To Know or Not to Know: Oedipal Patterns in Wolf Haas’s Detective Novel Das ewige Leben (2004) HELGA SCHR ECK EN BERGER Univ ersity of Ver mont Ah! What a burden knowledge is, when knowledge Can be of no avail. (Sophocles, Oedipus the King 58) Wolf Haas’s novels featuring Simon Brenner, former police detective turned private eye, rank among the most successful and popular of the contemporary Austrian detective stories. 1 Much of their appeal results from Haas’s playful use of language and his direct or indirect referencing of well-known literary texts. Examples of this intertextuality can be found in the first pages of Silentium! which parody Patrick Süskind’s postmodern novel Parfum 2 or in Komm, süßer Tod where Rilke’s poem «Schlussstück» appears in its entirety without any reference to the author. Even the titles of the novels establish intertextual references. For example, the title of the sixth novel Das ewige Leben refers both to the first of the Brenner-novels entitled Auferstehung der Toten and the Apostles’ Creed which ends with the words «ich glaube an die Auferstehung der Toten und das ewige Leben.» 3 Overall, Haas uses intertextuality in the manner of parody eliciting appreciative recognition on the part of the reader. His style contributes to the high level of entertainment the novels afford the reader which, according to the author, is their main purpose: «Die meisten Krimis sind Trivialliteratur im besten Sinn. Sie haben ihre Berechtigung, weil es verständlich ist, dass Leute, wenn sie von der Arbeit heimkommen, sowas lieber lesen als einen anstrengenden Experimentalroman» (Haas’s interview with Susanne Rössler). Undoubtedly highly entertaining, the sixth novel of the Brenner-series, Das ewige Leben, goes beyond the scope of what is considered «Trivialliteratur» as it is fundamentally shaped by its intertext, the Oedipus myth. First, the novel foregrounds the specific narrative structure of detective fiction as a process of discovering a hidden transgression and second, it reflects the conflict between seeking knowledge and the burden of knowing. The link between detective fiction and the Oedipus mythos, and consequently psychoanalysis, was first pointed out by Ernst Bloch in his 1965 es- To Know or Not to Know 163 say «A Philosophical View of the Detective Novel.» Bloch identifies the «prenarrative event» as the distinguishing element between detective fiction and other narrative forms: «In the detective novel the crime has already occurred, outside the narrative; the story arrives on the scene with the corpse. It does not develop its cause during the narrative or alongside it, but its sole theme is the discovery of something that happened ante rem» (255). The fact that the omnipresent reader has not witnessed what Bloch calls «the darkness at the beginning» renders the un-narrated and its reconstruction especially interesting. Bloch points to Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex as the earliest example of this narrative structure. Oedipus engages in detective work in his effort to find the person responsible for the crime which brought the plague down on Thebes only to discover that the crime was his own. Thus, the Oedipus theme constitutes the archetype of all detective fiction according to Bloch: «Multifariously disguised, the theme of Oedipus, this primordial detective theme per se, continued to have an effect, always criminalistic to be sure, and with the hidden antecedent» (257). This identification of the detective-figure is echoed in numerous interpretations of Anglo-American detective stories and Oedipus has come to be understood as the detective «who is really in search of the truth about himself and his own origins in a process of discovery that eventually points to his own blinding guilt» (Charney 238). Wolf Haas’s Das ewige Leben fits this archetypal narrative structure. The novel starts with Brenner’s miraculous awakening from a coma induced by a gunshot to the head. He is told that the injury is the result of a suicide attempt. Rejecting this possibility and convinced that he is dealing with attempted murder, Brenner starts to investigate. He has recently returned to his hometown, Graz, where memories of a failed bank robbery he committed as a young police cadet together with his three colleagues Saarinen, Aschenbrenner, and Köck surface. Brenner’s best friend, nicknamed after his hero, the Finnish motorcycle road racer Jarno Saarinen, was killed when he crashed his motorcycle during the getaway. 