Auch Einer

Auch Einer, an eccentric novel by F. Th. Vischer, published in 2 vols. in 1879. The (at first) anonymous hero A. E. (Auch Einer) meets the narrator by chance on a Swiss tour. The opening section of the first volume is devoted to his angry and unending struggle against the crosses imposed by the physical conditions of existence (‘die Tücke des Objekts’). The second section is an inserted story, Der Besuch: Eine Pfahldorfgeschichte, written by A. E. and constituting, in the guise of a story about a lake village, a satirical commentary on contemporary civilization. In the second volume the narrator identifies A. E. as Albert Einhart and learns of his violent death in a courageous but quixotic act. The last section purports to be A. E.'s diary and discloses the tragic story of his love, revealing him, in Vischer's phrase, as a man who has ‘Kaliber’, and comments now humorously, now bitterly on human affairs. This last part undoubtedly contains much of Vischer himself.