Abstract
Novels that deal with end of the world have a long tradition in the history of literature. The reflection on the end of civilization is often epitomized by the figure of the last human being, the ‘Last Man,’ who “takes a purely secular perspective on the end of the world” (Eva Horn), making the downfall of our species narratable in the roles of victim and witness. Thomas Glavinic’s Night Work (2008) is an example of such a ‘Last Man’ narrative that moves beyond its generic form and uses the motif as a starting point for a philosophical inquiry into existence, time, and identity. This chapter analyzes Glavinic’s work with regard to genre and its move beyond into philosophy via Hannah Arendt’s concept of plurality expressed as a loss of the world due to a lack of intersubjectivity.
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Notes
- 1.
Since his introduction in Night Work, Glavinic has repeatedly used Jonas as a protagonist in his novels, for example in Das Leben der Wünsche (The Life of Wishes, 2009), Das größere Wunder (The Bigger Miracle, 2013), and Der Jonas-Komplex (The Jonas Complex, 2016).
- 2.
Famous Romantic examples of the motif include Jean Paul’s Siebenkäs (1796/97), E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der Magnetiseur” (1815), or Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845). Later expressions can be found in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) or Leo Perutz’ Der Marques de Bolibar (1920).
- 3.
In the first place, the recognition-theoretical considerations of Fichte and especially of Hegel are to be thought of here, who, as is well known, ties the formation of individual self-consciousness to the condition of recognizing oneself in the other and in separation from the other, namely through mutual attention and detachment. Identity (collective and individual) as well as understanding of the world are thus explained as interpersonal relations of action and cognition.
- 4.
About the problem of identity in Night Work see also Döfelt-Mathey 2014. Döfelt-Mathey shows how consciousness of reality and identity in Glavinicʼs novels arise from reflection in the Other. In this context she examines the motif of the gaze, the function of remembering, and the representation of present sensation and happiness.
- 5.
“There’s no happiness in living, in bearing one’s suffering self through the worlds. But being, being is happiness. Being: transforming oneself into a fountain into which the universe falls like warm rain” (cit. in Glavinic 2008, n.pag.).
- 6.
These highly complex issues have moved philosophical thought since antiquity and produced various concepts of time, which have been put forward by thinkers such as Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Husserl, and Kierkegaard (cf. Streubel 2003). It would go beyond the scope of this chapter to reconstruct these theories, but it should be noted that a perspective informed by the philosophy of time is needed to fully understand Glavinicʼs own literary reflections.
- 7.
The protagonist in Glavinic’s novel Der Jonas-Komplex (The Jonas Complex; 2016, 405), also named Jonas, expresses a similar thought: “Every second was a living being. Every second lived for itself in its own eternity.”
- 8.
In the German original it just says “long long second” instead of “long long moment of death.”
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Mateescu, K. (2022). Beyond the ‘Last Man’ Narrative: Notes on Thomas Glavinicʼs Night Work (2008). In: Schmeink, L., Cornils, I. (eds) New Perspectives on Contemporary German Science Fiction . Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95963-0_13
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