Echoes of Georg Letham

For anyone that has read Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss, be sure to read Helen Rittelmeyer's post The Redemption of Nathan Leopold, Maybe. While the circumstances have important differences, there are some eerie similarities.

In all its externals, Leopold’s life followed the arc of a basic redemption story. He felt remorse for what he had done, unlike Loeb, who only regretted that he had been caught. He devoted his time in prison to service. He reorganized the prison library, he participated in an experimental test of a new malaria drug as both a lab tech and a lab rat (the latter at some risk to himself), and when a young Italian man arrived at Stateville newly blind after a mishap during his last hold-up, Leopold learned Braille so he could teach the man to read. He expanded the course offerings at the Stateville prison school by writing stacks of new lesson plans and grading the papers himself.

Religious faith didn't play a role in Georg Letham's story (as it does in Leopold's), but some of the underlying sentiments sound familiar.

Georg Letham: Physi­cian and Mur­derer by Ernst Weiss: “Illnesses interested me, the ill did not"

Georg Letham: Physi­cian and Mur­derer by Ernst Weiss
Translation by Joel Roten­berg
Arch­i­pel­ago Books, 560 pages, Paperback
ISBN: 0980033039 / 978-0980033038

As you can tell from the list of sections in this post the focus of Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer goes well beyond the murder and trial of his wife. After Georg’s conviction for the murder of his wife he is exiled to the penal colony of C. (somewhere in South America). While there he becomes an integral member of a medical team searching for the cause and a cure for yellow fever. Among the many characters we meet are Georg’s misanthropic father, fellow-prisoner March with a tremendous crush on Georg, Georg’s classmate Walter heading the medical team on C., and the young yellow-fever patient Monica with whom Georg falls in love. Yet the account “of such a life”, the task of this particular modern novel, covers so much more than a simple recap would provide.

The novel is a modern horror story, a worthy descendant of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In Georg’s mind, fate arranges the circumstances leading to the murder of his wife and makes the outcome preordained. The reader realizes otherwise, of course, and the events continue to unfold in a gruesome manner. To make the novel more intense there are several similar horror tales. Some are subtle, such as the torture the prisoners endure while waiting to board the ship which will take them to the penal colony in addition to the ongoing tension once onboard. While working on yellow fever research Georg watches a horrific event unfold, doing nothing to halt it, the results of which could have been comparable to his wife’s murder. That’s the appeal of the book and the part that makes it horrifying—here is a man, morally detached from humanity, operating in fields with life or death implications for patients and subjects. Georg introduces the book as his study into why he did what he did, noting his unreliability as a narrator.

The section I found most effective in the horror mode was Georg’s father’s expedition to the North Pole (one of the many shadows of Frankenstein). Let’s just say there is a reason a rat is on the cover of the book. Wait, make that more than one reason. I found I couldn’t put the book down during this section. Another reflection of Frankenstein includes the focus of science separated from morality. As mentioned in the introductory post, Georg viewed wealth and knowledge as the only things that could give a person a foothold in the world. Since wealth was denied him while married and inaccessible in prison he focuses solely on knowledge. His clinical approach in the attempt of scientific progress adds to the reader’s revulsion toward Georg as he shows little mercy toward anyone or anything while advancing his cause. Georg's rationalization for his behavior includes his belief that man is an experiment on the part of nature so his actions are a natural continuation of that dynamic. I have seen the book described as an allegory for fascist mentality for just this separation of actions from morality as well as his search for the greater good regardless of cost, which it is, but it is also so much more.

The novel is also a story of redemption—one of the haunting questions is whether or not the reader believes Georg achieved it. His service in finding the source of yellow fever proves to be admirable but there are several moral bumps along the way. The complexity Weiss provides makes any judgment a hazardous guess. Georg pins his redemption on science and what he can achieve, but his methods and actions make his intentions problematic. Early in his narration he reveals the level of his interest in science and mankind which follows for most of the book: “Illnesses interested me, the ill did not.”

