198 Besprechungen / Reviews der Geschichte des Manuskripts auseinander - warum unvollendet? , warum keine Abnehmer? Mit Baedeker und den englischen Red Books als Beispiel für traditionelle Reiseführer untersucht Maierhofer geschickt, inwiefern Schopenhauers Kunstführer als Genre in die Art der Reiseführer der damaligen Zeit einzuordnen ist und inwiefern Schopenhauer einen eigenen Stil entwickelt. Im Gegensatz zu Baedekers praktischen Angaben über Hotels, Transport und faktischen Informationen zu Kunstgegenständen hebt sich Schopenhauers Manuskript durch ihre subjektiven Urteile über Kunstobjekte und Einschübe von Anekdoten und Legenden in Verbindung mit den Orten oder beschriebenen Bau- oder Kunstwerken von der traditionellen Form der Reiseführer ab. Diese episodenhaften, unterhaltenden Einschübe erfolgen überwiegend nach dem Romeo und Julia Muster: zwei Liebende aus verfeindeten Familien, Intrigen, Rache, Fehden …, wobei das Ende entweder tragisch oder romantisch verläuft. Schopenhauer selbst behauptet, dass sie «kein Buch über Kunst schreiben» sondern «nur eine Freundeshand bieten» wolle (175/ Original: 169). Maierhofer ergänzt: «Sie schreibt für Reisende, die die Kunstwerke auf sich wirken lassen, nicht wie Heines Karikatur-Touristen die Werke suchen, die im Führer als wichtig genannt sind» (19). Also kein Werk zum Abhaken, zum Bestätigen, sondern als Betrachtungs- und Orientierungshilfe für die Renaissanceschätze des Florenz im 19. Jahrhundert. Dass Maierhofer angesichts der Fülle der von Schopenhauer aufgeführten Kunstgegenstände nicht den Überblick verliert, beweist sie in ihrer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Schopenhauers Auswahl und Bewertung von Kunstobjekten. So fragt sich die Herausgeberin, «Es wäre interessant zu vergleichen, ob andere Reisebeschreibungen und Kunstführer der Zeit ebenfalls die antikische Nacktheit und Erotik zahlreicher mythologischer Motive vermeiden» (27) und weiterhin, «Wäre es ihr als unanständig ausgelegt worden, wenn sie Männerdarstellungen genauer beschrieb und wertete und ihre emotionale Reaktion darauf nannte? » (27) Maierhofer legt hier eindeutig gender-orientierte Fragen an das Manuskript. Sicherlich interessant wäre es, heute mit Schopenhauers Reise- und Kunstführer die von ihr aufgesuchten Stätten zu besuchen, um mit gleicher Begeisterung die Kunstschätze von Florenz auf sich wirken zu lassen. Das reine Lesen ohne die Anschauung wirkt gelegentlich monoton und ermüdend, was durch die eingefügten Anekdoten allerdings wieder belebter wird. Das von Maierhofer ausgesuchte vielfältige Bildmaterial ist weiterhin eine optische Orientierungshilfe. Ungemein nützlich sind die große Anzahl ausführlicher Fußnoten, welche zum Textverständnis und zur Wissensbereicherung beitragen. Diese detaillierten Zusätze bereichern nicht nur diese Ausgabe, sondern beweisen inwiefern sich Maierhofer um die Zugänglichkeit Schopenhauers Werks für die heutigen Leser bemüht, inwieweit ihr dieser Beitrag zur Geschichte schreibender Frauen am Herzen liegt und wie sehr Gründlichkeit in der Forschung eines ihrer professionellen Merkmale ist. Worcester Polytechnic Institute Ulrike Brisson I NGRID S CHUSTER : Faszination Ostasien. Zur kulturellen Interaktion Europa-Japan- China. Aufsätze aus drei Jahrzehnten. Kanadische Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur 51. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007. 285 pp. $ 65.95. This collection of seventeen essays represents the third book of Schuster’s writings on the interactions between European and East Asian cultures. Four of the essays here are CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 198 CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 198 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr Besprechungen / Reviews 199 in English and the rest are in German. Schuster, now retired from McGill University, is a renowned Germanist (two books on Theodor Storm) and Orientalist who is proficient in both the Chinese and Japanese languages. Three pieces deal with Japanese literature (Gido, Soseki, crime novels) and ten treat influences of China and Japan on particular German writers (Klabund, Goethe, Keller, Fontane, Storm, Hofmannsthal, Hesse, Döblin, T. Mann, Brecht). The remaining deal with cross-cultural topics between Europe and Far East Asia (but not including Korea). The release of this book now is historically relevant given the rising economic and military ascendency of China on the world stage and the current popularity among the young in Western nations of Japanese pop culture, especially its stylish horror films and its otaku (nerd) culture of anime (animated films) and manga (comic books). Today many people in the West are also adopting Buddhist philosophical views in lieu of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic theistic religious traditions. A look back at historical contexts at this point in time is both necessary and salutary. European perceptions of Far East Asia have been of the intriguingly exotic, of a profoundly radical alterity, and these are apparent, for example, in the figure of the Chinese in Fontane’s Effi Briest, which Schuster discusses in several pieces. All too sadly, mutual perceptions have also been tainted by a history of often brutal economic colonialism and disturbing cultural notions of racial/ ethic superiority from both sides. Asian religious traditions (Chinese Taoism and Confucianism as well as Japanese Zen Buddhism in particular) have influenced Western thought. Confucian ethics were regarded as a confirmation of Enlightenment theories of the individual and the state, and were reflected in Goethe (Wanderjahre, Book Two) as part of a practical pedagogical program. Chinese Taoist notions of nature and humanity also shaped, for example, the German conceptions of «Der neue Mensch» in the thought of several writers in the 1920s. In