Following his principle: "La famille c'est moi," Baron Childerich III, by a most bizarre and complicated system of marriages and adoptions, attempts to incorporate in his own person many family positions. He becomes his own grandfather, father, nephew, uncle... In THE MEROVINGIANS, Heimito von Doderer, the most original of noted Austrian authors, created an absorbing roller-coaster story that takes the reader into dimensions of nonsense, character and behavior that s/he has certainly never visited before. It is funny, astonishing, weird, but human and involving.

I'm not quite the author, and I'm not quite not the author! This book originally appeared in German, in 1983, in Vienna; I have translated it into English, added almost all the footnotes and the bibliography, and have written a new chapter, "From District to Empire."

Aside from my lifelong love of Austrian literature and my fascination with Heimito von Doderer, I was drawn to Pfeiffer's book by its practicality, its clarity, and its modesty. It makes none of the hugely overexalted claims many academic books feel they have to make, opting instead to present itself as part guidebook to the neighborhoods of Vienna which Doderer used in his novels, part biography of Doderer, and part interpretation of his two most significant works of fiction. But trust me, this is not "interpretation lite." Pfeiffer--a retired psychotherapist--offers a number of facts about Doderer's life and artistic process that won't be found elsewhere, and he presents trenchant, simple, and often highly original insights into the novels. His expert knowledge comes from his long friendship with Doderer's widow and other associates and from his position as curator of the Doderer memorial rooms at the Alsergrund District Museum in Vienna.

Pfeiffer is especially good at showing how broad background influences and "raw" topographical items and places become transmuted into the elements of imaginative writing; time after time, he traces the adjustments Doderer made to create out of his everyday surroundings genuine symbol-bearing places in his novels.

Pfeiffer is the "utility guy"--and I mean this in the very best sense--among the Doderer experts. Never holding an academic appointment, the very model of the private scholar, working for so many years on Doderer out of sheer love, he strips away the inessentials and shows the whole dynamic of Doderer's life, environment, and artistry working together. For that reason, he's also the "go to" guy, the man all the eminent scholars and professors turn to when they need clear information and cogent interpretation.

If you can't read German (would you be looking at this review otherwise?), I recommend you first read Michael Bachem's excellent book on Doderer (Twayne, 1982), then turn to Pfeiffer. His is a deceptively simple book you can't do without, and I think the experts will soon be saying the same.

Let's just hope now that some enterprising publisher will bring out Doderer's other great novel, The Strudlhof Steps, in English. It's already half finished by yours truly.

Read this helpful handbook, meantime, and if you get to Vienna, look up Pfeiffer at the museum, Währinger Stra�e 43, on any Wednesday from 10 AM to noon. He would love to see you!

While The Waterfalls of Slunj held my attention until its end, it was ultimately a bit disappointing as a novel. The most interesting aspect of the book is its depiction of the mixture of cultures and nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, perhaps precisely because of the author's effort to capture a whole social milieu, the individual characters remain somewhat undeveloped and the plot is strangely disjointed. Still, on the whole I found The Waterfalls to be an enjoyable period piece and an illuminating portrait of a fascinating time and place. And what other book are you likely to read whose title contains the word "Slunj"?