"In allem ist der Riss": Trauma, Fragmentation, and the Body in Herta Müller's Prose and

Collages
Author(s): Lyn Marven
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 100, No. 2 (Apr., 2005), pp. 396-411
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3737605
Accessed: 28-11-2015 12:58 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3737605?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern
Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 'IN ALLEM IST DER RISS': TRAUMA,

FRAGMENTATION, AND THE BODY IN

HERTA MULLER'S PROSE AND COLLAGES

Herta Miiller's work is structured by a narrative of trauma, which it articulates

with increasing directness. Trauma characterizes the response to, and con?
tinuing effects of, her experience of repression in Romania; in Miiller's own
words, taken from her first collection of collages, Der Wachter nimmt seinen
Kamm (1993), her work demonstrates 'DaB dies der Osten ist Was im Kopf
nicht aufhort'.1 Currently attracting increasing attention within literary criti?
cism, trauma connects what are often seen as postmodern literary images and
strategies?of fragmentation, alienation, and disruption?with political reality
and historical specificity, lending these aesthetic structures an ethical dimen?
sion.2 Beverly Driver Eddy and Brigid Haines have read two major novels by
Muller through trauma theory. Eddy argues that Herztier (1994) presents both
the limited, personal accounts of testimony and trauma narratives that are lo-
cated within a wider historical and national context; the development of the
one into the other is achieved by means of literary strategies such as the choice
of pronoun and tense, and through imagery.3 Haines shows that the depiction
of a postmodern subjectivity in Reisende auf einem Bein (1989)4 is rooted in
the experience of the traumatized protagonist, Irene; both the narrative repre?
sentation of Irene's psyche and the novel's distinctive style can be traced to
the specific traumas of Romania.5 The present article considers the aesthetic
strategies in Miiller's collages which represent the effects of trauma, and traces
the parallel development of her different modes of artistic production.
As Haines notes, it was not the Ceau?escu regime, but the ethnic German
communities in the rural Banat which provided Miiller's earliest experience of
repression: the author calls her village 'die erste Diktatur, die ich kannte'.6
Reread from the perspective of trauma, Miiller's early texts?Niederungen
(1984), Der Mensch ist ein grofier Fasan auf der Welt (1986), and Barfiifiiger
Februar (1987)?which focus on these constrictive communities, already repre?
sent its effects.7 Their naive narratives, often told from a child's perspective,
display the dissociation, the experience of the self as other, of the traumatized
individual. Similarly, images of the merging of self and world in Niederungen,
which an early article by Claudia Becker related to Romantic tropes and read
1 Der WachternimmtseinenKamm: Vom
Weggehenund Ausscheren(Reinbek bei Hamburg:
Rowohlt, 1993), card 4 [furtherreferencesafterthe abbreviationWK]; all capitals and lack of
punctuationare reproducedas in the original.
2 See the introductionto Trauma: zwischen
Psychoanalyseund kuturellem Deutungsmuster,ed.
by Elisabeth Bronfen,BirgitR. Erdle, and Sigrid Weigel (Cologne: Bohlau, 1999).
3 BeverlyDriver Eddy, 'Testimonyand Trauma in Herta Miiller's Herztier', German
Life and
Letters,53 (2000), 56-72.
4 Berlin: Rotbuch, 1989 [furtherreferencesas
Reisende].
5 Brigid Haines, '"The Unforgettable
Forgotten":The Traces of Trauma in Herta Miiller's
Reisendeauf einemBein\ GermanLife and Letters,55 (2002), 266-81.
6
Brigid Haines and Margaret Littler,'Gesprach mit Herta Miiller', in Herta Muller, ed. by
Brigid Haines (Cardiff:Universityof Wales Press, 1998), pp. 14-24 (p. 17).
7 All threepublished by Rotbuch (Berlin).

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 397

as potentially liberating, display the disrupted body images characteristic of

trauma.8 The texts written and published since Muller left Romania for West
Germany, under pressure, in 1987 evince a change in style and content. Reisende
auf einem Bein depicts the experiences of an immigrant arriving in Berlin from
an unnamed Eastern bloc country. It is a pivotal text in many ways. The 'traces
of trauma' that Haines identifies in the narrative are here associated explicitly
with the political regime in Romania. Reisende auf einem Bein is also the first
piece of work to feature collage?as a motif within the story?and prefigures a
split in Miiller's artistic output into prose texts, which have become increas?
ingly direct depictions of the repression under Ceau?escu, and collages which
reproduce the structures of trauma on a formal level.
Miiller's three novels since 1989?Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jager
(1992), Herztier (1994), and Heute war ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (1997)?
have looked back in time and returned to the town life associated with the
Ceau?ecu regime in their setting.9 They mark Miiller's shift towards 'autofik-
tional' writing (her preferred term), with protagonists and narrators who are
particularly close to her experiences, and express the physical threat and psy?
chological repression within the Romanian state.10 Trauma becomes visible in
the texts' content, and also in the aesthetic of fragmentation which structures
their linguistic and narrative syntax. Heute war ich mir lieber nicht begegnet, the
most recent novel, is set entirely within the space and time of the Ceausescu
regime, suggesting that Muller is increasingly able to focus unflinchingly and
in detail on the repression. This is backed up by the book-length essay Der
Fremde Blick, oder Das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne (1999),11 which details
explicitly and matter-of-factly the daily oppression and fear Muller was subject
to, and also posits this as the source of her literary style.
At the same time as this development towards articulation in fictional and
non-fictional prose, Muller has published collages which take up in visual form
the aesthetic of fragmentation characteristic of trauma. Collages have featured
in her work from 1991 onwards and are becoming a central part of her output.
Her first collages were picture-based, and introduced the poetological essays in
Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel (1991);12 two collections of primarily text-based col?
lages have followed, Der Wachter nimmt seinen Kamm, a boxed set of postcards,
and Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame (2000), a book;13 collages accompany the
'Tubinger Poetik-Vorlesung' in Zukunft! Zukunft? (2000);14 and a selection
of collages was published in the recent text +kritik volume on Muller.I5 It is
8 Claudia
Becker, '"Serapiontisches Prinzip in politischer Manier" ? Wirklichkeits-und
Sprachbilderin Niederungerf, in Die erfundeneWahrnehmung: Annaherungan Herta Muller, ed.
by NorbertOtto Eke (Paderborn: Igel, 1991), pp. 32-41.
9 All published by Rowohlt (Reinbek bei Hamburg) [furtherreferencesto the firstas Fuchs].
10 Herta
Muller,In der Falle (Gottingen:Wallstein,1996), p. 21.
11
Gottingen:Wallstein,1999.
12 Der
Teufelsitztim Spiegel: Wie Wahrnehmung sicherfindet(Berlin: Rotbuch, 1991).
13 Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. As the pages are not numbered,furtherreferenceswill be
given by the abbreviationHD followedby the firstwords,unless textquoted alreadybegins with
the firstwords.
14 'Einmal anfassen?zweimal loslassen', in Zukunft!Zukunft?,ed. by JurgenWertheimer
(Tiibingen: Konkursbuchverlag,2000), pp. 29-40.
15 See also Herta Muller, 'Als der Krieg begann: Zehn Gedicht-Collagen', Glossen,11 (2000)

