Finishing up the third section of Death of Virgil leaves one with a great sense of relief, and also, I must admit, a small but very detectible tremor of fear. The relief comes from knowing that the bulk of this acclaimed work lays behind; the fourth and concluding section of the novel is only a few dozen pages in length, and there is little doubt of its terminus: the poet’s death. The trepidation, albeit one tempered in part by the conclusion’s brevity, arises from a sense that life’s last rattle will be even less comprehensible than the professional obscurities of the first three movements. No exaggeration: Death of Virgil requires a serious intellectual investment, one supervised by a will that must be a taskmaster if not slavedriver.
I’d like to give a brief synopsis of the plot of this, the longest part of Death of Virgil and one which is entitled “Earth—The Arrival.” Then, having outlined what Broch would no doubt consider the novel’s least interesting aspect, I’ll try to examine what the Austrian novelist is really after in this modern epic. It is of course a question always worth asking, as Nicole’s recent post on the critical endeavor reminds us. And it is if anything a question more important than usual in the case of Death of Virgil, for the book offers (at least to me) few real pleasures. Maybe (just maybe) a very brief revisiting of Broch’s life and philosophical preoccupations can offer insight into his ambitions and techniques. In this effort, I am immeasurably aided by two books I’ve recently read ancillary to this guest-blogging: Hermann Broch by Paul Michael Lutzeler, considered to be the definitive biography of the writer; and The Unfortunate Passion of Hermann Broch by Jose Maria Perez Gay, a Mexican writer and diplomat. (By the way: Gay says in his introduction to Broch’s work that his plan is, or was, to write monographs about Broch, Musil, Canetti, and Karl Kraus—now there’s a worthy reading list for future bibliographing challenges!)
Part III is—and I would emphasize that this is a comparative judgment only—more conventional than Parts I and II. There are discrete scenes, dialogue that twists into real conversation, and a sense of dramatic development driven by characters that are not (at least in full) mere figments of Virgil’s dream-memory. Seven episodes are identifiable. The first episode finds Virgil still committed to the Aeneid’s destruction, having resolved in the long night of Part II to burn the manuscript that lies nearby in a chest by his sick-bed. The poet’s friends and—as we shall later learn—executors, Plotius Tucca and Lucius Varius, arrive and attempt to dissuade him from immolating his long poem. But, finding themselves unable to reason with Virgil, the two men request the presence of Charondas, the court physician, to minister aid to the obviously irrational Virgil. The second episode occurs as Virgil awaits the physician’s arrival, and again the interior monologue presents itself rather formidably. Lysanias, the boy-servant, and an anonymous slave, assisting in Virgil’s care, are present, although the reader (this one!) is unsure whether they are there in fact or are just part of Virgil’s recurring hallucinations. Whether real or imagined, the three men engage in some philosophical/theological discourse, culminating in a prayer, led by the slave, that seems to foretell nothing less than the salvation offered by Jesus. The third episode centers on the conversation between Charondas, now arrived, and his patient. This is by far the most straightforward part of the entire book, and is seen by Lutzeler as echoing Thomas Mann. Charondas’ exit prepares for the entrance of Augustus himself in what is the longest episode (#5); this important episode is however forestalled by an odd and somewhat inscrutable phantasmagoria in which Virgil’s lucidity once more take flight. Plotia, a beautiful woman seemingly spurned by Virgil in his feckless youth, appears in the room; she’s a temptress for sure, and Virgil imagines making love to her. This sensual experience is interrupted by a vision of, er, the buttocks of Alexis, a young boy that plays a role in Virgil’s Eclogues. These competing sexual encounters/fantasies are themselves interspersed with a debate between the presumably corporeal boy-caretaker and the slave over the nature of love and duty, with the former arguing for a return through death to the great feminine (Plotia) and the slave asserting the importance of duty. Augustus does finally arrive, interrupting the reveries of Virgil, and a very long (100 pages plus) Platonic dialogue ensues. The nature of the state, the role of beauty and art, practicality versus idealism: all are considered. It does little justice to this debate—a debate that can’t be summarized adequately or even explicated, only read and experienced oneself—to say it concludes with Virgil deciding to not burn the Aeneid after all. No real explanation is given for this about-face; maybe it is indeed that Virgil lives in a a world beyond causality. Episode 6 finds Augustus announcing to Virgil’s assembled friends the joyous news of the Aeneid’s preservation, and Part III concludes, in Episode 7, with Virgil dictating a new will, naming Plotius and Varius as custodians of the poem and also freeing his slaves.
The influence of Joyce, noted in earlier discussions of this book, becomes obvious in Part III. Now most of the way through the book, a reader is made keenly aware that the book is happening in something like real time, akin to Joyce’s Ulysses. It is also apparent that Broch is that most interesting of artists, a cultural conservative committed to a relentless avant-gardism. The world has lost its Platonic totality, and only a restoration of that unity will do; its elusiveness has created a void in which politics will always prevail and in which the masses will become increasingly deranged (remember those crowds in Part I of the novel, and also remember that Broch was in exile from Nazi Germany). The novel can capture this lost world better than can philosophy, with its sterile debates about logic, but only when it abandons traditional forms and reinvents itself. Art, however, cannot alone save the world; the political—in the form of Augustus’ demands—always prevails. For this reason, an aesthetic life is untenable. Broch was also implacably opposed to what he called “kitsch”—the attempt to create “effects” through art. Maybe this explains why, despite its experimental prose style, there is no striving toward eloquence or aphorism in Death of Virgil.
That Death of Virgil would repay multiple readings is obvious, although these returns are available only to those willing to expend significant mental outlays in the first place. It is certainly an easy book to admire—what with its experimentalism, philosophical reach, and cultural ambition. Broch apparently believed that every novel is itself a “theory of the novel” and you can see that he meant it. No one would confuse Death of Virgil with workshop fiction! That the book is harder to love should not be too surprising either. The very attributes that make the novel so admirable can easily befuddle (and did to me, often). Nevertheless, Death of Virgil stands as a monument to a generation who believed that the novel was the epitome of art, and that art was an existential matter. As we conclude our discussion here in a few days, I’ll try to offer more thoughts about Broch’s worldview, other works, and critical reception.
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