nd
waps ne anliel
Proust and James Joyce.
What is now called the “stream of
consciousness, as employed by
hoth Proust and Joyce, was used
many years ago by Schnitzler and
Edouard Dujardin, the early Paris
friend of George Moore. It is wort“
nothing. however, that, as Schnitzler
uses it in None But the Brave,“
is about a thousand times mo é
vital and significant than in Duja.¬
din's Les Lauriers sont coupes.“
It is far more than just fine-spun
thoory, I think, to say that all of
Schnitzler’s work is autobiographical
in the decpest sense—in the sense
perhaps in which Flaubert referred
to Emma Bovary as a portrait of
himself. The inner life of Schnitz¬
ler’s characters, no matter how com¬
monplace on the outside, is but a
parallel chronicle of the author’s
kaleidoscopic consciousness. That,
in a word, is why the Viennese
novelist and dramatist seems so
peculiarly a child of the age of
Freud.

Flight Into Darkness“ as obvi¬
ously written many years ago and,
while it contains, ample evidence
of the author’s remarkable gifts, can
not be numbered among his best
books. It is the wayward story of a
man suffering from persccution
mania. Robert, the central figure, a
clerk in the ministry of education.
feels himself going mad. He accuses
himself of the death of his wife, a
frail, elinging creature who died of
a sudden heart attack; of his mis¬
tress who had eloped with an Amer¬
ican; of a number of his friends and
acquaintances and, finally, of his
brother, physician. In the end he
actually does kill his brother. This
conclusion, though a bit violent, is
determined by a curious metaphys¬
ical concept; namely, that premo¬
ritions have the power to fulfill
themselves; that thought sequences
are endless and flower in the world
of physical events; and, finally, that
death does not exist since every
limit to a chain of thought must
have yet another limit, and so on ad
infinitum.
Flight into Darkness“ is written
with all of Schnitzler’s skill and
inimitable charm. If the vehement
ending shocks us, it is because we
feel its incongruity with the gentle
autumnal narrative niood that leads
to it. Evidently Schnitzler
up
sensed that his small novel would
have no reason for being if the
metaphysical framework were not
present. So he put it there, a little
forcibly; but it enabled him mean¬
while to dally; as in his other
novels and plays, with the trio of
fate, death and love, and their awe¬
inspiring closeness in the normal
current of our lives. In the author’s
own life these forces blended, as 1
had occasion to observe when I last
saw Arthur Schnitzler some years
age: He brooded deeply on his
separation from his wise. He
mourned the loss of a beloved
daughter who had just taken her
own life in Italy. And as he gazed
at a small porcelain statue of
Goethe in schlafrock on his tall
work-table, he regretted the steal¬
ing up of age—perhaps of death
itself— with only a tithe done of
what he felt clamoring for expres¬
sion in his own breast.
When his life is scen at last in
true retrospect, I believe his work
will be recognized as the fruit of
an important movement in the Eu¬
ropean consciousness. He is, beyond
deubt, one of the great moderns:
and with his going a little more of
the transitional dusk settles down
on the world of lesser men.
lucht
d
Finsternis
36 MiS
or1d
Tuisa Ck1
Noy 9-31
Schnitzler
Novel Out
By. WARE, TORREF
IN STRIKING commemoration, a
News
— week or so after the death of Ar¬
Enid Ckla
thur Schnitzler, Austrian novelist
and dramatist, ccmes the publica¬
Nov 3-31
tion of his last novel, Flight Into
Darkness.“
Schnitzler spreads bare before us
she later life and thoughts of a man
who is afraid of going mad.
The story begins when Robert
com-

senses the shadow of a mental dis¬
m
turbance. He notices that his left
eyelid droops lower than the right,
d
and fears that this is a symptom of
mental disease.
Through the complexities of self¬
doubt and slackening mental con¬
trol, and through a labyrinth of in¬
trospection, Schnitzler traces Rob¬
ert’s gradual breakdown.
Early in life, after brooding over
a friend’s insanity, Robert had giv¬
en his brother Otto a document au¬
thorizing Otto, a physician, to kill
him painlessly, should he show signs
of madness.
When the terror actually begins
to close around him, Robert develops
a dread that Otto will carry out this
request.
Robert becomes more abnormal, in
action and reasoning. Realizing this,
and no longer wishing to die if he
becomes insanc, Robert’s fear that
Otto will kill him grows into a per¬
secution-mania.
The dark and fantastic powers of
this mania press him to despera¬
tion, and carrv him on to a climax
that is superb in its inevitability.
Flight Into Darkness“ is a mas¬
terful psychological study. Schnitz¬
ler’s clear, simple stvle and his nat¬
uralness of approach also create a
story that grips attention. Though a
short novel, the book is dramatical¬
ly intense.
In its penetration into a man's
character and mind, its clear pres¬
entation of a subtle and involved
situation and its highly sustained in¬
terest," Flight Into Darkness“ stands
as a worthy final mark of Schnitz¬
ler’s fame.
Star
vashington bel
a sto
ast
Nov 8-31
ally intense.
Manhattan Side-Show', by Kon¬
FINIS
rad Bercovici (Century), is filled
In its penetration into a man's
with great names but it is mediocre
character and mind, its clear pre¬
alongside some of the author’s other
sentation of a subtle and involved
work.
situation and its highly sustalned
Sins of America—As Exposed by
interest, Flight Into Darkness.“
the Police Gazette,? by Edward Van
Every (Stokes), is a companion vol¬
stands as a worthy final mark of
ume to“Sins of New Vork.? Thomas
Schnitzer’s fame.
Beer does the introduction.
New York reviewers are cheering
— . M. „ . —
Instily for Clemence Dane’s“ Broome
Stage.)
Simon & Schuster have just
brought out Arthur Schnitzler’s last
short novel, Flight Into Darkness.“
Robert Ripley’s sccond“Believe lt
or Not'’ book is not as interesting as
the first.
box 6/3