MLR, I02.2, 2007 585 Rhys Williams in an informative, albeit rather impressionistic, piece discusses the career overlaps ofWalser and Alfred Andersch, particularly in relation to theirwork for the Siiddeutscher Rundfunk. Keith Bullivant explores the possible influence of theGruppe 6i (e.g.Max von der Grun and Gunter Wallraff) onWalser's writing, showing that 'deformation throughwork' isa featureofhis novels. Andreas Meier's all toobrief chapter examines connections betweenWalser's novels and ideas outlined in Walser's 'Friedenspreisrede', while Roman Luckscheiter elegantly illuminates how Walser's concept of irony owes more toThomas Mann thanWalser might care to admit. One of the best chapters is byGerald A. Fetz, who tries to get to the bottom of Walser's notion ofHeimat and its links tonational feeling. Steve Plumb sounds out similarities betweenWalser's attitudes and those of the artistsAndre Ficus and Horst Janssen, while JaneWalling-keeping the focus on art-compares Marcel Proust's use of the motif of art inhisworks with thatof Walser inhis. In his exploration of links betweenWalser's novel Die Verteidigungder Kindheit (i99I) and Victor Klemperer's Nazi-period diaries, Arnold Heidsieck also discusses Proust-not least his belief in the possibility of recuperating an authentic past, an idea rejected byWalser only to be adopted by the author (arguably) inEin springenderBrunnen. Even the chapters on Ein springenderBrunnen seek to place it 'in perspective': Kathrin Schodel compares itwith Bernhard Schlink's Der Vorleser, while Helmuth Kiesel compares itwith Grass's Die Blechtrommel. Stefan Willer's engaging and insightfulchapter considers how Ein springenderBrunnen utilizes 'procedures of self dissociation' which also characterize Walser's narrative technique; andWilfried van derWill seeks to defend the novel against the charge that it 'ignores' the impact of National Socialism onWasserburg. Michael Hofmann, Robert C. Conard, Wilfried van derWill, Hans-Joachim Hahn, Matthias N. Lorenz, and Caroline Gay all dis cuss the 'Friedenspreisrede' and/or itsreception and short-term or long-term impact. Gay, in fact, implicitly reads it asmarking a caesura indiscourse on Nazism, whose post-i998 forms and shifts she carefully examines. But there is no real agreement among the contributors as towhat Walser's speech represented.Was ita revisionist attempt to exclude Jews fromcontemporary discourse on Nazism (thereby silencing the critical voices of thevictims), or rathera plea foran end to the ritualized memory ofNational Socialism in favour of amore sincere, conscience-based memory of the Nazi past?Was ita nationalistic attempt by a formerly left-wing author to discredit and silence theLeft by unfairly accusing itof imposing amemory regime, or a sincere appeal for amore pluralist discourse in the interests of authenticity?What, for that matter, is 'theconscience' for Walser? And what is the 'trulyauthentic'? This volume provides no answer, which is not surprising, for Walser's all-pervasive ironymakes him impossible topin down. NOTTINGHAMTRENT UNIVERSITY BILL NIVEN Representing East Germany since Unification: From Colonization toNostalgia. By PAULCOOKE. Oxford: Berg. 2005. 236pp. ?I6.99. ISBN 978-I-84520-i89-o. Nearly two decades after the collapse of theGDR, questions persist about how and where memories of theEast are tobe housed. Memory is,of course, problematic be cause it is always already mediated: one can hardly remember things as they actually were, but is instead forced to remember them 'moreor less', and only from today's per spective. Itwould be a shame ifallmemory of theGDR was effaced, yet by definition thepast isalready gone. Today's eighteen-year-oldswere only infantsat the timeof the Wende.What is thepoint of insisting on the relevance and importance of representing GDR experience ifsuchmemories are simply doomed tobe 'put touse' by thepresent? 586 Reviews Paul Cooke's book arrives at this dilemma from a number of differentangles. Fol lowing its methodological firstchapter, itsurveys how theGDR past has been treated by politicians, writers, filmdirectors, television, and the Web. Every bit ofhis enquiry isconducted with attention to theparadigm ofOstalgie, which has become shorthand for whether Germans ought tomiss theGDR and what about it isworth missing. As Cooke points out, notions of 'East Germanness' are key in shaping memories, and theyalso serve todetermine and define the self-image of contemporary Germans, even those who are by no means identifiedwith theGDR past. Cooke asserts that these questions are subject-matter forpostcolonial studies, and here...