Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz

Schattenfroh

By Michael Lentz

Translated by Max Lawton

Deep Vellum Publishing 2025

Enveloped in a mind-bending fractal of Renaissance art, eschatology, and Germanic history, Lentz’s Schattenfroh teeters between brilliance and inscrutability. In his introduction to an English audience, German author and musician Michael Lentz showcases his erudition and presents readers with an intoxicating riddle to solve. Translated by Max Lawton, this surrealist work draws readers into a journey of metaphysical proportions, pushing the boundaries of linguistics and narrative.

The encyclopedic novel unfolds through the perspective of "Nobody," or Neimand in German. Nobody is confined in a dark, isolated cell with a face mask equipped with the technology that harnesses his thought processes, or “brainfluid”, and converts them in real time into the very novel being read. His jailor is Schattenfroh, a metaphysical nightmarish creature, who simultaneously represents God, Lucifer, and Lentz’s father. Schattenfroh and the Frightbearing Society, a play on the 17th-century Fruitbearing Society, impose totalitarian control over Nobody and commission him to write Schattenfroh. After the outlandish foundation for the novel is set, it slides into an expansive, time-warping quest through the German Reformation, war-torn Düren, and Renaissance-inspired hellscapes.

Nobody’s odyssey begins with an eschatological ceremony featuring depictions of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Last Judgment:

Through a toad-studded archway strides an unsightly figure, more beast than man, with red-hot eyes and a barred blast furnace with glowing coals for a belly, which, with its zippered black robe, makes it appear to be the triangular eye of God. It wears a green turban upon its head, from which green cloths, decorated with pearls upon their upper thirds, flow to the right and to the left. The hell-fire in its belly beats through its head. Its maw is open wide, displaying four pointed canines before its fire-flaming gullet. As master of ceremonies, it carries a fourfold scythe, with which it shall twist the word in my mouth four times over.

This ceremony takes the form of a trial that declares humanity’s presumed guilt and eternal damnation and proves to be one of many interrogations throughout the novel. The event also serves as an initiation for Nobody’s travels through Germanic history and Lentz’s own familial past.

While Nobody’s voyage whirls him through historical Germany, amidst landmark events, Lentz weaves autobiographical threads into the narrative, creating a flurry of memories and fantastical depictions that portray a stain of ancestral trauma: “The lifelong fear of becoming like those from before, then one is to lie only a few steps away from them, for this is, indeed, a family plot and that is what one possesses, even if one has lost one's life.” Totalitarianism is explored through a kind of unholy triad formed by Schattenfroh, Adolf Hitler, and Nobody’s father.

From allusions to Lutherans and criticism of Pope Pius XII to the direct implantation of figures like Thomas Müntzer, religious upheaval permeates the work. Lentz drowns readers in a deluge of philosophical notions and exhaustive references, in an effort to examine Christ’s crucifixion as the seminal act of violence: “Faith is all about suffering, only the experience of the cross counts if one wishes to receive the testimony of God into one's heart, all else is mere semblance, I say.” This intense exploration extends beyond theology into metaphysics; from a device coined “Hegel” to the Kabbalistic concept of Tzimtzum, much of the novel is rooted in an attempt to leap outside existence—or “being-in-itself”—exemplified by a looping narrative that appears to write and erase itself continuously.

Despite its panoptical narrative and clever constructs, its complexity comes at a cost. The narrative becomes constipated at times due to its endlessly referential and self-reflexive theatrics, including scrambled names, anagrams, and frequent interruptions that substitute mental gymnastics for clarity. With a handwritten list of Allied bombing victims spanning nearly 80 pages, mysterious ciphers, and various interpolations, it will likely attract a cultish audience while remaining confoundingly futile for many.

Spanning 1,000 pages, Lentz’s edifice blends esoteric inventions with introspective prose, effortlessly stacking and folding into an Escheresque structure that is difficult to extract definitive messages from. It’s a novel that demands patience, multidisciplinary comprehension, and an openness to grappling with Lentz’s experimental devices. Just as the end of the novel returns to its beginning, readers seeking to grasp its depths must reread it, peeling back each layer with every pass. It could very well be a century-defining novel or remain cherished solely by a targeted niche willing to lose themselves in its shadows—only time will tell.

Brock Covington is an entrepreneur and writer. He can be found on the YouTube channel "The Active Mind" and on his substack: brockcovington.substack.com