These two fragments of novels, Ingeborg Bachmann's only
untranslated works of fiction, were intended to follow the widely
acclaimed Malina in a cycle to be entitled Todesarten, or Ways of
Dying. Although Bachmann died before completing them, The Book of
Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann stand on their own,
continuing Bachmann's tradition of using language to confront the
disease plaguing human relationships. Through the tales of two
women in postwar Austria, Bachmann explores the "ways of dying"
inflicted upon the living from outside and from within, through
history, politics, religion, family, gender relations, and the
self.
Bachmann's allegiance to the twin muses of memory and history,
as well as her perception of fascism as not being limited to the
context of the war but also existing within the intimate relations
of everyday life between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters,
psychiatrists and patients' are supremely evident in The Book of
Franza. Here, Bachmann follows a woman who escapes from a
sanitorium and, after years of silence, sends her brother a cryptic
telegram. Rightly suspecting that she has fled her sadistic husband
-- a renowned Austrian psychiatrist whose intimate relations have
merged with his studies of concentration camps -- her brother finds
her in their childhood home. Together they travel to Egypt, where
Franza slowly begins to regain her bearings. But Franza's desire to
cleanse herself by journeying into the heart of the desert's void
ends in tragedy, as she becomes the victim of a horrible act of
violence.
Unlike Franza, who attempts to flee her past but fails, the
heroine of Requiem for Fanny Goldmann makes no attempt to escape
her history. Thisnovel tells of the demise of a Viennese actress
who is manipulated by a younger, ambitious playwright to advance
his career. Deception follows disloyalty; the final treachery comes
when the playwright portrays her in a novel, which secures his fame
and, in Fanny's eyes, robs her of her future. Caught in a perpetual
stasis, Fanny suffers in total obscurity, as her present is stolen
from her as well.
Whether analyzing the place where the self begins and the power
of history ends or the ways in which women are forced to be
complicit in their mistreatment at the hands of men, Bachmann's
critical approach to the human psyche is unparalleled. Mesmerizing
and profound, The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann
constitute the final evidence that Ingeborg Bachmann is the most
important female German-language writer of the postwar period.
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