From October 1849 to July 1850, Gustave Flaubert travelled across Egypt to Sudan, along with his friend Maxime du Camp, visiting archaeological sites and gathering various cultural impressions which were published in his posthumous Voyage en Ãgypte. Accompanied by Adolf Opel, Ingeborg Bachmann went to the same countries in 1964, reaching Wadi Halfaâjust like Flaubertâas the southernmost point and using Flaubertâs travelogue as a guidebook (Westermann 1996, 6). Her experience resulted in the so-called Wüstenbuch (1964/1965), which was given up and served as material for âDie ägyptische Finsternis,â the final chapter of the fragmentary novel Das Buch Franza (1965/1966).1
1 Biographical Background
From an early age, Flaubert (1821â1880) dreams about traveling to the Orient. In a letter to Ernest Chevalier dated January 14, 1841, the future novelist writes: â[â¦] it is quite possible that Iâll leave to become a Turk in Turkey or a mule driver in Spain or a camel driver in Egyptâ (Flaubert 1973a, 77).3 What seems to be simple reverie turns into a vague project judging from a message dated August 14, 1844, which du Camp sent to his friend: âBut the day will come, wonât it, my dear child, when the two of us will leave. Then, together, we will really see that Orient you have dreamed of so muchâ (Flaubert 1973b, 792â793).4 His craze about Egypt5 (cf. Naaman 1965, 6) is supported by his physician Dr. Cloquet, who, knowing Flaubertâs bad health, strongly advises him to travel to âhot countriesâ (Flaubert 1973a, 505).6
On October 22, 1849, the author leaves his hometown Croisset, and on November 4, 1849, he and his travel companion du Camp board a boat to Alexandria at the port of Marseille. From Cairo they travel upstream on the Nile, reaching the Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa on March 22, 1850. After leaving Egypt, they visit Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, arriving back home on June 16, 1851.
Flaubert uses the notes taken in Egypt to write a travelogue which remained unpublished for several decades. A fragment entitled âLa Cangeâ was released
Apart from the manifold experience gained, this long trip to the Orient had positive consequences for the author. First, it helped Flaubert to recover his health, as he declared in a letter dated April 18, 1852, to Henriette Collier: âThe Orient has cured my nervesâ (Flaubert 1980, 74).7 Another beneficial effect of his Egyptian adventure was the aesthetic renewal which, as a result, occurs in his subsequent writings. According to Antoine Naaman, this stay ushers in âa new stage in his artistic lifeâ (1965, 35).8 Manon Brunet, in turn, claims that during his visit to the Orient, Flaubert âmetamorphoses his romantic imagination into poetic realismâ (2001, 81).9
For Bachmann, the Orient is not a long-cherished dream but an opportunity that presents itself to her. While trying to get used to the city of Berlin, her new residence after Zurich, where she lives from 1963 to 1965, she gets to know the filmmaker and writer Adolf Opel, who invites her to accompany him on a journey to Egypt. Although the Austrian poet is in poor health, she is fascinated by this project. On April 20, 1964, she arrives by plane in Athens to meet her travel companion who is waiting for her. Eight days later, they board a ship to Alexandria where Flaubert and du Camp landed almost one hundred years prior. Bachmann and Opel follow the two Frenchmenâs itinerary almost exactly, traveling to Cairo and then on the Nile as far as Wadi Halfa. They return to Athens on June 2, 1964, after spending a bit more than four weeks on the African continent.
Although Bachmann is worried at the beginning, the trip turns out to be a success, enabling her not only to regain her health but also providing her with new vital energy, as she confirms in a letter dated June 18, 1964, to Opel: âIt was not only my most beautiful journey but so much moreâ (Opel 1986, 295).10 And on June 23, 1964, she writes to him: â[â¦] Iâm alive, Iâm alive again ⦠In addition, this incredible Egypt has a force which persists, the desert, which persists [â¦]â (ibid., 295).11 Bachmannâs Egyptian journey also marks a turning point in
The two texts which will be used here are Wüstenbuch and its extended version, Das Buch Franza, whose plot can be summarized as follows: Franza Ranna, who has been psychologically abused by her husband, the psychiatrist Leo Jordan, is trying to break out of her toxic relationship. When her brother, Martin Ranner, sets off on a study tour to Egypt, she goes along with him in the hope of recovering from her mental crisis. While crossing the desert, she is getting better. However, at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza, she is raped by a white man and dies shortly after.
