Germany's late and brief flirtation with colonial empire is one of the minor farces of history - but a farce which would later have tragic consequences. One of Germany's colonial protectorates - German New Guinea - became for a brief period a center for German merchants and plantation owners as well as a destination for dreamers and adventurers longing to escape the stifling, philistine atmosphere of Wilhelmine Germany. One such dreamer is the central character in Christian Kracht's highly entertaining novel Imperium.
August Engelhardt (based on a true figure) is a vegan and nudist from Nuremburg who, at the turn of the last century, dreams of establishing a utopian colony in the South Pacific that would subsist entirely on the consumption of coconuts. For Engelhardt, coconuts are "the divine fruit", a perfect source of nutrition that will help humanity reach a higher plane of spiritual existence. And so, after inheriting a small fortune, he sets off to realize his dream. Soon he has purchased a small island with a coconut grove and begins his coconuts-only diet:
“Und hatte er schon vor langem entschieden sich nicht mehr durch Alkohol beseelen zu lassen, so war doch der Erregungszustand, in den er durch die Kokosmilch versetzt wurde, derartig, daß er selbst im Schlaf wahrzunehmen schien, sein Blut werde sukzzesiv durch Kokosmilch ersetzt, ja es war ihm, als ströme durch seine Adern kein roter, tierischer Lebenssaft mehr, sondern der wesentlich hochentwickeltere pflanzliche Most seiner Idealfrucht, der ihn dereinst befähigen werde, seine Evolutionsstufe zu transzendieren.”
(And though he had long ago decided to stimulate his senses with alcohol, the coconut milk seemed to transport him into a similar state of excitement, to extent that even while asleep he could almost feel his blood slowly being replaced by coconut milk, indeed it seemed to him that the red, animal elixir of life was no longer flowing through his veins, but rather the much more highly evolved plant juice from his ideal fruit which would soon permit him to transcend to higher level of evolution." )
Kracht's Imperium recalls another terrific historical adventure novel - Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt -, and August Engelhardt has the same fearless, fanatical single-mindedness as Kehlmann's Alexander von Humboldt which drives both deep into the jungle to achieve their vision. But von Humboldt was a genius, while Engelhardt is a lunatic - the perfect representative figure for Germany's imperial fantasies.
Imperium is written in the formal, ornate German of the period with an anoying, intrusive narrator constantly chiming in with plot spoilers. Adding to the fun is Engelhardt's Forrest Gump-like propensity to run into major historical figures, such as Hermann Hesse and Thomas and Katja Mann (before their marriage). A teenaged Franz Kafka is sexually assaulted by one of Engelhardt's early cult-followers. In the end, Engelhardt is too much of a misanthrope to be successful cult-leader. When his pamphlet - Eine sorgenfreie Zukunft ("A Carefree Future") - attracts scores of young German dropouts to the island, Englehardt turns them away. He eventually succombs to madness - induced by the malnutrition of his coconut diet - and leprosy.
Imperium became an instant literary sensation last month thanks to press reports of Christian Kracht's alledged right-wing political views. If Kracht is a fascist or white supremacist there is no evidence of it in Imperium. The Europeans depicted in the novel are for the most part either malevolent drunks, confidence men or just crazy, while the native population appear entirely sensible, looking on with detached amusement while the white would-be empire-builders self-destruct. A virulent anti-Semite from Germany turns up and is soon murdered. Somehow Englehardt - who at first has nothing but contempt for anti-Semitic views - is, in his complete isolation on the coconut island , transformed into an anti-Semite as he grows delusional. Finally the narrator helpfully points out that Engelhardt has a kind of kinship with another fanatical vegetarian who's imperial vision would engulf the world in violence:
So wird nun stellvertretend die Geschichte nur eines Deutschen erzählt werden, eines Romantikers, der wie so viele dieser Spezies verhinderter Künstler war, und wenn dabei manchmal Parallelen zu einem späteren deutschen Romantiker und Vegetarier ins Bewusstsein dringen, der vielleicht lieber bei seiner Staffelei geblieben wäre, so ist dies durchaus beabsichtigt und sinnigerweise, Verzeihung, in nuce auch kohärent.
(Thus we have the story of just one German, representative of the romantic type, who, like so many of these would-be artists - here we draw some parallels to a romantic and vegetarian who came later - who should have stayed put at his easel - all of this is quite intentional, and regretfully, in nuce coherent.)
The historical August Engelhardt died on his failed coconut plantation in 1919. Kracht's Englehardt survives World War II and is captured by the Americans. A young GI writes a screenplay based on fantastic stories Engelhardt tells his captors and this becomes a Hollywood feature film. It would not surprise me if an enterprising film director (Werner Herzog would be perfect) doesn't acquire the film rights for Imperium.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874 - 1929) took literary Vienna by storm at the age of 16. His genius was such that he was stalked by Stefan Georg at his gymnasium. Stefan Zweig recalls young von Hofmannsthal in Die Welt von Gestern: "The emergence of the young Hofmannsthal is noteworthy as a miracle of early perfection: in the history of literature I can't think of any example - other than Rimbaud or Keats - of such mastery of language at a young age."
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