Conditio Judaica, vol. 49: Grotesque ambivalence: melancholy and mourning in the prose work of Albert Drach

The focus of this volume is the prose work of the Austrian-Jewish writer Albert Drach (1902-1995). The author explores Drach's critique of totalitarian culture by examining his representations of power and powerlessness, identity and difference, along with cultural processes of exclusion. Drawing on areas as diverse as psychoanalysis, the grotesque and post-colonial theory, this study identifies a significant discursive difference between Drach's shorter fictional prose and the Holocaust trilogy. Drach's highly original linguistic dexterity, his much-discussed 'protocol style', offers a sophisticated critique of the relationship between power, insubordination and capitulation. This is the first English language study dedicated to the complex prose of Albert Drach. It is of interest to students and scholars of Austrian literature, German-Jewish literature as well as Exile and Holocaust Studies. Chapter 1. Introduction 7 1.1 Albert Drach: Revolutionary Poet and Bearer of Death 7 1.2 »O Ophelia«: The Encounter with the Cadaver 16 1.3 Status Nascendi versus Status Quo: In defence of Nature Morte 18 1.4 Positions 21 1.5 The Child in Flight 28 Chapter 2. The Grotesque: Topography of Transgression, Morphology of Emptiness 31 2.1 Body Language 31 2.2 An Entire Thematics of Mortality and Vitality 40 2.3 Subterranean Spaces 49 Chapter 3. Grotesque Discourses: Mourning and Melancholia 57 3.1 Constellation of Cross-Contamination 57 3.2 From System to Process: The Semiotic, the Symbolic and the Thetic 61 3.3 Anaphora of Nothing 70 Chapter 4. Floating Documents 79 4.1 The Protokoll: Epic of the In-Between 79 4.2 Outside the Text: Creating the Catachrestic Space 86 Chapter 5. Ex-centrics, Evil Eyes and Missing Persons: The Optics of Mimicry in Das Goggelbuch 113 5.1 Grotesque Surplus: Mimic Man 113 5.2 Representing the In-Between: The Secret Art of Invisibility 120 5.3 Fallible Frames 127 5.4 Aphanisic Faders 137 Chapter 6. »Z. Z.« das ist die Zwischenzeit: Paralysis of the Powerless 157 6.1 Diverging Paths: A Theoretical Re-evaluation 157 6.2 Writing Apotheosis 166 6.3 In the Shadow of the Egocrat: A Micro-Physics of Power 179 6.4 The Ventriloquist’s Dummies 189 Chapter 7. The Time of Evil Children 193 7.1 The Spectre of Absolute Negation 193 7.2 Divine Intoxication: Simulating Infantile Sovereignty 204 7.3 Infernal Sobriety: Apotheosis of the Eternal Present 210 7.4 Contours of the Culpable 214 7.5 Suffer Little Children 222 Conclusion. Concentration Camps of the Mind and the Child in Flight 225 Bibliography 227 Index 235 Acknowledgements 237

Die erste englischsprachige Untersuchung der Prosa von Albert Drach (1902-1995) arbeitet die Originalität von Drachs Autobiografie im Kontext gegenwärtiger Holocaust-Diskurse heraus. Dabei geht es um das Verhältnis zwischen Drachs komisch-grotesker Sprache und dem melancholischen Darstellungsmodus in der Holocaust-Autobiografie. Drachs Prosa legt die totalitären Mechanismen seiner Zeit zugleich leidenschaftlich und kritisch bloß.

The first English language study of Albert Drach's (1902-1995) prose work explores the originality of Drach's autobiography in the context of current Holocaust debates. Special attention is paid throughout to the relationship between Drach's comic-grotesque language and the melancholy mode of representation in the Holocaust trilogy. Both passionate and critical, Drach's prose lays bare the totalitarian power mechanisms of his time. Die erste englischsprachige Untersuchung der Prosa von Albert Drach (1902-1995) arbeitet die Originalität von Drachs Autobiografie im Kontext gegenwärtiger Holocaust-Diskurse heraus. Dabei geht es um das Verhältnis zwischen Drachs komisch-grotesker Sprache und dem melancholischen Darstellungsmodus in der Holocaust-Autobiografie. Drachs Prosa legt die totalitären Mechanismen seiner Zeit zugleich leidenschaftlich und kritisch bloß.