Goethe-Institut Boston; WGBH Forum Network; Arthur Schnitzler's "Road to the Open"

What you know why you're now the reason I look so wired up. This is all test still right. Is that you have asked for a very long time. I think it's too it's too loud. I think I hear it very loud this it is still trying to adjust the volume right now survive the unpleasant for you. This is an artificial zone early really weird. What if I really shout. So loud. OK so I have the we have the volume right. OK. Many of you have asked if we should be recording the lectures and it so happened I don't know at that left how it actually happened but WGBH is helping us through this and the world these lectures that we're doing you probably know more about this than I do. We'll be posted on a website called. And I'm going to you have to all agree to be on this age TGP. You know all this forum the hyphen network dot org. So our series will be posted on four room network. Dot org and

if you are sitting here. And here and here you are giving now your consent to be filmed. If you sit here only your back will be on the tape I presume. Or you sitting in the dark. You will not be on it so you have options. But as you see it here and you are no longer not walking out now you are giving your consent to be on. Is that good. OK so we got our consent. Thank you. Well if we make any money on it we'll all go to the good Institute. Molina has a microphone. So if you wish to speak because we have two input lines for sound and one I have and the other one my Lena has and if you wish to speak so she will give you the microphone so this is the only change. Everything else stays exactly the same as usual I hope I can retain

my my usual spontaneity. The things I will no longer do as I will no longer make politically incorrect remarks that. I know you're coming exactly for those. So welcome to Round Four of what is German which is subtitled this year. Vienna literary capital of the 20th century. Now you may of course think well literary capital of the 20th century is a bit thick if you think about that as also Paris and Berlin and London and certainly if you're French speaking you would sort of have some doubts whether it isn't really Paris that is the literary capital of the 20th century and yes it is true in all of these cities very interesting literature has been produced but there is something extraordinarily challenging and interesting about the literature produced in Vienna between 1500 and 2000 and that's what we'll be concentrating on this year certainly one of the things that's absolutely outstanding

about these literature produced between 1900 and 2000 it is it is extraordinarily mean. So I would amend my subtitle even though I cannot prove couldn't print that the meanest literary capital of the 20th century. So for those of you who have never really participated in one of these seminars it's a mixture of a lecture and discussion and we do a back and forth and I will show you later how this works. What we have done so far we have spent two years looking at the literature produced in the core territories of the German lice you remember we started in about 18 0 5 with go to selective affinities with it in the theater. The Grimm Brothers flight told us none and you could see as we were going through this literature that was produced in the core territory of the German guys that developed into a strand of German self-examination then it was. Culminating with two of us

months wouldn't balks and which was produced in 1900 and then the literature of Pluto's for him for a while until actually of World War 1 but simultaneously as a literature in Germany the realistic novel tells and doesn't really produce anything ravishing anything artistically truly challenging what happens at the same time is that the literature in Austria is taking off about 1895 to country is really quite. There is something happening. Country is in turmoil and it produces an extraordinary body of literary works that have all of us been very interesting Austrian writers mention any. Other parts of France clu parts. That shift your nipple and all of those some of you may know these spiders they are not really writers that have shaken the world they're not like musical not like

cars they're not like they're not like to almost span they're much more sedate. What happens to see see or read a very important German literary critic produce which is that if you want a literature that is rattling that disperse shaking that is artistically novel and interesting and significant You need to have a problem that you're working out. And so he argues that what we get around 1900 is a shift of modern focus artistic innovation from the core territories of the German lies to the marginal German territories to Prague and to Vienna and we if looked at the literature of Bach and Vienna last year. The main difference if you think about this is just one of fills us just put this on the on the mat on the mat for you between the core German territory I'm just calling them what now is the

Federal Republic of Germany I'm just gonna call this a core territory of the German allies and Austria. The differences are vast. Austria is hierarchically organized centrally organized it's a monarchy it's an empire. It is Catholic and it is multi-ethnic. The German core territory is although there are some territories is Protestant It is complete it is completely decentralized and it is homogenized in its population. OK. So as you are going through the 19th century this particular country the German wife is working out its identity. But by about 900 as it is having its own little empire it is fairly settled. The other countries out there or the Habsburg empire at that time is actually breaking up what are two most important influences or the most important developments that make this work toward the end of the 19th

century. Look what happens. There are two extraordinary things happening at the same time which is why I just said it was small the ethnic. Speak up. Increasing the influence of Jews in the professions and in literature and in the arts. Right. OK that's C that's one and the other one I'm going to come back to this in one second and the other one is concomitant with that. Well also at the same time you had people coming from what is now the Czech Republic and Hungary speaking other languages of the culture. That's right going to the place where one could make a living. We want to unite that's all stirred. We have two huge trends that coalesce. One is the question of self-determination of peoples

