SOURCE: Enright, D. J. “Calling Dr. Angst.” New York Review of Books 32, no. 5 (28 March 1985): 31-2.

In the following excerpt, Enright assesses the characterization of the protagonist of The Inner Man.

At the outset it looks as though the raison d'être of Martin Walser's novel, The Inner Man, is the uplifting effect of contemplating other people's misery. The hero is a chauffeur suffering from indigestion—the inner man is not at peace—and when we meet him he is driving his boss, a big industrialist, from Tettnang-Oberhof on the German side of Lake Constance to Düsseldorf, and in extreme discomfort owing to the laxative he has taken. “To throttle his bowels back entirely would be too painful. To yield by even a fraction would mean losing control over them.” Xaver doesn't like to stop the car and disappear into the forest. He gets little satisfaction from his...