Language:
English
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of European Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
29,3 (1999) 249-267
Keywords:
Amis, Martin.
;
Schlink, Bernhard.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
Abstract:
This study takes its departure from the philosophies of Theodor Adorno, Jean-François Lyotard, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and their views about the Holocaust as a caesura or radical break in values. Both Amis's "Time's Arrow" (1991) and Schlink's "The Reader" (1997) deal with the Holocaust indirectly, with Jewish victims basically "offstage". Nevertheless, these two novels express the caesura of our times. Amis's book presents a disorientation of space, time, and understanding that reflects the radical evil of Auschwitz. This is symbolized by a Nazi doctor whose experiments in Auschwitz are succeeded by his treatment of people as subhuman after the war. Schlink's "The Reader" also deals with a female perpetrator who was responsible for many deaths at Auschwitz. But in this book, the impact of the caesura is relativized and loses its status as a rupture. In both novels society is depicted as relativizing and normalizing radical evil, which continues even after the Holocaust.
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