Jörg’s Reviews > Die Dämonen > Status Update

Doderer lets Geyrenhoff speak about the demons. They are ideologies, anything which creates a second reality. A "Jenseits im Diesseits" (a beyond in the here and now). They are beside the real life, nothing material. Something to get lost in and lose the way.
Finally, the day of the Vienna Justice Palace fire (15 July, 1926) as manifestation of demons is seen from the eyes of each more or less relevant character.

After 1,000 pages, the third narrator Geyrenhoff finally starts taking part in the narration himself which the other two narrators Stangeler and Schlaggenberg have done from the beginning.

Some topics: an embezzled heritage, nationalist Hungarian activities, a reciprocal attraction from the distance, the difficulties of an independent life.

Beside the political demons, sexual demons get their due. Somewhere in between impertinence and ridicule, Doderer spends 50 pages written in a pseudo-medieval German on a fictitious manuscript. An report from an informal witch trial in the 15th century, the point being that a big part was sexual interest in what you would call BDSM nowadays. Big kudos that he managed to place this own demon into a book in the 50s.

There are at least 4-5 tiers of characters.
1 - the 3 narrators
2 - the main cast: Leonard, Grete, Mary K (followed in their life)
3 - the focused specialists: Jan Herzka, Levielle (close to 2, but narrower focus)
4 - the support: Cornel Lasch, Laura Konterhonz (most characters)
5 - the environment
Names are examples. Even on tier 4, characters can get pages of details.

Leonard Kakabsa spends his weekends with a colleague in the Burgenland. This is just the hook for introducing a bunch of new characters and elaborating on the rising conflict between socialist workers and right-wing nationalists escalating first in the Burgenland, then culminating in the fire of the Justizpalast in Vienna. Doderer moves freely along his timeline and previews things to come repeatedly.

Verbose and slow-going. Even relations between minor characters are developed in drawn out conversations. After 500 pages, a new character appears and holds a long speech about revolutionaries. A treatise on a key topic, the old order has ended and the new one is still in development with demons rearing their heads in a vie for power.

Fat Women ("Dicke Frauen") are a recurring topic. Dicke Frauen even was the working title. Especially Staggenberg muses on their advantages vs. the bony young women wasting men's time, vying for their place in society. But the fat women get a voice as well, leafing through fashion magazines for young women. Being fat is synonymous with not young when it comes to women in Die Dämonen.

Doderer uses at least three different narrators. Sektionsrat Geyrenhoff is the main voice, writing in first person. On a meta level he is paying two other narrators, Rene Stangeler and Kajetan Schlaggenberg for their notes.
Two chapters in now. The respective events mostly serve as an origin of narrators' ponderings or descriptions of Vienna.

I'm getting increasingly disheartened when I start another one of these mammoth books. I could read a handful other books instead with a lot less frustration. Alas! 1,300 pages of Vienna 1927 fit well with the just read 870 pages of Munich 1921/4 in Feuchtwanger's Success.