Moss - Klaus Modick

A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:
Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:

support the site

Moss

by
Klaus Modick

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Moss
Author:	Klaus Modick
Genre:	Novel
Written:	1984 (Eng. 2020)
Length:	124 pages
Original in:
Availability:	Moss - US
	Moss - UK
	Moss - Canada
	Mousse - France
	Moos - Deutschland

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

German title: Moos
Translated by David Herman

- Return to top of the page -

Our Assessment:

B : nice reflective work

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
Le Monde diplomatique	.	10/2021	Pascal Corazza
Publishers Weekly	.	4/6/2020	.

From the Reviews:

"Un roman écologique ? Écopoétique ? D’écofiction ? À trop se perdre dans la terminologie, on passe à côté de l’essentiel, pense son narrateur, Lukas Ohlburg" - Pascal Corazza, Le Monde diplomatique

"Modick skimps on story, but he’s a skilled prose stylist, and in the capable hands of Herman he conjures a graceful, thought-provoking portrait of memory and mortality. (...) Though the book might not stay with readers, Modick’s insightful tale is pleasant while it lasts." - Publishers Weekly

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

- Return to top of the page -

The complete review's Review:

[Note: this review is based on the original German text; I did not have access to David Herman's 2020 English translation when reviewing it, and all translations from the German here are mine.]

       The original German edition (but not the latest re-issue) came with the subtitle: 'Die nachgelassenen Blätter des Botanikers Lukas Ohlburg', presenting the work as the writings botanist Lukas Ohlburg had left behind on his death in the spring of 1981, at the age of seventy-three. Author Klaus Modick presents himself as the editor publishing these papers, explaining their and Ohlburg's background in a short 'Preliminary Note'.
       Ohlburg had retired to the old family estate in Ammerland to devote himself to a project in the fall of 1980. The work was to be titled: 'Toward a Critique of Botanical Terminology and Nomenclature', and his preöccupation with this subject-matter does play a significant role here, but the now-published work is more a fairly loose, diary-like collection of reflections by Ohlburg on his experiences and thoughts in these months -- focused on nature, memory, illness, and death.
       Ohlburg's thesis for the work he originally intended to write continues to inform this one as well, as he wants to argue that by classifying and naming plants we miss the essence of it: the plant is reduced to classification and name -- 'a classifying theory without knowledge or understanding'. He is critical of Linnaean taxonomy, noting that even aside from the problematic aspect of 'naming' and ordering in general in this way, Linné burdened many plants and animals with the associations of their names -- chimpanzees as 'troglodytes', amoebas as 'Chaos chaos', etc.
       Ohlburg argues:

Die Vernichtung des Namens durch den Begriff, des lebendigen Ausdrucks durch den Terminus, hat die Entfremdung des Menschen von der ihn umgebenden Natur beschleunigt und besiegelt.

[The destroying of the name by the concept, of the living expression by the term, has accelerated and sealed the alienation of man from the nature surrounding him.]

       Much of Moss, then, is also about Ohlburg re-connecting, as it were, with nature -- ultimately even, to some extent, becoming one with it. The return to the house where he spent summers in his childhood also brings back memories of those experiences -- interrupted then by a fifteen-year absence due to the family's 'forced stay' (Zwangsaufenthalt) abroad, as they fled the country in the early 1930s as the Nazis rose to power. A visit around Christmas by Ohlburg's brother, sister-in-law, and young niece also shows how he continues to distance himself from others, retreating into the isolation he is increasingly drawn to.
       Among Ohlburg's early memories are those of scouring the walkways to rid them of the moss when the family arrived for their summer stays -- the boys' father insisting the moss is something that must be eliminated (though of course it always grows back). Now, he finds himself inexorably drawn to moss (and feels something is driving it to accommodate him ("Etwas, das das Moos treibt, mir entgegenzukommen"). Eventually, he finds: "Das Ich greift auf das Alles über. Das Alles beginnt das Ich zu übermosen" ('The self is taking over everything. The everything is engulfing the self').
       Readers know how Ohlburg was found after his death from the opening 'Preliminary Note', so it's always been clear where this was heading, and Modick does a fine job in how he leads his protagonist -- and readers -- there. The focus on nature -- and the different approach Ohlburg is able to take to it, and the appreciation he is now able to have for it, compared to when he was an academic is nicely done, and Ohlburg's struggle to convey that in written form in what was originally intended as a scholarly kind of paper is also effective.
       Modick is very good with the physical, as the aging Ohlburg -- with some health-concerns -- is presented as increasingly aware of -- and, in some ways, indulging in -- the tactile and his surroundings, including not just the moss but even basics of air and water.
       A short, nicely-done little piece of work.

- M.A.Orthofer, 5 July 2026

- Return to top of the page -

Links:

Moss:

Bellevue Literary Press publicity page
Kiepenheuer & Witsch publicity page
Rue de l'échiquier publicity page

Reviews:

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of German literature

- Return to top of the page -

About the Author:

German author Klaus Modick was born in 1951.

- Return to top of the page -