2 The Myth of the Orient
IBID., 118
The black is both savage (cannibal) and yet the most obedient and dignified of servants (the bearer of food); he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simple-minded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar, and manipulator of social forces.
The hetero-stereotypical features mentioned by Bhabha are contradictory, combining negative connotations such as âviolent,â âlecherous,â and âprimitiveâ with mainly positive ones such as âobedient,â âinnocent,â and âclever,â reflecting the ambiguous logic of colonialism. Among the traits listed above the first two appear most frequently in our corpus and will be dealt with in detail, which does not mean, however, that Flaubert and Bachmann take an exclusively negative view of the Orient or avoid criticizing white travellers.
3 Violence
Flaubertâs travelogue is full of descriptions of physical violence against humans and animals. One might argue that inhumane behaviour was quite common in the civilized French world of the nineteenth century. However, the harshness and frequency of scenes of brutality noticed by the author in Egypt seem to surpass what was accepted in the writerâs home country. In a letter dated December 1, 1849, to his friend Louis Bouilhet, Flaubert talks about beating oneâs way through the crowd, a method used by important people: âIn the streets, in the houses, at every opportunity, blows are dealt with sticks with excessive cheerfulnessâ (Flaubert 1973a, 538).12 The French traveller witnesses another example of reckless behaviour toward people when a religious dignitary is riding his horse over a human carpet of 300 men lying next to one another: âThe crowd immediately dissolves behind the horse when it has run past, and itâs impossible to know if someone has been killed or injuredâ (Flaubert 2013, 646).13 From a provincial governor, in turn, he learns how many blows it takes to punish or kill a human being (cf. ibid., 685).
In Bachmannâs Wüstenbuch and Das Buch Franza, the female protagonist Franza also witnesses physical violence during her stay in Egypt. As a guest at an Arab wedding, she is sitting next to a disabled individual with a distorted body. He is bald and dirty and considered to be a holy man and yet, among those present, some treat him as if he were not a human being: âThen some stepped on the cretinâs thigh, because he was moving on the ground, and some trod on his hands, and so did the children who had brought him, he smiled and grinnedâ (Bachmann 1995a, 242).15 Although the victim is treated badly by some adults and children, the narrator excuses their violent behaviour, declaring: âA human being in the dust, beaten and holy, kicked and âªoffendedâ«, not despised but unbearable to look atâ (ibid., 242).16 It is hard to understand why a person so brutally treated should not be âdespised,â as the narrator points out. However, this paradoxical conclusion could make sense from the perspective of Franza, who experienced physical and mental abuse by the sexist Leo Jordan. She calls her husband a fascist because she feels that he wants to annihilate her and compares him to Dr. Körner (cf. Bachmann 1995b, 314), a fictional former Nazi physician, who, after carrying out disturbing human experiments during World War II, left Germany to settle in Cairo where Franza visits him.
Given the cruelty Franza experienced at the hands of her white upper-class husband, the violence exerted by the Arabs may still seem harmless. Being dark-coloured, they contrast with the white man whom she implicitly makes responsible for the discrimination against women, for colonial crimes, and the Jewish genocide. Excusing Arab violence is therefore part of her self-healing strategy which depends on the dichotomous division of humankind into the
I also know my murderer, who is standing on a platform or in his house, and am craving for proverbs because nobody comes to rescue me. And I am tied up and struck dumb because each scream would take me to the licensed mental asylums because they have long since made a rope out of my hair, and I am praying for the Arab, who might be better, who is taking his mad wife home and protecting her screams there.
BACHMANN 1995A, 27517
While Leo Jordan is referred to as potential murderer, the rude Oriental is perhaps better in moral terms because he is not locking up his wife in a lunatic asylumâsomething that could have happened to Franza if she had stayed with her husband.
