The Sleepwalkers

The Sleepwalkers, trilogy of novels by Hermann Broch, published in German in three volumes as Die Schlafwandler in 1931–32. The multilayered novels chronicle the dissolution of the fabric of European society from 1888 to the end of World War I and the consequent victory of the realist over the romantic and the anarchist. The trilogy was composed of Pasenow oder die Romantik 1888 (1931; The Romantic), Esch oder die Anarchie 1903 (1931; The Anarchist), and Huguenau oder die Sachlichkeit 1918 (1932; The Realist).

In The Romantic, Joachim von Pasenow, an officer of noble birth, tries without success to give meaning to his life by defying convention. He leaves the military and has an affair with a dancer, but he ultimately marries the daughter of a baron. In The Anarchist, Pasenow’s friend Eduard von Bertrand commits suicide after he is denounced to the police as a homosexual by anarchist August Esch. Wild and aggressive, Esch has lost his job and sees in the industrialist Bertrand the personification of society’s ills. The Realist concerns Wilhelm Huguenau, who deserts from the army and becomes a partner in a newspaper Esch owns. Supremely selfish and egotistical, Huguenau kills Esch and rapes his widow. His crimes go unpunished, and he makes a conventional marriage and becomes very wealthy. The events of World War I precipitate Pasenow’s descent into insanity. Huguenau’s ascendancy illustrates the disintegration of morality in the postwar world.