Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Dnevnici, snevnici, rječnici by Irena Lukšić

2010; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 84; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2010.0268

1945-8134

Nikita Nankov,

Eastern European Communism and Reforms

w > w & Z i?i w O H ?( hJ ? O the shifting.The poem "In Praise of Praise" lauds thisbeautiful, compli cated world: "Praise praise?I throw myself into your orbit / chanting, chanting, and when Ipause / you'll know your horizon's edge / Praise that good ..." Similarly, the book concludes with "Poem" (forwhat else is a poem but an act of attention and love, an act of praise?), where the poet asks: "What else can I do but lovewhat fades? /Having seen itgone and having seen it return / what else can I do but see the ele ments / in your blood and skin?" Indeed, this is Khaled Mattawa's call in Amorisco, to "see the ele ments," to accept their mutability, to hope and to keep reaching fora truth that eludes, and above all to love and praise, despite the flaws. Alicia Case Washington, D.C. Miscellaneous Andrei Codrescu. The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess. Princeton, New Jersey. Prince ton University Press. 2009. 235 pages. $16.95. isbn978-0-691-13778-0 At theCabaret Voltaire inZ?rich, a Roumanian, Tristan Tzara, an Alsa cian, Hans Arp, and two Germans, Hugo Ball and Richard H?lsenbeck, founded the Dada movement. Its chaotic experiments with language, form,public performance, and the likewere an affirmation of radical irrationality and futility,as a pro testagainst all bourgeois notions of meaning and order. Their perfor mances consisted of public demon stration verging on exhibitionism, collage inartand poetry, and poems and manifestoes that appeared in their official journal, Dada, and other periodicals. They waged war against clich?d imagery and stan dard syntax, and they invested the metaphor with elements of absur dity and irony. In 1921 they considered Dada tohave outlived itsusefulness and thereupon buried it, making way for surrealism. Elsewhere, particularly in Germany and America, under the initiativeofH?lsenbeck and Arthur Cravan, respectively, and with the cooperation of many artists, dada ism has survived as a trademark. Andrei Codrescu, poet, essay ist, and a distinguished professor of English at Louisiana State Uni versity, has created his own bril liantly dadaesque guide to Dada, written in a rich ricky-ticky rag time prose. The Posthuman Dada Guide is arranged alphabetically for quick reference, with entries such as "dada-the word." Tristan Tzara's claim that he found it is backed up by its existence as the word da in Romanian and Russian, meaning "yes," thus "yesyes." H?lsenbeck claimed that he dis covered theword by opening the Petit Larousse and finding theword dada, a French word for a children's hobbyhorse. Tzara and Lenin play several games of chess in a row. As the poet faces the futuremass murder over the chessboard, nei ther realizes that they are playing for theworld. The battle between radical visions of art and ideologi cal revolution lasted for a century and may stillbe going on, although communism appears dead and Dada stronger than ever. We also learn a fair amount about "eros," "jews," "creativity," "money & art," "communist besti ary," "nonsense," "human, post human, transhuman," etc. Andrei Codrescu is an immense digester, a bringer of news from afar. For now, we have a literary event, a spectacular splash of intelligence and erudition, of clean style and magical impressionability. Nicholas Catanoy Bad Wildungen, Germany Irena Luksic. Dnevnici, snevnici, rjecnici. Zagreb. Meandarmedia. 2009.|-\ 315 pages, isbn978-953-7355-43-2| Dnevnici, snevnici, rjecnici (Diaries, dream books, and dictionaries), the new book by noted Croatian writer Irena Luksic, is built on a paradox: itdefies genre by stylizing its texts as the threegenresmentioned in its title.This aesthetic principle turns thebook into something itisnot and |; yetnotwhat itis.The volume isper- i . sonal yet universal, contemporary %l yet historical, realistic yet fantastic, serious yet humorous, fictional yet documentary. It is the old Luksic who loves toplay, yet a new Luksic ? < who has invented a novel artistic|v game. Page afterpage, people and things, signs and interpretations surge and fall in an undulating con tinuum,which the reader is invited to joinwhenever he or she wants, and to leave in the same way. The book comprises two parts: {? "Diaries and Dream Books' and "Dictionaries." The first part con tains diary notes about various times in the life of the book's per sona (let's call her Irena). A set of entries speaks at length of the f\ scholarly anthology edited by Irena, Egzil, emigracija -Novi kontekst(2002; |1 Exile, emigration: The new context). Another group of entries details Irena's scholarly plans for the future: research on Russian ?migr? literature, understanding Europe before and after the disintegration of communism, and herwork with scholars and writers in other coun- ? , .. tries. The cycle on dreams often p parallels nocturnal dreams and|; diurnal events. For instance, in her W???? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM ' 761World Literature Today I, childhood, in an act of defiance, 1 Irena refused to greet the Soviet I delegation with flowers on a visit 1 to the textileplant where her father i worked; as an adult, in a dream, j she saw a snow statue of Lenin that I melted in the sun. Or, in a series of , semidocumentary and semifictional 1 sketches entwining real and fantas , tic events, Irena ruminates on her 1 past and thewinding paths of her I parents, friends, and lovers. [ The second part, "Dictionaries," i is a stringof short essays inwhich,| tongue in cheek, Irena defines her ? favoritewords. The scholarly ety , mologies and definitions, however, 1 swerve into all sorts of digressions , and analogies, which interweave 1 ideas, memories, expectations, and I quotes from literature and art to J narrate how theworld, time, and t human lives are, have always been, I and will always be one. ? NikitaNankov , Gallipoli, Turkey It UrsulaMahlendorf.The Shame of Sur [ vival:Working through a Nazi Child i hood. University Park. Pennsylvania ] State University Press.2009.365 pages, ? ill.$29.95. isbn978-0-271-03447-8 1 Born in 1929, Ursula Mahlendorf 1 belongs to the generation often 1 referred to as "Hitler's Children/' a 1 generation robbed of its childhood, j subjected tomass indoctrination in 1 Nazi youth organizations?the Hit ! 1erJugend (hj) and Bund deutscher 1 M?del (bdm)?and inadvertently 1 implicated in theNazi regime. The 1 young, na?ve Ursula relished the 1 sense of community fosteredby the [ BDM and became an ardent Hitler 1 supporter, something she regretted , shortlyafter the war and has spent a ? lifetimecoming to terms with. , As the subtitle of her autobi 1 ography implies, Shame of Survival The Shame of Survival Working Through aNa?CMdhood is part of an ongoing process of mourning. Published at the end of a successful career as a professor of German Studies at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, Mahlen dorfs memoir isa relentlesslyhonest self-examination of her childhood under Nazism and itspsychic after life,an enterprise that is of a piece with her research and pedagogical agenda. Throughout her academic career,Mahlendorf feltobligated to teach students about German culpa bility and responsibility. Although too young to have participated in Nazi atrocities, she rejectsHelmut Kohl's apologetic notion of the "Gnade der sp?ten Geburt" (for tune of belated birth). Haunted by the specter of how narrowly she escaped becoming a perpetrator, she takes up J?rgenHabermas's call to Germans to "keep alive the memory of the sufferingof thosemurdered by German hands." "I felt thatas a teacher ofGerman literature, I had a special obligation to speak tomy students about what we Germans had participated in and what had happened to us." Years of therapy working through the trauma of her childhood and a career of reading literary and cultural texts through the lens of psychoanalytic theory = make Mahlendorf well poised to = undertake this impressive work of = Vergangenheitsbew?ltigung (struggle = to come to terms with thepast), = Her memoir is compelling = reading for anyone interested in = learningwhat it was like fora sen- = sitive girl to come of age inHit- = ler's Germany and how a morally = responsible woman has dealt with = that legacy. Ursula Mahlendorf's = self-consciously feminist perspec- = tive, her attention to gender and = class, and her awareness that the = private is political make Shame of = Survival an important contribution = to our understanding of fascism in = everyday life. = Anna K. Kuhn = University ofCalifornia,Davis = Vesna Marie Bluebird. New York.Soft = Skull/Counterpoint. 2009. 227 pages. = $14.95. ISBN 978-1 -59376-258-2| Among thememoirs of theBosnian = War (1992-95), Bluebird possesses a = distinctive voice that remains close = to the consciousness of a bright, = reflective teen displaced from = Mos tar to England. Vesna Marie = was sixteen when her mother sent = herwith her older sisterby bus con- = voy fromCroatia through Europe = to England to protect them from = the violence unfolding in Bosnia. = Belonging neither to England nor 5 to the adult world around her, the = younger Vesna remains slightlydis- = tanced fromher experiences, a keen = observer who sharply etches por- = traitsof Bosnians and English alike. = In a supple English of fresh simi- = les, sharp details, and irony, Marie = shapes an Odyssey by turns tragic = and comic, horrific and mundane. = Exile plunges Vesna into con- = fusion: "Should I leave my family, = my language, my culture,my child- = March-April 2010 i77 ...