Page - 365 - in Wien und die jüdische Erfahrung 1900-1938 - Akkulturation - Antisemitismus - Zionismus

David Vogel: Love Story in Vienna or the Metropolis Other issues of the modern metropolis are mentioned in passing. Cultural life ex- ists only through neon advertisements. There are flashes of the culture of newspapers and information, the popularity of the new medium of the cinema, ‘Flaneurs’ or dan- dies and fashion as a key element of modernity ; the masses are a ‘hidden figure’ rather than a described reality. Moving through the crowd does not energize the protagonist, who constantly collides with the crowd. Political life is mentioned only in the context of the parliament being an empty place where policemen guard its emptiness. Spo- radic insinuations refer to the catastrophic economic situation after the war. Modern discourse, architectural debates, galleries, museums, exhibitions are to be imagined. Nevertheless, the novel is visual and so is the city. The characters and their lives overlap and are cinematographic. Gordweil, like the others and like the city, is vivid, sharp, detailed and present. However, like a photographic picture he exists only par- tially, a flat surface without depth. This technique reminds us of the portraits of Gustav Klimt in which the face or hands are vivid and stand in contrast to the two- dimensional decorative surface where one cannot distinguish between the dress, the chair, the room or the garden. At times we are faced with close-ups of the smallest moments, such as two people who walk along a crowded street, the bookshelves in a house, the lights on the street, the one person in the streetcar or an accident. Vogel concentrates on the reactions of the onlookers, on human indifference, he provides technical analysis and statistical data as substitute for emotion, scientific precision against spiritual truth, facts. The close-ups always highlight fragments that become integrated into the image of the city of Vienna and clarify the whole setting. The decoration is always dramatic, and the background oppressive. Men Without Qualities against Men With Qualities Gordweil is a man without qualities. He is a man without identity. Gordweil’s first name is Rudolf, but Thea denies it by calling him Rudolfus, Rudolfinus or mostly Rabbit — for his rapid and nervous move- ments, she explains. The reader understands that he has just come out of Otto Weininger’s writings about the effeminate and neurotic Jew . Soon she calls him Idiot, after which he ceases to exist. He has no clear national identity either. He is, we are told, a descendant of a great rabbi of Prague, but nothing is known of the family since. When he is trying See also Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred : Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews, Baltimore 1986.