Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes by Brett E. Sterling (review)

Reviewed by: Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes by Brett E. Sterling Sarah McGaughey Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes. By Brett E. Sterling. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2022. Pp. 268. Cloth. 99. 00. ISBN 9781640140042. How can the force of mass hysteria be explained rationally? Or how is it that the irrational appears rational or vice versa? Brett E. Sterling places such weighty questions at the center of his compendious study of the Austrian author Hermann Broch's theoretical and literary works on the masses. Best known for his monumental novels Die Schlafwandler (The Sleepwalkers) and Der Tod des Vergil (The Death of Virgil), Broch is rarely cited in studies of theories of the masses, yet as Sterling shows, Broch began writing about masses as early as 1918, and he dedicated much of his life in exile to the pursuit of fighting fascism. Sterling weaves together the traces of the masses across Broch's career as a published thinker and author and shows how such an approach offers a unique study of the masses as both an elusive literary figure and a political, social, and psychological formation. One might assume that the most effective organization of such a study would be a chronological one, but Sterling recognizes that this structure would only rationalize a formation, i. e. , the mass and mass hysteria, which is more than its rational form. His introduction justifies a different approach—to end with Die Verzauberung (The Spell), written in the middle of Broch's literary career. Unlike Broch's famous novels of complex narrative form, Die Verzauberung remained a fragment, never completed to Broch's satisfaction. The novel, about two Alpine villages and the arrival of a charismatic figure told in diary form by the village doctor, contains Broch's most elaborate depiction of the masses, including an event defined by hysteria—the murder of a young female villager. Sterling rightly asks us to reconsider this oft-forgotten fragment. Broch's first encounter with the masses is as an observer of the proclamation of the Austrian Republic on November 12, 1918, which he describes in an open letter to Franz Blei, "Die Straße" ("The Street"). Sterling strategically orients this early formulation of Broch's ideas on the masses with descriptions of and comparisons to the work of Gustave Le Bon, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Geiger, José Ortega y Gasset, and Elias Canetti. He also outlines the term "masses" and its synonyms, such as "crowd, " and points to key terms used by Broch, such as "Genuss" and "Gemeinschaft. " With this foundation, Sterling later elucidates Broch's own theory of the masses via an End Page 347 analysis of Broch's Massenwahntheorie (Theory of Mass Hysteria), written mostly during his exile in the United States, but first Sterling turns to the development of Broch's literary representations of the masses and offers a richer framework. Sterling develops a panopticon of Broch's depictions of masses through close readings of Broch's literary work—ranging from gathering crowds of workers (Die Schlafwandler, Die Entsühnung, translated as The Atonement) to the description of soccer fans (Die Unbekannte Größe, known in English as The Unknown Quantity) and Virgil's path through and above the pulsating masses of Brindisi. In parallel with the first chapter, Sterling pairs this work of analysis with clear descriptions of major terms used in Broch's literary theory. This structure both interweaves literature and theory and provides the reader with a complete view of Broch's thought and work—a signature feat of Sterling's book. Like "Die Straße" and Massenwahntheorie, these literary depictions, Sterling notes, are characterized by an external observer and do not approach the question of the participant's experience of the masses. This is, as Sterling elaborates, in part due to Broch's own conception of the inviolability of the individual. As an exception within Broch's work, Die Verzauberung proves an exciting literary experiment. The two strands of the study—theory and literature—converge in Sterling's analysis of Die Verzauberung and reveal the novelty of his work. Sterling highlights the moment in. . .