4 Convinced that Aschenbrenner, who is now the head of criminal investigation in Graz, attempted to kill him in order to silence him, Brenner leaves the hospital to warn Köck, only to find him murdered. Two potential witnesses of that crime also turn up dead. In the course of investigating the murders, Brenner comes to realize that he shot himself after all and that Saarinen’s daughter, Soili who is married to Aschenbrenner, killed Köck. The two witnesses were murdered by the police officer Heinz, Soili’s lover and her husband’s deputy, in order to cover up her crime. As is evident from this plot summary, the two main elements Bloch identifies as common to both the Oedipus myth and the detective novel are present 164 Helga Schreckenberger in Haas’s novel. The crime - Brenner’s having been shot in the head - has happened before the beginning of the novel and the investigation reveals that the detective himself is the perpetrator. However, Haas incorporates many additional elements of the Oedipus myth in his novel that suggest an even stronger identification of Brenner with Oedipus. Like Oedipus, Brenner was abandoned by his parents - his father had committed suicide and his mother had left Graz without him to start a new life. Brenner now returns to his original home, Graz, only to set a series of murders into motion, events comparable to Oedipus bringing the plague down on Thebes. The role of the seer Teiresias is accorded to the attending psychiatrist Bonati, who has told Brenner the truth from the beginning: his injury is the result of a suicide attempt. Like Oedipus who ignores Teiresias and accuses his brother-in-law, Creon, of the king’s murder, Brenner disbelieves Bonati and instead suspects his former accomplice Aschenbrenner of having shot him. Even the oracle is present in the form of a gypsy fortuneteller whom Brenner consults during his investigation. In addition, Brenner’s eyesight is afflicted by the gunshot wound to his head, alluding to Oedipus’s blinding himself after realizing his guilt. Likewise, Brenner’s withdrawal from society at the end of the novel evokes Oedipus’s decision to go into exile. Even the patricideand incestmotives are at least indirectly present, although they are attributed to another protagonist. 5 It turns out that Soili’s murder of Köck was triggered by his insinuation that he or her husband actually could be her father. The references to the Oedipus story together with the recurring theme of repressed knowledge and past guilt invite a psychoanalytical reading of the novel. Many scholars, including Freud who compared himself to Sherlock Holmes (114), have pointed to the similarities between Oedipus, the detective story, and psychoanalysis. 6 Analyzing Sophocles’s play in his Traumdeutung, Freud writes: «Die Handlung des Stückes besteht nun in nichts anderem als in der schrittweise gesteigerten und kunstvoll verzögerten Enthüllung - der Arbeit einer Psychoanalyse vergleichbar -, daß Ödipus selbst der Mörder des Laïos, aber auch der Sohn des Ermordeten und der Jokaste ist« (269). Here, Freud puts the emphasis on the process of discovery rather than on the Oedipal complex, the child’s sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex. In both psychoanalysis and detective fiction, the past comes under careful scrutiny and is rendered accessible. 7 Referencing Freud’s interpretation, Shoshana Felman identifies the knowledge of the criminal with the unconscious which he seeks to hide from the detective. The detective’s triumph over the criminal is then the triumph of consciousness (39). Following this line of interpretation, John Belton concludes in his article «Language, Oedipus, and Chinatown» that in the To Know or Not to Know 165 modern detective story «(t)he pure reason of the detective confronts the irrationality of the criminal, the forces of the Superego struggle with those of the ID, and out of these oppositions emerges a tenuous compromise between that which can be known and understood and that which cannot» (936). 