Skeletons in the Basement? Family (and) Politics in Josef Haslinger’s Das Vaterspiel

In an interview about his 2000 novel Das Vaterspiel , Josef Haslinger summarized what he termed the Vaterprinzip : “Wahrend des ganzen verfluchten 20. Jahrhunderts waren Vaterspiele im Gange. Das Vaterprinzip war vorherrschend und das bedeutete: Gewalt, Gewalt der Manner. In verschiedensten Formen.” Das Vaterspiel was written at a moment when Haslinger’s frustration with his native Austria was ascendant (a sentiment informed by the rise of Jorg Haider and the dismantling of the long-established Grose Koalition ), and his novel considers the many ways in which Austria in 1999/2000 had failed to adequately come to terms with injustices that the “Vater” of previous generations had inflicted. In this analysis, I examine how Haslinger uses the Kramer family’s fall from grace, along with a consideration of (divided) space, performance, and self-presentation (embodied in particular by the constructed performance given by Jorg Haider on the European political stage), to metaphorize the disintegration of Austrian politics at the dawn of the new millenium. Further, I draw connections between Das Vaterspiel and Haslinger’s political essays, and consider how several of the themes that emerge in his novel are also present in his published sociopolitical commentaries such as Politik der Gefuhle (1987) and Klasse Burschen (2001).