4 Sexuality
In Western perception, the Orient is a place of debauchery and unrestricted sexuality. This holds true especially for the author of Madame Bovary whose Orient, as Said points out, is âeminently corporealâ (1979, 184). Flaubert is fascinated by all manners of strange, perverse, and grotesque manifestations of
Flaubert and du Camp also gain pertinent experience in brothels and hammams where cheap sex is readily available. It is again his friend Bouilhet that Flaubert confides in to comment on prostitution in Egypt. In a letter dated January 15, 1850, he explains that intercourse among men is so common that âone talks about it with guests at the tableâ (Flaubert 1973a, 572).20 Traveling for educational reasons, Flaubert and du Camp, by the way, make it their business to familiarize themselves with this type of practice while in the Orient (cf. ibid., 572).
What the two travellers are particularly interested in is female prostitution of which they quickly gain expert knowledge, for having sex with dark-skinned women fulfils the promise of undreamed-of erotic adventures. In a passage of Les mémoires dâun fou, an early autobiographical novel, the first-person narrator alludes to this phantasmatically female Orient, mentioning that he is dreaming of âsome dark-skinned woman with a fiery look who was folding me in her two arms and talking to me in the language of the hourisâ (Flaubert 2001a, 473).21
His fantasy not only comes true but is outdone by Kuchuk Hanem, a famous Egyptian dancer who is not a common prostitute but combines stunning beauty and refined manners with outstanding professionality. On meeting
Interestingly, Bachmannâs postcolonial Orient is also pervaded by an atmosphere of eroticism. We must, however, point out that this aspect is more obvious in Wüstenbuch where both Franza and her brother indulge in sensual escapades with local men. Martin meets Salam and Achmed, two Egyptians with whom he goes out and has fun with. Unlike the conservative Viennese society of the sixties, which forms the backdrop of the plot and where patriarchal gender roles dominate the relationship between men and women, Egypt enables sexual transgression, making conventional maleâfemale sexuality seem obsolete: âThe Orient, males for males, they are not gay, they take advantage of both opportunities instead, but we misunderstand this, it must be something else, this blurring of borders, of sexual drive which is there as an optionâ (Bachmann 1995a, 247).26
Now the three of them are in my room, I talk to them, of course, you have no common language but you talk in such a friendly way to one another. I say that I have slept already. Salah and Mahmed stop talking, only Abdu is still talking, they do not want a woman but more, the whole thing, something together, against one another, everything together, hashinin, being hempseed, I am no longer scared [â¦]. We are drinking water, we are three and one, are something against the Whites. Arab love, amour arabe, lâamour greque [sic!], the Greek one.
IBID., 27227
The multiple occurrence of the adverb âtogetherâ in this passage from Wüstenbuch is a rhetoric device used by the female narrator to refer to the intended destruction of the traditional gender division and hegemonic sexuality still valid in patriarchal society.
For Franza, Egypt offers the utopian space where the maleâfemale antagonism has become obsolete. Traveling across this male-dominated country, paradoxically, is a foreshadowing of the social revolution Franza is dreaming of and that will finally make woman and man equal partners, at least when it comes to pleasure. Thus, in the shadow of the pyramids, Martinâs sister, who was abused by Leo Jordan, temporarily gains sensual satisfaction and reconciliation with the other sex.
