The Head of Vitus Bering (The Printed Head, Volume III [3], Number 7)

61, [1] pp. Translated into English from the original German by Walter Billeter. A novel by the Austrian writer and poet, who was a member of the Wiener Gruppe. Bayer combined apparently irreconcilable elements - violence, hermeticism, pessimism, ecstasy, banality - and influences (dadaism, surrealism, pataphysics, Wittgenstein, Stirner, Sade et al.) - into a bizarre linguistic solipsism which has held increasing fascination for German writers of the last few decades. His most important works are the novels Der Kopf des Vitus Bering (The Head of Vitus Bering) and Der sechste Sinn (The Sixth Sense), published posthumously in 1965 and 1966, respectively. Bayer committed suicide in October 1964 at the age of 31. The Vienna Group was a 'constellation of highly gifted, radically experimental writers bent on creating a new tradition out of the ashes of the Second World War. Gerhard Ruhm and H.C. Artmann, two colleagues during this period, describe [this] book variously as Bayer's 'pinnacle' and 'a magnificent book. Bayer's true biography, composed with poetry and elegance.' Constructed from a montage of events, images, facts and allusions that 'unite and coordinate the past and future to one point,' Bayer turns the historical adventure of the sea captain Vitus Bering, who sailed to discover whether America was linked to Asia, into a metaphor for inner voyage and ultimate liberation 'from opinions and thoughts.' Against the backdrop of a chilling 'outside' reality in which the logic of a mechanical universe is beginning to run riot, and all subjective distance washed away, the reader is drawn into a vortex of unnerving paradoxes, a calculating machine of sublime horrors - 'the birth pangs of initiation.''