414 Besprechungen / Reviews with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and possibly some Buddhist ideas. Strangely, Kienzle sees this as an entirely benign philosophy and barely addresses the charges of anti-Semitism made by many scholars in recent years. The issue merits only a footnote in her essay. The editors of the volume address different aspects of Wagner’s compositional process. Kinderman attempts to reconstruct the different stages of Wagner’s work on the music. He refers to the idea of «tonal pairing» as a key aspect of the music, eventually resolved in the closing passages of the third act. This resolution serves as a symbol of redemption. Syer continues with analysis of the Act 1 Grail scene, pointing out that the scene makes extensive use of invisible voices in order to indicate that the Grail exists beyond the visible realm. Interestingly, Syer points to the use of boys’ voices placed above the realm of the knights. Could this be because the boys are non-sexual, whereas the Grail knights have to struggle with their sexuality? She briefly indicates that this might be the case but does not explore it extensively. In a further essay on the musical structure, Warren Darcy analyzes the first scene of Act 2 and explores the difference between Parsifal’s music and that associated with Klingsor and Kundry. Probably the most remarkable piece in this volume is Roger Allen’s attempt to restore the reputation of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Wagner’s son-in-law. While acknowledging Chamberlain’s status as a racist theorist, Allen maintains that racial ideas did not inform his writings about Parsifal, which he maintains are completely non-ideological. Of course, even if this is the case, it is hard to imagine that many will change their opinion of Chamberlain. Allen may consider Chamberlain «a significant historical resource» on the topic of Parsifal, but surely it is important to keep in mind his leading role in pan-German ideology, and that he met with Hitler as early as 1923. Allen argues that much of Chamberlain’s writings simply reflect the later writings of Wagner, but of course many of these are explicitly racist. Finally, Katherine Syer presents a useful discussion of production history, describing productions of Parsifal beginning in the pre-1914 era, in which the opera was «artificially protected» by the ban on performances outside Bayreuth. In the 1920s, the Bayreuth festival became increasingly associated with the far right, leading to the familiar story of the 1930s, followed by the postwar era and the innovations introduced by Winifred Wagner. In conclusion, this book will be very helpful to those interested in the literary and musical aspects of Parsifal, even if it is somewhat weak on historical and cultural background. Pacific Lutheran University Rachel Nussbaum Wichert O LIVER J AHRAUS : Kafka: Leben, Schreiben, Machtapparate. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2006. 482 pp. € 22,90. With this book, Oliver Jahraus offers a new look at the circumstances in which Kafka’s work was conceived and brought to fruition: the power relationships in which he was entwined, his professional and private life, as well as the process of writing and publishing. The study unfolds over two parts, the first of which is concerned with Besprechungen / Reviews 415 shedding much of the baggage of assumptions and preconceptions about Kafka that have amassed over the years. He argues that by freeing the interpretational praxis from misconceptions about Kafka, his life and his work, one may separate the wheat from the chaff and approach the author and his writing with only the most necessary and relevant information. Take, for example, the term «Kafkaesque.» This term, says Jahraus, has taken on a meaning of its own, one he finds all too distant from the life of Franz Kafka. The term, he argues, has virtually emancipated itself from the author, especially since the lives of many of his readers are probably far more «Kafkaesque» than his own life ever was. Kafka’s immense popularity in both the literary world and the world of popular culture has its advantages and disadvantages, and this can be seen not only in general misconceptions about him, but also in professional commentary on his work. Jahraus says that if we insist on viewing the author and his work as a puzzle, then perhaps we should treat it as one that is solvable. By seeing in Kafka’s work an inherent paradigmatic ambivalence between the stimulation and hindering of interpretation, Jahraus distils down the approaches to the work that are partly made possible, partly forced, by the author’s strategic plan. This is one place where Jahraus’s introduction to this writer differentiates itself from other Kafka scholarship of late. He views the flood of scholarship on Kafka not as something negative and hindering, but rather as useful and positive heuristic criteria for the characterization of Kafka’s writing. Jahraus’s book is not a biography, but it does provide some interesting insight into Kafka’s life, particularly where the process of writing is concerned. He does point out, though, that „Es ist