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
398 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

my contention that Miiller's prose fiction and her collages respectively focus
the content and form of trauma: her novels depict traumatic events and the
processes of traumatization, while the collages codify the structures of frag?
mentation which are an effect of trauma. Miiller's journalistic work and essays
constitute a third distinct strand of writing. Her outspoken moral stance on
other repressive regimes and human-rights issues has attracted criticism for
conflating different regimes; it can also be seen as preserving traumatization in
outrage, for as Henry Krystal observes, 'moral and ethical judgement is often
substituted for self-healingV6 Her oeuvre thus upholds a multiplicity of dif?
ferent responses to trauma as well as demonstrating the different ways in which
trauma may be represented.
Trauma conceptualizes the psychological structures which are formed in re?
sponse to extreme conditions, structures which affect perceptions of the body
as well as use of language and the concept of narrative. It has developed as a
discourse in relation to the history of the twentieth century and its horrors,
but has also attracted increasing attention for its congruence with postmodern
literary devices. The critical theorist Cathy Caruth defines trauma as 'a re?
sponse, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events'.17 Trauma
characterizes the structure of an experience: it lies in being overwhelmed and
in surviving, rather than the event itself. Frequently, it is the result of a con?
frontation with death, but other extreme experiences, such as torture, exile, or
rape, can also induce trauma.18 That Muller began to write directly about the
repression in Romania only after she had left and, more significantly, following
the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime in 1989 demonstrates the belatedness
of traumatic impact.
The effects of trauma take two main, interrelated forms: trauma disrupts
the structures of memory and creates a distorted body image. Trauma can?
not be integrated into narrative memory and exists only as a gap or blank
spot; it therefore cannot be articulated, and returns in the form of surpris?
ingly literal flashbacks, hallucinations, or dreams. Muller evokes this effect
in her 'Tiibinger Poetik Vorlesung', whose title, 'Einmal anfassen ? zweimal
loslassen', already indicates the iterative nature of trauma: 'Die Splitter der
Vergangenheit konnten mir selber nicht so unerhort grell und neu durch die
Gegenwart gehen, wenn ich sie seinerzeit, als sie gelebter Augenblick waren,
durchschaut hatte.'19 Trauma's inaccessibility to memory is defined in almost
literary terms: 'It is not transformed into a story, placed in time. with a begin-

(http://www.dickinson.edu/glossen/) [accessed 26 September 2003], text und quicktime video,

whereMuller reads fromcollage texts.
16
Henry Krystal, 'Trauma and Aging: A Thirty-YearFollow-Up', in Trauma: Explorations
in Memory,ed. and with introductionsby Cathy Caruth (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University
Press, 1995), pp. 76-99 (p. 85). Indicativeof Miiller's stance are the forthright
titlesof newspaper
articlessuch as 'Die Tage werden weitergehen.Nur eine militarischeInterventionkonntejetzt
die serbischeAggressionstoppen' (tageszeitung, 8 September 1992, p. 14).
17 Trauma: Explorationsin
18 Elaine Memory,p. 4.
Scarrylooks at tortureand interrogation,extremeexamples of traumatizingevents;
her analysisof the tortureprocess explains how traumacan affectboth body image and language:
Elaine Scarry,The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmakingof the World(New York: Oxford
UniversityPress, 1985).
19 'Einmal anfassen?zweimal
loslassen', p. 29.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 399

ning, a middle and an end (which is characteristic for narrative memory).'20 The
possibility of overcoming trauma therefore lies in working it into a narrative.
However, the political imperative to put the experience into words in order to
bear witness to it?and Muller is aware of this responsibility, as her journalistic
work shows?runs the risk of diluting its very force. In a recent essay, Muller
poses the question 'Kann Literatur Zeugnis ablegen?'21 Literary representa?
tions of trauma can reproduce its effects: for example, parataxis, characteristic
of Miiller's style, can signal gaps in the syntax of memory. In this way, the ex?
perience can be communicated, while its effects?the evidence of having been
damaged and thus the guarantor of criticism?are preserved. This twofold ex?
pression of experience and effect is further facilitated by the split in Miiller's
output.
Trauma is characterized by a feeling of numbness or dislocation; it affects
the individual's sense of identity, and their perception of their body. Miiller's
corporeal images of trauma centre on three key forms: dissociation, the experi?
ence of the self as other and the splitting of the self into two (or more) elements
or identities; the dissolution ofthe boundaries between the body and the world;
and the fragmentation of the body.22 These manifestations are explicitly linked
to physical threat, specifically to the interrogations detailed in Herztier and
in Heute war ich mir lieber nicht begegnet; the more acute the physical terror,
the more fragmented the body becomes. These forms are also further reflected
in narrative, in the problematic merging of different levels of the text, which
corresponds to the dissolution of boundaries, and in linguistic and narrative
parataxis, which evinces fragmentation. Miiller's collages are the culmination
both of her representations of the body and of these narrative techniques.
Many ofthe poetic effects of Miiller's texts clearly represent traumatic symp?
toms. Trauma is also constitutive of her writing: her style and impetus to write
stern from her experiences, as she explains in Der Fremde Blick. In earlier
poetological essays, the act of writing itself resembles structures of trauma.
Both the body and language are marked by a 'RiB', a figure for the splitting
of the self: 'Gerade durch den RiB, dadurch, daB wir geteilt sind, gehoren un-
sere beiden Halften zusammen. [. . .] Ziige, Bissen, Worte, Griffe, Schritte:
in allem ist der RiB.'23 The 'RiB' is a cipher for the differance which enables
language to function, and for the necessary forgetting which paradoxically un-
derlies memory, as Muller notes: 'das Auslassen ist ein Mittel, ohne das man
uberhaupt nichts erinnern kann'.24 Such structures also bespeak an under?
standing of trauma as part of the subject's coming to language: Judith Butler,
discussing Slavoj 2Sizek, writes of 'the traumatic origination of all things that
20 Bessel A. van der Kolk and Onno von der
Hart, 'The Intrusive Past: The Flexibilityof
Memory and the Engraving of Trauma', in Trauma: Explorationsin Memory,ed. by Caruth,
pp. 158-182 (p. 177).
21 Herta
Muller,'Wenn wirschweigen,werdenwirunangenehm? wennwirreden,werdenwir
lacherlich.Kann LiteraturZeugnis ablegen?', text+ kritik,155 (2002), 6-17.
22 See
SplinteredReflections:Images of the Body in Trauma, ed. by Reina Attias and Jean
Goodwin (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
23 Der Teufelsitztim Spiegel,pp. 75-77.
24 Herta Muller, in Beverley Driver Eddy, '"Die Schule der Angst"? Gesprach mit Herta
Muller, den 14. April 1998', GermanQuarterly,72 (1999), 329-39 (p. 334) [furtherreferencesas
'Schule der Angst'].

