On Their Own Terms: The Legacy of National Socialism in Post-1990 German Fiction by Helmut Schmitz (review)

Abstract

MLRy 100.3, 2005 883 also takes issue with Andreas Huyssen's critique of Sebald's Luftkrieg und Literatur. Ward's valid commentary on self-erasure and self-reflexivity does not, however, in itselfoffera counter-argumentto Huyssen's reading, which concerns the metaphysical view of history in Sebald's prose. John Beck and Massimo Leone offertwo readings of the interdependence of travel and reading/writing in Sebald's texts. But it is John Zilcosky's superb analysis of Sebald's uncanny travels that deserves special mention here: he shows how Sebald overturns thefort/da game as the master trope oftravel writing by staging our inability to get lost. Martin Klebes opens the next section with an exploration of Sebald's use of Kafka in Schwindel. Gefuhle. While Russell Kilbourn analyses the role of architecture and cinema in Austerlitz, Carolin Duttlinger, drawing on trauma theory, examines the role of photography in the same novel. Trauma is a central concern of the final section: Wilfried Wilms offersa critique of Sebald's Luftkrieg essay by considering how the traumatic experience of the bombings could have been addressed in the post? war period. Jan Ceuppens leaves the framework of Freudian trauma theory behind in favour of a Derridean analysis of haunting and repetition in Die Ausgewanderten. The volume closes with Maya Barzilai's excellent reading of the gendering of history in Sebald's writing. Analysing male bonding and the corresponding spectral female figure, Barzilai shows that the feminization of the Jewish past 'exposes, reinterprets and perhaps even reinstates certain racial and sexual stereotypes' (p. 204). There is not one poor article in this volume. Many of the contributions open new avenues of investigation or, alternatively, advance established debates. Apart from a couple of very minor errors (the acknowledgements mention 1993 as the publication date of Die Ausgewanderten; and the chronology fails to include Logis in einem Landhaus, published in 1998), the volume is carefully edited and beautifully produced. The range of essays is wide in scope and thematically coherent. Together with their contributors the editors have set a new standard for the rapidly evolving scholarship on Sebald. This will be an indispensable volume foryears to come. University College Dublin Anne Fuchs On their Own Terms: The Legacy of National Socialism in Post-1990 German Fiction. By Helmut Schmitz. Birmingham: Birmingham University Press. 2004. x + 34i PP- ?i995- ISBN 1-902-459-37-7. Helmut Schmitz's book on representations of National Socialism in post-unification German fiction is timely and thought-provoking. The scope is impressive?there are chapters on Ortheil's Abschied von den Kriegsteilnehmern, Schlink's Der Vorleser, Berkewicz'sEngel sindschwarz und weifi,Beyer's Flughunde, Harig's Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, Walser's Ein springenderBrunnen, Wellershoff 'sDer Ernstfall, Forte's Der Junge mit den blutigenSchuhen, Grass's Im Krebsgang, and Sebald's Austerlitz? and individual close readings are insightful. For colleagues teaching literary options on the Berlin Republic, this volume will provide a much-needed reference work towards which we can direct students. Those of us making our own contribution to the fieldwill findit equally stimulating and a pleasure to read even as we kick ourselves for not having got there first. A substantial introduction summarizes current theories of collective memory and outlines Schmitz's two prime concerns: the shift towards a 'historicization' of the Nazi period in contemporary portrayals, including a greater emphasis on individual experience, and the absence of the voice of Germany's Jewish victims in the literature of the perpetrator nation. These concerns, and the book's focus, are summed up in the pertinent and well-formulated question which defines the introduction: 'How 884 Reviews far does the literary construction of a German perspective obscure or facilitate an engagement with the interdependence of perpetrator and victim history, or make it possible to experience this difference?' (p. 16). Thus the scene is set. The rest of the book is divided into sections: 'Historicisation', 'Perpetrators', 'Hitler Youth Memories', 'War Memories', and 'Victim Perspective'. This structuring principle is beneficial in so faras it makes it possible to define differentcategories of recent writing on the Nazi past and set each of them in the broader context of debates...