keineswegs der Fall, dass derjenige, der Kafkas Leben kennt, seine Werke besser interpretieren könnte. Er wird sie nur anders interpretieren» (31). While he values biographical interpretation, he thinks it is doomed from the start if it leaves out the most important and binding aspect: the writing itself. Thus he says he is interested in the biographical aspects of Kafka insofar as they pertain to the allimportant process of writing, which he thinks was the driving force in the author’s life - the passion to which every other aspect was subordinated - and Jahraus argues that after completing his studies, Kafka revealed nothing about his life that did not have to do with the demands and necessities of writing. Closely connected to this, he says, is the single biggest problem that any biography of Kafka inevitably faces, namely the juxtaposition of Kafka’s relatively unspectacular life with that of a nothing less than spectacular posthumous literary success. Jahraus goes into great detail when it comes to the distinctions between the works published by Kafka during his lifetime and those edited and published posthumously by Max Brod. In Chapter five, Jahraus takes up the dichotomy of «Interpretationsprovokation» and «Interpretationsverweigerung» (spoken of by Bernheimer) and tries to take it further, relating it to a literary strategy employed by Kafka himself: «Als eine erste Hypothese für die Interpretation kafkascher Texte läßt sich festhalten, dass die Struktur, auf der die Interpretationsproblematik beruht, selbst eine charakteristische Struktur (in) der Textkonstitution von Kafkas Literatur ist, nämlich Uninterpretierbarkeit als Strukturprinzip! » (163). What makes his argument interesting is that he maintains that Kafka’s «uninterpretability» does not necessarily lead to a dead end; it just requires the right approach that will circumnavigate its own inherent challenge. 416 Besprechungen / Reviews The approach he has in mind entails reflection on what it is specifically about the individual text that poses challenges for interpretation: What is it that Kafka is trying to confront us with? He notes that Kafka has become somewhat of a guinea pig of literary theory and interpretation, an author with whom every interpretational theory has to prove itself. This means, in turn, that the problems of literary and interpretational theories, approaches and methods in Kafka studies are also germane to the whole of literary studies itself. In the second part of the book, he turns to the texts, though his starting-point is the process of writing and publishing (there is a great deal of information on the complicated issues of publication). For Jahraus, an ideal example of Kafka’s writing process is the all-nighter that resulted in Das Urteil. True, for Kafka this writing experience was more the exception than the rule, but Jahraus sees here the exemplary writing situation for Kafka, even though the constraints of familial and professional obligations prevented him from duplicating it. This is his approach. He explores the author and his work via his literary strategy, through examining the writing and publishing situations that brought the work into existence. So important is the process itself to the work that Jahraus even argues that Kafka wrote to write, and not for the written product. In a chapter on In der Strafkolonie, Jahraus argues that this story models the difficulties and reservations that Kafka had in publishing his own texts. According to Jahraus, what Kafka feared most was that his writings might be manipulated through interpretation, and Strafkolonie’s execution apparatus solves the problem that Kafka could not. While it is the task of the condemned person to decode the verdict as it is inscribed into his flesh, the meaning of the verdict is confirmed in the result of the execution process: the absolute transference of meaning. Jahraus also argues that there are striking similarities between the Offizier and the author himself, reducing the narration to the simple formula: punishment for writing - writing as punishment. While Jahraus does not deal with every important Kafka text - Beim Bau der chinesichen Mauer, or Der Bau, for example - his book could still be read as an introduction to the author. He does deal extensively with biography, the process of writing, and most of the important texts. One will also find extensive information about the myriad editions of Kafka’s works. Weaving primary texts, excerpts from journal entries, letters, interpretations and approaches from secondary literature and biographies together with his own interpretations, Jahraus’s book is a valuable work that provides readers with a great deal of information on Kafka and many of his key works. Purdue University Jason Baumer B RIAN M URDOCH : The Novels of Erich Maria Remarque: Sparks of Life. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006. 264 pp. $ 75. In this monograph, Brian Murdoch rejects a view, held until relatively recently, that Erich Maria Remarque was a writer of Trivialliteratur. He argues convincingly that, even if Remarque’s novels do not reflect the high tone expected of great literature, the