Monatshefte

Anja K. Johannsen's study of prose works by W.G. Sebald, Anne Duden, and Herta Müller takes inspiration from earlier scholarship on space in literary works, particularly by Jurij Lotman; poststructuralist critical theory by Derrida, Kristeva, and Foucault; as well as the work of contemporary German and British scholars. Moving beyond an understanding of space as an aspect of setting alone, she argues that its configurations in Sebald, Duden, and Müller demonstrate how their texts function. Rather than situating the three authors' texts in a larger cultural context, Johannsen instead [End Page 646] examines the poetics that each author articulates in his or her own works and essays, their texts' self-reflexive characteristics, and the role of each author's personal biography, particularly in geographically-bound experiences. She makes the relationship between image and text her central concern, with synchronic links to contemporary authors as a reference point throughout. In general Johannsen identifies in all three authors mixed generic characteristics, the deconstruction of traditional representational forms, and new forms of poetic expression whose "counter-discursive strength" points to extra-linguistic spaces. The body's positioning and movements, particularly in Duden's works, remain a touchstone throughout her study, since the body reveals how space is perceived in visual and sensory terms.

Johannsen crafts highly intricate readings of all three authors. In Sebald's texts, primarily Austerlitz, she examines the way narrative form patterns itself on the texts' "Schachtelungen" and labyrinths. She also looks at concrete spatial forms in Sebald's texts, such as train stations, decrepit hotels, and ruined city landscapes described as "Schädelstätten." Not only do these locales signify "die Einrichtung der Welt," they also map out relationships that bring together historical events, places and figures. Characteristic of the texts as well is a "thinking in ruins"—evident in narrative techniques that rely on bricolage, quotation, and montage. Two vanishing points provide the only escape from ruins—one that moves towards an a-historical and post-apocalyptic landscape of snow and ice, and another that retreats into an idealized, pre-World War II world. Both routes rely on sublimation and cultivate what Johannsen calls a moment of "Stillstellung" in the text.

She identifies in Duden three types of spatial configurations: claustrophobic rooms, which reflect closed-off spaces within the body; "Schwellenwesen," which respond to the corset separating them from the world via a poetic language of dissolving boundaries; and the figuration of the crypt, a place that opens up the boundaries between the signifiable and the non-signifiable. Johannsen also addresses music and paintings in Duden's works. Unlike linguistic forms, which approach but ultimately never capture what remains beyond verbalization, these other art forms begin to broach otherwise closed textual places. Throughout her analysis of Duden's texts, Johannsen emphasizes the subject's sensory perceptions of space and the "Raumgenese" that results, though ultimately it remains impossible to rupture the boundaries of self.

With Müller's "Kisten," Johannsen formulates her most conceptually challenging notion of space. She begins with the author's configuration of the "Dorf als Kiste," which Müller's various narrative forms attempt to imitate. Like Sebald, Müller, too, draws on montage, a technique she uses to transform historical "Enge" and stagnation. While the narrative here also functions in relation to spatial descriptions, it reveals as well how perception and memory always produce our sense of space. Spatial components themselves are less firm entities than transitional parts which in turn reflect the flexible, polysemic nature of Müller's texts.

While I laud Johannsen's impressive close readings and the theoretical finesse she demonstrates, a few aspects of her volume give pause. I would have appreciated more background on Lotman's texts, which are now thirty-five years old and likely unfamiliar to contemporary scholars. More problematic, though, is the fact that no American scholars are cited in the volume, even though she writes of the "Sebald-Boom" on both sides of the Atlantic, perhaps partly inspired by Susan Sontag's glowing [End Page 647] admiration of his texts. One is left with the impression that German search engines travel no further than Great Britain. Johannsen pronounces the scholarly work on Anne Duden to be of "erstaunlich geringem Maß," which is odd given serious debates between Leslie Adelson and Sigrid Weigel about racism in Übergang which also, like Johannsen's study, focus specifically on issues of the body. The striking aporias that emerge from lopsided scholarship give her work an overall insular feel. When she announces her intention to bracket cultural studies-style scholarship—for instance the kind that links Sebald's works to the German memory boom of the 1990s—Johannsen lays the groundwork for a study more in tune with critical theory from the 1980s. Instead of referencing the concrete particulars of history and culture, such scholarship relies more on the conceptual frameworks of critical theorists. A more balanced approach that brings together both forms of scholarship would have greatly benefitted Johannsen's work. Overall, though, I admire her highly intelligent readings, which should make for productive discussions in graduate seminars.