5 Colonial or Postcolonial Self-Criticism?
Dedicated to a poetics of radical realism, Flaubert avoids expressing his opinion on Egyptian customs and traditions, nor does he pass judgement on the
If the author does not overtly condemn the colonial attitude which he adopts when it pleases him in his travelogue, he allows himself to be self-critical in his correspondence. On inspecting the Hypogees of Thebes, Flaubert becomes aware of the damage caused by foreigners and it is again to Bouilhet that he breaks the news on June 2, 1850: âIt is badly devastated and damaged, not by the weather but by the travellers and scholarsâ (ibid., 634).29 He claims that it is people like him, that is, wealthy white men from Europe and the United States, who are to blame for the destruction of the ancient site. Anticipating the disastrous impact of tourism on the Orient, Flaubert clairvoyantly tells Théophile Gautier in a letter dated August 13, 1850: âSoon the Orient will exist no more. We are perhaps the last contemplatorsâ (ibid., 663).30 Despite this insight, he does not question his own colonial superiority complex, which becomes manifest in an early diary note: âI do not think that the emancipation of Negroes and women is something very beautifulâ (Flaubert 2001b, 752).31 When it comes to the issues of race and gender, the writer, after all, sticks to the conservative perspective common among males of this epoch, who considered people of colour and women in general to be inferior to white men and therefore unworthy of being granted all civil rights.
Bachmann subverts Flaubertâs hegemonic stance in her fictional travelogues by challenging white authority. To this end, she draws upon two narrative strategies. On the one hand, she enables Franza to show solidarity with the Egyptians, and on the other hand, she makes the narrator voice harsh criticism of the alleged superiority of the white race and its colonial model.
It is in Egypt, however, that her interior assimilation of oriental ways changes her appearance with her skin peeling off and turning brown. Considering herself a victim of male colonization, Franza strongly identifies with the Orientals, who share a common history of white domination, therefore feeling at home in Egypt. Her dark tan may be interpreted as another sign of solidarity and sympathy with the Arabs from whom, however, she fails to hide her ethnic origin.
Bachmannâs Egyptian prose undermines the stereotype of the superior white race with which Franza no longer wishes to be associated. In this context, group sex with two Egyptians marks her attempt to escape the bloody history linked to the colour of her skin and allows her to bridge both the gender and the racial divides. In contrast with Flaubert, who is only interested in gaining a maximum of erotic pleasure, for Franza, having sex with Arabs turns into an act of reconciliation between woman and man as well as Black and white. This optimism is only possible because the protagonist shows a strong tendency to generalize, as Monika Albrecht notes: â[â¦] Bachmannâs character Franza is not interested in differences when she forms analogies, instead she somewhat forcefully seems to want to join her story and everyone elseâs storyââ (1998, 82).35
In an effort to wipe out her racial identity, Franza severely attacks the white race, punishing herself in an act of counterracism: â[â¦] les blancs arrivent. The whites arrive. [â¦] they have seen me through, for I belong to an inferior raceâ
The striking intertextual reference to Rimbaud can be explained by his anticolonial attitude, which makes him a welcome ally in Franzaâs rejection of white male hegemony, with the latter being responsible for the colonization of the female body and the exploitation of alien territories. Both Wüstenbuch and Das Buch Franza aim at revealing the wrong done by the whites on the African continent. In these two texts, the Egypt of the early sixties becomes the historical geographical background of Bachmannâs anticolonial discourse. Although Egypt is independent, the economic and cultural invasion of the country due to Coca Cola and the activity of foreign petrol companies goes on unhindered. Hence, the picture of the colonial situation given by Rimbaud is still valid in Bachmannâs postcolonial narrative, filling Franza with indignation (cf. Bachmann 1995b, 231).
Martinâs sister also notices the old colonial attitude among the visitors of the Egyptian museum of Cairo where Western tourists stare at the mummies lying in sarcophagi and coffins. Disgusted by their voyeurism, she, not entering the exhibition hall, vomits on the floor. The narratorâs critique of white hegemony contains a certain degree of simplification and does not take into account the role of women supporting the colonial system. Besides, it overlooks the fact that archaeologists did not only plunder Egyptian heritage sites but also contributed to preserving cultural heritage which otherwise would have been
6 Conclusion
Flaubert embodies the ideal type of the culturally and economically superior male white colonizer who believes in white supremacy without seriously questioning it. He travels to the Orient, trying to stay objective and yet the choice of scenes and details proves that he subtly resorts to common negative hetero-stereotypes of Arabs as violent and oversexualized, thereby confirming their cultural inferiority. In other words, he does not take a fresh look at the alien civilization but checks if his real experience of Egypt corresponds to âthe Orient read and dreamt about before the journeyâ (Brunet 2001, 76).41 Apart from acts of cruelty and scenes of public sex, which Flaubert is particularly eager to find and depict, he searches for the fulfilment of erotic desires. The latter are triggered by the phantasmatic vision of the dark-skinned oriental woman, the incarnation of exotic eroticism and provider of unique sensual pleasures. This romantic image remains intact since the only females with whom he becomes intimate are prostitutes and hence professionals, as if Flaubert wanted to make sure not to be disillusioned by the Orient. After all, âtravel writing often reveals much more about the traveller than about the depicted areas [â¦]â (Meier 2007, 447).
