Crisis and Self-Discovery: Martin Walser Looks at Aging

The disillusionment expressed by one of Martin Walser\u27s characters, Gottlieb Zürn, when he must face another professional defeat captures the sense of desolation that plagues middle-aged men when they become conscious of their own mortality. Awareness that time is running out and that many of their dreams will go unfulfilled triggers feelings of regret, despair and stagnation, typical emotions during mid-life. As with Gottlieb Zürn, a setback in one\u27s career usually triggers the crisis and exposes the link between one\u27s social role and one\u27s personal life

Empathy and Community in the Age of Refugees: Petzold’s Radical Translation of Seghers’ Transit

Petzold’s film constitutes a radical translation of Seghers’ novel by transforming her tale of political refugees in Vichy France into an existential allegory depicting the fluidity of identities and relationships in a globalized world. The transitory existence of Petzold’s war refugee serves as an extreme example of the instability of modern life, which allows spectators to identify and empathize with migrants’ unpredictable journeys. Moreover, the director conveys the universality of his protagonist’s story by portraying him as an Everyman bereft of distinctive personality traits, by intermingling the past (Seghers’ plot) with the present (contemporary settings), and by situating his experiences in non-descript, liminal “non-places.” Both thematically and aesthetically, narrative is portrayed as establishing a community in an unstable contemporary world. Like the anti-hero of many modern Bildungsromane, Petzold’s protagonist fails to develop a stable identity and enduring friendships that anchor him in a community, but he creates his own family of listeners through his storytelling. In a similar vein, the film’s voice-over/narrator that bridges the fictional world with that of the audience underscores the film’s (and the novel’s) central theme: in a world of rapid change and mobility, the individual who may not be able to establish a stable identity or relationships, can create, as a narrator, a community of empathic listeners

Review of Robert Holton, Jarring Witnesses: Modern Fiction and the Representation of History.

Robert Holton, Jarring Witnesses: Modern Fiction and the Representation of History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. 301 pp. ISBN 0745012833 (cloth)

Review of Andrew Leak and George Paizis, eds., The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable.

Andrew Leak and George Paizis, eds., The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable. New York: St. Martin\u27s, 2000. ix + 196 pp. ISBN 031222866X

Review of Andrew Leak and George Paizis, eds., The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable.

Andrew Leak and George Paizis, eds., The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable. New York: St. Martin\u27s, 2000. ix + 196 pp. ISBN 031222866X

Aronofsky’s Black Swan as a Postmodern Fairy Tale: Mirroring a Narcissistic Society

Based on the plot of Swan Lake, Black Swan depicts an ingenue\u27s metamorphosis into a woman and a prima ballerina that contains a fairy-tale plot in which a naive heroine overcomes enemies and obstacles in order to achieve success and sexual maturity. Unlike a traditional fairy tale, this cinematic tale concludes with death and the clear distinctions between good and evil, helper and adversary and reality vs. fantasy are fluid. As in many fairy tales, the film criticizes the values of its era, namely, the narcissistic aspects of contemporary society with its excessive worship of youth, beauty and celebrity, and its most pernicious results-escape into fantasy and insanity, aggressive rivalry, violence, and self-destruction

Review of J. J. Long, W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity.

J. J. Long, W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 210 pp. ISBN 9780231145121

Aronofsky’s Black Swan as a Postmodern Fairy Tale: Mirroring a Narcissistic Society

Based on the plot of Swan Lake, Black Swan depicts an ingenue’s metamorphosis into a woman and a prima ballerina that contains a fairy-tale plot in which a naïve heroine overcomes enemies and obstacles in order to achieve success and sexual maturity. Unlike a traditional fairy tale, this cinematic tale concludes with death and the clear distinctions between good and evil, helper and adversary and reality vs. fantasy are fluid. As in many fairy tales, the film criticizes the values of its era, namely, the narcissistic aspects of contemporary society with its excessive worship of youth, beauty and celebrity, and its most pernicious results—escape into fantasy and insanity, aggressive rivalry, violence, and self-destruction