Winfried Fluck (1944--) The Man Who Became Weary of America: (2002)
Ferdinand Kürnberger's Novel Der Amerika-Müde (1855)
...One of the easiest (and safest) ways to gain professional visibility isto discover virgin ground. As literary and cultural historians, it is, however, not only our task to recover forgotten texts but also to reassess their significance within a larger context. Without such an assessment, the most likely result of the recovery of a German-American literary tradition might be the creation of yet another ethnic comer. If we want to make a convincing case for why a particular text should still be studied, we have to be able to set up relations to a wider cultural or intellectual field. Contextualization and comparison are methods for doing this. In the following discussion, I have therefore placed Kürnberger's novel not only in a familiar context of nineteenth-century German writings on the United States, but I have also added "unorthodox" comparisons with two texts from entirely different traditions, Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Fanny Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans.
...Kürnberger's guiding question is how freedom can be realized not in exalted statements of purpose but in the mundane reality of life. What social fonns can it take? "Nicht wie die Menschheit ihre Freiheit erkämpft, sondern wie sie ihre Freiheit täglich, stündlich, in Haus, Kirche und Schule gebraucht--das muß mir die Menschheit auf ihrem Gipfel zeigen...Hier ist die Werkstätte des Ideals."
..."Without even thinking of applying standards of the higher art of cooking, our guest found the breakfast inedible, even from a plain naturalist point of view. AI1 dishes were either half burned or half raw. It appeared to him as if they were all put on the fire at the same time and then following the despotic law of fast food, snatched away again without loving attention to the gentle play of individualities, the yielding receptivity of the cutlet and the firm resistance of the roast beef."
..."Verily, our friend has arrived at a powerful conclusion since yesterday. A nation which knows how to take care neither of the needs of the palate, nor of religious faith-the twin pillars of our sensuous-moral nature-strays far off the European heritage."
...After these devastating experiences, Moorfeld's encounter with German customs and culture restores hope in the possibility of civilized life. Eating already provides a striking contrast: "Auch ihre Mienen waren mit ganzer Andacht und Bedächtigkeit bei dem Genusse; hier wurde nicht amerikanisch gejagt und geschluckt, jeder Bissen ging in's Bewußtsein über, man speiste im Geiste wie in der Form deutsch."
...One of the easiest (and safest) ways to gain professional visibility isto discover virgin ground. As literary and cultural historians, it is, however, not only our task to recover forgotten texts but also to reassess their significance within a larger context. Without such an assessment, the most likely result of the recovery of a German-American literary tradition might be the creation of yet another ethnic comer. If we want to make a convincing case for why a particular text should still be studied, we have to be able to set up relations to a wider cultural or intellectual field. Contextualization and comparison are methods for doing this. In the following discussion, I have therefore placed Kürnberger's novel not only in a familiar context of nineteenth-century German writings on the United States, but I have also added "unorthodox" comparisons with two texts from entirely different traditions, Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Fanny Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans.
...Kürnberger's guiding question is how freedom can be realized not in exalted statements of purpose but in the mundane reality of life. What social fonns can it take? "Nicht wie die Menschheit ihre Freiheit erkämpft, sondern wie sie ihre Freiheit täglich, stündlich, in Haus, Kirche und Schule gebraucht--das muß mir die Menschheit auf ihrem Gipfel zeigen...Hier ist die Werkstätte des Ideals."
..."Without even thinking of applying standards of the higher art of cooking, our guest found the breakfast inedible, even from a plain naturalist point of view. AI1 dishes were either half burned or half raw. It appeared to him as if they were all put on the fire at the same time and then following the despotic law of fast food, snatched away again without loving attention to the gentle play of individualities, the yielding receptivity of the cutlet and the firm resistance of the roast beef."
..."Verily, our friend has arrived at a powerful conclusion since yesterday. A nation which knows how to take care neither of the needs of the palate, nor of religious faith-the twin pillars of our sensuous-moral nature-strays far off the European heritage."
...After these devastating experiences, Moorfeld's encounter with German customs and culture restores hope in the possibility of civilized life. Eating already provides a striking contrast: "Auch ihre Mienen waren mit ganzer Andacht und Bedächtigkeit bei dem Genusse; hier wurde nicht amerikanisch gejagt und geschluckt, jeder Bissen ging in's Bewußtsein über, man speiste im Geiste wie in der Form deutsch."