"Alles Ist Unter der Oberfläche Noch Lebendig": Penetrating the Schöner Schein through Satire in Josef Haslinger's Opernball and Robert Menasse's Schubumkehr
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: In the novels Opernball and Schbumkehr , written by Josef Haslinger and Robert Menasse, respectively, satire is manifested in Reso Dorf and Adolf König: secondary but nevertheless significant characters that represent a critique of Austrian attitudes toward self-representation. Dorf, Vienna's police commissioner, is a parody of the mannerisms and populist rhetoric of the now-deceased Jörg Haider in Haslinger's Opernball . Adolf König, the Social-Democratic mayor of Komprechts, a township on the Austrian-Czech border, strives in Schubumkehr to revitalize his district as a tourist destination by reframing its landscape and defunct glassmaking factory and marketing both to the public under the guise of ecotourism. The motivation behind both strategies is the appealing representation and marketability of Austria as a profitable tourist destination created for visitors. Haslinger and Menasse appropriate the tradition of Austrian satire in their novels and direct their critiques at Austrian politics and other spheres of power in the late twentieth century.
Source: Journal of Austrian studies
Author: Anna Souchuk
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2018509840