36
lucht in die
Finsternis
box 6/3
Fne unn n
N Y Herald-Tribune
1100
Prom
A Great European Writer,
course, is that Schnitzler, although by repu¬
FLIGHT INTO DARKNESS.
tation a naturalist (it would be more fitting
By Arthur SchnitzlerMet
to call him a naturalist of souls, I have
Fork: Simon and Schuster J2.
always thought), was one of the finest
sensoria of our age. This being so, it need
Reviewed by
cause us no surprise to find that in many
PIERRE LOVING
ways he anticipated both Proust and James
Joyce.
V THE recent death of Arthur
Schnitzler in his sixty-eighth year,
What is now called the “stream of con¬
□ guropean literature has lost one of
sciousness,“ as employed by both Proust and
its outstanding contemporary talents, and
Joyce, was used many years ago by Schnitz¬
one whose work, in novel and play, is surely
ler and Edouard Dujardin, the early Paris
bound to endure. He began his career as
friend of George Moore. It is worth noting,
a physician and turned exclusively to writ¬
however, that, as Schnitzler uses it in
ing after his amazing success with Anatol,
None But the Brave,“ it is about a thou¬
a series of witty dialogues embroidered on
sand times more vital and significant than
the theme of the Vpermanent fugacity' of
in Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés.“
love. This was in 1892; and since then
It is far more than just fine-spun theory,
there has steadily poured from his un¬
I think, to say that all of Schnitzler’s work
stinted pen some of the most perfect prose
is autobiographical in the deepest sense—in
of our time. Nor was his an ivory turreted
theisense perhaps in which Flaubert re¬
and s ##il'ed style; but, rather, one that
ferred to Emma Bovary as a portrait of
was pervaded and inspired by a brilliant
himself. The inner life of Schnitzler’s
penetration of the human consciousness;
characters, no matter how commonplace on
its changeable phases and moods and its
the outside, is but a parallel chronicle
untiring search for logic in a seemingly
of the author’s kaleidoscopic consciousness.
chance-ridden universe.
That, in a word, is why the Viennese novel¬
ist and dramatist, seems so peculiarly a
If you will pick up almost any one of
child of the age of Freud.
Schnitzler'’s plays or novels—Light-o-love,“
Countess Mizzi,“ The Green Cockatoo,
Flight into Darkness’ sounds as if writ¬
The Country of the Soul,“ Dr. Graesler,“
ten many years ago and, while it contains
Beatrice, None But the Brave.“ Berta
ample evidence of the author’s remarkable
Garlan’—you will be impressed with the
gifts, can not be numbered among his best
fact that the characters, while true to
books. It is the wayward story of a man
nature, are nearly always conventional,
and that their outward acts are everyday,
suffering from persecution mania. Robert,
the central figure, a clerk in the Ministry
indeed almost banal. But the sensibility
is, on the other hand, simply tremendons
of Education, feels himself going mad. He
and frightening. And you are moved to
accuses himself of the death of his wife, a
frail, clinging creature who died of a sud¬
ask: How could such ordinary people feel
so deeply? How could they, leading quite
den heart attack; of his mistress who had
humdrum lives such as any one of us might
eloped with an American; of a number of
lead, grope to the perilous edge of the
his friends and acquaintances and, finally,
abyss, the outer vold? The answer, of
of his brother, a physician. Insthe end he
Lately Dead
actually does kill his brother. This con¬
clusion, though a bit violent, is determined
by a curious metaphysical concept: namely,
that premonitions have the power to ful¬
fill themselves; that thought sequences are
endless and flower in the world of physica:
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 mood that leads
up to it. Evidently Schnitzler 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 meanwhile to
dally, as in his other novels and plays,
with the trio of fate, death and love, and
their ewe-inspiring closeness in the normal
current of our lives. In the author’s own
life these forces blended, as I had occasion
to observe when I last saw Arthur Schnitz¬
ler some years ago: He brooded deeply on
his separation from his wife. He mourned
the loss of a beloved daughter whohad
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 re¬
gretted the stealing-up of age—perhaps of
death itself—with only a tithe done of what
he felt clamoring for expression in his own
breast.
