Dialogue with the Reader: The Narrative Stance in Uwe Johnson's Fiction (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

by Kurt Fickert

In this critical overview of the work of Uwe Johnson, one of the most notable of Germany's post-World War II authors, Kurt Fickert concentrates on Johnson's intention to involve his readers in the structuring of his texts. He shows how in Das Dritte Buch über Achim, Johnson's second published novel, the author creates a readership who appear in the story by way of questions that Johnson suggests they would have asked had they had access to his manuscript, while in Mutmaungenüber Jakob, an earlier work, the reader is required to piece together various narrative segments, presented as dialogue, monologue, and the report of an objective narrator; Johnson's magnum opus, Jahrestage, features a narrator who literally works together with the protagonist. Arguing that Johnson is influenced strongly by writers such as Dos Passos and Hemingway, Fickert provides new vistas on the work of an author as innovative as Joyce.

162 pages, Hardcover

First published February 8, 1996