German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi by Paul Cooke , Andrew Plowman (review)

Abstract

MLR, 100.2, 2005 569 Her work is treated as an ideologically unified body, and chronological develop? ment or textual specificity are secondary to the argumentative constraints exerted by Auschwitz'. Thus von Jagow detracts fromthe complexity and ambiguity of the later prose work by arguing that the protagonists of the ' Todesarten'-Profekt 'weisen alle einen unmittelbaren Konnex zur jungsten Vergangenheit auf. Eine Symbolik, die auf Nazismus und Shoah abzielt, kennzeichnet das Handeln und Denken der Figuren' (p. 220). Rather more worryingly, Bachmann's concern with the limits of language and the unsayable itself becomes circumscribed: 'Ingeborg Bachmann kommt es auf die Darstellung dessen in der Sprache an, fiir das es an Erfahrung mangelt?dabei spielt sie sicherlich auf die Ereignisse des Holocaust an' (p. 19) Or: 'Das auBerhalb der Grenzen des Darstellbaren Liegende, das sich im Werk Bachmanns zeithistorisch verankert hauptsachlich auf die Darstellung von "Auschwitz" bezieht, erfahrt iiber mythische Rede EinlaB in die Sprache' (p. 30). I wonder, too, about broad terms like 'kollektive Geschichte'(p. 101) and 'kulturelles Gedachtnis'(p. 98), which remain undertheorized and encourage historical, cultural, and literary critical generalization. If formany years much Bachmann criticism was driven by a feminist agenda, there seems now to be a growing desire among critics to relate her work and her poetics to the trauma of National Socialism. In this case, that desire overdetermines the out? come of the analysis, which therefore fails to persuade. University College London Stephanie Bird German Writersand thePolitics ofCulture: Dealing withtheStasi. Ed. by Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman. (New Perspectives in German Studies) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003. xxii + 262pp. ?50. ISBN 1-4039-1326-9. This interesting and well-edited collection of essays explores both the representation ofthe Stasi in East German literature and the special fascination the Stasi held forthe public and private lives of East German writers. Its editors point out that the Stasi took an interest in its authors rarely matched by any other state, and in this respect the volume echoes many themes raised in David Bathrick's similarly titled The Powers of Speech: The Politics of Culture in the GDR (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). It is divided into a shorter section of fivechapters that deals with the relation? ship between literature and the Stasi from before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a longer, nine-chapter section addressing more recent representations and questions. The editors helpfully identify a few leitmotifs that recur throughout the book, emphasizing especially the idea ofZersetzungor 'destabilization'. The term refersnot only to the destabilization of the private lives of GDR authors, but to the destabiliza? tion ofnarrative itself.Several essays explore how the act ofliterarynarration is under? mined through the GDR's constant surveillance of its subjects. One illustrative case is Christa Wolf's Was bleibt,which addresses directly the question of self-observation and self-policing, as pointed out in Georgina Paul's well-written contribution. Yet another important leitmotif is the disruption of the sexual sphere through constant State surveillance, as depicted in Martin Walser's Dorle und Wolf and in Thomas Brussig's Helden wie wir. Thoughtful chapters are devoted to both works. An initial contribution by Mike Dennis provides relevant background in that it looks at the history of the Stasi from 1971 through to its dissolution in 1989. This chapter lays out some of the issues around unofficial informants and collaborators. Stephen Evans offersa reading of Erich Loest's work that is interesting for its focus on the play between narrative fiction and the genre of the official document, and a similarly engaging question is raised by Carol Anne Costabile-Heming concerning Jiirgen Fuchs's Magdalena. Her essay turns on the question of the genre of Fuchs's 57? Reviews work, which occupies a space that combines fiction, non-fiction, and police report. She notes that this specific consideration highlights how 'the sheer magnitude of Stasi material, the intensity with which the Stasi planned and carried out its activities, the very real goals ofZersetzung and kaputmachen [...] constitute a reality that many West German readers finddifficultto comprehend, but one that East Germans experienced as an everyday reality' (p. 224). In this regard her essay makes an interesting study...