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522 MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE Spec. As a critic and essayist Felix Braun is represented by Ver- klarungfn (1916) and Deutsche Ce/s/er (1925); of particular interest are the essays of Das wuiische Land (1952), in which there is a dis- cussion of the differences between the literature of 'the land of the Muses* - that is, Austria - and that of North Germany. FRANZ NABL (1885- ) is in the very first rank of the Austrian novelists of today* He stands apart from his fellow novelists in various ways: for one thing his narration moves more slowly and with a certain air of deliberation and solidity, and all is quietly evolved. It is not easy to define his pedigree; he is generally classed as in the line of Stifter; for this, however, there is too great an intensity of psychological probing. Critics indeed stress his Tiefeth psychologic - that Is, he gets deeper into the mind of his character than is the common rule in the psycho-analytical novel; but in a letter to me he says he never heard the term Tiefcnpsycbologie until a few years ago a Viennese dissertation snowed in on him in which he was so ticketed; and he counters this by saying that his favourite author is Dickens. He is, it is true, miles apart from Dickens in that his endings in his first great novels at least are tragic rather than happy; but in his fiction we clo get - as in Die QrtKebschn Frauen - the Dickensian device of assembling and grouping to- gether of the characters for the finale. His humour, too, which critics point to as one of his main features, lies rather in his grimly ironical presentation of both character and situation. As regards foreign influences there is the consideration that he was never able to learn foreign languages; and he tells me that he has had to read Dickens in a frayed edition inherited from his grandfather. There is, too, a provincial stamp on his work, though Vienna comes in; and this is more due to his congenital feeling that he is at home and himself in the uplands of Styria* Born at Lautschm in the Bohtnerwald, he was brought up in Vienna; but he has settled in Gras. After early experiments in the traditional vein he reached full maturity in Odhof(i^n\ a novel which by its sweep of events and its concentrated delineation of one character driven to doom by his dominant passion is a veritable prose epic. The hero is Johannes Arlet, who by sheer ability wins his way to wealth as a townsman; he is a self-assertive, aggressive egoist {Ichmemch^ Kraft- menschy Hemnmnsch - to group the critics' terms), who tyrannises over his family. After the death of his first wife he moves from the city and buys an estate in the Voralpen, the Odhof (the name