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
400 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

signify. This is the trauma, the loss, that signification seeks to cover over only
to displace and enact again.'25 Miiller's strategies thus represent the specific
trauma arising from her experiences of repression and, at the same time, this
more general trauma which is inherent in subject formation. These two levels
may account for Miiller's work, particularly Reisende auf einem Bein, being read
as a representation both of trauma narrative and of postmodern subjectivity,
interpretations which might seem to be mutually incompatible.26
Gaps in Miiller's texts represent this traumatic 'RiB': semantic gaps indicate
unassimilated traumatic events, drawing attention to them even while elid-
ing them, such as the 'execution' of the calf or the maternal violence in the
story 'Niederungen' in Niederungen. Syntactic gaps emphasize stasis, freezing
a moment of perception in time and refusing its incorporation into narrative
memory. These devices represent effects of trauma within the texts' reality (the
effect of violence on the child narrator in 'Niederungen', for example), as well
as forming part of Miiller's political intent: the reader is forced to experience
the same effects, but also to (re)construct links between sentences or episodes,
thus becoming critically engaged.
The 'RiB' also manifests itself in the fragmentation of the body, which in the
later novels is directly linked to the oppression of the Romanian state. In Der
Fuchs war damals schon der Jager, when Adina, who is being pursued by the
Securitate (the Romanian secret police), learns of her friend Clara's relationship
with a Securitate man, Pavel, she experiences her body as autonomous parts:
'ich will dich nicht mehr sehen, schreit Adina, nie wieder. Ihre Hande schlagen
um sich, ihre Augen sind aufgerissen, ihr Blick ist der Jager, springt aus den
Augen und trifft.Was der nasse Mund schreit, ist Glut auf der Zunge' (Fuchs,
p. 223). In an interrogation scene, fragmentation is projected back onto the
outside world. Abi's confusion and fear at the threat of violence are reflected
in the increasingly fragmented, disembodied features of the interrogator and
Pavel (which features belong to whom becomes less and less clear):

Schreib, sagt die Stimme. Die Augen in der Stirn sind hellbraun. Sie drehen sich und
werden dunkel. [...] Unter der Stimme in der Kinnfalte steht eine kleine Schnittwunde.
Sie ist ein paar Tage alt.
Die Tiir geht langsam auf. Die Augen neben der Lampe sind halbgeschlossen. Sie heben
den Blick nicht, sie wissen, wer kommt.
Abi sieht ein Muttermal zwischen Hemdkragen und Ohr [...]. Gesicht ohne Gesicht,27
also hat er sein Gesicht verloren, sagt die Schnittwunde, hebt die Hand an die Stirn.
[. . .] Das Muttermal sitzt neben der Schnittwunde und sieht hinaus durch die Scheibe.
[D]ie hellbraunen Augen sind groB geoffnet und hart. Sie glanzen und sehen Abi an.
Die hellbraunen Augen sind auf seinen Wangen, die ihnen nicht gehoren, in Abis
Fingerspitzen, in seinem Gesicht [...].
Das Muttermal lacht und das Telefon lautet. Die Schnittwunde driickt den Horer an
25 Bodies thatMatter: On theDiscursiveLimits 'Sex'
of (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 199.
26
Compare Brigid Haines's and MargaretLittler's readingsof Reisendeauf einemBein, which
focus respectivelyon trauma and the postmodern: in Haines, 'The UnforgettableForgotten',
and Margaret Littler,'Beyond Alienation:The City in the Novels of Herta Muller and Libuse
Monikova', in Herta Muller, ed. by Haines, pp. 36-56; also theirjoint chapter 'Herta Muller:
Reisendeauf einemBein",in Brigid Haines and MargaretLittler,Contemporary GermanWomen's
Writing:ChangingtheSubject (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2004), pp. 99-117.
27 A line froma banned
poem.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 4OI

die Wange und sagt: nein, ja, was, na wie. Gut. Der Mund fliistertdem Muttermal
ins Ohr, und im Gesicht des Muttermals steht nur das helle Licht und keine Regung.
{Fuchs, pp. 146-49)

This radical metonymy is reproduced in the text by use of the definite article,
which implies that these body parts are autonomous and not part of a person.
While the effects of trauma cannot be escaped, they can be made visible,
and they are increasingly linked to the repressive tactics of the state. In an
interrogation scene in Herztier, the interrogator Pjele makes a list ofthe female
narrator's clothes and possessions; in return, she itemizes her own body:

