The Xenophobe's Guide to the Austrians

James, Louis

ISBN 10: 1902825187 / ISBN 13: 9781902825182

Published by Oval Books, 2000

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Xenophobe's Guide to the Austrians
• Publisher: Oval Books
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1902825187
• ISBN 13: 9781902825182
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

We cannot be moved

The Austrian needs lots of persuading to have his traditions tampered with in the name of modernization and efficiency. He is attached to his sausage, his insipid beer, and the young white wine that tastes so remarkably like iron filings. He prefers the familiar, tried, and tested to the novelty, the latter almost certainly being an attempt by persons unknown to make money at his expense.

 

Kitschy, kitschy, koo

Home life for the Austrians is a never-ending quest for Gemütlichkeit or coziness, which is achieved by accumulating objects that run the gamut from the pleasingly aesthetic to the mind-blowingly kitsch.

 

Austrian autonomy

In Austria detonating pretension is a national pastime. It has to do with attitudes to power that date back to an absolutist form of government and with the self-irony developed by people who were (or thought they were) more talented than the authority to which they had to defer.

 

A grave issue

The paradoxical character of the Austrian mingles profoundly conservative attitudes with a flair for innovation and invention. This creative tension usually takes the form of official obstructionism to good ideas, but sometimes the other way round. For example, the population were outraged by Josef II's attempt to make them adopt reusable coffins with flaps on the underside for dropping out the corpses. (The Emperor was forced to retreat, grumbling as he did so about the people's wasteful attitude.)

About the Author

Louis James has spent ten more or less fruitful years in contemplation of Homo austriacus. Despite being in daily contact with the species, he suspects that it is easier to describe the yeti (on which there is no verifiable information), than the Austrian (on which there is far too much, all of it contradictory).

Notwithstanding this difficulty he has conducted many hours of diligent field work in cafés, wine-cellars, etc., refining his impressions for the present study, and was gratified to discover that many Austrian friends and acquaintances were prepared to assist selflessly with this.

Since settling in Vienna he has written regular reports on the Central European enigma, chiefly in the hope that sooner or later he will discover a new key to it (the old one having been thrown into the Danube some time ago). If, as seems likely, his efforts in this regard are crowned with failure, he anticipates that few will notice the fact but he will be considerably more popular with those who do