LITERATURE, 1945 to the PRESENT DAY by Joanne Leal, Lecturer in German, Birkbeck College, University of London
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LITERATURE, 1945 TO THE PRESENT DAY By Joanne Leal, Lecturer in German, Birkbeck College, University of London . General The City in Literature. ‘Weltfabrik Berlin.’ Eine Metropole als Sujet der Literatur, ed. Matthias Harder and Almut Hille, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 306 pp., is intended to provide an insight into Berlin literature and culture for readers located outside Germany, and thus the majority of its contributions offer generally stimulating introductions to or overviews of their subject. The editors open the volume with a useful historical survey of ‘literarisches Berlin und Stadtentwicklung’ from the 7th c. to the present day (9–34). Of the remaining 6 essays, 7 focus on the post-war period. H. Peitsch (8– 204) identifies a number of recurring topoi in Berlin literature from both East and West from the 940s to the 970s. M. von Engelhardt (205–24) explores depictions of the Wall, the representation of West Berlin as the FRG’s ‘Kulturhauptstadt’ and East Berlin as ‘Hauptstadt der DDR’ in the literature of the 970s and 980s. J. Loescher (225–38) analyses contributions to the 995 anthology ‘Berliner Geschichten’ with particular reference to stories by Martin Stade and Klaus Schlesinger. A. Hille (239–56) explores representations of Berlin in texts by (post-) migrant writers like Aras Ören, Feridun Zaimoğlu, Zafer Şenocak, Yadé Kara, and Emine Sevgi Özdamar. S. Fischer-Kania (257–72) also examines an ‘outsider’ perspective on the city, reading Wladimir Kaminer’s Russendisko and Schönhauser Allee. T. Jung (273–86) investigates the extent to which the Berlin film Sonnenallee is able to offer an alternative to official Wende discourses. And H.-J. Hahn (287– 302) explores Berlin as an ‘Erinnerungsort’, suggesting ways in which a visitor to the city might approach its monuments and memorials to the National Socialist past. Matthias Keidel, Die Wiederkehr der Flaneure. Literarische Flanerie und flanierendes Denken zwischen Wahrnehmung und Reflexion (Ep, 536), 25 pp., makes a lively and convincing case for identifying the flâneur as a significant figure within contemporary fiction. The study opens with a typology of flâneur figures from 820 to 933 with particular reference in the German context to Franz Hessel, Siegfried 782 German Studies Kracauer, and Walter Benjamin. Benjamin is acknowledged as the most important influence on the flâneur’s later manifestations but his conception of the figure is shown to be too limited to do justice to examples of ‘Flaneure’ and ‘flanierendes Denken’ in contemporary German city texts. The study establishes the formal criteria and thematic constants which define contemporary examples of flâneur literature but also demonstrates how in each decade from the 970s onwards, the point at which a new literary interest in the city emerges, ‘Flanerie’ takes on a distinct character. Rolf Dieter Brinkmann’s Rom. Blicke and various texts about the city by Peter Handke stand as examples of a concern in the 970s with ‘Verfallsbeschreibung und kritischer Bestandsaufnahme’. The flâneur as a figure alienated from his environment is less characteristic of texts from the 980s which, as the readings of Botho Strauss’s Paare, Passanten and Bodo Morshäuser’s Die Berliner Simulation demonstrate, are more concerned to combat the ahistoricity of the modern city. Finally, novels from the 990s — Richard Wagner’s In der Hand von Frauen and Giancarlos Koffer, Jochen Schimmang’s Vertrautes Gelände, Besetzte Stadt, and Cees Nooteboom’s Allerseelen — are shown to be highly aware of a tradition of a literary ‘Flanerie’ which they make productive for the construction of their own flâneur. I. Stephan, ‘Berlin-Babylon. Multilingualität und Multikulturalität in Berlin-Texten nach 989’, AGGSA, 33, 2005:93–0. F. Bolln, ‘Stadt und Architektur bei Brigitte Reimann und Irmtraud Morgner’, pp. 43–58 of Zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie. Die Metropole als kultureller und ästhetischer Erfahrungsraum, ed. Christian Moser et al., Bielefeld, Aisthesis, 2005, 39 pp. Literature and Violence. Violence, Culture and Identity. Essays on German and Austrian Literature, Politics and Society, ed. Helen Chambers (Cultural Identity Studies, ) Oxford, Lang, 432 pp. Essays on the post-war period include: M. Sargeant on literary depictions of the Second World War soldier in relation to memory politics after 945 (24–58); M. Cosgrove on Albert Drach’s autobiographical Holocaust novels (259–70); C. Flanagan on intellectual debates in Germany at moments of political and social upheaval in 945 and 989 (27–86); S. Colvin on the relationship between (gendered) identity, violence, and language in Ulrike Meinhof’s prison correspondence (287–305); V. Langbehn on discourses of violence and the student movement in Gert Heidenreich’s play Füchse Jagen’ (307–25); H. Pedersen on terrorism as drama and theatrical representations of terrorism (327–42); R. Beard on the development of the relationship between language .