'Nichts läßt man uns, nicht einmal den Schmerz, und eines Tages wird alles vergessen sein': The Novels of Arnold Stadler from Ich war einmal to Ein hinreissender Schrotthändler

Abstract

This article explores the work of Arnold Stadler, winner of the 1999 Büchner Prize. A survey of the author's early works establishes the themes of Heimat and the provincial as the repository of supposed 'authenticity' in the face of modernity. Stadler's work deals with existential and metaphysical questions of life and death, 'being in the world' and pain in a manner that challenges the conventionally 'immanent' focus on politics and society in modern German writing. This article pays particular attention to the novel Ein hinreissender Schrotthändler and its ironic, playful and occasionally postmodern challenge to 'politically-correct' German writing and its critique of post-unification Federal Republic. It is argued that the novel can be related to ideas on national identity, anti-Americanisation and modernity promoted by the intellectual New Right; similarly, it is argued that Stadler represents an important strand within the diversity of new German writing post-1989.