Fräulein Else (1924)
Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931)
56 pages
Most of us spend much of our lives only dimly aware of the nearly non-stop inner monologue that occupies our minds – our rushing stream of thoughts as we recall and re-litigate our past, or plan for and worry about our future.
Except for brief periods during which we manage to focus on the present moment – periods so exceptional that they have their own terminology, being in the zone – the typical, uncontrolled flow of our thoughts so captures us that to suddenly emerge from it feels like waking from a dream: the realization that you have no recollection of the past few miles, or even tens of miles that you’ve driven, or no understanding of the last paragraphs, even pages, you’ve been reading. And, to the extent one manages to recall what has occupied one’s thoughts, it is discovered to be a jumbled mix of memories, observations and ruminations that bear little resemblance to the hallowed idea of a rational mind – as has been said, our mind seems to have a mind of its own.
It's precisely this inner monologue that Austrian author and playwright Arthur Schnitzler uses to striking effect in his novella Fräulein Else, by presenting the story entirely through the thoughts of the nineteen-year-old title character. Different from a narrator who can, as people are wont to do, craft their telling to offer a particular viewpoint, readers follow Else’s unmediated thoughts, becoming privy to the messy mix of non sequiturs and tangents that people normally try to hide from others behind carefully constructed façades of coherence.
Schnitzler sets the story in a resort town in the Italian Alps, where Else is on vacation with her aunt and cousin. As the story opens, she bids goodbye to her cousin and his lover after playing tennis with them, and then begins the walk back to her hotel to get ready for dinner. Through her thoughts, we are introduced to a typical teenager: wondering about her cousin’s relationship; imagining how, to whom and when she herself will fall in love and get married; and considering what to do during the remainder of her stay.
The tone of her thoughts changes to unease, however, when upon entering the hotel the porter flags her down to give her an express mail from her mother in Vienna. Once back in her room she opens the letter to discover her concern born out, learning that her father, a lawyer, has gone deeply into debt – yet again – from gambling losses and poor choices in the stock market, and will be arrested if his debt is not paid off within the next two days. With family members either unreachable or no longer willing to help, her mother has turned to Else, pleading with her to approach a well-to-do family friend, Mr. von Dorsday, who happens to also be vacationing in the same town, to ask him for a loan.
Else’s consternation over the request is palpable. She despises Dorsday, who has always seemed far too solicitous, constantly making “cow eyes” at her. Contemplating with dread the task before her, she finds herself trapped in a situation that pits her love for her father against her disgust for having to engage with Dorsday, and her thoughts rapidly devolve into a turbulent and inchoate jumble.
Eventually, she does manage to screw-up her courage however, and, descending to the lobby where everyone is gathering for dinner, she seeks out Dorsday, and relates to him the situation her father is in and her mother’s request. Dorsday agrees to help her father, but then makes a stipulation that shocks Else to the quick. Already flustered by having had to approach Dorsday, his unexpected request sends her thoughts into free fall. As the evening deepens and she must decide how to respond to him, she comes to feel increasingly isolated and abandoned, and the untenable situation causes her to drift ever deeper into hallucination and hysteria.
In Fräulein Else, Schnitzler presents a compelling story of a person facing a soul-rending dilemma, and, by holding readers within the inner monologue of Else’s thoughts, creates a startlingly intimate portrait of the destructive repercussions.
Other notes and information:
I had an odd experience while editing an intermediate version of the review. I had worked on it for a half hour or so that I had available over lunch. Then, at some point early that afternoon, I noticed that I was humming a bit of a classical piece of music that was very familiar to me, but that I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of. After trying some ineffective searches on the web, I asked my wife, and she immediately identified it as Beethoven’s “Für Elise”.
It's not a tune that I can having recall heard in some years, or for that matter hummed to myself ever, but somehow it had popped up in my mind. Though perhaps I had heard something that morning that reminded me of it, I can’t help wondering if my brain saw “Fräulein Else”, and somehow managed to trigger the memory of the tune, even though consciously I couldn’t then recall the name of what I was humming.
Nothing to do with the book itself, per se, but it does somehow tie-in to the broad idea of the chaotic nature of the workings of the mind.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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