Lost Son: Hermann Broch's Letters to His Son, 1925-1928

by Hermann Broch

By any measure, Hermann Broch was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Author of The Sleepwalkers and The Spell , he stands, together with James Joyce and Marcel Proust, at the pinnacle of literary Modernism. Born in 1886, he saw the First World War destroy the culture and consciousness of what had come before, seeing the West thrust unwillingly into the modern age. By 1938 Broch found himself arrested and detained, during which time be began work on his greatest novel, The Death of Virgil . Dozens of friends from all over the world managed to help him find his release and he moved to the United States where he lived for the rest of his life.

With his wife Franziska, Broch had only a single child, Armand. While Broch had become preoccupied with deep questions of philosophy, psychology, and politics, his son became a thoroughgoing materialist. Sent away to an elite boarding school when 14, Armand found himself surrounded by students from the richest families in Europe. He became devoted to sports, to fast luxury cars (his father did not even know how to drive), and to the first class lifestyle of his classmates. These letters show the profound breach that developed between father and son. They also provide a portrait of the Gilded Age, a time of remarkable change, as Europe headed on a course of horrible inevitability. Letters from Broch during this time are uncommon, so we also get a chance to follow the trajectory of his life as he prepares to leave his job as an industrialist and devote himself to study and to writing.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2012

About the author

Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory in Teesdorf, though he maintained his literary interests privately. He attended a technical college for textile manufacture and a spinning and weaving college. Later, in 1927, he sold the textile factory and decided to study mathematics, philosophy and psychology at the University of Vienna.

In 1909 he converted to Roman Catholicism and married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer. This marriage dured until 1923.

He started as a full-time writer when he was 40. When "The Sleepwalkers," his first novel, was published, he was 45. The year was 1931.

In 1938, when the Nazis annexed Austria, he emigrated to Britain after he was briefly arrested. After this, he moved to the United States. In his exile, he helped other persecuted Jews.

In 1945 was published his masterpiece, "The Dead of Virgil." After this, he started an essay on mass behaviour, which remained unfinished.

Broch died in 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize and considered one of the major Modernists.

Reviews

[Didier Vanoverbeke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why does this exist? who is this for? Truly baffling.

[Bradford Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hermann Broch's son was a personal friend of mine in his last years (1979-1995?). At first I thought this book had to be a fake -- I neve heard of any "Armand". But then I never asked "H.F. Broch de Rothermann" aka "Pitz" about his own youth since I was obsessed with learning about his father. Some people may find the present book offensive for the way Broch pere rationally criticizes young Broch fils for being a wastral fop whose only interest was fast cars and playing sports. (Are you interested in anything, son?) Only once did I talk with the aging aristocrat about automobiles. He commented that the few times he had to go somewhere that he needed to drive a car, he rented one (Hertz/Avis) because it was much less expensive than owning an automobile in Manhattan. Obviously he had matured in the interim. I highly recommend the present book based on personal experience with its addressee. There's also some good philosophy in it. It may provide some solace for fathers who are frustrated with the lack of intellectual aspirations of their children. My daughter eats a scholarly book for breakfast each morning from McDonald's which expands her waistline whreas I would invest the money expanding my library. Thank God she's not into Bugatti Veyrons. You are not alone.

[Wayne Y. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Papa, send me money

While Broch in these letters does make some suggestions about reading to his son，I thought there would be much more about Broch's own transition from businessman to writer. Instead the letters are much more what many a father and college aged son would write about: allowances and academic performance.

[Laszlo Sedenszki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction says it all but the book is still worth a read. It's really an interesting development from Armand as he gets older and Hermann as things go downhill.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 3 out of 5]

With so little of Broch's non-literary work available in English, this is a curious choice for translation. It illuminates the deteriorating relationship with his son and the financial difficulties that arose when the Broch family textile business declined, but other than that there's not much insight into the mind that produced Die Schlafwandler, Der Versucher, and Der Tod des Vergil.