The Quest for Dr. U – H. C. Artmann
The Quest for Dr. U: Or a Solitary Mirror in Which the Day Reflects by H. C. Artmann / ISBN 9780947757564 / 116-page paperback from Atlas Press (UK) / Out-of-print, used book in good condition (no marks inside, some shelf wear — chips on the top of front cover, remainder mark on bottom edge — otherwise tight and clean – photos on request)
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Translated by Malcolm Green and Derk Wynand.
The Quest for Dr. U is like all Artmann’s works: protean, spanning and subverting the genres it encompasses (detective fiction, romantic novels, heroic poetry, dada-related experimentation). Its hero pursues the ghastly Dr. Unspeakable, an ultimate villain, across continents, through situations alternately bizarre and commonplace, always enmeshed in ways of writing text. Dr. U remains a mystery, perhaps he is “not I”. A wonderful modernist novel, humorous and entertaining to boot.
“…a tour de force of sheer virtuosity … a late flowering of the Austrian baroque, distinctly decadent, as Artmann is well aware, brilliantly brought off, with an elegant inventiveness peculiar to this extraordinary writer.”– Michael Hamburger in The Times Literary Supplement
