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

Celan, Paul (Pessach / Paul Antschel) 91, 149, 217–32; and German language 7, 267–8, 342, 343, 348; Gespräch im Gebirg ( Conversation in the Mountains ) 202–14, 221–32

Celano, Thomas 218

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand 61, 238

censorship 40–1; appeal of banned books 313–14; Ceau sescu’s dispensation with 283–4

Cern u ti 217, 218

Chalfen, Israel 218

Chaplin, Charlie 63–4, 84, 86

Chekhov, Anton 272–3

childhood memories and Steinberg 177–8, 181–2, 183–4, 185–6

Cioran, Emile M. 123, 134, 141–9, 207, 257; and Bellow’s work 234; correspondence with Noica 150–4, 155–6; on exile’s change of language 261–2, 346; iconoclasm in Paris 119–20; and Iron Guard 52, 61, 145, 146–7; and Nouvelle Revue Française 150–1; paradoxical attitude to freedom 147, 148, 151–2; paradoxical attitude to Jews 148–9; and Sebastian 45, 47, 57 clowns and tyrants 63–91

Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea 94, 111–12, 142, 145, 306

collaboration and occupied France, 26

communism 315; ideal and reality 6; intellectuals and collaboration 115–16, 299–301; intellectuals and communist ideal 36, 102, 151–3; repression of intellectuals in Romania 150–6, 169–70; see also Ceau sescu, Nicolae; Eastern Europe after communism; Stalin

Comte-Sponville, André 145

Conference of Jewish writers (1908) 217, 253, 268

Conrad, Joseph 261, 348

Cortázar, Julio 348

Creang , Ion 217, 260

Cretia, Petru 61–2

Crohm lniceanu, Ovid S. (Moise Cohen) 219

Cuban shipwreck story 296–9

Culianu, Joan 103

culture, simplification of 307–10

Cuvîntul (newspaper) 47

Czechoslovakia and Kundera’s case 299–301

Dada and New York 321, 323

Dante 9

Danto, Arthur 184–5

Davis, Alexander Jackson 278

Dej, Gheorghiu 154 democracy: America as imperfect democracy 166, 189–92; and compromise 187–8, 191; Eliade’s views and Romania’s past 108, 109, 113, 117, 127; open society and effect of blasphemy 135–6, 138–9; see also freedom

demonization of difference 133–5

Diamant, Dora 341

Doniger, Wendy 96, 97

Donoghue, Denis 110–11

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 121, 303–4

Dubnow, Simon 52

Eastern Europe after communism 280–92; nationalism in 6; nostalgia for communist era 129, 305; post-communist memories of suffering 287–8; responses to freedom 25–31, 34–5, 282–3; responses to incompatibilities of past 44–62; responses to Manea’s essay “Happy Guilt” 126–33; rise of anti-communism 299–300, 306; vagaries of transition period 33–5, 117, 282–3, 287–9, 305–6

Ehrenburg, Ilya 154

Einstein, Albert 33

Eliade, Mircea: and Bellow 234, 236–8, 240, 244; failure to confront the past 92–118, 126–33, 299; and fascist ideology 54–8, 93–4, 99–105, 106–117, 119, 131–2; The History of Religious Ideas 92, 114–15; Iphigenia 115; and Iron Guard 51, 52, 55–6, 58, 61, 93, 99–101, 107–8, 111–12; and Nae Ionescu 47, 93, 98, 99, 111; and Noica’s trial 153, 154, 156; responses to Manea’s essay “Happy Guilt” 126–33; and Romanianism 97–8; sacralization in present-day Romania 117; scholarly career 92–3, 96–7, 110–11, 114–15; and Sebastian 45, 49, 54–8

Ellison, Ralph 241

Eminescu, Mihai 106–7, 113

Engels, Friedrich 315

Enthoven, Jean-Paul 145

estetica 42

Etchegoyen, Alain 145–6

Europe: totalitarian history 4–5; see also Eastern Europe after communism

European Union and migration issues 302–5

exile 3–9; and Kafka 343–9; see also Berlin and first exile; languages of exile

Fellini, Federico: I Clowni 67–9, 70–6, 79, 82, 83–4, 85

Felstiner, John 204–5

Flaubert, Gustave 42

Fondane, Benjamin ( formerly Wechsler then Fundoianu) 149, 150, 206–32; and Celan 206–14

