogued , but whether it is a
literature of unity or a literature of division is still something which
needs to be answered.
PETER FILKINS
