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Berlin in English-Language Fiction, 1989-2009: Spatial Representation and the Dynamics of Memory

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Berlin in English-Language Fiction, 1989-2009: Spatial Representation and the Dynamics of Memory Berlin in English-language Fiction, 1989-2009: Spatial Representation and the Dynamics of Memory Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Paul O’Hanrahan May 2014 Berlin in English-language Fiction, 1989-2009: Spatial Representation and the Dynamics of Memory Paul O’Hanrahan, University of Liverpool Abstract This thesis sets out to define the field of Berlin English-language fiction since 1989 by identifying its distinctive forms of representation of space and memory. The post-Wall Berlin thriller can be characterised as a literary category based on genre combinations and a turn to the past. Distinct spatial iconographies emerge in thrillers representing Nazi Berlin, post-war „rubble Berlin‟ and the divided Cold War period; even the twenty-first-century city is related to 1920s cabarets. Applying Huyssen‟s observations on Berlin as a palimpsest of dynamic relations between past and present, I show that the Berlin thriller‟s concern with memory is responsive to contemporary uncertainties in the decades following the fall of the Wall. I proceed to compare British perspectives on divided Berlin in novels with thriller associations by Ian McEwan, John le Carré and James Lasdun. I posit that British involvement in the shared governance of divided Berlin during the Cold War era has fostered a special nostalgia for the city which has influenced the intimacy with which these authors represent the city. Through analysis of spatial relations with both parts of the divided city, I reveal unexpected British affinities with East Berlin, ambivalent memories of the Wall and regret at its fall. McEwan‟s detailed psychological mapping of topography illustrates how ruins and abandoned space can preserve memory and challenge Nora‟s definition of the memory site as a compensatory form. The contemporary, post-unification city is represented in a sample of novels from a wider Anglophone context. The transitory nature of the visitor narrative is challenged by the growing awareness of the city‟s memory which informs Berlin novels by American author, Anna Winger, Mexican novelist, Chloe Ardijis and Irish-German author, Hugo Hamilton. Contrasts between insider and outsider relationships with the city are explored and related to representations of peripheral space. A new emphasis on the greening of Berlin is related to eco-critical perspectives: the prospect of emergence from a traumatic past, as signalled by Hamilton is countered by the premonitions of its return as a haunting presence in Aridjis. The diversity of representations of the past in English-language Berlin fiction since 1989 has been driven by the dynamics of the end-of-era perspective created by the fall of the Wall. I show how a seeming tendency towards detachment from post-unification Berlin contrasts with continuing engagement with memory sites in the contemporary city. Table of Contents Introduction: Reconstructing Berlin 1 Aims and Objectives 9 2 Research Context: English-Language Berlin fiction 12 3 Research Questions 25 4 The Publication Period in Context: 1989-2009 and Changing Perspectives 29 after the Wall 5 Thesis Methodology 33 Spatial Theory: from the Urban to the Utopian 34 Berlin Memory Studies 43 Spatial Memory: Nora, Huyssen and Berlin 48 Genre and the Berlin Thriller 55 6 Key Terms (Genre Hybridisation, Space) and Thesis Structure 62 Chapter One. Reconnecting Memories: the Berlin Thriller after the Wall Introduction: The Turn to the Past and Thriller Verisimilitude 68 1 Nazi Berlin and the Appropriation of Space in Robert Harris, Fatherland 74 and Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir 2 Memories of Reconstruction in „Rubble Berlin‟ Thrillers: Joseph Kanon, 90 The Good German, Dan Vyleta, Pavel & I and Philip Kerr, A German Requiem 3 Cold War Nostalgia and Spatial Memory in Len Deighton‟s Spy Trilogies 101 and Henry Porter, Brandenburg 4 Weimar Memory and Contemporary Berlin in Louise Welsh, The Bullet 119 Trick and Michael Mirolla, Berlin 5 Continuity and Rupture: the Adlon, Alexanderplatz and Berlin‟s Lakes 126 Conclusion 134 Chapter Two. Memory of Belonging: Divided Berlin in Ian McEwan’s The Innocent and Black Dogs, John le Carré’s Absolute Friends and James Lasdun’s Seven Lies Introduction: Mapping Memory in British Berlin Fiction 143 1 Divided Berlin and Britain: Border Crossing in The Innocent 146 2 The Difference between Berlin and London: Absolute Friends and The 157 Innocent 3 The End of the Special Relationship: British Nostalgia for the Wall in le 163 Carré and McEwan 4 British Memory in Berlin: Absolute Friends 169 5 Returns to Berlin: Spatial Memory in Seven Lies, The Innocent and 176 Black Dogs 6 Fall of the Wall and British Regret: Black Dogs 192 Conclusion 200 Chapter Three. Recovering Memory in Contemporary Berlin Novels by Anna Winger, Chloe Aridjis and Hugo Hamilton Introduction: Contemporary Berlin Fiction Before and After the Wall 205 1 Visitors and Memories in the „New Berlin‟: Anna Winger, This Must Be the 212 Place and Chloe Aridjis, Book of Clouds 2 The Insider