Stifter und Doderer: Harmonik in erzählender Prosa. Von Eugen Banauch. Harmonikales Denken, 2. Wien: Braumüller, 2001. Pp. 102. EUR 20.

Eugen Banauch notes in his informal comments about his book on Amazon.de that it moves along the boundary between literary analysis and musicology and might therefore seem to those on either side of the border to belong on the other, not firmly housed or placed. It is in the nature of interdisciplinary studies to suffer from this lack of a secure dwelling, because they have to cross what Doderer himself once called "den tiefen Graben, der jene von den anderen Künsten trennt" ("Literatur und Schriftsteller" in Die Wiederkehr der Drachen [Munich: Biederstein, 1970], p. 191). The very medium of expression poses a serious obstacle, remarks Doderer. An essay about literature is at least composed in the same material as the object under discussion. "Gemalte Kunstkritiken aber gibt es nicht und auch die kritische Beleuchtung einer Symphonie kann nicht in Form eines Quartettsatzes erfolgen" (Doderer, p. 191).

Vincent Kling
La Salle University