Moments of Rupture: Narratological Readings of Contemporary German Literature Olivia Albiero A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Brigitte Prutti, Chair Richard T. Gray Sabine Wilke Susan L. Gaylard Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Germanics ©Copyright 2016 Olivia Albiero University of Washington Abstract Moments of Rupture: Narratological Readings of Contemporary German Literature Olivia Albiero Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Brigitte Prutti Germanics “Moments of Rupture: Narratological Readings of Contemporary German Literature” explores the representation of disruptive moments in contemporary German novels using a narratological framework of analysis. Joining the larger conversation on narrative practices in contemporary German literature, the dissertation focuses on key questions of literary form, narration and storytelling in four major novels published at the beginning of the twenty-first century: Christoph Ransmayr’s Der fliegende Berg (2006), Wolfgang Herrndorf’s Sand (2011), Lutz Seiler’s Kruso (2014) and Saša Stanišić’s Vor dem Fest (2014). The project investigates the use of narrative elements to relate, mend and overcome moments of personal, hermeneutical, political and social rupture. By drawing on influential works of narratology, from Aristotle’s early narratology to pertinent contemporary theories (e.g. Bakhtin, Brooks, Fludernik, Genette, Phelan), my study shows how narratives shape and are in turn shaped by the ruptures they describe. Chapters are organized around key narrative categories, which serve to explore one literary text. The opening chapter discusses the significance of time and space in Der fliegende Berg. It shows how a moment of personal rupture is reflected in the transitions between physical, virtual and mythological times and spaces, and in the encounters that characterize them. Chapter two investigates the plotting of Sand. It examines the tension between (re)cognition and mistakes, between understanding and utter bafflement both on the level of diegesis and of reading. Chapter three examines the characters in Kruso. It shows how the relationship between the main figures translates into a political allegory, which stands for the failure of a utopian project and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The final chapter explores the features of the plural voice in Vor dem Fest and its role in preserving a post-socialist community affected by slow decline and the death of its storyteller. Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the support I received throughout the years. My first thank you goes out to the Department of Germanics at UW, which provided generous funding and advice during my time in the graduate program. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Prof. Brigitte Prutti, for guiding me from the first stages of this project, for pushing me to trust the process of writing, and for especially encouraging me in the last phase. Thank you to Prof. Sabine Wilke, who advised and supported me in her multiple roles as chair, graduate advisor and leader of the writing colloquium. Her answers and help were invaluable. Thank you to Prof. Rick Gray for helping me become a better writer and thinker since the first seminar I took with him. Thank you to Prof. Eric Ames for the many hours he dedicated to the writing colloquium, and for teaching me the importance of the “So what?” question. I was extremely lucky to share my time in the Department with some wonderful graduate students, whom I consider my academic family and who contributed feedback and ideas at different stages of this project. Thank you to: Verena, for cheering for me on every single endeavour, inside and outside of academia; Jasmin, for her academic companionship and continuous affection; Gloria, for her advice and friendship; Kristina, whose sincere words and good humor will stay with me; Tommy, one of the most dedicated proofreaders I have ever met; Seth, for his intellectual curiosity and his joyful laugh; Nathan, who always had a good word and the best English synonym; Justin, for being a cheerful, supportive presence. Thanks to all my dearest friends outside of the Department, who put up with my busy writing times and always believed I could finish this project. Thank you to my mum and my brother for their never-ending love and encouragement. And a very special thanks to my biggest supporter, my fondest adventure companion, and the love of my life, Andrea, who made it through graduate school with me. This project could not be what it is without him. For my dad, who, I am sure, would rejoice in seeing the completion of this dissertation. Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One - Between Life and Death: Time, Space and Chronotopes in Christoph Ransmayr’s Der fliegende Berg .............................................................................. 22 Chapter Two - Contamination, Mistakes and Mis(re)cognitions: Plotting in Wolfgang Herrndorf's Sand ........................................................................................ 78 Chapter Three - Characters’ Progression as Political Allegory in Lutz Seiler’s Kruso .............. 132 Chapter Four - Voicing the Community: We-Voice and Storytelling in Saša Stanišić’s Vor dem Fest ...................................................... 188 Epilogue ...................................................................................................................................... 246 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 250 1 Introduction Narrative is about problem solving. Narrative is about conflict. Narrative is about interpersonal relations. Narrative is about human experience. Narrative is about the temporality of existence. (Ryan, “Toward a Definition of Narrative” 24) Narratives are ubiquitous in contemporary society. The stories we tell ourselves, the accounts we give to others, the way we present our lives: all these forms of narration attest to the centrality of storytelling in everyday experience. Humans appear to be natural storytellers, who use narratives to present and comprehend life events. At the beginning of Wahrheit und Erfindung, his recent volume on narrative theory, Albrecht Koschorke introduces the concept of homo narrans. The concept goes back to Walter Fisher, who, in connection to the “narrative turn” in the social sciences, proposed to apply the narrative paradigm to communication theories.1 In support of this new approach, he writes: “human beings are inherently storytellers who have a natural capacity to recognize the coherence and fidelity of stories they tell and experience. I suggest that we experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflicts, characters, beginnings, middles, and ends” (qtd. in Koschorke 401n4). The categories mentioned by Fisher—temporality, events, characters, plot—were already part of Aristotle’s Poetics and still inform our understanding of what a narrative is today. A look at the definition of the word “narrate” reveals how narration signifies more than the act of telling. According to the OED, the word comes from the Latin narrare “to relate, recount, in post-classical Latin also to plead in a court of law [. .], to recite the verdict of a jury [. .], related to gnārus knowing, skilled” (“Narrate”). As the definition shows, the word has a 1 See Keen for a concise account of the narrative turn and its impact (11-12). 2 complex etymology and extends to the idea of truth and knowledge. Narrating is linked to the possibility of knowing and explaining, of getting to the heart of things. As Peter Brooks explains: “’While I think the term has been trivialized through overuse, I believe the overuse responds to a recognition that narrative is one of the principal ways we organize our experience of the world – a part of our cognitive tool kit that was long neglected by psychologists and philosophers’” (qtd. in Ryan “Toward a definition” 22). The organization of the experience of the world, which lies at the basis of the act of narration, often reflects the need to come to terms with events that are difficult to define or describe, or which originate from an ungraspable moment. In this regard, narratives often tell stories that unsettle the narrator, the narrative itself, and the reader. This dissertation explores works of contemporary German literature that narrate destabilizing experiences, in which everything comes to a halt. These “moments of rupture,” as the title of my project defines them, take up different forms and meaning, and when put into words, yield interesting narratives. Rupture indicates a break, physical or figurative, usually related to a traumatic event. In its broader meaning, it refers, for example, to a tear or split on the level of skin of tissue; or a break on the surface of the earth, due to an earthquake. It also indicates a “breach of continuity; interruption; an instance of this.” It may indicate the outbreak of hostilities “between individuals, groups or nations; a rift, a separation” (“Rupture” OED). To the best of my knowledge, there is no cohesive conceptualization of the term in literature or cultural studies. The term is often used outside of the literary