Jonathan Franzen’s The Kraus Project

Marion Gabl

Now largely forgotten, Karl Kraus was one of the most incisive and provocative cultural commentators of early twentieth-century Vienna. He's also a literary hero of Jonathan Franzen, one of the most successful American novelists active today. In his ambitious latest book, Franzen sets out to recover the forgotten Kraus for contemporary readers. But his interest isn't simply historical: he also hopes to show that Kraus has a cure for the problems of our postmodern condition. Does he succeed? Marion Gabl reviews the effort.