Bachmannâs Egyptian prose joins aspects of gender and postcolonial discourse. Both Wüstenbuch and Das Buch Franza aim at denouncing patriarchal ideology and colonialism as a result of the white superiority complex. Drawing on her personal experience as an Austrian woman abused by her callous husband, Franza identifies with the Arabs by means of indiscriminatingly âequating racism and sexismâ (Albrecht 1998, 65).42 Her oriental discourse is antithetical to Flaubertâs because, unlike him, she insists on white inferiority. Where Flaubert subtly mocks Egyptian manners and people, Bachmannâs
All in all, Franzaâs sweeping condemnation of white male dominance, which she holds responsible for the discrimination of the female as well as the colonial subject, no doubt transcends Flaubertâs blunt racism and sexism but remains, despite its critical potential, a reductionist contribution to the oriental discourse of twentieth-century literature.
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Neither Wüstenbuch nor Das Buch Franza contains any intertextual references to Flaubert. There is, however, a thematic parallelism with his novel Madame Bovary (1856/1857), insofar as both Emma and Franza, the protagonists, try to escape from an unhappy marriage.
Hetero-stereotypes are essentialist, shared, and simplistic images of other nations and cultures. Like all stereotypes, they are based on a âminimal collective knowledge which claims to be valid at any historic moment whatsoeverâ (Pageaux 1994, 63). My translation. Original quote (French): âsavoir minimum collectif qui se veut valable, Ã quelque moment historique que ce soit.â A more compact definition of the term is provided by Manfred Beller, who concludes that âfundamentally, stereotypes are fictionsâ (Beller 2007, 430).
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] il se pourra bien faire que je mâen aille me faire Turc en Turquie, ou muletier en Espagne, ou conducteur de chameaux en Ãgypte.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âMais un jour viendra, nâest-ce pas, mon cher enfant, où, nous deux, nous partirons. Alors, ensemble, nous verrons véritablement cet Orient que tu as tant rêvé.â
For Flaubert and Bachmann, Egypt represents the Orient.
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] les pays chauds.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âLâOrient mâa remis les nerfs.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] une nouvelle période dans sa vie dâartiste.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] métamorphose son imaginaire romantique en une poétique réaliste.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âEs war nicht nur meine schönste Reise, sondern soviel mehr.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] ich lebe, ich lebe wieder ⦠Dazu kommt, daà dieses unwahrscheinliche Ãgypten eine Kraft hat, die anhält, die Wüste, die anhält [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (French): âDans les rues, dans les maisons à propos de tout, de droite et de gauche on y distribue des coups de bâton avec une prodigalité réjouissante.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âLa foule se répand aussitôt derrière le cheval quand il est passé, et il nâest pas possible de savoir sâil y a quelquâun de tué ou blesse.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] le mépris quâon a pour la chair humaine.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âDa stiegen dem Kretin einige auf die Schenkel, denn er bewegte sich auf der Erde fort, und einige traten ihm auf die Hände, auch die Kinder, die ihn gebracht hatten, er lächelte und grinste.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âEin Mensch im Staub, geschlagen und heilig, getreten und âªgekränktâ«, nicht verachtet, aber unerträglich als Anblick.â Conjectured words are given in double angle brackets.
