This anthology of short fiction from Austria consists of stories and novel excerpts from 22 writers published in German between 1963 and 1995. In that regard I suppose it's a fair sampling of postwar Austrian literature, but what I had not expected was that this sampling would be so numbingly boring. As the majority authors represented were born during or soon after WWII, I shouldn't have been so surprised that the war and guilt are recurring themes, even in stories written in the '90s. While understand that the Austrian collaboration (Anschluss) with the Nazis is a scar in the national psyche, I suspect that those with more intimate knowledge of Austria may be able to tease a little more meaning out of the stories than I was able to.

Meaning and theme aside, too many of the stories are just flat out boring. I did more or less like Heimito von Doderer's "Beneath Black Stars", narrated by a Luftwaffe officer. I very much enjoyed Hans Carl Artmann's "Blind Chance and Roast Duck", which is a brief comic farce about three gentlemen who have gambled their money away. Peter Henisch's "Brutal Curiosity" appears to be a somewhat autobiographical account of his dying father's experience as a combat photographer in WWII which reads rather well. Gert Jonke's "The Bridge" comes close to being something quite interesting, and Peter Handke's two page sketches aren't bad. The remainder of the stories utterly failed to connect with me, mostly for stylistic reasons. In many cases the writing seemed incredibly stiff, while in others, experimentation runs amok.

I had hoped to emerge from this anthology with a sense of Austria beyond the standard Vienna, Mozart, classical view, with a gritty glimpse into the more real modern Austria. These stories more or less try to do that in a variety of ways, but ultimately fail. Rather than show what's going on now, the authors are more interested in deconstructing myths of the past.

Deftly edited by Martin Chalmers, Beneath Black Stars is an outstanding selection of original short stories by a number of talented, twentieth century Austrian writers. Many of these stories appear in English for the first time, and subtly express such concerns as alarm over the degree to which Austria collaborated with Nazi leaders during the German occupation, among other dark corners of Austrian culture that are not so often discussed in the land of Mozart, Vienna, and The Blue Danube. A most impressive and compelling literary anthology, Beneath Black Stars is a welcome and highly recommended contribution to Austrian Literature supplemental reading lists and reference collections.