Millennial Memory Perspectives in Jewish American Fiction

Heidi Schorr Diese in englischer Sprache verfasste Dissertation fußt in den Feldern englische Literaturwissenschaft/Amerikanistik, Cultural Studies und Jewish American Studies. Sie untersucht die Repräsentation von Erinnerung in Werken von Jonathan Safran Foer, Shalom Auslander und Nicole Krauss, Mitgliedern der sogenannten third generation jüdisch amerikanischer SchriftstellerInnen, welche um den Millenniumswechsel publizieren. Der Fokus liegt auf Werken von Nicole Krauss. Symbolische Charaktere und Objekte, welche in Verbindung zu Erinnerung stehen, werden herausgearbeitet und im Detail analysiert. This work is rooted in the ﬁ elds of English Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, and Jewish American Studies. It examines memory representation in exemplary works published around the millennial change by third generation Jewish American writers Jonathan Safran Foer, Shalom Auslander, and Nicole Krauss. The focus lies on the latter’s work. Symbolic characters and objects connected to memory are discerned and analyzed in detail. MILLENNIAL MEMORY PERSPECTIVES IN JEWISH PERSPECTIVES MILLENNIAL MEMORY AMERICAN FICTION MILLENNIAL MEMORY PERSPECTIVES IN JEWISH H. Schorr AMERICAN FICTION ISBN 978-3-487-15645-3 OLMS Heidi Schorr Millennial Memory Perspectives in Jewish American Fiction Heidi Schorr Millennial Memory Perspectives in Jewish American Fiction Universitätsverlag Hildesheim Georg Olms Verlag Hildesheim Hildesheim . Zürich . Ne w York 2017 Diese Publikation entstand in Zusammenarbeit von Georg Olms Verlag und Universitätsverlag der Stiftung Universität Hildesheim. Das Werk ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. ISO 9706 Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier Redaktion und Satz: Isaias Witkowski, Universitätsverlag Hildesheim Umschlagfotografie: © Jens Kamke Umschlaggestaltung: Inga Günther, Hildesheim Herstellung: Docupoint Magdeburg, 39179 Barleben Printed in Germany © Georg Olms Verlag AG, Hildesheim 2017 www.olms.de © Universitätsverlag Hildesheim, Hildesheim 2017 Alle Rechte vorbehalten ISBN 978-3-487-15645-3 This work is lovingly dedicated to my husband Florian and to my parents Marianne and Dr. Wolfgang Abstract This work is rooted in the fields of English Literary Studies, Cultural Stud- ies, and Jewish American Studies. It examines memory representation in exemplary works published around the millennial change by third generation Jewish American writers Jonathan Safran Foer, Shalom Auslander, and Nicole Krauss. The focus lies on the latter’s work. Symbolic characters and objects connected to memory are discerned and analyzed in detail. About the Author Heidemarie Schorr was born in Marburg/Lahn in 1976. She studied at Philipps-University Marburg and received her Magistra Artium degree in English Literature, American Studies, and Media Studies in 2003. In 2007 she joined the staff at the department of English Language and Literature at Hildesheim University. She has studied at Millersville University, Pennsyl- vania, and has taught at Georg-August University Göttingen and at the Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The volume at hand was accepted as doctoral thesis (Dr. phil.) by Facul- ty III / Department of English Language and Literature, Hildesheim Uni- versity. It was registered in 2011 and submitted in July 2014 under the title: “The Opposite of Disappearing”: Contemporary Memory Perspectives in Je- wish American Fiction. Content 1 Introduction 11 1.1 Jewish American Literary Tradition 16 1.2 Third Generation Jewish American Writing 20 2 Memory 25 2.1 Memory Studies and Memory Categories 28 2.2 Trauma 31 2.3 Holocaust Trauma, Memory, and Representation 35 2.4 Power Struggles of Memory 39 3 Symbolic Characters and Memory 43 3.1 Ghosts from the Past – Symbolic Holocaust Characters 44 3.1.1 Ghosts in Foer’s Everything is Illuminated 47 3.1.2 Ghosts in Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close 58 3.1.3 Ghosts in Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy 68 3.2 Symbolic Characters and Memory in Krauss’ The History of Love 80 3.2.1 Ghosts and Historiographic Metafiction 82 3.3 Symbolic Writer Characters 93 3.3.1 Writers and Writing in The History of Love 96 3.3.2 Writing as Cathartic Experience 101 3.4 Symbolic Family Characters 108 3.4.1 Traumatic Family Memory 110 3.4.2 Family Memory and Jewish Identity 118 4 Symbolic Objects and Memory 133 4.1 Symbolic Objects and Memory in Krauss’ Great House 134 4.2 The Desk as an Object Symbolic of the Holocaust 136 4.2.1 Symbolic Objects and Silence – Suppressed Holocaust Trauma 139 4.2.2 Collecting Symbolic Objects – Holocaust Trauma and Redemption 145 4.3 The Desk as an Object Symbolic of Writing and Writers 154 4.3.1 Desks as Objects Symbolic of ‘Lives of the Mind’ 155 4.3.2 The Desk as an Object Symbolic of Literary Achievement 162 4.4 Houses and Furniture as Symbolic Family Objects 172 4.4.1 Intra-familial Transgenerational Effects of Holocaust Trauma 172 4.4.2 An Israeli Family and War Trauma 181 5 Conclusion 189 Bibliography 201 1 Introduction This doctoral dissertation is concerned with the analysis of contemporary Jewish American fiction. First of all, this necessitates definitions of the terms Jewish and American. As to what constitutes Jewish American literature, the Norton Anthology of Jewish American Literature by Chametzky et al. delivers a rather inclusive definition that I use as the basis of my work: “Jewish American literature” signifies an American literature that is Jewish: fiction, poetry, drama, memoir and autobiography, commentary, letters, speeches, monologues, song lyrics, humor, translations, and visual narratives created by authors who admit, address, embrace, and contest their Jewish identity, whether religious, historical, ethnic, psychological, political, cultural, textual, or linguistic. (3) Jewish identity, according to this definition, can take on many forms. It can be defined by purely religious means, therefore embracing converts of all ethnic backgrounds, or by purely ethnic or cultural means, not placing focus on religious denomination. In between these two extremes, there are gradual steps. The variety of religious Jewish denominations is equally di- verse, spanning Reform Judaism, Conservatives, Orthodox, and strictly Or- thodox or ultra-Orthodox1 Jews, the Haredim. Places of origin lead to ma- jor differentiations of Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, or Sephardim, Jews who trace their roots to either the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or to the Iberian Peninsula, later scattered to North Africa and the Balkans. An American, in the eyes of Crèvecoeur, in his Letters from an American Farmer, first published in 1782 (see Letter III. “What is an American” in Baym 641-644), for example, is first and foremost a European immigrant (or a descendant of immigrants) to the North American continent. As lim- ited as this definition is from today’s point of view, with regard to all Native American peoples in particular, and later immigrant waves from other parts of the world, Crèvecoeur’s stress on the opportunities awarded by religious and political freedom explains why people came, including the waves of Jewish immigration. The many different categories mentioned in the quote by Chametzky et al. (3) can be extended further by bringing in the factor of language, implied by the term linguistic in the aforementioned quote. Jews in America have been and are writing in English, but also in Ladino, Hebrew, and Yiddish. For an even “broader and more inclusive definition,” Werner Sollors claims that ethnic literature comprises “works written by, about, or for persons 1 a term widely used, however, considered offensive by some within the com- munity 12 Heidi Schorr who perceived themselves, or were perceived by others, as members of ethnic groups” (243). Including the word about extends the definition to literature that is not necessarily written by a Jewish person. The Norton Antholo- gy, in contrast, notably stresses the Jewish identity of the author, however widely that can be defined, which is the definition I use in this work. With a population of between roughly 2% (cf. Mandel Institute) and 2.5% or 5.5 million (Chametzky et al. 7), Jews in the USA are a minority. That is why many anthologies group Jewish American writing with that of other American minorities, e.g. the volume African, Native, and Jewish American Literature and the Reshaping of Modernism (Kent). Berel Lang, in “Hyphen- ated-Jews and the Anxiety of Identity,” points out the significance of the or- der of the words Jewish and American, and guides readers’ attention to the use of the hyphen in the description of hybrid identities. Grammatically, the term used second serves as the noun and is thus stressed in comparison to the first term, used as an adjective. The hyphen is sometimes only implied. “The emergence of new branches of research within literature departments – African-American, Native-American, and Jewish-American Studies – is a sign of the widening range and awareness of what we now call hyphenated identities,” says Aleida Assmann (Introduction 207). Her statement clarifies that this focus on certain, more or less assimilated,

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