1 Jacke, 1 Bluse, 1 Hose, 1 Strumpfhose, 1 Hoschen, 1 Paar Schuhe, 1 Paar Ohrgehange,

1 Armbanduhr. Ich war ganz nackt, sagte ich. [. . .]
Alles war aufgeschrieben in Rubriken auf einem Blatt. Mich selber schrieb der Haupt?
mann Pjele nicht auf. Er wird mich einsperren. Es wird auf keiner Liste stehen, daB
ich 1 Stirn, 2 Augen, 2 Ohren, 1 Nase, 2 Lippen, 1 Hals hatte, als ich hierherkam.
[. . .] Ich wollte im Kopf die Liste meines Korpers machen gegen seine Liste. (Herztier,
pp. 144-45)

The two lists show how narrative syntax reflects the imagery of the texts. While
the narrator's itemization can only reproduce the same effect of fragmentation,
this act still allows her to regain a vital sense of agency and resist the state.
Reascribing such structures, and resignifying them, as literary strategies within
the text or on the level of Miiller's own writing becomes one way of putting up
resistance.
One final example of fragmentation within the prose texts cuts across the di?
chotomy of narrative and intratextual physicality: exaggerated, literal instances
of gaps can be seen in the co-ordination of blank spaces in the text. Com?
bined with the manipulation of typography, particularly the capitalization in
Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jager, these show an understanding ofthe text
as a visual, physical artefact which underpins Miiller's collage works.
Collages first feature in Miiller's texts as an image. In Reisende auf einem Bein
Irene produces collages of pictures cut from newspapers, which function as an
expression of her own fragmentary psyche, and as a metaphorical representation
of the contingent nature of her immigrant life. The narrator describes one:

Ein groBer Daumennagel neben einem fahrenden Bus. Eine Armbanduhr neben einem
aufgeriBnen Tor, vor dem Kopfsteinpflaster ins Leerefiihrte. Ein Riesenradmit fliegen-
den Leuten neben einem fernen Wasser. Ein Flugzeug am Himmel neben einer Hand.
Ein Gesicht, das flogvon der Geschwindigkeit neben einem Madchen im Schaukelstuhl.
Eine Hand, die auf den Revolver driickte neben einem Mann, der auf dem Fahrrad durch
das Spiegelbild der Baume fuhr. Ein schreiender Mund, der bis zu den Augen reichte.
Zwei Manner mit Schirmmiitzen, die stehend aufs Wasser schauten. Eine alte Frau, die
auf dem Balkon iiber der Stadt saB. Eine Frau mit schwarzer Sonnenbrille. Ein Toter
im Anzug. Eine Wassermuhle. Ein durchwiihltes Zimmer. (Reisende, pp. 46-47)

The description emphasizes contiguity and highlights the relation between

aesthetic and linguistic syntax. It recalls the parataxis and impoverished syntax
typical of Miiller's impressionistic passages in early texts in Niederungen: verbs
are largely absent, the sentences are not linked, and the description degenerates
into a list of nouns.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
402 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

While the individual pictures seem unrelated, connections do gradually be?

come apparent, and not only in the fact that Irene has brought these images
together. The repeated references to water, and the assonance and alliteration
of 'fliegenden', 'flog', 'Flugzeug', 'Wassermuhle', and 'durchwiihlt', link the
images on the linguistic level. On the level of content, the images, and their
juxtaposition, signal some kind of violence or terror: the revolver, the screaming
mouth, the dead man in a suit; the 'aufgerissenes Tor' and the 'durchwuhltes
Zimmer' point to the activities of the Securitate. Independent body parts are
foregrounded?thumbnail, hand, face, mouth?again highlighting the connec?
tion between the fragmented body and fragmented aesthetic structures. What
also links these pictures, according to the narrator, is their dissociation: 'So
fremd war das Gebilde, daB es den Punkt traf, an dem das Lachen des Madchens
im Schaukelstuhl denselben Abgrund auftat wie der Tote im Anzug' (Reisende,
p. 47). The Abgrund' which opens up in the collage is clearly a cipher for
trauma: Eleanor Kaufman refers to its 'abysslike structure'.28
Muller has since published her own collages. Moving from thematized col?
lages to the production of texts as collage codifies fragmentation as an aesthetic
structure. The connection to Reisende auf einem Bein suggests, moreover, that
collages have for Muller a symbolic and therapeutic function similar to that
which they perform for Irene. Indeed, Muller remarks in an interview:

In der Prosa bin ich noch nie so weit weggekommen, es lahmen mich die Beschadigung
und der Schrecken. Aber hier kann ich raus davon. Es ist ein ganz anderes Feld, da
kann ich auBerhalb davon, ja fast auBerhalb meiner Beschadigungen, meiner ganzen
mitgebrachten Person, in diesen Collagen turnen. ('Schule der Angst', p. 338)

Muller refers elsewhere to her 'mitgebrachte Sprache', the linguistic difference

which marked her out as an outsider within Germany, and as a speaker of
her mother tongue, German.29 Here the phrase is synonymous with 'Bescha?
digung', and evokes the physical dissociation of trauma in the substitution of
'Person' for 'Sprache'.
Andre Breton, in his account of Surrealist collage, emphasizes its capacity
to 'nous depayser en notre propre souvenir'.30 The disorientation Breton in-
vokes is clearly analogous to the effects of trauma, encompassing both a form
of exile?being displaced from one's 'pays'?and a disruption of memory. Col?
lages are further associated with exile and distance in Miiller's work through the
figure of Irene and in the fact that Muller constructs her collages on postcards,
reproduced in the published versions in more or less literal forms.31 Miiller's
collage technique also draws on methods which displace the self as source of
writing, as random selection replaces composition: 'Die Worte der Collagen
28 from the Trauma in Perec's W and Caruth's Unclaimed
'Falling Sky: Experience',Diacritics,
28 (1998), 44-53 (p. 49).
29 Herta Muller,
Hungerund Seide (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1995), p. 32.
30 Quoted in Elza Adamowicz, Surrealist
Collage in Text and Image: DissectingtheExquisite
Corpse(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998), p. 4.
31 Stephan Diippe sees postcards, Irene's
preferredmedium of communication,as a motif
symbolizingdifferance and deterritorialization('Geschick der Schriftals Strategiensubjektiver
Ohnmacht: Zu Herta Miillers poetologischenVorlesungenDer Teufelsitzt im SpiegeV, in Der
Druck der Erfahrungtreibtdie Sprache in die Dichtung:Bildlichkeitin TextenHerta Miillers,ed.
by Ralph Kohnen (Frankfurta.M.: Peter Lang, 1997), pp. 155-69).

