Shiny
Surfaces, Murky Waters: The Lake as Anti-Idyllic Trope in Recent Austrian Crime
Fiction
In the last decades Austrian rural crime fiction has seen
unprecedented growth and established itself as a highly successful counterpart
to the equally popular profusion of Vienna-based crime novels. An important
difference from the type of regional crime fiction which has recently become so
prevalent in Germany (Regionalkrimi) is
a more critical and often satirical tone, which can arguably be attributed to a connection to specifically Austrian
traditions of critical ‘Anti-Heimat’
literature since the 1960s. Austrian rural crime fiction is therefore typically
concerned with exposing the dark secrets lurking underneath the facade of a
seemingly idyllic countryside.
A particularly interesting
aspect in recent Austrian rural crime fiction is the recurring trope of the
lake. Whether natural or artificial, real or fictional, lakes figure here with
striking frequency and, as I argue, their narrative function extends well
beyond providing a mere realistic depiction of the rural setting in the Austrian
countryside. In fact, the lake problematizes the perceptions and constructions
of the ‘natural’ landscape, exploring the tensions between idyll and
anti-idyll, and between what is hidden beneath the surface and what is revealed.
This paper explores the use
of the lake as setting and metaphor in novels of authors such as Elfriede
Jelinek (Gier), Gerhard Roth (Der See), Wolf Haas (Auferstehung der Toten), Heinrich
Steinfest (Mariaschwarz) and Paulus
Hochgatterer (Die Süße des Lebens). In particular, it analyzes how the dynamics of semblance and
reality so often associated with trope of the lake relates to the motif of
tourism, exploitation and commodification of the natural landscape, and the
exposure of the idyllic and pastoral as staged construction.