8 Belton points out that in most works of detective fiction this conflict between obtaining knowledge and its repression is externalized. In the analytic detective novels of Edgar Alan Poe or Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, the rational detective is pitted against an irrational opponent, an example being Poe’s ape in the Murders of the Rue Morgue. The binary of the rational detective and the irrational criminal is less firmly drawn in American hardboiled detective fiction in which the detective is more intuitive and less analytical and often part of the irrational universe of the crime as, for example, in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. This is also the case in Haas’s earlier novels where Brenner repeatedly crosses the boundaries between detective and criminal. In several cases, he covers for perpetrators whose crimes he considers justified or insignificant in face of the wrongs done to them. 9 However, in all these cases the story of the crime and the story of its investigation remain distinct. Not so in Das ewige Leben. Here Brenner investigates a crime that he himself has committed. This brings Das ewige Leben in line with the original Oedipus story where detective and criminal also turn out to be one and the same. Referring to Sophocles’s play Oedipus Tyrannus, Belton states: «Sophocles construes the epistemological dilemma which characterizes the (detective) genre’s interplay between the rational desire to know and the irrational repression of knowledge as an internal one, situating it within his detective hero who is also the criminal he seeks» (936). This means that in the Oedipus story, the detective story’s essential binary between the detective who brings knowledge to the surface and the criminal who aims to keep it hidden is dissolved. It is now the detective who at once seeks to produce and suppress knowledge. This, according to Shoshana Felman, leads to a blurring of the borders that separate consciousness from the unconscious or using Belton’s terms, the rational from the irrational (39). In Das ewige Leben, the internalization of the conflict is emphasized by the fact that from the beginning Brenner possesses all the information to solve the crime he is investigating but represses it, as he is unable to deal with the implication that he had tried to commit suicide. The narrator suggests that Brenner has a motive for rejecting the possibility of suicide: «Ich kann die Verbitterung vom Brenner über diese Unterstellung schon verstehen, Selbstmordversuch, das schaut nicht gut aus im Lebenslauf. […] Da kann ich schon verstehen, dass der Brenner sich das nicht anhängen lassen wollte« (16). Brenner’s self-interest and embarrassment prevent him from admitting 166 Helga Schreckenberger that, as it turns out, a combination of drinking and old memories has caused him to shoot himself in the head. The theme of repression is already introduced in the second paragraph of the novel when its omniscient narrator reports the miraculous recovery of «ein hoffnungsloser Fall» at the intensive care unit of the Landesnervenklinik Sigmund Freud. 10 In his landmark digressive style, the narrator does not reveal the identity of the patient but muses about the atmosphere at an intensive care unit: Auf einer Intensive passiert natürlich rund um die Uhr so viel, dass normalerweise niemand vom Personal viele Worte über irgendwas verliert. Und wenn du müde von der Intensive nach Hause kommst, hast du die meisten Vorfälle wieder vergessen, weil eines verdrängt das andere, und wo die Ereignisse sich überschlagen, kommt schnell der Punkt, wo man sagt, alles ganz normal. (5) Readers of Haas’s Brenner-novels are familiar with the narrator’s verboseness which serves both to entertain and to build suspense by interrupting the denouement of the detective plot. Moreover, the narrator’s digressions (much like the intertextual references) often provide clues for solving the case. In Das ewige Leben, the solution comes with Brenner’s recovery of his lost or repressed memory. Indeed, repression of knowledge is a recurring theme throughout the novel. When Brenner refuses to take medication to alleviate his pain, Dr. Bonati accuses him of «Schmerzverdrängung» (pain repression) and interprets this as another sign that Brenner represses other things, namely the memory of his suicide attempt (126). Bonati is proven right since it is the experience of extreme pain caused by the flash of a camera that brings back his memory of the true events preceding his headshot: «Dem Brenner ist jetzt noch etwas anderes in sein Hirn gefahren. Weil mit dem Schmerz ist die Erinnerung an den zweiten Adventsamstag in sein Hirn gefahren» (127). By repressing the pain, Brenner successfully represses his memory which, as the quotation indicates, is also painful. It is interesting that Brenner’s recovery of the truth is not the result of his skill as a detective but comes about accidentally through a blinding that turns out to be enlightening. On the other hand, he reinjures his eye shortly before he is able to solve the puzzle of Köck’s murder, this time with the help of a photograph identifying the murderer of the Roma. Haas’s satirical intention is obvious here as it is in his reversal of the blinding-motif. While Oedipus reacts