korrick 's review for:

The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller

3.0

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I was all too aware that there's an unspoken law that you should never start to cry if you have too many reasons to do so.

3.5/5

I made the mistake of concurrently reading this with [b:The Drowned and the Saved|6176|The Drowned and the Saved|Primo Levi|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390361633s/6176.jpg|1427999], a cacophony that will hopefully not occur frequently despite the motivating yet limiting aspect of participating in multiple reading challenges. While this work certainly has its place on the international stage for necessary historical fiction, when juxtaposed alongside a sustained consideration of another breed of labor camp's effects on labor camps to come, it pales in comparison. As such, my rating should be taken with a grain of salt, as I was in no mood to deal with abbreviated and borderline sing song tales of woe played in the key of deportation, starvation, and queerphobia, which in the wrong light comes off as continuations of the German folktales of old. I plan on engaging Müller under wiser reading circumstances, as one cannot afford to disdain women who have won the Nobel of any sort, especially in this day and age. When the conversation around classics, whether old, new, or predicted contents itself with spouting the same old same old that played out before the age of the Internet, it is easy to forget, as in the words of the invaluable Warren, , that to not have a presence at the table ultimately results in a place on the menu.

History will always be stranger than what fiction can make of it. People who aren't Hindu (and no, there is no religiously validated conversion process) love to mangle the concept of karma, but one needn't go that far to render the golden rule short-sidedly practical in doing unto others what they have done unto you. This, specifically with regards to the labor camps Soviet Russia filled Germans with near the end of WWII, was the historical relevance that I was chasing down, and part of my lackluster rating has to do with the little patience I had for much of the fictional fluff tackled onto the nonfictional bones. I understand Müller derived much of material from her own whispered heritage as well as the more concrete and straightforward interviews of the poet [a:Oskar Pastior|361695|Oskar Pastior|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], but in hindsight I feel a direct testimony, or even direct access to Pastior's art, would have gone over better with my current sensibilities. There were a few striking moments, but it all boiled down to aesthetic pathos rather than the plans of self-reflexivity and out of body disturbances I prefer when it comes to tackling of long ago. Tis a shame, but there you have it.

Much can be made of Müller's turn of phrase, especially when coming it does through translation. The recent obtuseness that is the state of translation of [a:Han Kang|4119155|Han Kang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424026547p2/4119155.jpg]'s work sprinkles some suspicion on this evaluation, but, sad as it is, German, even Romanian influenced German, has been ferried across to more Anglo shores for a far longer period than Korean. There's also the racialized element to consider, which in tandem with the shorter history of translation means taking more liberties with the text is more morally assuaged on an individual level which translates to the group which translates to the institution with translates to the mainstream, etc, etc. Beyond all my compmunctions about social landscapes and contemporary times attempting to render history an apolitical void (Pence's genocidal characterization of the most recent Holocasut Day puts the punch in this statement), this is a well crafted book. It covers, however, despite obvious differences in the enforcer and the enforced, familiar territory, and risks straying into the kitch if too much fiction is applied to fact. I'll leave worrying about that to those who actually understand German, though. I have bigger, more Anglo fish to fry.

Boredom is fear's patience.