The novel is also part love story, although almost all of the relationships are unhealthy. Maybe it would be more correct to say that Weiss highlights the power of love's absence. Georg’s emotional arrestment, fostered in part by his father’s misanthropic behavior, shapes a man unable to connect with anyone else. His descriptions of his relationship with his wife are as horrific as other parts of the novel. A fellow prisoner, March, falls in love with Georg but is crudely and consistently used to Georg’s advantage. The one relationship that could have had redemptive qualities—Georg’s feelings for the yellow fever patient Monica—proves to have its own problems. Georg’s disdain for those with “loving hearts” permeates the novel as he openly shows contempt for those that think they can provide comfort and love. Paradoxically he displays and desires such benefits when he longs to see his brother on the day he boards the Mimosa for the penal colony or when he sees his love for Monica as part of his redemption (and there are more examples). Such is the complex nature of Georg and the novel.

Highly recommended.

Previous post: Unfinished human beings in an unfinished world

Update (30 Jan 2013): Life imitates art in Helen Rittelmeyer's post on The Redemption of Nathan Leopold, Maybe. While there are important differences between Leopold's and Letham's stories, the similarities can be eerie at times.

Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer: unfinished human beings in an unfinished world

In Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, both Roth and editor/translator Michael Hofmann favorably refer to Ernst Weiss which was enough to send me looking for his novels. Fortunately Archipelago Books released this translation a couple of years ago (translation by Joel Rotenberg) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Most reviews quote the opening line: “How could I, Georg Letham, a physician, a man of scientific training, of certain philosophical aspirations, let myself be so far carried away as to commit an offense of the gravest sort, the murder of my wife?” Except that isn’t the opening line. The three-page Foreword provides a glimpse inside Georg Letham’s psyche and hints at how to read the rest of the novel. These are the true opening lines:

Whether we appear as defendant or as witness, we unfinished human beings are not spared the trials of this even more unfinished world. Cruelty and futility are what we meet with, and during our brief existence we see them ad nauseam. No one can avoid this first philosophy. Constant hardship for the individual who battles in vain in the grim war of all against all, in this best-ordered of all possible worlds, pain, affliction of mind, inconceivable physical suffering, together with an idiotic waste of the energy and means given by nature. Who could make sense of it?

Georg Letham gives it a try. The Foreword paints a depressing world full of hardship and pain. Since we can’t make sense of the world, we seek pleasure, although that pleasure is only a temporary delirium that requires greater amounts to produce the same effect. Nature produces disorder, both in the world around us and within us. “Beauty, peace, harmony—all this, too, is no more than a delirium. Only wealth and knowledge give the individual a bit of a foothold.” Sounds like an uplifting book to read, doesn’t it?

Georg tips his hand in this opening section: “Yes, to give an account of such a life—not just some of it, but all of it—this might be a task for the modern novel.” The murder of his wife and his trial comprise the first section of the novel. The remaining sections follows Georg’s attempt to make sense of what happened. His greatest concern resides in a failure to be understood but along the way another fear surfaces—not understanding himself. There are many journeys in Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer but Georg’s attempt at redemption, his journey to cure a sickly and cruel human heart, turns out to be an underlying theme. Below are my notes for the sections of the novel—I’m only going to comment on a few of them in subsequent posts but I found these abbreviated headings helpful.

I will hold up a mirror to myself. With a steady hand. With the exacting eye of a scientist. Without mercy toward myself, just as I showed none toward others. What is man, that he shows mercy toward his own kind?

This is the best I can do. Perhaps someone else will be able to create a realistic novel out of my report on these “experiments on living souls.”

Sections
One: Crime and trial
Two: Boarding the Mimosa
Three: Father’s arctic expedition
Four: March and the voyage to C.
Five: Monica, Walter, experiments
Six: Experiments, recovery, death
Seven: Birth, redemption (?), breakthrough