all the different peoples that are together in the hub spoke empire. Now try to have their own state their own country their own parliament. So they want to be self-determined self-determination turns out to be a key term in a novel you have read for today. Self-determination at the same time beginning around. Beginning with the beginning was a Jewish unlighted meant you have a huge shift in the extraordinarily large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe. You have a shift from religious education to secular education. You have not so much a shift in emancipation that's not happening yet but you have a shift within the Jewish population toward a secular life and a secular life comes with acquiring professions comes with being successful as merchants Comus was slowly emerging into the middle class and as you were getting toward the end of the 19th century those

people have offspring and those people want to now be on a par with the young folks among whom they are living and they represent as you are as you were saying a new ferment in new intellectually coking population that breaks up some of the structures that have been established before and that's another theme in the novel that we'll be looking looking at today. We could see as we were looking at the literature last year that was producing in park and in Vienna that the interesting literature was produced not by the settled Austrians it wasn't cool stuff might think whom we liked. It was Jewish writers who were producing extraordinary literature of the novels of extraordinary quality but they were not Jewish novels. We looked at and slice. This of a coming of age novel as many coming of age

novels were written but with an additional pick and say we looked at Hans Kafka. Obviously everybody knows his work not particularly Jewish works but works that influenced my own sort of world literature what we're doing now to see here we're looking at instead today we'll be looking at the Duca and his do we know allergies next month we will look at cows. That is probably one of the meanest critics of who ever lived hated Schnitzler and the guy the two of them where loggerhead spoke will. It's very difficult actually to make cars accessible to you in English because it's very hard to translate German literary wit or even Austrian which in SS probably you saw when you were reading the novel. But I will try to do this by having actually read Kennedy's. Autobiography to get I did it so many times that Tom said free and then we go on and this is gonna be our whopper. If you told us that you actually have to give up your

job because we're going to I'm not going into you know Russia. Take a leave of absence because I'm also doing a Russian literature course in Newton and we are doing and I've got only 9 the same month as we'll do be doing Man Without Qualities. But I'm going to ease your intuition its lead by giving you a breather because in December you only have to read the confessions of young turk less which is a preparation really for men without qualities and then I really ask you to sort of spend the month of January suffering through moods ill because we'll be reading volume 1 only man without qualities but it is one of the extraordinary experiences if you have never read your looses or you never read remembrances of things past you know one of those doorstops things that everybody has to sort of read at some point before then you're off into the grave. Man Without Qualities is easy. Is your novel for this for this term so we will have one session on Men Without Qualities which is probably practically cannot be done but if you are all well prepared I guess we can we

can we can do it and then we have a yes. Question. Some guidance. Will you be able to give us some guidance as to which translations. There's I think there's only one but I will usually I usually send out in and announcement before the next session Bunsby close of session I will send out an email thanking you and so on. And I say and here's what you have to do for next time and for music I will give you you can I would stick to Cliff's Notes. Then I'll call this the spark notes. Anyway so so so I was I was send out enough and so on even you can obviously email me if you have if you have any questions OK. Then we will do the one not see I will ever do because she is absolutely irresistible I do not know how it can be translated. Who joined the Nazi party in 1933 he was very sorry he did it in 1940 and he tried to undo this era. Basically all his life. But he is one of the most

vicious most. Sensual and linguistically most stunning Austrian writer has to come out foreswore Austria so we'll be reading one of his novels the waterfalls of someone young and then we go to one of my personal favorites another meany to heart I will read two of his novels because I can really not choose which ones to do also linguistically very interesting if you have any interest in in studying German now is actually the time to do it because one really does have to appreciate even told us in German but I hear that he uses the translations actually quite well done and then we will finish with three writers who are contemporary who are writing now one of them for me not to be understood why I got the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Yeti neck this is probably the meanest and hardest to take book will be reading the piano teacher. Its about a very strange mother daughter relationship and I am not sure. How one can actually

discuss it. We will just drive across that this point. We will probably have found our groove and know how to and how to deal with each other and then we read someone I think is a very good Liana flashing eyes she is also contemporary and she was just translated into into English and will finish with with an extraordinary young novelist. Fine. So this is the programme now without further ado to my have the fun scuffed up probably all time favorite. A man of eminently difficult men as you know he was born in 1862 into a Jewish family completely assimilated liberal family father was a famous glaring biologist Larry in college he was a very good discipline to have war subspecialty to have in Vienna of course it was an opera crazy city and he turned out to be one of the people who was very accepted by the by non-Jews and very famous opera singers came to seeing him and Dr. Schnitzler was