When his life is seen at last in true retro¬
spect, I believe his work will be recognized
as the fralt of an important movement in
the European consciousness. He is, beyond
doubt, one of the great moderns; and wich
his going a little more of the transitional
dusk settles down on the world of lesser
men.
lucht in die
Finsternis
box 6/3
Fne unn n
N Y Herald-Tribune
1100
Prom
A Great European Writer,
course, is that Schnitzler, although by repu¬
FLIGHT INTO DARKNESS.
tation a naturalist (it would be more fitting
By Arthur SchnitzlerMet
to call him a naturalist of souls, I have
Fork: Simon and Schuster J2.
always thought), was one of the finest
sensoria of our age. This being so, it need
Reviewed by
cause us no surprise to find that in many
PIERRE LOVING
ways he anticipated both Proust and James
Joyce.
V THE recent death of Arthur
Schnitzler in his sixty-eighth year,
What is now called the “stream of con¬
□ guropean literature has lost one of
sciousness,“ as employed by both Proust and
its outstanding contemporary talents, and
Joyce, was used many years ago by Schnitz¬
one whose work, in novel and play, is surely
ler and Edouard Dujardin, the early Paris
bound to endure. He began his career as
friend of George Moore. It is worth noting,
a physician and turned exclusively to writ¬
however, that, as Schnitzler uses it in
ing after his amazing success with Anatol,
None But the Brave,“ it is about a thou¬
a series of witty dialogues embroidered on
sand times more vital and significant than
the theme of the Vpermanent fugacity' of
in Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés.“
love. This was in 1892; and since then
It is far more than just fine-spun theory,
there has steadily poured from his un¬
I think, to say that all of Schnitzler’s work
stinted pen some of the most perfect prose
is autobiographical in the deepest sense—in
of our time. Nor was his an ivory turreted
theisense perhaps in which Flaubert re¬
and s ##il'ed style; but, rather, one that
ferred to Emma Bovary as a portrait of
was pervaded and inspired by a brilliant
himself. The inner life of Schnitzler’s
penetration of the human consciousness;
characters, no matter how commonplace on
its changeable phases and moods and its
the outside, is but a parallel chronicle
untiring search for logic in a seemingly
of the author’s kaleidoscopic consciousness.
chance-ridden universe.
That, in a word, is why the Viennese novel¬
ist and dramatist, seems so peculiarly a
If you will pick up almost any one of
child of the age of Freud.
Schnitzler'’s plays or novels—Light-o-love,“
Countess Mizzi,“ The Green Cockatoo,
Flight into Darkness’ sounds as if writ¬
The Country of the Soul,“ Dr. Graesler,“
ten many years ago and, while it contains
Beatrice, None But the Brave.“ Berta
ample evidence of the author’s remarkable
Garlan’—you will be impressed with the
gifts, can not be numbered among his best
fact that the characters, while true to
books. It is the wayward story of a man
nature, are nearly always conventional,
and that their outward acts are everyday,
suffering from persecution mania. Robert,
the central figure, a clerk in the Ministry
indeed almost banal. But the sensibility
is, on the other hand, simply tremendons
of Education, feels himself going mad. He
and frightening. And you are moved to
accuses himself of the death of his wife, a
frail, clinging creature who died of a sud¬
ask: How could such ordinary people feel
so deeply? How could they, leading quite
den heart attack; of his mistress who had
humdrum lives such as any one of us might
eloped with an American; of a number of
lead, grope to the perilous edge of the
his friends and acquaintances and, finally,
abyss, the outer vold? The answer, of
of his brother, a physician. Insthe end he
Lately Dead
actually does kill his brother. This con¬
clusion, though a bit violent, is determined
by a curious metaphysical concept: namely,
that premonitions have the power to ful¬
fill themselves; that thought sequences are
endless and flower in the world of physica:
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 mood that leads
up to it. Evidently Schnitzler 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 meanwhile to
dally, as in his other novels and plays,
with the trio of fate, death and love, and
their ewe-inspiring closeness in the normal
current of our lives. In the author’s own
life these forces blended, as I had occasion
to observe when I last saw Arthur Schnitz¬
ler some years ago: He brooded deeply on
his separation from his wife. He mourned
the loss of a beloved daughter whohad
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 re¬
gretted the stealing-up of age—perhaps of
death itself—with only a tithe done of what
he felt clamoring for expression in his own
breast.
When his life is seen at last in true retro¬
spect, I believe his work will be recognized
as the fralt of an important movement in
the European consciousness. He is, beyond
doubt, one of the great moderns; and wich
his going a little more of the transitional
dusk settles down on the world of lesser
men.