the cultural and spiritual malaise that followed the horrors of the First World War, Döblin, Toller, Rubiner, Hofmannsthal, Hesse, and Kokoschka all had read translations of the Tao Te Ch’ing. They saw in its «exotic» philosophy of non-action (wu wei) and integration of self with nature (tao means the way things are in the cosmos, a kind of thing-in-itself) an alternative to the stolidity of Christianity and to the more pessimistic implications of Nietzsche and Darwin. Even Kafka was influenced by the fascination with ancient Taoist philosophy. Döblin’s work evidenced the most direct influence of Chinese thought (foremost being his Die drei Sprünge des Wan-lun). The perennial issues at stake here are about political self-assertion (in the power/ conflict-centered relations of human society) versus a mystical view of human consciousness as merely one (indeed minor) aspect of a vast and infinite universal process with which the self should integrate rather than dominate. Harmony rather than conflict is the goal in the Asian view and was received in Europe in a more diffused manner as «a desire for peace, a distaste for power politics, and compassion for the underprivileged» (91). There are definite Taoist influences («das asiatische Prinzip» in Madame Chauchat) in Mann’s Zauberberg, for example. The harsh reality of the world economic depression of 1929 and the violent political agitation of the 1930s supplanted all notions of any mystical harmony with the cosmos for most German people. East Asian aesthetic sensibilities (Chinese ink landscape drawings, Japanese Noh dramas, Kabuki plays, and ukiyo-e prints) have had a strong influence on Western writers and artists. Both French Impressionism and Naturalism owe a debt to the austere, mini- CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 199 CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 199 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr 200 Besprechungen / Reviews malist Japanese wabi sensibility of «seeing» the «true» essence of nature in the myriad small and random objects of daily life. In Japan, this aesthetic was associated with living an isolated, non-materialistic existence away from society. The notation of such delicate insights (often captured by Japanese Buddhist writers in haiku poems) is clearly at work in the journals of the solitary peripatetic Peter Handke. Japanese aesthetics have long been admired in Europe and, as is well known, the ritualistic and highly stylized Noh play influenced Brechtian theatre. As early as 1905, Max Reinhardt employed aspects of the Kabuki stage design, specifically the hanamichi (flower path) or a raised walkway through the left side of the audience area that was used for dramatic stage entrances and exits. A rotating stage design (Drehbühne) was also a Kabuki invention. It was first used in Germany in 1896. The wave of Japonisme in turn-of-the-century Art Deco and Jugendstil is also obvious. The essay on the Japanese mystery or Western style Krimi novel, which gained popularity in Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912), considers texts by the writer Ramo Edogawa (a rough Japanese phonetic pseudonym - Edgar Allan Poe - of the writer Taro Hirai, 1894-1965). The phantastical tale «The Human Chair» tells of a Japanese carpenter who disguises himself as a luxurious Western-style chair in a hotel lobby in order to have «contact» with many women, both Japanese and foreign! Schuster suggests that the bizarre story (from the 1920s) voices the Japanese fear of the intrusion of Western culture (its sensualism, materialism) and its possible corruption of the pure Japanese spirit. The abominable efforts of British imperialism to subjugate the Chinese population had fueled fears about the West throughout Asia. Xenophobia was widespread (especially in rural areas of Japan) in the Meiji era with, for example, rumors of Western people drinking the blood of young Japanese men (red wine! ). Her essay on naturalism in the autobiographical novel Grass on the Wayside by the famous Meiji era writer Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) argues that the (Western-influenced) dreams of individual freedom in the main character Kenzo are exposed as illusions, so that human beings remain victims of the physical and social environment. Soseki was well acquainted with European literature, and the sense of being a «victim» is for many reasons very much a part of the Japanese psyche (see the writings of the Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi). The issue of Western cultural influence and individual versus group identities has been, and still is, a difficult area for the Japanese to negotiate. For background on modern Japanese history and society, see Mikiso Hane’s Peasants, Rebels, and Outcasts: The Underside of Modern Japan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982) and Marylin Ivy’s Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995). A respected collector of East Asian art, Schuster also has a fascinating article on the introduction of clocks and automated figurines into China and Japan. Overall, this book of essays sheds light on the cultural interactions between European and East Asian cultures, but does not go much beyond Brecht in terms of literature. An essay on more recent events might have made the volume more current. Western science fiction writers such as William Gibson (American) and Richard K. Morgan (British) reflect contemporary perceptions of Japan. Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, Haruki Murakami, and Ryu Murakami have all had an important presence among Western readers in the years since 1945. Himeji Dokkyo University, Japan Thomas F. Barry CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 200 CG_40_2_s105-200End.indd 200 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr 29.04.2009 14: 58: 06 Uhr