ABSTRACT
Examples from the end of the era The bureaucratic outlook which has come to characterize Austrian society is apparent in an almost classic excerpt from Doderer who depicts his Amtsrat Zihal (literally, office councilor) engaging in an activity far removed in principle from his official duties. Zihal slips into a bureaucratic argot, typical of officials and expressive of their innermost being when he writes:
Doderer skilfully captures here the essence of official language. German legalese, which avoids designating a concrete, acting subject (reflecting adherence to impersonal norms; on the evolution of Austrian administrative language see Bodi 1995b) expresses in a suggestive manner Zihal’s bureaucratic super-ego. It liberates him from moral constraints in a taken-for-granted way. No one reading such a text would guess that it describes the preparations of a voyeur who is watching women undress in the lit windows opposite and who has to fend off an attempt at blackmail by Wänzrich.