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 403

miissen einem nicht einfallen, sie liegen alle gleichzeitig auf dem Tisch. Es ist
eine andere Entscheidung, aus dem Vorhandenen zu nehmen, als wenn man
Worter aus dem Kopf schreibt' ('Schule der Angst', p. 336). Expression is
reduced to a chance encounter: 'es gibt Worter, die mich fangen, die ich aus-
schneide' ('Schule der Angst', p. 337), Muller notes. While this may be true
in earlier collages, it does not appear to be entirely the case in more recent
ones. In Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm, texts are often composed of cut-outs
containing short phrases (apparently from the same source), as indicated here
'
by double quotation marks: "Manner haben ihre" Geheimnisse | Tauchen in
diese | "merkwurdige Mischung aus" | "erdbraunen Uniformen mit viel zu" |
"groBen Schirmmiitzen, unter denen" | Beerenfriichte "mit Stengeln" | "ans
Herz gelegt" sind' (WK, card 21). These phrasal units give a stronger im?
pression of selection rather than composition, with the wording of the original
source text clearly influencing the new version. However, the words in later
texts are more often formed from separate bits; in rare cases, one letter is even
formed from another (r from n).32 Muller explains: 'Und oft, wenn ich ein Wort
brauche, dann weiB ich, ich hab das auf dem Tisch. Und es passiert mir sehr
oft, ich finde es nicht, such eine halbe Stunde und finde es nicht. Und wenn ich
es nicht finde, dann schnipsele ich es zusammen aus verschiedenen Wortteilen
aus dem SpiegeV ('Schule der Angst', p. 337). This tension between chance
and design is further confused in the text + kritik collages (and a couple in Im
Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame), where a shadow outline indicates that the words
have been turned into tiles, suggesting that they were built before, or in, the
process of composition.
Muller sees collages as preparatory work for writing, a form of 'literarische[s]
Handwerk' ('Schule der Angst', p. 338). Indeed, some have been published as
poems, and Muller uses individual phrases in her prose writing.33 The collages
must be considered as artefacts, however, as the sum of the relations between
the verbal and the visual. The early collages in Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel are
relatively simple, based on pictures with a small amount of accompanying text,
and they often interact with the surrounding essays. The collage on page 74 uses
a close-up of a face (male, at an angle and cropped) whose left eye is replaced by
a roughly oval cut-out of a picture of a garden, with superimposed text ('Und
er meint es | nicht'). The collage faces the first page of the essay 'Das Auge
tauscht im Lidschlag', and clearly refers to the title.
Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm consists of 96 numbered postcards in a box,
each card comprising a reproduction of a montage of text, cut out from newspa?
pers, and images ranging from photographs to crude silhouette forms cut from
black paper. The texts embody the notion of fragmentation in their physical
state, visibly staging the 'RiB' in language. The visual format is reminiscent of
ransom notes, adding a slightly sinister, detached air to Miiller's disconcert-
ingly bald wording, an impression heightened by the fact that, as postcards,
32 InHA'Als die Zeit'.
33 'Im Haarknotenwohnteine Dame: Zehn Texte', in Herta Muller, ed. by Haines, contains
severaltextspublished in Im HaarknotenwohnteineDame; see also NorbertOtto Eke, 'Schonheit
der Verwund(er)ung:Herta Miillers Weg zum Gedicht', text+kritik,155 (2002), 64-79, esp. p. 78
n. 29. On phrasestakenup in prose works?notably thetitlesHeute war ichmirliebernichtbegegnet
and Der Konig verneigtsichund totet(Munich: Hanser, 2003)?see 'Schule der Angst', p. 336.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
404 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

these are at least theoretically intended to be sent. The formal experiment at ion
is combined with a highly politicized text, containing many direct references
to political repression and violence in Romania. Texts on the postcards take
up themes familiar from the literary texts, alluding to the secret police and the
complicity of friends, like Tereza in Herztier: 'die Freundin war langst vom
Geheimdienst gekauft das Gehirn nie mehr Eigentum' (WK, card 2); and to
suspicious suicides and murder, the fate of several characters in Herztier:

Das Stockwerk sprang

aus dem Fenster
allein oder Holzfachhand
es kann sein Der Freund
gestorben
(WK, card 34)
daB Freunde keine Selbstmorder sind sondern Dahinter ein Holzmann stand
(WK, card 40)

Repressive conditions are also depicted, through arrests and interrogations?

'morgens um fiinf | wird einer wegen zwei Zeilen verhaftet' (WK, card 26),
'In den taglichen Verhoren will der Vernehmer wissen, ob die | Taube fliehen
wollte, im Gedicht ob sie davon wuBte daB der | Staat eine Holzkiste und das
Land ein Wachsbild im Stiefel ist' (WK, card 36)?as are attempts to flee the
state (also mentioned in the prose texts): 'Freunde die laufen | dem Land zu
entgehen die Hecken | nach oben geflohen, iiber die Grenze | [...] aber gefKichtet
war das nicht | sie gingen um zu bluten | und lagen getotet | im Riicken' (WK,
card 18).
The texts also contain striking images ofthe physical effects of repression; the
dissolution of boundaries between body and world which is an effect of trauma
(and particularly the result of torture) is described graphically and literally:

Aber unser Hirn ist eingeschlossen

und die Haut nicht aus
Buchstaben
dahinter hattet ihr niemals
greifen diirfen
und nicht in den Hintern er war
nichts zum Riechen klebt und
schweigt vor euch so gepreBt wie
die Haare der Maus
nur eines ist wahr Das tat weh
(WK, card 27)

The splitting characteristic of trauma is evoked: 'oder ein Gast in Brand

gesteckt | der doppelt neben seinem Koffer ging | nicht um zu verreisen' (WK,
card 94). In this context other images, whose traumatic nature is less imme?
diately obvious, clearly have the same source: 'der Pulsschlag springt ihr aus
der Hand' (WK, card 88), for example, expresses fear in physical terms. Exile
is also portrayed through its corporeal effects: 'Exil das ist nicht eng | auBer
wenn drinnen in der Stirn die Stimme so laut | wird wie auf dem Flur' (WK,
card 50).

