Few German authors have developed a tone as uniquely their own as has Martin Walser: whatever the story, we recognize his voice right away (see e.g. WLT 70:3, p. 685). Finks Krieg, Walser's newest novel, of course remains loyal to a seismograph's function, which is to register earthquakes; and he has been the German Federal Republic's seismograph of social and inner Befindlichkeiten ever since the fifties, when his stupendous career began. His fiction, plays, and essays have demonstrated with greater clarity, honesty, and readability than most literature what has been going on in the German soul and mind. Relationships of all kinds, mainly between men and women and between underlings and their bosses, are most often at the core of his writing. Americans have John Updike; Germans have Martin Walser. He became, in this reviewer's mind, the master of description of impotence, not (just) the sexual affliction but rather the more tragic impotence of most people's social and private lives in general.

In 1991, with his magnum opus Die Verteidigung der Kindheit (see WLT 66:2, p. 334), Walser reached beyond the fictitiousness of fiction by documenting in narrative prose the doomed life of one unfortunate man who had truly lived and whose very fate reflected the deadly nearness yet distinct distance between the two Germanies until 1989. In Finks Krieg, his newest novel, according to rumors and widespread newspaper agitation, we are given once more the story of a “true event”—if such a term has any meaning in literature. Walser, it seems, likes to lend voice to otherwise muted individuals, and to render justice where it seemingly was denied in someone's life. For us the readers, however, all fiction—if written as convincingly as Walser's—has its sufficient reality. Let “insiders” enjoy the “reality aspect”; I assume that it suffices to absorb the book as the novel it is.

Finks Krieg is unique among Walser's novels insofar as women and the complications of the sexes play hardly any role here. This virtual absence of erotic tension may explain why the book reads differently and slower. Verteidigung der Kindheit offered a fascinating Entwicklungsroman reminiscent of the Parsifal theme; now instead we discover a medium-high-level state-government official from Wiesbaden (Hessen's capital) named Stefan Fink, a man in his late fifties at the novel's outset whose six-year legal battle against his own bosses in order to clear his name and find due justice is recounted in gruesome detail. For eighteen years Stephan Fink has performed loyal and excellent work in state-church relations. New elections lead to a shake-up in the political leadership, and Fink's new department head wishes to place him into some different office in order to reward a political friend with Fink's position. When Fink protests, his new boss must justify the proposed transfer: he resorts to a damaging lie, stating wrongly that some of the church authorities had voiced complaints about Fink's performance in office.

Now Fink, deeply hurt and outraged, feels compelled to fight for both his honor and his old position. Some 250 pages of the novel describe this fight with admirable accuracy, at the risk of tiring the reader with unending legal references. However, Fink's growing obsession with justice and his inability to see anything beyond “his case” create a tense and spellbinding tone. The party figure who damaged Fink's reputation is protected by laws and friends; the complainant virtually fights a shadow. The figure of Michael Kohlhaas (in Heinrich von Kleist's famous novella) not only comes to mind; it is clearly mentioned in the novel. Thus Walser gives this ancient topic a brilliant revival in his new novel. Hardly any other of Walser's books afforded him such an excellent chance to display fully his talent for concision, irony, bitterness—and for dealing with his country both realistically and ideally.

There is little need to enumerate the defeats, appeals, tortures of impatience, partial victories, and renewed disappointments that mark Fink's “war” path. Fink eventually will end up dividing the world into friends and enemies, only to discover soon that even his friends have long since tired of his crusade for justice and that the world considers him for what he rightfully is: a nuisance and a trouble-maker for all except himself. He won't give up, however, because “Jemand, der um sein Leben kämpft, kann nicht aufhören, um sein Leben zu kämpfen.” It is admirable to follow Walser's mastery in this “description of a struggle” which shows the so-called legal state to be an absurdity. It is painful and extremely timely to read this novel in our age of diminishing freedom—in the name of justice or equality. Reading becomes torture, Fink's torture. Thus the reader, at some point, no longer knows whether to wish Fink well or to denounce him for his mad claim for “justice.” The limits of our modern democracies and the weakness of the most determined individual thus become visible in Walser's great novel.

Finally, after some 250 pages of tough going, Fink's victory is in sight. Only now, be it from exhaustion or some newfound wisdom, he no longer seems to care. The fourth section of the novel, entitled “Höhengewinn,” shows indeed what this very word implies. Fink, on the eve of the final court decision, cannot bear his weakness any longer; he drives like a fugitive to Switzerland and finds refuge in some Benedictine abbey. There the ingenious stylistic plot used by Walser throughout the novel—namely, the splitting (as in schizophrenia) of Fink's personality into his narrative self and “Fink the official” (“der Beamte Fink”)—becomes truly magnificent. Fink, who learns from his wife that he has finally “won” his appeals and his case, no longer seems to care about his rehabilitation. The last fifty pages of Finks Krieg are vintage Walser and indeed of world literature. Fink realizes that “wer in diesem System etwas für sich tun will, muß es gegen einen anderen tun,” and this sad truth should be enough for him to remain henceforth an outsider of the “system.” Winning or losing suddenly means little to Fink, and in the beauty and greatness of the surrounding Alps he begins to nod, in approval, but no longer toward any authority or system.