WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren ed. by Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein (review)

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Reviewed by:

• WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren ed. by Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein
• Vincent Kling

Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein, eds., WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren. Klagenfurt: Wieser, 2022. 343 pp.

This unusual volume, in part an archival study listing the contents of the late Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler’s library, is as beguiling, wide-ranging, stimulating, and expansive as the subject himself, and it forms a worthy tribute to his erudition and his unique place in the history of German/Austrian studies.

Inventorying libraries often yields insights into the creative or critical process not attainable in other ways. Such studies are by nature dutiful catalogues, though readers sometimes find hunches verified, as when Michael Hamburger documented, for example, in his “Hofmannsthals Bibliothek: Ein Bericht” (Euphorion, 1961), that the meeting between Octavian and Sophie in Act II of Der Rosenkavalier was in fact directly inspired by the chapters on conversion in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. Most such studies are in essence neutral listings, which does not diminish their importance.

But anyone who ever knew WSD could never call him or anything about him neutral, and while personal reminiscence is not often a proper tool for a reviewer, the exceptional nature of this book may be best illustrated by a précis of my experience with a scholar of astonishing verve, erudition, and independence, since my encounters mirror those of dozens or even hundreds of others.

Applying for a fellowship to the University of Vienna involved letters of [End Page 149] recommendation; at my request—email was quite new—WSD immediately wrote one, even though we had never met. When I visited him in his office hours to thank him, he knew without any prompting who I was and what I had written and translated; he at once put all the resources of his library at my disposal and gave me copies of his books. He nurtured me and every student of mine he later met by inviting them to seminars involving contemporary writers, who were often themselves present. The soul of cordiality, generosity, and affability, he was also a fearlessly intrepid critic who rejected ideologies, academic fads, and all of the “smelly little orthodoxies,” to use Orwell’s brilliant phrase.

This volume documents his original, unconventional thinking, which always found insights and aspects seldom noticed by others. First, though, a description of how this handsome volume is constituted. The bare listing of 6,371 books, from Abels, Norbert, to Zymner, Rüdiger, provides publication data as recorded in the catalogue of the University Library in Vienna, WSD’s library having by now been made available to any interested reader. This listing is interspersed with poems (e.g., Franz Josef Czernin, “Obst—und jetzt keine Illusionen,” 94), graphics (Cornelia Siller, “Ordnung—Gegenordnung,” 315), photographs (Andrea Haika, “Hütteldorfer Lokalaugenschein,” 70–72, celebrating WSD’s love of the Rapid soccer team), but above all, invariably enriching comments based on the sparing notes and indications of page numbers (now all scanned) WSD left in his books.

These notations are indeed so sparing that it would seem reckless for some of the commentators to present such general findings reached from such slender indications, but these scholars knew WSD well; he was a trusted mentor and the dissertation advisor to most of the contributors here. They were familiar with the lines of his thought and the contours of his insights, so they can be judicious in the leaps they take, always citing a note, a name, a page number for substantiation. The principles of selection and process are explained by the editors—“Spurensuche in der Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler,” (9–11)—who also inform us that WSD’s personal library was a gift of his widow, Maria Schmidt-Dengler. “Mit jedem Blick, mit jedem Lesen entstehen neue Lesespuren” (11), a statement indicating that the volume invites readers to trace their own way through the library and to develop their own further insights.

Among the dozens of contributions, consider WSD’s almost lone understanding years ago of women as objects. Fatima Naqvi (“WDS fährt [End Page 150] Schuss: Zu Elfriede Jelinek,” 167–68...