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 405

Gurtel und Hals hat er benutzt

seine Hande losgelassen
locker wie ein Hampelmann
dann heifit es Menschen
die ans Grab
kommen ^
die Stuhle des Toten

solange ihre Schatten auf der Erde

Hegen
muB er im Himmel nicht stehen

Fig. 1. From Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame (2000),

reproduced with kind permission of the author and Rowohlt
Text passages from Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame likewise touch on emi?
gration and war, and several refer to suicide, murder, or death:
der Elektriker blieb mit den Fingern am Draht
iiber dem Tabakfeld hangen
es kam Polizei
mit dem blauen Licht
aus dem Rock des Verungliickten
flogen drei
oder vier wilde Enten ins Gras
man horte sie lachen
daB es ein Unfall war
oder nicht
(HD)

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
406 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

Giirtel und Hals hat er benutzt

seine Hande losgelassen
locker wie ein Hampelmann
(HD; see Figure i)

Texts also contain allusions to the secret police: 'Wenn | ich morgens aufwache |
die Jalousie | vor dem Haus | zwei Manner im Wagen | Schauen durch die
Windschutzscheibe | her zu mir' (HD). These political allusions are countered
by texts told from a child's perspective or referring to imaginary worlds. Some
resemble songs, 'Volkslieder' or children's counting rhymes: 'um sechs fuhr
der Schachzug | um sieben der Frachtzug' (HD), or 'hier steht der Wind | und
dort hangt die Glocke' (HD), where the opposition of hier/dort is repeated
over eight lines. These naive texts are not without their share of horror: in the
latter poem, the second couplet reads 'hier liegt die Leiche | und dort friert
die Socke', and the text 'im Federhaus wohnt ein Hahn' (HD), whose final line
supplies the collection's title, shockingly interrupts the rhyme and repetitive
structure with a reference to suicide.
The collages in this second collection mark a significant shift towards playful-
ness through the use of poetic form, metre, and rhyme. These formal devices,
along with syntax, provide constraints which facilitate, rather than hinder,
poetic associations, and allow Muller to play with the reader's expectations.
The rules of syntax, for example, are subverted by a lack of punctuation, as
well as by the production of phrases which are semantically incoherent, such as
'im schwarzen Hemd die Pappel beim Spazieren | dazwischen muB der Mond in
seinen Fahrstuhl steigen | und seine Hofe schnieden im Erfrieren | und von der
Milch die weiBe Seite stricken' (HD). Taking linguistic games even further, one
text uses only the vowel 'a' (HD, 'Anna war kalt'). Choosing to submit to formal
rules of poetic composition is, for Muller, both a liberating step and a sign of
liberation: 'Ich reime auch in der letzten Zeit. Es ist diese Leichtigkeit. In der
Prosa bin ich noch nie so weit weggekommen' ('Schule der Angst', p. 338).
The text of the first collage employs a dense patterning of end and internal
rhymes:

in den StraBenbaumen saBen

diese durchsichtigen Schneider
und sie nahten Kleider
jeder hatte innen Rader
graustarige Zwirnlangen
an den FiiBen runterhangen
Damenlaub und Herrenstaub
GroBe S und GroBe M und GroBe L
Sargtrager und Wachteljager Ofensetzter Fliesenleger
sprachen wenig aBen schnell
(HD)

Texts set out as prose also contain frequent rhymes, creating tension between
the two formal structures, between the linear narrative and the repetitions of
rhyme. The text on 'Die Sonne war durch' (HD) looks like three paragraphs,
each consisting of a single sentence; it has no regular metre, but contains several
rhymes. The proximity ofthe first rhyming pair prompts the reader to recognize

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 407

subsequent, less obvious rhymes. The final word, 'Ecke', rhymes with the last
word ofthe second sentence/paragraph, 'Decke', and this longer interlocking
rhyme (all the others are couplets) is highlighted by the fact that each word
stands at the end of a paragraph. The visual aspect of rhyme is even stronger
in 'um sechs fuhr der Schachzug' (HD), where the word 'Zug' is repeated in
the end position (in compound nouns) for the first four lines, then in the fifth
is repeated in 'Zwgereister' (my italics) within the line (which additionally has
the internal repetition 'Anzug', positioned directly below 'Aufzug' in the fourth
line); placed at the beginning ofthe word, 'Zug' is only an impure rhyme, with
a different vowel sound, so the repetition relies on being seen, not heard. The
different codes by which meaning is produced?formal, semantic, syntactic,
oral, or visual?interfere with or contradict each other.
Whereas in Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm the words used are relatively
homogeneous in typeface, size, and colour, in Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame
they are more varied, drawing attention to the visual and to the organizing prin?
ciple. Occasionally individual words stand out?due to their different font, size,
or colour?although there appears to be no reason for this. Tension between
the visual suggestion of significance and verbal meaning, or rather meaning-
lessness, is also evident in the prose texts, particularly in Der Fuchs war damals
schon der Jager, where seemingly insignificant phrases are set apart on the page,
such as 'sein Kamm hat blaue Zahne' (Fuchs, p. 85). This refiects the uncer?
tainty and intrinsic absurdity of life in the totalitarian state, where the common
interpretative framework has collapsed.
The pictures in the collages draw on the disrupted body images of trauma.
Splitting, or the doubling ofthe self, is indicated in several forms: two collages in
Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm feature a black silhouette figure together with
the rough outline it was cut out from, resembling a mould or negative image
(in the second collage, the two do not even fit together). 'Giirtel und Hals'
(HD) contains a stylized figure with two pencil-drawn echo outlines, none of
which is completely congruent. A more complex, disconcerting composition
shows three figures cut out from an original image of people, but the head
shape is cut slightly off-centre, so that the heads are blank, although the rest of
the bodies coincide with the original image (HD, 'Vater kommt vom Dienst').
These images express visually the dissociation of the self and body in trauma,
and do so by further drawing attention to different levels of the collage and its
construction.
Roughly a third of the cards in Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm feature
a crude, stylized human figure cut from plain black paper?what one re?
viewer calls the 'Strichmannchen' which 'steht [. . .] kommentierend neben
dem Text'.34 Although recognizably human, these figures are frequently dis?
torted, with missing limbs (arms especially) and disproportionate legs, of un-
even length, in impossible positions: the violence of the repressive regime is
repeated in their deformation. Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame has fewer of
these stylized figures, using more background images instead, although the fi-
34 Nicole Henneberg, 'Jedes Wort ist ein Spiirhund: Herta Muller beobachtet den Eigensinn
von Sprache',Z)er Tagesspiegel,12 August 2000 (http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/ii
.08.2000/
ak-ku-li-ro-i2407.html)[accessed 9 September2003] (para. 2 of 12).

