Publication details
Das Buch, das nicht ist. Zum Motiv des Buches von Bruno Schulz in Maxim Billers Kurzgeschichte "Im Kopf von Bruno Schulz"
| Title in English | A book that is not. Schulzian Theme Books in Maxim Biller's novel "Im Kopf von Bruno Schulz" |
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This article is providing a comparative analysis of the book theme in the short stories of the interwar Polish Jewish writer Bruno Schulz and the novella Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz written by the current German Jewish novelist Maxim Biller. The basic point for the comparison of this motive in both authors is the concept of intertextuality communicated by the German Slavist Renate Lachmann, who distinguishes three ways in which the manifested text (posttext) follows the reference text (pretext), i.e. three strategies for dealing with cultural heritage, which is either written down, rewritten or the posttext attempts to deny and delete the pretext. We interpret Biller's strategy of dealing with the "memory of the text" with the fact that in 1938, Bruno Schulz addressed his literary idol Thomas Mann in a letter containing a short story. This letter, however, was not preserved to this day. It is precisely this letter – non-book, that allows Maxim Biller to conduct a double-entry dialogue with the iconic role of Thomas Mann in the German culture, as well as with the Drohobych author of The Cinnamon Shops, the emerging literary icon of the 21st century. |
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