really a man in town and someone who was who had who had status his his son consented to study medicine didn't really want to do it did it to too. For his dad to really end as soon as his father died in 1993 he quit. I had other interests besides medicine he hung around in coffee houses quite a bit. He was a very good student I should say he got his M.D. in 18 in 1885 and then went on to train practically it was with a number of extraordinary doctors. He didn't quite know what to specialize in psychiatry for a while he did neurology for a while. He did depression for a while he specialized in hysteria and it was only so the foot than you really that he went into a larynx ology and establish a practice which had the one which never made very much money because he had no interest in it and had started writing at the time and he became quite successful in fact as a playwright. But since he liked two of the things he liked he liked

writing he liked women and he liked gambling and you couldn't quite gamble in a practice but certainly it was a source of women because many women patients came to see him and although this is of course quite a few today he got quite a number of lovers out of people who came to see him and they were usually very young women 16 years old 18 years old 21 years old but at that time there was actually as you now know from the novel and a mature age. So. It is part of young Vietnam. He knows who will find the red mobile phone Hoffman style. There are two very different people and they actually broke their very long friendship broke over the weekend. I should say that probably one more biographical biographical remark before I will do my usual thing which is I'm going to ask you for your reading impressions and I'm going to collect a few of your remarks and I'm going to start playing with them and see how I can ease you into the novel and I want to just see where you are in your

reading and what the issue wears issues where there came up for you I know you already want to take an axe to a gay arc. Or no it's not a figure who you actually like. All right they were among the many many women Schnitzler had there were three significant ones I actually want to read you something that from his diary that is typical for the kind of relationships that he had that do not pertain to this with women. I won't mention. So in September 1897 Schnitzler is 35 percent right. Something like that. 1062 so does the meso D5 And so he's going on an evening stroll along things toss of which is a very big representative classy sort of a large road that is really circling the city of Vienna. It's going point even a stroll with his was a friend and I see a pretty young woman her name is Janet Hager. She's 21 and she makes a living doing needlework

in an apartment she shares with her sister because she's an orphan and her parents don't have particular interest in in her upbringing or in in the upbringing off her sister so she's basically out on her own she is 21 she is proud they are wrong. And there it is two very good looking guys and talks to her and said You know I have a bottle of wine in my house and you want to come and she comes and saw us together with this other guy and she should have a very nice evening actually says Don't you want to come back tomorrow. And she does and so here's what's new so right into his diary. There I was at the piano. She was at my feet so that I couldn't use the pedal. Her head was in my lap her Tao's of hair reflected the green and red from the lamp. I was improvising at the piano but only with my left hand. She was pressing my right hand to her lips. I felt at that moment I was

passionately loved. I felt surrounded by it. And again I had the stupidly divine thought. You poor poor child. The episodic nature of the experience became very clear to me while I felt her warm breath on my hand. I had a sensation that I was remembering it all from a distance and I saw what it was already. We were already apart. Very typical. The experience hasn't even happened yet and he's remembering it as something that's already passed. He is about to consume this woman and he feels sorry for her that is already going to be an episode they say passage in the road to open that's exactly like this do you remember that Georg isn't even lovers yet with and he's already remembering it as something that will necessarily have to end.

It's a live and a feeling for our kind of life a way of being that was absolutely typical for that time between 1895 and the beginning of the First World War. This all ended this kind of sense of consuming people of episodic nature of just going with the flow intensity of scientists our lives would be intense of is everything is one of Schnitzler remarks all of this and by the First World War. Now there were three women does life who were extraordinarily important and in fact he wrote in a letter to Google for a whole month's time. That is his most personal novel and it was personal because the three women appear in this novel in various ways new rules of you will find out. You will see it by the way the first woman who was important to Schnitzler is Mitzi Mitzi bloomer. She he met her when she was 16 in 1898. At that point when she was

16 she actually already had had two lovers and that qualifies her as a fallen woman who was very intrigued with her he was he loved her actually passionately and she was as so many women we are who had nothing else to do if she was in training as an actress. In fact knowing that she would become an actress meant really consigning her to an upper class proselyte because the provincial theatres were used by the upper class and by the officers in the army as their reservoir for the ladies of the night and they went and just kind of like made friends basically like it was with them. Schnitzler had many girlfriends while he was having Mitzi groom also but when she goes off and accepts an engagement in 1890s somewhat somewhere else I think she went to book before she went to Garland. I received an anonymous