to the revelation of the truth by blinding himself, Haas has his detective stumble half-blind through his investigation. Yet, since the diminished eyesight is self-inflicted as the result of his suicide attempt, it also suggests Brenner’s reluctance to look the truth in the eye. To Know or Not to Know 167 Brenner is not the only character in the novel guilty of hiding unpleasant truths and old memories. Köck, Aschenbrenner, and Soili’s mother repress the memory and the true events of the failed bank robbery. The motive for murdering the two Roma witnesses is to keep them from revealing the knowledge of Soili’s crime. By the same token, the Roma themselves are a symbol of the repressed Austrian past which threatens to surface in the action of the right-wing organization «Wehr Initiative Grazer Sicherheit» whose members want to purge the city of beggars and other foreign elements, including the Roma. It seems that everyone in the novel is interested in keeping knowledge from surfacing. This pertains in particular to Brenner who supposedly is trying to find the truth but at the same time seems to be working against this goal. Readers of the previous novels are already familiar with the detective’s most distinctive characteristic - his intuition. In each novel, Brenner intuitively knows the solution already early on; it presents itself in the form of a song that he can’t get out of his mind. This also happens in Das ewige Leben. The narrator identifies Brenner’s subconscious as the source of this knowledge. He states: «Das war so ein Tick von seinem Unbewussten, das hat ihm öfter mal über einen Ohrwurm einen guten Tipp gegeben« (32). While in the previous novels it is Brenner’s faulty memory that prevents him from divining the meaning of the clues, in Das ewige Leben it is memory loss resulting from his self-inflicted head injury suggesting a voluntary erasing of memory. Moreover, Brenner chooses to misinterpret the clues that his subconscious offers him. One of these clues is the advertising slogan for the Grazer brewery Puntigamer, «Lustig samma, Puntigamer,» that equates drinking beer with being happy. The slogan is Brenner’s first utterance upon awakening from his coma. He connects the slogan with visiting Köck the night of being shot. Köck had repeated it constantly as the two men drank Puntigamer beer and reminisced about their days at the police academy including their so-called «Lausbubenstreich,» the failed bank robbery. The memory of this conversation leads Brenner to convince himself that Aschenbrenner attempted to kill him so that the story about the bank robbery does not become public knowledge. Placing the guilt on Aschenbrenner allows Brenner to disregard the fact that he might have shot himself despite the fact that all evidence points to it. John Belton emphasizes the importance of language for the detective’s investigation which not only is carried out through the agency of language but also takes language as its object of investigation. Testimonies of witnesses and suspects constitute texts that must be deciphered. In the case of this mystery, the clues are texts as in «Lustig samma, Puntigamer.» However, 168 Helga Schreckenberger Brenner has lost the ability to decipher these texts as he has blinded himself against the truth they would reveal. Another example of Brenner’s inability to decode textual clues is his failure to understand a fortuneteller’s hint that his head wound was self-inflicted. Reading his hand, the fortuneteller sings a song in Romanes, whose meaning she translates as «Wenn ich mir betrinken tu, ich viel traurig» which Brenner in turn reduces to «Traurig samma, Puntigamer» thus the opposite of «Lustig samma, Puntigamer» (89). The narrator reveals the meaning of this cryptic reading after Brenner remembers the real events that caused his head wound: «Er hat beim Köck zuviel Puntigamer getrunken, und der Alkohol hat den Brenner gern ein bisschen nachdenklich gemacht, das hat ihm die Handleserin wahrscheinlich durch die Blume sagen wollen, sprich durch die Melodie« (130). However, since Brenner is not willing to accept the possibility of having attempted suicide, he is unable to interpret the fortune teller’s clue correctly. Brenner’s additional misreading of the second clue provided by the fortune teller humorously reflects the central theme of the novel, the conflict between wanting to know and repressing unwelcome or unbearable knowledge. Again, reading his future, the Roma woman utters: «Brena abgraz ibermorgen» (92). Brenner, interpreting «abgraz» as «abkratzen,» a slang term for to die, understands this as