WASSERMANN, JAKOB. - Writer, b. in Fürth on 10 March 1873 to a Jewish family, d. in Altaussee (Styria) on 1 Jan. 1934.
He began his career as a writer early, abandoning the career as a merchant for which he had been destined. The first novel of broader scope, Die Juden von Zirndorf (1897), contrasts the false prophet with the type of the new prophet whom the Jewish people awaits; the following Geschichte der jungen Renate Fuchs (1900) presents the type of the new Jewish woman and constitutes the 2nd part of that novel. There follow Maloch (1903); Der nie geküßte Mund; Alexander in Babylon (1905) and a collection of novellas: Die Schwestern (1906). Then comes, after a brief interval, the most mature and longest series of novels, elaborated against the background of a scientific psychologism that had then come into fashion, such as Caspar Hauser (1908); Die Masken Ewin Reimers (1910); Das Günsemäuschen (1915); Christian Wahnschaffe (1919); Der Aufruhr um den Junker Ernst (1926); Der Fall Mauritius (1928); Etzel Andergast (1931). Posthumously appeared Joseph Kerkhovens dritte Existenz and Tagebuch aus dem Winkel.
The fundamental characteristic of W.'s art consists in a technique of extreme, punctual, almost mechanical skill, with which he knows how to develop plots crowded with episodes and characters, which, rather than building, crumble the great drama of the human comedy. Far from any moralism or religious demands, W. nonetheless pursues an ideal of humanity, a myth, a messianic dream, which knows how to raise his art onto a nobly spiritual plane.
Bibliography2 works
Sergio Lupi