postcard and the postcard told told him that she was having an affair with someone else and then she came back and he absolutely lost it. He treated he abused her he treated her ill and yet she wanted to be back with him and this figure goes into what figure in in the. Hindmost girlfriend and whom we don't whose name we never learn because she's one shots of an episodic slew of women is gloom and you can see the suffering in hindsight is the suffering Schnitzler experienced when he got this postcard that made the bloom of was unfaithful to him. The next moment in his life he was actually was with Mitzi for quite a while wasn't it turned out to be an off and on a relationship and Missy was actually one of the very lucky ones she later went to their engagement in Garland she actually went to. Berlin and she got married in 1901

so is actually one of the women who made good and to a very decent man who was also in this theater so this one actually had had a happy end. The woman who succeeded in some ways for Schnitzler was mildly lionheart. Now movie is not as Susan made. A sweet girl like Janet Hager or like music Luma she had class she was a teacher of voice she was part of the middle middle class and upper middle class not the lower middle class but she was part of the middle part of the middle class and he was very clear to have someone like Marie Rinehart would mean that he would have to marry her. But mostly I felt for him they met actually when she was 18 actually also in in her in his practice and they became lovers and timid in 1884 and became lovers about nine months later in March in 85 and by January 1897 there was evidence that Molly was pregnant. And

that of course was a catastrophe and he sends in May by maybe 1897 he sent Smitty to Switzerland while he's of course travelling and in the summer of 97 he goes to suburbs of Vienna and he's looking for a house where Mitzi could give birth and after she and she does after several days of very very hard labor she delivers a boy in September on September 24th 97 but a boy dies and so it's less safe. And of course you know precisely that plot and he is crazy about me it's the heart and he can't leave her. But he also can't marry her because she can't tease a man addicted to women and women go in and out of his life in the episodic nature that he describes was vanity. Even though Mitzi is important to him it's the two is important to him. But Mitzi dies in 1899 in March on March 18th 1899 to be exact of a ruptured appendix so blood

poisoning actually often affection because of peritonitis as a consequence of a of a ruptured appendix and he's absolutely devastated. He's in luck because six months later actually not even six months later. Four months later in July underly 11 1899 a beautiful woman walks again into his office. She's 18 and her name is oil go buy snacks now. No not all the guys things like advice next. It's also love her but she's already dead at that time. Now all of that. Now Schnitzler has met his match because my yes Schnitzler as a playwright and she has come for the very purpose of getting Schnitzler that is a handful but she manages to. Show writes him a letter says I adore you I want your picture and of course his son not want to resist says to her Why don't you come visit. And she comes to visit and the two of them fall passionately in love actually. The stuff was first in love with her younger sister who is somewhat precocious she's 16 and you know

he goes out with the sister and all of us sitting there says My time will come and she is right. They become lovers about 9200 and oil God becomes pregnant by generating one thousand or one pin though that eldest pregnant. And she delivers and she actually doesn't deliver she has a miscarriage and is completely devastated of course in his usual fashion he had traveled while the pregnancy was going on and so she miscarries but a little while later in January 19 0 2 she was pregnant again and this time she delivers a baby boy on August 9. One thousand or two who became known to us as homely as homely a son who survived and loves the boy schnitzel loves and he can't get married he can't do it so poorly God lives as a mother with a child out of wedlock and suffering that she is exposed to in a still very society is intolerable and ultimately

caves and do get married in 1993 actually in a synagogue which is very surprising because obviously we know that. It's not really a religious by any by any stretch of the imagination so they get married to stay married until one thousand twenty one. Us very passionate about her career she wants to become an actress she wants to be a singer and descends into as this career is taking off. But it's not taking off here. He is a very difficult man. He's always on the brink of depression and ultimately 1021 the two of them get divorced and and God takes off and starts and starts her career which not to be very successful. They also have a girl she was born in 1910 I believe and a great tragedy of this life is that it commits suicide in 1928 when she is 18 she has just gotten married she couldn't take it and takes after her father and she killed herself and three years later and it's listed also on one of the great TO ME WANT TO great writers of all time. So that is the

background of the novel that he writes in 1992. There is more to this is only one part of this novel. It's an extraordinary novel. It's complicated. It's rich. It's a challenge and with wisely anything. Floors open for you. So I'm some comments what is your reading experience. Stuart right. I can see you in the dark. Can you can I give you the microphone. Sorry about that. You've often told us that the clues to the books you read are found in the first page. Yes and I found that this novel had had a similar theme. The father telling the son Bohun bone when we were you drifting to. Yes that was a theme that was picked up through the entire book. There are good mean writers drifting through relationships with women through relationships with nine

Jewish characters who are equally unfulfilled you counted them on. The least. But they were all and I mention this to Clive before they all seemed like characters or cardboard figures that didn't have a lot of substance I wasn't really rooting for them they just studying for highlights the the stuff praying maybe.