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
408 Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

gure on the cover illustrates the importance of the context (in a literal sense)
for their signification: without the accompanying text, the figure looks as if it
is doing a handstand, or tumbling; read with the text?'der Herr [. . .] | springt
vom Fensterrand | halt die Richtung schief | macht den Gehsteig tief' (HD)?it
appears that it is rather plunging to its death. Pictures of humans also form the
base for cut-outs where the basic form is retained, but manipulated: headless
figures, bodies from the neck or waist down, are common. Images of the body
in both collections are cut in two: a head and neck are separated from the shirt
collar (WK, card 65), and the middle section of a body is removed, giving the
impression that the figure is swimming through carpet (HD, 'der Tag zieht
Aprikosenbacken'). This last indicates the more play fui and considered nature
of the images in the later texts.
Like Irene's, many of Miiller's collages focus on individual body parts, par?
ticularly eyes, mouth, and legs. The lack of proportion, depth, and perspective
is alienating: close-up, cropped facial features, particularly in Der Teufel sitzt
im Spiegel and Der Wachter nimmt seinen Kamm, suggest a disturbing intimacy
together with anonymity, reminiscent of the interrogation scene in Der Fuchs
war damals schon der Jager. Body parts are incongruously isolated objects: two
sets of toes lying on a carpet (HD, 'als die Gabel'), enormous feet protruding
from behind a door (HD, 'hatten so ein schones Haus'), or two pairs of legs
hanging down from a tree (HD, 'der dorfbucklige Tag'). These images recall
the radical metonymy of Miiller's literary texts and her disproportionate focus
on detail,35 an appropriate term which, as Eliane DalMolin reminds us, 'names
the actual gesture of cutting, not just fragmenting or separating but cutting the
body into minute pieces with a sharp object, as the verb detailler signifies in
French: to cut into pieces'.36
Some of the images further resemble the 'cadavre exquis' of Surrealist col?
lage, where a body is suggested through substitute images: a kneeling headless
figure is superimposed on a picture of a jacket, so that the jacket's button
replaces the head (WK, card 11); a reclining torso has a toothbrush (brush,
i.e. head, end) attached where the head would be (HD, 'verriickte Blaumeise
im Staub' = Figure 2). Elza Adamowicz sees such substitutions as a form of
metaphor, and explains that
The cadavre exquis is structured as both a rule and a transgression [...]: the basic rules
governing the articulation ofthe body are followed (head + shoulders + arms . . .), while
the standard lexicon of the body is partly replaced by random elements which flout the
rules of anatomical coherence. (p. 80)

Like the texts in her collages, Miiller's 'cadavres exquis' attend to self-imposed
linguistic rules, while undermining the meaning of the ensemble. However,
while these particular images do uphold the human form, they are interspersed
with images which fundamentally challenge the articulation of the human body
as a discrete, integral entity. Whereas the Surrealists sought to subvert pre-
vailing orthodoxies, Miiller's work reflects a realitv in which the individual
35 See BrigidHaines, ' "Leben wir im Detail": Herta Miiller's Micro-Politicsof
Resistance', in
Herta Muller, ed. by Haines, pp. 109-25.
36 Eliane
DalMolin, CuttingtheBody: RepresentingWomanin Baudelaire's Poetry,Truffaut's
Cinema,and Freud's Psychoanalysis(Ann Arbor:Universityof Michigan Press, 2000), p. 19.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 409

verriickte Blaumeise ffffjl staub

und in den Augen Jalousien
ichglaub derBoden will djch ^^
schieb
gSBB Riegel vor

die Jeichten Zehen kann man sehen

welkt mir mein Grasbiischel im Ohr
und iebt mich und schlaft
jjlt micn

mich fri8t
UJQQJ Herz ^ ?selheu

Fig. 2. From Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame (2000),

reproduced with kind permission of the author and Rowohlt

is already distorted and damaged. The images also recall those in her prose
texts?toothbrushes are a motif in Herztier, as a sign of always being prepared
to be arrested by the Securitate or to flee them.
The basic signifiers of the human form are reduced to a head and a pair
of legs and feet, from which peculiar hybrid, grotesque objects emerge:37 the
collage 'gezeugt hat mich doch einer' (HD) shows a table-like composition
with a tree in the middle and a pair of feet in each corner; other images suggest
crosses between a human and a trumpet, or a human and a lamp (HD, 'der
Mann vom Tiefbauamt' and 'auBerdem haben zwei Quitten' respectively). In
this latter image, the outline of the shape suggests the human body, while the
37 The bodies in Miiller's collages draw on several featuresof the grotesque as analysed by
WolfgangKayser in Das Groteske:Seine Gestaltungin Malerei undDichtung(Oldenburg: Stalling,
1957) and also by Mikhail Bakhtin,Rabelais and his World,trans.by Helene Iswolsky(Bloom-
ington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1965), such as hybridcombinationsof the human and animal
or human and non-organicobject. Central manifestationsof the grotesque resemblethe effectsof
trauma:distortedbodies, or ones whichcall into question the stabilityof the body's borders.The
grotesque is the externalcounterpartto trauma's internaldisorder;what is imaginedin traumais
representedvisiblyand literallyin the grotesque.That Miiller's collages draw on grotesqueforms
is one sign thatthe damage which is constitutiveof her workis no longeroverwhelmingand that
Muller is distanced fromits effects.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
41 o Herta Miiller's Prose and Collages