Outside Berlin: Hugo Hamilton, Surrogate City and 226 The Love Test 3 Forgetting and Remembering the Wall: Berlin as Prison 242 4 Berlin as Refuge 254 5 Trees in the City and the Orchard Outside: Green Berlin in Hamilton‟s, 263 Disguise 6 The Turn to the Past: Memory as Rite of Passage 273 Conclusion 280 Conclusion: The Reinvention of Berlin and the Challenge of Memory 287 Bibliography 307 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the University of Liverpool Department of Cultures Languages and Area Studies, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), in funding this research. A bursary from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) enabled me to make a rewarding visit to Berlin in 2011. I would particularly like to thank my academic supervisors, Dr. Lyn Marven and Professor Charles Forsdick, for their advice and guidance throughout the writing of this thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude to Mary Cloake, Eberhard Bort, Aldwyn Dias and my mother, Nuala O‟Hanrahan, all of whom helped me in various ways to bring this work to completion. Abbreviations Page references to the editions of the following novels are indicated by the initials designated here. (LI) Margot Abbott, The Last Innocent Hour (New York: St. Martin‟s, 1993) (C) Chloe Aridjis, Book of Clouds (London: Chatto and Windus, 2009) (MD) Eleanor Bailey, Marlene Dietrich Lived Here (London: Black Swan, 2002) (B) Henry Porter, Brandenburg (London: Orion, 2005) (G) John Buchan, Greenmantle, first published 1916 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) (FA) Len Deighton, Faith (London: HarperCollins, 1996) (H) ___, Hope (London: HarperCollins, 1996) (L) ___, Spy Line (London: Grafton, 1990) (LM) Gaylord Dold, The Last Man in Berlin (Naperville, IL: 2003) (Z) David Downing, Zoo Station (New York: Soho, 2007) (SB) Dan Fesperman, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows (London: Black Swan, 2004) (BC) Tom Gabbay, The Berlin Conspiracy (New York: Harper, 2007) (D) Hugo Hamilton, Disguise (London: Fourth Estate, 2008) (SC) ___, Surrogate City (London: Faber, 1990) (TLS) ___, The Last Shot (London: Harper Perennial, 2006) (LT) ___, The Love Test (London, Faber, 1995) (SW) ___, The Sailor in the Wardrobe (London: Fourth Estate, 2006) (SG) Georgina Harding, The Spy Game (London: Bloomsbury, 2009) (F) Robert Harris, Fatherland (London: Arrow, 1993) (P) Philip Hensher, Pleasured (London: Chatto and Windus, 1998) (WB) Ward Just, The Weather in Berlin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002) (BN) Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir (London: Penguin, 1993) (DRN) ___, If the Dead Rise Not (London: Quercus, 2009) (TO) ___, The One from the Other (London: Quercus, 2008) (AF) John le Carré, Absolute Friends (London: Coronet, 2004) (SP) ___, Smiley’s People, first published 1979 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980) (TS) ___, The Secret Pilgrim, first published (London: Sceptre, 2009) (SWC) ___, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, first published 1963, (London: Sceptre, 2006) (SL) James Lasdun, Seven Lies (London: W.W. Norton, 2005) (CS) Jason Lutes, Berlin: City of Stones, Book One (Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, 2000) (RB) Cym Lowell, Riddle of Berlin (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2008) (BD) Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (London: Vintage, 1992) (TI) ___, The Innocent (London: Vintage, 1990) (WT) John Marks, War Torn (New York: Riverhead, 2003) (DE) Tim Powers, Declare, first published 2001(London: Corvus, 2010) (VS) Craig Russell, The Valkyrie Song, first published 2008 (London: Arrow 2010) (NC) Robert Ryan, Night Crossing (London: Review, 2004) (EB) Tim Sebastian, Exit Berlin (London: Bantam, 1992) (SS) ___, Spy Shadow (London: Bantam, 1990) (EG) Philip Sington, The Einstein Girl (London: Harvill Secker, 2009) (PI) Dan Vyleta, Pavel & I (London: Bloomsbury, 2009) (BT) Louise Welsh, The Bullet Trick (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2006) 9 Introduction: Reconstructing Berlin 1. Aims and Objectives Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the growth in English-language fiction set in the city has served to underscore the need for scholarly interpretations of this body of work and for an English-language counterpart to the considerable body of scholarship on native, German-language Berlin fiction published after 1989.1 Berlin‟s association with English-language fiction goes back to a visit to the First World War city in John Buchan‟s Greenmantle (1916); this novel also happens to be a spy thriller. The relationship between the city and the 1930s novels of Christopher Isherwood is also well established. However, the English-language representation of Berlin has received little scholarly attention. This thesis endeavours to address this deficit by showing how the field of Berlin English-language fiction since the fall of the Wall in 1989 can be defined by its distinctive representation of space and memory. The corpus is comprised of Berlin fiction in general and the Berlin thriller in particular: this is in recognition of the seminal role played by the thriller in shaping the connection between English-language fiction and Berlin.
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