Ethical encounters with nature: Ilija Trojanow’s EisTau

Ilija Trojanow’s novel EisTau explores the relationship between a man and nature against the backdrop of global warming. Primarily read within ecocritical
frameworks, EisTau also constructs, I argue, a traveller-explorer, Zeno, whose
masculinity is no longer determined by recklessness, but by responsibility – as
transnational developments, including easier access to remote areas such as
the novel’s setting Antarctica, call for more responsible self-other relations.
Paying attention to the significance of affect in the novel’s ethical encounters, I focus on Zeno’s emotions towards nature limned in his notebook.
Ultimately, EisTau portrays Zeno as an ambiguous individual whose inability
to act appropriately on his emotions leads to death, an outcome that shows
the explorer-figure of Zeno to be inadequate to today’s ethical demands.