Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria. Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes by Brett E. Sterling (review)

Abstract

little in this exploitative society, where only Marianne can reveal her true feelings, and only then in the privacy of prayer. Music plays its part in Kasimir und Karoline as well (the “MailüfterlLied” as part of the musical background at the circus; 272), but it is not the main dramatic device as much as the general unmasking of “Kitsch” (273), which distorts reality and tries to make all of life seem as jolly as the circus. Fritz sees this play primarily as a “gesellschaftspolitisches Lehrstück” with an ironic effort at “solving” the problems it addresses (195– 203), and he focuses on larger issues by linking them to the various characters’ ways of addressing what they see as reality. Between Kasimir and Schürzinger, for example, there prevails a “Dominanz des Bildungsjargons” (219– 34) that naturally hampers communication instead of advancing it. Fritz equates the “Krise des Mannes und Krise des Kleinbürgers” (267– 79) and concludes by reverting to his main idea in a chapter called “Alles was fehlt, ist die Solidarität” (285– 95). The author has done well to draw on the sociologists named earlier, because they give an overall system to his analyses of issues and problems that have not been treated with quite so much consistency. The background studies— of hotels, of Viennese waltzes, for instances— add a dimension of solid understanding. Vincent Kling La Salle University