Ilse Aichinger/Helga Michie: Zwischen Abschied und Ankunft: Between Departure and Arrival ed. by Geoff Wilkes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ilse Aichinger/Helga Michie: Zwischen Abschied und Ankunft: Between Departure and Arrival ed. by Geoff Wilkes Kirsten A. Krick-Aigner Geoff Wilkes, ed., Ilse Aichinger/Helga Michie: Zwischen Abschied und Ankunft: Between Departure and Arrival. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2021. 240 pp. Geoff Wilke's edited volume Ilse Aichinger/Helga Michie is a timely collection of twenty insightful articles and a creative dramatized narrative that reflect on the intertwined personal lives and cultural contributions of the Austrian twins, author Ilse Aichinger and artist Helga Michie. The full scope of their creative work had not yet been thoroughly considered until the three-day conference in London organized in anticipation of the 2021 celebration of the twins' centenary. [End Page 92] Aichinger and Michie, born 1921 in Vienna, grew up in a family that enjoyed rich cultural experiences and was influenced by their Jewish heritage on their maternal side. The annexation of Austria in 1938 and ensuing World War II and Holocaust would lead to trying and tragic consequences for the family, forever permeating the twins' creative work in a type of "intellectual and emotional symbiosis" (17). Having sent Helga with the last Kindertransport to England to join her already exiled aunt Klara in London, Ilse and the twins' mother Berta stayed behind to endure the war in Vienna. For Ilse, seeing her grandmother Gisela Kremer, her aunt Erna Kremer, and her uncle Felix Kremer deported from Vienna by truck to their death in Minsk was a traumatic memory that reappears throughout her work, both in her only novel Die größere Hoffnung (1948) and in her later prose. Memories of Aichinger's beloved grandmother in particular resurface in countless articles within the volume, further evoking the grandmother's spirit and Aichinger's devotion to her memory. The first grouping of articles by Lynne Heller, Andrew G. Bonnell, Belinda Kleinhans, and Samuel Moser focuses on how the war experiences shaped the twins' creative oeuvre. Gernot Wimmer and Dolors Sabaté Planes give fresh readings of Aichinger's prose through the lenses of Franz Kafka's surreal writing style as well as magic realism. Irene Fußl examines how Aichinger and Michie's friendship with fellow Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann, whom they nicknamed their "third twin" (83), influenced the creative output of all three women; it includes a moving close reading of Bachmann's poem "Mirjam," which was dedicated to Michie's daughter. It is of note that Fußl and Roland Berbig have recently edited a 2021 Bachmann volume that was made possible by approval from heirs despite the current sealed correspondences in the estates of Aichinger and Bachmann. Christoph Leitgeb further explores the uneasy tension that exists between individual memory and official commemoration in Bachmann's poem "Ende der Silbergasse." Underscoring Aichinger's love of films and movie-going that she associated with happiness and escape, Jacqueline Vansant demonstrates the importance of the perspective of the victim in scenes of filmmaking in Aichinger's first version of Die größere Hoffnung. Referring to the over 100 fragments of prose written by Aichinger, published in Der Standard between 2001 and 2003, Christine Ivanovic traces Aichinger and her mother's journey to England to reunite with Michie and Klara at the end of 1947, despite being able to obtain the desired permit to stay. However, Ivanovic shows [End Page 93] that the journey itself "made it possible for the persecuted and traumatised individuals to live on" (113). Andreas Dittrich encourages readers to enjoy her work from a fresh perspective through his analysis of the "Leerstellen" and typescripts in Aichinger's prose while exploring the author's own reading process of searching, "Das Suchen" (131). In a similar vein, Mathias Müller poetically showcases Aichinger's prose from the perspective of quiet listening and searching for words. Further articles by Barbara Thums, Wilkes, Matteo Iacovella, and Ruth Vogel-Klein seek out the intersections of Aichinger's act of writing and remembrance. Thums sets Viennese coffee houses as centrifugal spaces in which Aichinger explored power structures that foster both inclusion and exclusion. Wilkes further discusses Aichinger's prose as revealing an "intentional manipulation of memory" (159) within the limitations of memory. Whereas Iacovella...