My translation. Original quote (German): âAuch ich kenne meinen Mörder, der auf einem Bahnsteig steht oder in seinem Haus, und giere nach Sprichwörtern, weil niemand mich retten kommt. Und ich bin gefesselt und bin verstummt, weil jeder Schrei mich in die konzessionierten Irrenanstalten bringen würde, weil man aus meinen Haaren mir längst einen Strick gedreht hat, und ich bete für den Araber, der vielleicht besser ist, der seine Irre noch heimbringt und dort ihre Schreie beschützt.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âUn marabout (idiot) mourut il y a quelque temps épuisé par la masturbation de toutes les femmes qui allaient le visiter.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âLe nègre incarne la puissance génitale au-dessus des morales et des interdictions.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] on en parle à table dâhôte.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] quelque femme à la peau brune, au regard ardent, qui mâentourait de ses deux bras et me parlait la langue des houris.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] grande et splendide créatureâplus blanche quâune Arabe [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] dont le corps devient Åuvre dâart.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âElle a beaucoup pensé à nous; elle nous regarde comme ses enfants et nâa pas rencontré de cawadja aussi aimable.â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] le rapport aux Nègres est un rapport de non-réciprocité.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âDer Orient, die Männer für die Männer, sie sind nicht homosexuell, sondern sie machen von beiden Möglichkeiten Gebrauch, aber wir verstehen das falsch, es muà etwas andres sein, die Grenzverwischung, Triebverwischung, die als Möglichkeit gegeben ist.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âJetzt sind alle drei im Zimmer, ich spreche mit ihnen, man hat ja keine gemeinsame Sprache, aber man spricht so freundlich miteinander. Ich sage, daà ich schon geschlafen habe. Salah und Mahmed hören auf zu sprechen, nur Abdu spricht noch, sie wollen auch keine Frau, sondern mehr, das Ganze, etwas miteinander, gegeneinander, alles miteinander, hashinin, Hanf sein, ich habe keine Angst mehr [â¦]. Wir trinken nur Wasser, sind drei und einer, sind etwas gegen die WeiÃen. Die arabische Liebe, amour arabe, lâamour greque [sic!], die griechische.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âNous ne désespérons pas, quoique cela soit difficile, dâexporter (expression commerciale) quelque momie.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âCâest très ravagé et abîmé, non pas par le temps, mais par les voyageurs et les savants.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âDâici à peu lâOrient nâexistera plus. Nous sommes peut-être des derniers contemplateurs.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âJe ne vois pas que lâémancipation des nègres et des femmes soit quelque chose de bien beau.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] seine barfüÃige Wilde [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] ich bin eine Papua. Man kann nur die wirklich bestehlen, die magisch leben, und für mich hat alles Bedeutung.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] ihre innere Kolonisation.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] Bachmannâs Franza-Figur ist bei ihrer Analogiebildung nicht an Unterschieden interessiert, vielmehr scheint sie ihre âGeschichte und die Geschichten allerâ etwas gewaltsam zusammenzwingen zu wollen.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] les blancs arrivent. Die WeiÃen kommen. [â¦] sie haben mich durchschaut, denn ich bin von niedriger Rasse.â
According to Dirk Göttsche, the intertextual references to Rimbaud âdiscuss the history of violence of European colonialism in Africa in close proximity to Frantz Fanonâs critique of neocolonialism [â¦]â (Göttsche 2013, 268). My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] thematisieren die Gewaltgeschichte des europäischen Kolonialismus in Afrika in deutlicher Nähe zur Neokolonialismuskritik Frantz Fanons [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (French): âIl mâest bien évident que jâai toujours été de race inférieure.â
My translation. Original quote (French): âLes blancs débarquent. Le canon! Il faut se soumettre au baptême, sâhabiller, travailler.â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] Leichenschänder [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (French): â[â¦] lâOrient lu et rêvé avant le voyage [â¦].â
My translation. Original quote (German): â[â¦] Gleichsetzung von Rassismus und Sexismus.â
My translation. Original quote (German): âDoch indem sie weiterhin weiÃe Fantasien auf nichteuropäische Figuren projiziert, entgeht auch sie nicht ganz den rassistischen Strukturen, die ihre Schriften in Frage zu stellen versuchen.â