picture from which the shape is cut features a lamp, demonstrating another form
of visual interference in the collages, that between the original image and its
transformed shape in Miiller's collage. These different representational levels
are frequently incongruous: human figures are cut from images of woodwork,
a paper aeroplane (which resembles a cloak in the new image: HD, 'wenn alle
gegangen sind'), and fields (with a rabbit sitting in what would be the brain:
HD, 'kurz darauf sagt Barbara')?this latter eerily recalling the fate of those
people who tried to flee over the borders and were shot. Images of people are
transformed into new objects: a sleeping (dead?) man underlies the silhouette
of a dog (the 'Heimwehhund' referred to in the text: HD, 'und der nicht mehr
zu Hause war'), a close-up of a nose becomes a pear, an ear is the shell of a snail.
Muller plays with the two levels of image: one collage shows a photograph of
a landscape placed 'inside' one of a cup, acting as the image reflected on the
surface of the drink; reflections are further referred to in the text: 'die Pferde
trinken am FluB | weil sie im Wasser den Himmel sehen' (HD). The double
vision which the collages demand is further disrupted by the rough or torn edges
and obvious scissor cuts which foreground the visible signs of production.
Some texts in Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm also have a mise en abyme
effect, demonstrating Miiller's awareness ofthe collage as an artefact: cards 44-
46 feature a black crayoned rectangle, which appears to be a reproduced, and
reduced, image of another postcard; another card is the image of a card which
has had a bit torn out to reveal another image underneath. Of course, all of Der
Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm works in this way: the cards are reproductions
of original collages constructed on postcards. There are further self-conscious
references to the card as object in the reader's hands: on card 43 the text reads,
'eine Hand halt eine Karte', and on 44, changing from portrait to landscape
format, 'Ich drehe die Karte um'. In Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm the text
layout is less conventional and departs from literary lines, and text and image
also interact spatially. Card 59 shows two small male figures from the hips up,
one placed upside down directly underneath the other; the figures are separated
by text, which reads 'Noch einmal, weil's so schon war' and, underneath the
second figure, 'nach unten', referring to the images as they stand on the card.
The interaction of text and image in the collages varies, and the relationship
between the visual and the verbal varies between incongruous juxtaposition and
productive dialectic. Some images clearly relate to the words of the accompany-
ing text, such as the picture of two dogs on paving, which, somewhat comically,
illustrates the text 'Dieser Mann hat Hunde gesehen | wo noch keine sind' (WK,
card 80). Others have no obvious connection to the text, such as the watermelon
accompanying the text on 'und in der einen Hand' (HD)?which is, however,
the same colour as some of the words?or the many stylized human figures in
both collections. Both the subordination of image to text (as illustration) and
the absence of a link between the two reinforce the distinction between the
verbal and the visual, characterizing their relation as one of incongruity and
interference.
Miiller's collages, simple as they are, share themes and structures with the
prose texts, extending her representations of trauma into more literal forms.
The collages develop the notion of fragmentation and foreground the kind of

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 LYN MARVEN 411

interaction between different levels of the work which derives from the dissolu?
tion of boundaries. Elements of the grotesque and the poetic devices in the texts
mark a move away from the subjective effect of trauma to an external viewpoint
and, as a result, the collages have taken on an aspect of playfulness. That these
lighter touches sit among implied horrors?within the collages themselves, but
also within Miiller's oeuvre?serves in turn to emphasize the irreconcilability
of these different responses, and their traumatic origin. This playfulness on
Miiller's part may not be enough to counter the authoritarian, homogeniz-
ing tendencies which Ricarda Schmidt identifies in her use of metaphor in
Herztier:38 just as Muller claims not to be directing composition while in fact
exerting a high degree of control over the apparently random choice of words,
so it is also the case that the interpretative freedom of the reader of these col?
lages is none the less constrained, not least by the obvious links to the themes
and imagery of the prose texts.
Miiller's most recent prose and collage publications demonstrate a tentative
convergence and a shift towards narrative, which might actually signal the pos?
sibility of overcoming trauma. Heute war ich mir lieber nicht begegnet is her
most conventional narrative, rejecting the paratactic, episodic structure of the
earlier texts in favour of an ordered, dynamic plot; Grazziella Predoiu suggests
that Miiller's later works show a similar development on a linguistic level, in?
creasingly moving away Von parataktischen Satzen zu kompliziert gebauten
Satzgefiigen'.39 Whereas the form of Der Wdchter nimmt seinen Kamm empha?
sized fragmentation?although the postcards are numbered, the boxed format
clearly allows for random reordering, as well as the fact that the collection might
be broken up and the cards posted?the collages in Im Haarknoten wohnt eine
Dame return to narrative in two ways: the collages are presented again in book
form, albeit without page numbers, reinstating a form of order; and the texts
in the collages also introduce poetic form as a structuring device. The insistent
rhythm of many of the texts creates a form of dynamic and movement towards
a climax; and other texts display tendencies towards plot, such as the songs or
counting rhymes, for example, which set up structures which similarly consti-
tute a primitive, but clearly visible, narrative drive.
The collages remain central to Miiller's oeuvre, feeding into her prose work,
and thus forming part of a wider narrative. Perhaps freed from the necessity
of preserving the forms of trauma, or perhaps liberated by the developments
enabled by the collages, Miiller's prose continues to depict the horrors of the
Ceau?escu regime?and bear witness to the further effects of repression?in
increasingly readable form; while the collages too take tentative steps towards
narrative form, which suggests that there may be some way to overcome the
trauma that underlies their aesthetic of fragmentation.

Jesus College, Oxford Lyn Marven

38 'Metapher,Metonymieund Moral: Herta Miillers Herztier\ in Herta Muller, ed.
by Haines,
PP- 57-74, esp. p. 72.
39 FaszinationundProvokationbeiHerta Muller
(Frankfurta.M.: Peter Lang, 2001), p. 186. See
also Haines, 'Leben wir im Detail', p. 118.

This content downloaded from 137.132.123.69 on Sat, 28 Nov 2015 12:58:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions