Jakob Wassermann German writer and short story writer Date of Birth: 10.03.1873 Country: Germany

Jacob Wassermann: German Writer and Novelist

Jacob Wassermann (1873–) was a German writer and novelist known for his characteristic literary style. In his first novel, "The Jews of Zirndorf" (1897), Wassermann displayed the defining traits of his creative persona. The novel consists of two parts: the first set in the 17th century and the second in the contemporary era. The first part narrates the messianic hopes of the Jewish people, their dashed expectations, and the deceitful and treacherous Savior. The second part focuses on the life story of a young Jew from Zirndorf, who seeks internal perfection and self-purification. He becomes the savior of himself. This distinctive concept permeates Wassermann's entire body of work.

Expressing the social dissatisfaction of the petite bourgeoisie, Wassermann directs his attention to the circumstances of moral crisis. He portrays how solitary heroes, faced with hostile environments, are defeated in unequal struggles. Their only solace lies in internal introspection and their moral superiority over the callous but overpowering world around them. This concept is evident in "The Story of Young Renate Fuchs" (1900), a novel about a woman who breaks free from the grip of dead traditions and conceives a "child of better times." It is also present in "Moloch" (1903), where a peasant is defeated by a deceitful and ugly city; "Caspar Hauser" (1908), an adaptation of a legend that aims to depict how an ideal person falls when confronted with a "coarse" and chaotic reality; "The Little Goose Man" (1915), which tells the story of an artist who, attempting to think independently, is persecuted by a callous bourgeois environment; and "Christian Wahnschaffe" (1919), a monumental, albeit verbose, novel that repeats the same traditional and ultimately monotonous scheme without adding anything new, even though it was written during a period of war and revolution in Germany.

Wassermann is an artist-romantic who rejects reality, considering it an antagonistic force. He creates an illusory superstructure above reality in his works. His prose is characterized by an elevated tone and is always passionate. The artist attributes the highest, almost mystical, meaning to his characters' futile quests and the battles they are doomed to lose. He presents them as martyrs and saints, hence the marked solemnity of Wassermann's works. Wassermann skillfully combines the romantic content of his stories with the tastes and demands of a wide bourgeois readership. He is one of the most popular and widely read writers in modern Germany. He masterfully knows the secret of mass production. He presents his standardized concept, which resonates with the petite bourgeois consumers, with sufficient popularity, without ever delving into the sharpness of genuine social conflict. His works are richly seasoned with all kinds of exoticism, particularly psychological exoticism.

Wassermann's works are grounded in clearly discernible social contradictions, but fundamentally, the artist works not to expose and reveal these contradictions, but to veil them. He enjoys teetering on the edge between the social novel and colorful romantic trinkets. He deviates from the concrete social problems posed by life and moves towards general and thus ambiguous, albeit vivid, depictions. His last works constitute the cycle "The Turning Circle" (1920), including the novels that gave the cycle its name, "Three Steps of Oberlin" (1922), "Ulrike Vojtich" (1923), and "Faber or the Lost Years" (1924). The purpose of this cycle is to offer new variations on Wassermann's eternal theme. This time, the material is drawn from post-war Germany, but the underlying concept remains unchanged. We encounter Faber, seeking a new life, or Ulrike, engaging in a futile struggle against the world of dead traditions—both are close relatives of Wassermann's previous heroes.

In the novel "Laudin and His Family" (1927), Wassermann unsuccessfully attempts to present a realistic domestic novel on the crisis of the bourgeois family. He tries to break away from his romantic standard but suffers an evident defeat. This romantic writer, working for the mass market, is inconceivable outside of a strictly established standard. His last novels, "The Gold of Caxamalca" (1928) and "Columbus, or Don Quixote of the Ocean" (1929), are extremely "standard" and follow an adventurous-historical type.

In 1921, Wassermann published his autobiography, a confession titled "My Journey as a German and a Jew" (Berlin, 1922).