a prediction of his imminent death: he will die the day after tomorrow. The narrator expands: Komischerweise hat ihn für den Moment fast weniger erschreckt, dass ihm der Tod vorausgesagt wird. Aber das Pedantische, dass sie es ihm genau vorausgesagt hat, das ist ihm irgendwie gegen den Strich gegangen. So wie betrogene Eheleute gern sagen, wenn er es mir wenigstens anders gesagt hätte. Da klammert man sich oft an den Nebenhorror, wenn man den Haupthorror nicht aushält, und ich sage, warum auch nicht, wenn es wem hilft. (93) Brenner deflects the knowledge that he will have to die by objecting to being told precisely when this might happen. Locating the moment of death in an unspecified future renders the knowledge of human transience more bearable and can be seen as an example of the «tenuous compromise between that which can be known and understood and that which cannot» (936), which modern detective fiction represents for Belton. Brenner’s inability to decode clues correctly extends to his investigation of Köck’s murder as well. Similar to the case of the suicide attempt, the investigation of this murder unearths knowledge that Brenner does not want to face. First, it was his return that caused the memories of the bank robbery to surface again; second, it was committed by someone to whom Brenner is attracted. Thus, he fails to recognize in Marie Maric, Soili Aschenbrenner’s To Know or Not to Know 169 mother, the girlfriend of his friend Saarinen, although the name of her bar «Pasolini» and the name of her daughter should give this away. Brenner, however, associates the name «Pasolini» with the Italian film director and not with the motorcycle road racer Renzo Pasolini who died together with his friend’s idol Jarno Saarinen during a motorcycle race. Soili is named for Jarno Saarinen’s widow. Here, too, the slogan «Lustig samma, Puntigamer» comes into play as Marie Maric used to be a waitress at the Puntigamer Brauhaus. When Brenner finally understands the meaning of the clues, he reacts, as the narrator explains, with his customary wish of not wanting to know: Ein gewisses Nicht-wissen-Wollen. Und natürlich kein Zufall, dass ihn die alte Gewohnheit gerade in dem Moment überfällt, wo er kapiert, warum ihn der alte Ohrwurm schon so lange quält. Weil er hat es jetzt auch nicht wissen wollen. Aber es hat natürlich kein Zurück mehr gegeben. (190) A reason for Brenner’s rejection of the truth is certainly his realization of what his return to Graz set in motion. It brought back the repressed memories of the bank robbery and it caused Frau Maric to break her silence and tell her daughter what really happened on that day. Köck, the instigator of the plan, and not Saarinen fired the shots in the bank which caused the chaotic flight and ultimately Saarinen’s death. Frau Maric had known this all along since she had taken the gun away from Saarinen. This information leads Saarinen’s daughter to confront and kill Köck, which in turn causes her policeman lover to kill the Roma witnesses. The two seemingly separate murder plots - Brenner’s shot to the head on one hand and the murders of Köck and the potential witnesses on the other hand - are connected after all, namely, through Brenner’s indirect, but still culpable, involvement in all of them. As in the case of his suicide attempt, Brenner must admit to his blindness both with regard to the events during the bank robbery and the reasons behind Köck’s murder. Brenner closely matches Bloch’s characterization of Oedipus: «The hunter who is himself the prey and fails in this quest of self, plies his monstrous trade until he belatedly recognizes the truth and does penitence for the perpetration of crimes in which he participated, neither consciously nor morally, but with a highly classical and highly modern ego-identity» (257). Brenner’s return to his hometown and childhood home and his acknowledgement of personal and professional failure suggest a search for self, while his dogged and single-minded investigation of the crime reveal his delusion about himself and about what really happened during the ill-fated bank robbery. As in Sophocles’s play, the quest for (self)knowledge reveals the truth as well as the essential irrationality that governs human existence. Oedipus learns that he 170 Helga Schreckenberger murdered the king and at the same time that the king was his father and that he is married to his mother. Brenner learns about the true events that led to his best friend’s death, but also that Soili is Saarinen’s daughter and Köck’s murderess. Brenner’s cover-up of Soili’s crime suggests his willingness to accept the irrational. 11 In her article «De Sophocle à Japrisot (via Freud), ou pourquoi le policier? » Shoshana Felman calls attention to the subversiveness of Sophocles’s play; not only does it set a trap for the criminal but also for the detective. By this, she does not mean simply that the detective himself is the criminal and thus guilty, but that he is dwarfed in his desire to find the absolute truth. Sophocles’s play ends, according to Felman’s reading, not with the certainty of the absolute truth but with a verdict that does not correspond to the facts. 12 For Felman, this entrapment of the detective symbolizes «rien d’autre que la subversion même de la conscience» (39). These observations are also true in the case of Haas’s novel. Brenner’s solution of the crime does not lead to a resolution. Although Soili is not innocent of murder, her crime seems less reprehensible than her lover’s cold-blooded murder of the Roma witnesses and his consequent attempts to kill both Soili and Brenner. Thus Brenner is trapped by the knowledge he has gained from his investigation - just like the criminal. It is the kind of knowledge that Sophocles’s blind seer Theiresias laments as a burden since it does not solve the problem at hand. Moreover, Brenner’s protection of Soili and his framing of Heinz for all the murders indicates his siding with the irrational, or as Felman called it the subversion of consciousness by the unconscious. The solution at the end of the novel that sees Soili’s lover blamed for all the murders is both satisfactory and conflicting as it compromises justice, at least in the legal sense. Brenner’s withdrawal from society (like Oedipus’s self-exile) can be read as an acknowledgement of guilt. Considering the outcome of modern detective stories, John Belton states that while Oedipus blinds himself and casts himself into exile, the detective «turns to the reassuring logic of language - the rationalization of events in a summary speech which ‹explains away› the mystery. Through language, the disturbing threat of the irrational (represented by the crime) is ‹contained› or held in check» (937). Again, Haas’s novel remains truer to the Oedipus story. While Brenner does not blind himself (just the opposite, his eyesight which was compromised throughout his investigation due to the shot to the head returns), he does withdraw from society. More importantly, Haas deprives the reader of the summary speech by killing off the narrator, who for the first time in the series changes from an extradiegetic to an intradiegectic narrator by intervening in the action to save Brenner’s life. However, in all prior Brenner-novels, the narrator has been the sole source of information To Know or Not to Know 171 for the reader. He has been telling Brenner’s stories, explaining the reasons behind Brenner’s actions, as well as entertaining the reader with his view of them. Even Brenner’s words are mediated through the narrator. It is thus the narrator who occupies the place of reason in Haas’s detective series. In Das ewige Leben, his death preempts that space. The rationalization of the events occurs in the form of a newspaper report full of falsities. Although justice is done to a certain extent (the newspaper article reports the death of the murderer of the Roma and the narrator - the reader can presume that he was shot by Brenner), the true course of events and the real motive for the murders remain hidden from the public. It is also not revealed who is responsible for this cover-up - Brenner, the police, the city government? Thus, the report represents a compromise of what is allowed to be known and what must remain hidden because the knowledge would prove too burdensome and of no avail. The reader who knows at least some of the truth is both implicated in the cover-up and deprived of the reassuring restoration of order and rationality at the end of the novel. Thus, Haas subverts the usual psychological function of the detective story: to provide the readers a safe way to live out their desires. As Charles Rycroft argues, the detective story writer connives with the readers’ need to deny their guilt by providing them with the ready-made fantasies in which the compulsive question «‹Whodunit› is always answered by a self-exonerating, ‹Not I›» (114f.). By causing the readers to identify with the Oedipus-like detective and by implicating them in the cover-up of the criminal events, Haas denies his readers the reassuring self-exoneration. Notes 1 Haas received the «Deutsche Krimi-Preis» (German Detective Novel Award) in 1997 (Auferstehung der Toten), in 1999 (Der Knochenmann), and in 2000 (Silentium! ). 2 Like Süskind’s Das Parfüm, Haas’s novel starts with a discussion of all kinds of smells. Compare Süskind, Das Parfüm 5-7 and Haas, Silentium! 5-7. 3 In many cases, the intertextual references contain clues to the solution of the crime Brenner is attempting to solve such as the title of the fourth Brenner-novel, «Komm, süßer Tod.» This inaccurate reference to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Matthäus Passion - the correct wording is «Komm, süßes Kreuz» - points to the perpetrators, the ambulance drivers of the «Kreuzrettung» who cause the «sweet death» of their diabetic patients by injecting them with sugar solutions 4 Jarno Saarinen together with fellow racer Renzo Pasolini died in a motorcycle crash during a race in Monza in 1973. 5 In her article «Oedipal Patterns in the Detective novel,» Hanna Charney shows that it is not uncommon in detective novels to redistribute elements of the Oedipus story among the characters (243). 172 Helga Schreckenberger 6 Wolf Haas also repeatedly, albeit satirically, refers to this similarity by calling Brenner «immer ein bißchen Psychologe» (Komm, süßer Tod 153) and by emphasizing his psychological competency which is the result of «eine Reihe von psychologischen Schulungen bei der Kripo» (Auferstehung der Toten 16). In Silentium! , Haas refers to Brenner as «Detektiv» while he calls a psychotherapist «Seelendetektiv» (28). 7 Both Shoshana Felman («De Sophocle à Japrisot (via Freud), ou pourquoi le policier? » 39) and Albert D. Hutter («Dreams, Transformations, and Literature: The Implications of Detective Fiction» 207) stress this shift in emphasis in Freud’s analysis of Sophocles’s play in his Traumdeutung. 8 Belton points to the fascination with rational investigation that psychoanalysis and detective fiction share and which he links to their emergence in the late nineteenth century. 9 Brenner repeatedly covers for perpetrators whose crimes he considers justified or insignificant in face of the wrongs done to them. In Auferstehung der Toten, Brenner neglects to report a young girl’s involvement in the murder because he considers her more a victim than a perpetrator. In Silentium! Brenner fails to prevent the killing of the perpetrator who has not only murdered four people, but is also responsible for the forced prostitution of young Filipinas and had attempted to boil Brenner to death. Here, too, Brenner follows the code of protecting the innocent from suffering unduly. He acts out of concern for the wife and five children of the perpetrator who would be destitute if the man were imprisoned. Since he is dead, they have the right to a pension. 10 The theme of repression reappears in the novel in different guises, for example in the form of drug use or the compensating functions of soccer and television in modern life. 11 Brenner is the opposite of Sam Spade who in The Maltese Falcon hands his love interest and murderess of his partner over to the authorities, which according to Belton «places Spade solidly in the camp of romantic cynicism where rationalism can unmask human folly» (941). 12 Felman writes: «ce n’est pas simplement en tant que le détective est peut-être lui-même le criminel - que l’interprète est lui-même un coupable -, mais en tant que le détective est plus radicalement subverti en son désir même de détective, voire en son désir d’interprète: le désir de produire la fin de la quête, c’est-à-dire, la vérité, la certitude du savoir absolu. Or, ce qui tranche le dénouement, ce qui arrête l’enquête, chez Sophocle comme chez Japrisot, ce n’est pas la complétude cognitive du savoir ou de la vérité, mais la décision performative d’un jugement non fondé, le décret d’un verdict non adéquat aux faits-» (37). Works Cited Belton, John. «Language, Oedipus, and Chinatown.» Modern Language Notes 106.5 (1991): 933-50. Bloch, Ernst. «A Philosophical View of the Detective Story.» The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. 245-64. Charney, Hanna «Oedipal Patterns in the Detective Novel.» Psychoanalytic Approaches to Literature and Film. Ed. M. Charney and J. Reppen. Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press, 1985. 238-47. To Know or Not to Know 173 Felman, Shoshana. «De Sophocle à Japrisot (via Freud), ou pourquoi le policier? » Littérature 49 (1983): 23-42. Freud, Sigmund. Die Traumdeutung. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996. Freud, Sigmund/ Carl Gustav Jung. Briefwechsel. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991. Haas, Wolf. 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