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A review by fearandtrembling
Dark Spring by Unica Zürn
3.0
This particular point made by the translator, Caroline Rupprecht, in her introductory essay, strikes me as the most useful:
"Clearly, Zurn was not oblivious to the power of images. From 1933-1942, she worked as a dramaturge in the advertising department of the Nazi film industry. Her knowledge of the medium is apparent in both The Man of Jasmine and Dark Spring, where the little girl's masochistic fantasies tend to be fueled by images of popular culture."
The intersections of fascism and bourgeois patriarchy in German society is what needs to be foregrounded in this extremely short but affecting story about a young girl's sexual development; the key elements in this story are the distant father (Zurn's own father was in the military), distant mother (Zurn's mother was apparently the same), the older brother who rapes her when she is ten, and the spectre of German nationalism.
"Clearly, Zurn was not oblivious to the power of images. From 1933-1942, she worked as a dramaturge in the advertising department of the Nazi film industry. Her knowledge of the medium is apparent in both The Man of Jasmine and Dark Spring, where the little girl's masochistic fantasies tend to be fueled by images of popular culture."
The intersections of fascism and bourgeois patriarchy in German society is what needs to be foregrounded in this extremely short but affecting story about a young girl's sexual development; the key elements in this story are the distant father (Zurn's own father was in the military), distant mother (Zurn's mother was apparently the same), the older brother who rapes her when she is ten, and the spectre of German nationalism.