In Michael Hofmann’s introduction to his translation of Markus Werner’s Zündel’s Exit, he places the book in a literary tradition in which “one learns that life is impossible.” That can be narrowed down further, for in that swath of literature, there is a subset, where protagonists endeavor to give up in the face of the impossible world, and find just how hard it is to succeed at giving up. Zündel’s Exit fits into this sub-genre, the give-up novel. Opening the book for the first time, hoping it would turn out to be a true give-up novel, I have to admit that I had a bias: I seek out such books and they are easy for me to love; they look at the world in a way that puts glee and despair into the same dish, and it is an immensely satisfying one. So I started, biased to favor the book, ready to adjust expectation and interpretation if it turned out to be something else.
The first paragraph, opening Zündel’s worldview, let me laugh, cringe, and breathe. Zündel watches as a terrified lost child searches for his mother, finds her, rushes to her for safety, and is rewarded suddenly with smacks and scolding. This is the world as Zündel sees it, cruel, disappointing, and lacking compassion. When the child vomits, he tries to help, and yet sees his efforts as a failure, too late, cruelty already witnessed. Soon after, Zündel stakes his claim as to what it means to be of the world: “See, I’m not unworldly after all that. I can lie. I am competent.”
Zündel does not want to be worldly, though, does not want to be competent, only to lie enough to skip by and give up. Why would one want to continue playing alongside or fighting against a world when it leads him to this: “That’s life, my life anyway, chains, falls, scrapes, and I’m afraid I pissed myself as well. I need to get out of these trousers.” This is our hero, Zündel, resigned to a life of practical and bodily failure, with a mocking sense of false dignity showing through in the polite phrasing, “I’m afraid.” In tone, it almost isn’t even a complaint, rather an observation.
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