Norman Manea - The Fifth Impossibility - Essays on Exile and Language

After being an outcast himself from a society with strict standards, those same conservatives take Berenger’s place as radicals and he, in turn, clings to their conventionalism. With the breakdown of society, Berenger’s former social stance is disqualified. Berenger seems to have adopted the ultraconservative views expressed earlier by Jean. (“A superior man is the one who does his duty.”) Suddenly, he is obsessed with man’s obligation to society — a notion he previously acted against.

The iconoclastic commentary on the iconoclastic literary work ended with a verdict to match:

The utter absurdity of Ionescu’s plot that a town full of respectable citizens turns, one by one, into a herd of stampeding Rhinoceroses, lends itself well to the simplicity of its message. Ionescu uses the character of Berenger to illustrate man’s tragic incapacity to accept change and the growth and improvement that inevitably accompany it.

The professor stopped. He seemed amazed by the words “growth and improvement,” as if he had heard them for the first time. In fact, he heard a series of muted words in another language. Berenger was then called Eugen Ionescu, a terrified witness of the rhinocerization of too many of his friends. To him, the fascist legionaries in their rhino-green shirts were “enchained beasts,” embodying “the bestiality and endless stupidity of mankind and cosmos,” while their songs were “an iron roar, with iron and gall, spitting gall and iron.”

He nevertheless regained the blank tone that the text preserved for the conclusion:

Berenger, seemingly the most dissatisfied, is the first (and the last) to refute the new ideology. By fear, human beings are held back from progression.

Fear? Yes, certainly there had been fear too. But not only that. Not just fear, he could swear, swear — not just fear!

He was ready to swear in front of the youthful audience in the New World that disgust and lucidity and integrity too, yes, yes, integrity too, yes, yes, ambiguities and vulnerability too had kept the poor outlaw far from the “progress” of the New Man, the New Life, and the New Ideology.

The reading had stopped. The political actualization of the famous play had been realized in the very last sentences of the text:

For twenty years a wall stood blocking change in East Germany. Not until this year was the last “Berenger” overrun by the Rhinoceroses, and the wall removed, opening up space for growth.

Perplexity should finally have burst out. Did the Rhinos remove the wall? Didn’t they actually build it? … What kind of “growth” did they want? asked the cricket buzzing imperceptibly in the East European’s thoughts and in the American sentences read to the American youngsters.

No one seemed in a hurry to comment. I remembered the school of long ago, in the homeland of long ago and far away. “Get back to your seat, moron,” the Teacher Rhino would roar at the silent class. The iron roar and the iron words of gall had made me shrink in my desk, ashamed at the shame of the classmate standing at the blackboard, and terrified that the same thing would somehow happen to me all too soon.

One of the rights the exiled had discovered in America was exactly this: the right to … “stupidity.” Stupidity, ignorance, candor, and innocence — cultural, political, social, and other. The nerve with which aberrant beliefs, feelings, and experiences are being proclaimed! And the sacrosanct justification: “This is my opinion!” The void full of “self-esteem,” in which landmarks, comparisons, and inhibitions are annulled; any admonition becomes “paternalistic,” and therefore unacceptable. Certainly the show is not necessarily funny. And yet, the uninhibited display of qualities and defects is quite rich in revelations (even that “stupidity” is not always as foolish as it seems).

The inexhaustible energy of self-achievement is the hallmark of American democracy. A people’s democracy (how could it be otherwise?), therefore also “vulgar” and “stupid,” but impetuous in its renewing vitality.

The exile had not forgotten the words of a poet who returned to socialist Romania after spending a year in America and who, when asked what seemed to him unique, unrivaled, one single thing, just one, finally answered, overwhelmed: “The status of the ugly woman. It is the only place in the world where this does not seem to be a handicap, where it does not become a reason for being excluded or frustrated or made fun of ….”

Such digressions went through the exile’s mind as he waited for a student to comment on the paper he had just read to the class.

They were so quiet, the vast silence was difficult to break. I insisted, however, that I wanted to hear their opinions. I finally received several brief and cutting criticisms of the troublesome thesis.

I then passed out small slips of paper, asking the students to give the paper a grade and explain their reasoning. They did not have to sign the slips, their opinions would remain anonymous.

At the end of class, as the students were heading out the door, the author approached me with a pale face. I had guiltily watched how she stood the trial, stoic but also hurt. I apologized for not having asked her permission to read her paper in public and not warning her of the referendum.

She did not seem bothered about such formalities. Her discontent was about something else. “How can they say I’m a fascist? You may not know, but I’m Jewish!”

No, I did not know and it did not seem very important to me. This is not what it is all about, I said, this is not about ethnicity or even about “fascism.”

She had indeed ignored the antifascist or anti-communist meaning of the play, as well as the numerous historical, not just ideological, connotations. The real question remained, however, whether the reasoning was sound. That is what I tried to explain to the slight and silent young woman in front of me. I was hesitant to tell her that in fascist legionary Rhinoromania, as well as in the socialist one, her point of view had been validated not only by the party propaganda but also by certain famous thinkers and artists.

Back home, I started looking at the students’ slips of paper. Despite the harsh criticism expressed in class, the grades given to the paper were good, even very good: B+, A, A—, B.

The comments were also worth paying attention to:

Well-written, provocative, well-defended, and plausible — if it weren’t for the mindless uniformity of the Rhinoceroses. This poses the problem of “good” totalitarianism. I can’t present a contradiction to the views here, even though I can’t agree with them, and in total I give an A for entertaining and disturbing provocativeness.

Well written, but sounds like it was written by a Rhinoceros. A convincing argument but something tells me she missed the point.

This slip of paper indicated that the author of the paper had been identified (“she”) and added a hesitant B/B—.

A/B+ was not accompanied by a commentary. One slip of paper did not have a grade but, in beautiful handwriting, asked:

Transgression or transcendence? The student could either be a Stalinist or a fascist, but not a revolutionary. Yes, there are reasons to make noise in a stifling society, but the “transgressions” are neither progressions, or revolutions. Fascist character is partly rebellious, of course; the question is that the (justified, I suppose) rebellious impulses are manipulated by reactionary social groups. Change for the sake of change is not praiseworthy.

Another A/B+ was justified as follows:

Fear is not the only reason for which he doesn’t become a Rhino. But a good point.

Finally, an A included a brief note that seemed addressed to the East European professor: