Association of Austrian Studies

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Begegnung mit Paul Celan: Erinnerung und Interpretation by Edith
Silbermann
Review by: Jerry Glenn
Source: Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1995), pp. 139-140
Published by: Association of Austrian Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24648444
Accessed: 16-01-2020 00:47 UTC

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 Book Reviews 139

the New Historicists threw out the baby with the bath water; they
accepted the liberal interpretation of these authors' reform
minded and elitist critique of mass culture at face value and
concluded that their novels should be understood as a form of
social coercion, duping the middle class reading public into a
belief in the existence of democratic freedoms that were in fact
being eroded by the very mass culture of which these novels were
a formidable part.
Jumping into the ideological fray with the intent of re
covering the cultural criticism of these novelists for a progressive
cause defined by the reference to Adorno and Benjamin, Suchoff
offers interpretations of Dickens' Little Dorrit (Ch. II), Melville's
White Jacket and Moby Dick (Ch. III), and Kafka's The Castle
(Ch. IV). Given Suchoffs thesis, the potential direction of his
analysis proves to be more promising than what he actually offers
us. I would be willing to grant him his rather heavy reliance on
already existing interpretations of these novels if his correction
of New Historicism would at least acknowledge the differences
between 19th and 20th century sensibilities. Instead, contem
porary American notions of middle class, gender relations, and
diversity are superimposed on these novels in an unnuanced and
oftentimes counterfactual manner. In the Afterword, Suchoff
might argue with Adorno that dialectical thought is "the attempt
to see the new in the old," but a subtle thinker like Adorno could
not have possibly meant by this phrase that the old is identical
with the new.

Kathy Brzovic
Los Angeles, CA

Edith Silbermann, Begegnung mit Paul Celan: Erinnerung und

Interpretation (Aachen: Rimbaud, 1993). 95 pages.

The author, a prominent author and translator, was a

childhood (and lifelong) friend of Celan. The three previously
published essays included here in revised and expanded form
represent model examples of three different kinds of writing. The

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140 MODERN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE

first, "Paul Celan im Kontext der Bukowiner Dichtung," is l

history; the second, "Erinnerungen an Paul Celan," is l
biography; and the third is a poem interpretation: "'Huh
Versuch einer Deutung." A short, unrelated essay by Th
"Blut und Trauer: Zum 'Todesfugen'-Bild von Hans-
Berretz," concludes the volume. There is surely no livin
better qualified to do the biographical chapter, and the o
outstanding as well. She is a competent and engaging li
historian, and a sensitive interpreter of poetry.
There is much useful information on Celan's relatio
to other poets, from his fellow Bukovinan Jews Margul-
Kittner, Gong, and Weißglas, to the Rumanian Argh
Austrian Hofmannsthal, and several others. Silbermann
interesting observations on Celan's relationship to the
Empire, the Hebrew language, and the German language
his political views. She comments on his important tend
isolate groups of friends, a phenomenon that also has sig
for his work. She corrects several errors and misconcept
I would like to offer a modest correction: Celan had left Vienna
before Der Sand aus den Urnen appeared). Only in one place do
I have a serious objection to an interpretation: whereas the
author acknowledges the importance of irony in Celan, she refers
to the poem "Einmal" as one of the very rare expressions of hope
to be found in Celan. I strongly prefer to see this poem as ironic,
and anything but hopeful.
Silbermann is not only essential for anyone interested in
Celan, she is also very readable.

Jerry Glenn
University of Cincinnati

Jennifer Michaels, Franz Werfet and the Critics (Columbia, SC:

Camden House, 1994).

Jennifer Michaels Buch ist Teil der Reihe "Literary Criti

cism in Perspective," die sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Sekundär
literatur über einen oder mehrere Autoren, ein bedeutendes

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