Analysieren als Deuten: Wolf Schmid zum 60. Geburtstag by Lazar Fleishman, Christine Gölz, Aage A. Hansen-Löve

Abstract

MLR, IOI.4, 2oo6 I I9I named at least twice by the 54 respondents. Heinrich Mann, Ernst Jiinger, and En zensberger, three of the book's six individual subjects, figure nowhere in these lists, and Christa Wolf is named just once. Of the six, only Grass and Brecht are among the top ten authors and top thirty titles. It is particularly when the Enzensberger chapter, by Karel Hupperetz, informs us that its subject 'hat seit den fiinfziger Jahren wie kaum ein anderer Autor das Bild, das man sich im niederlandischen Sprachraum von der deutschen Literatur gemacht hat, mitgepragt' (p. I43), or when, later, an equivalent claim ismade forWolf, that hilarity sets in. There are certainly sources of interest among these pieces, even if they are not al ways the authors' conclusions. Prangel's essay ends by lamenting modern-day Dutch ignorance of German literature, but his results point to a higher level of know ledge than any other non-German readership would possess. They even suggest that modern Dutch readers know more of German literature than of French (though not of English). Other essays in the volume indicate the much greater immediacy Ger man literature and thought had for the Dutch before World War II. The amusing description in Sjaak Onderdelinden's purposeful article of a flopped production of Mother Courage inRotterdam five years after the Occupation, when aGerman direc tor imposed by Brecht clashed with resentful Dutch actors, suggests how and why the relationship changed. Nevertheless, one is struck by the indications even in accounts of modern reception that non-academic Dutch reviewers and readers are aware of contemporary debates within Germany, and are influenced in their preferences by the attitudes tomodern Germany that particular writers express. It is hard to ima gine that British readers of German texts, such as they are, are affected like this. What ismost interesting with Dutch (and/or Flemish) reception of German liter ary and other writing is how writers and readers were moulded by it.The substantial if ambivalent preoccupation with German culture of the Forum group and its leader Menno ter Braak, themost influential Dutch critic of the inter-war years, is signalled in passing at various points in the book. How the pervasively nihilistic post-war ge neration of Dutch novelists-Hermans, Reve, Mulisch, Wolkers-was able to interact with the irrationalist tradition of German thought, when itwas taboo formost of their German contemporaries, does not emerge, apart from a reference toMulisch's ex pressions of interest inErnst Jiinger. The possibility that Hugo Claus's Het verdriet van Belgie~ (The Sorrow of Belgium), the seminal novel of modern Flemish identity, is predicated on Grass's Blechtrommel is introduced, and then we are told there is no space now to discuss it. And there are other such frustrations. To my mind, a much more productive project would have been an account (probably inDutch for a Dutch readership) of how major twentieth-century figures and cultural groupings in the Low Countries were conditioned by their German reading, rather than the pre sent disparate collection of source-oriented overviews of some often unremarkable receptions. But that would have been a different book. UNIVERSITYOF SHEFFIELD MICHAEL PERRAUDIN Analysieren als Deuten: Wolf Schmid zum 6o. Geburtstag. Ed. by LAZAR FLEISH MAN, CHRISTINE GOLz, and AAGE A. HANSEN-L6VE. Hamburg: University Press. 2004. 74I pp. ?30. ISBN 3-9808985-6-3. This enormous Festschrift has been published in honour of Dr Wolf Schmid, Pro fessor of Slavic Literatures at Hamburg University. As erstwhile honorary member of academic departments inDenmark, Australia, Canada, and the US, his reputation has been founded upon research into Russian and Czech literatures. His multiple ad dresses and interests are perhaps most prominently linked by decades of scrupulous I 192 Reviews investigation into the finer points of narratology. This bridging aspect of Professor Schmid's labours iswhat unifies the thirty-six essays inGerman, English, and Rus sian. The oft-obituarial overtones of a Festschrift are here, mercifully, a cheerful celebra tion of the scholar's sixtieth birthday, which creates something of a dilemma for any reviewer. Being asked to review a birthday Festschrift is like asking a restaurant critic to review a party...