“formation through deformation” 39

France after occupation 25–6

freedom: Cioran’s paradoxical attitude 147, 148, 151–2; Eastern Europe after fall of communism 1, 25–31, 33–4, 282–3; and individual in Sebastian’s view 50, 54; and intellectuals 36–7, 147, 148, 151–2; and risk 27–8, 29–31; and stupidity in America 166; see also democracy

friendship: Sebastian and Eliade 54–8, 111

Furet, François 145

Gehry, Frank 279

genetic revolution 3, 32

George, Alexandru 117

German language 259; and Celan 7, 267–8, 342, 343, 348; and Kafka 328, 335–6, 337–41, 348

Germany: and Holocaust guilt 193, 197–201, 290–1; reunification 285–6; see also Berlin and first exile; German language; Nazism

Gilder-Boissière, Jean 26

globalization 188

Goga, Octavian 51, 106–7

Gombrowicz, Witold 348

Gonzalez, Elian 296–9

Gonzalez, Juan Miguel 296, 297–8

Grass, Günter 260, 301

Group for Social Dialogue 116, 129–30

Gulag in post-communist consciousness 287–8

Gusev, Vladimir 125

Hamsun, Knut 61

Hartman, Geoffrey 213, 214

Hartung, Hans 65

Hasdeu, B.P. 106–7, 113

Havel, Václav 116–17, 300

Hechter, Joseph see Sebastian

Hegel, G.W.F. 258

Heisenberg, Werner Karl 32

Herbert, Zbignew 217, 221

Hervier, Julien 78–9

Hesse, Hermann 274, 329

Hitler, Adolf 35, 52, 58, 74, 80, 145; and Chaplin 63–4, 67, 86; see also Nazism

Hoffman, Charles F. 278

Holocaust 14; facing the past in Romania 44–62; and life 5–6; and literature 40–1, 204, 213; minimization of 60; post-communist memories of 287–8; representations of and Walser debate 193–201, 290–1

Howe, Irving 320

Hrabal, Bohumil 29

human nature 25–7

Ia si 217, 218; anti-Semitic massacres (1941) 52–3, 58

identity 7, 28–30, 291–2, 310–12; Kafka on German language 337–41; in Sebastian’s work 47–8; see also national identity

impossibility and Kafka 327–49

individual: and freedom in Sebastian’s view 50, 54; in modernity 290, 291–2

intellectuals and totalitarianism 32–43, 146–7; collaboration and compromise 115–16, 299–301; and communist ideal 36, 102, 151–3; Eliade’s failure to confront the past 92–118; and freedom 3636–7, 147, 148, 151–2; and Nazism in Romania 44–62, 92–118; repression in Romania 150–6, 169–70; responses to Manea’s essay “Happy Guilt” 129; responses to Sebastian’s Journal 59–62; and “rhinocerization” 45–6, 159–75

International Jewish Congress (1908) 217, 253, 268

Ionescu, Eugen (Eugène Ionesco) 244, 267, 348; Rhinoceros 45–6, 159–75, 274; and Sebastian 45–6, 58, 171, 174

Ionescu, Marie-France 174–5

Ionescu, Nae: anti-Semitism and Iron Guard 48, 49, 57, 61, 98–9; in Bellow’s work 236; and Eliade 47, 93, 98, 99, 111; sacralization in present-day Romania 117; and Sebastian 47, 48–50, 54

Iorga, Nicolae 106–7, 113

Iron Guard (Romania): anti-Semitic horrors 51–3, 58; and intellectuals in Nazi period 47, 48, 51, 52, 55–6, 58, 99–105, 107–8, 111–12, 116, 145, 146–7; as model for Communist regime 100, 114; and Movement for Romania 126; post-communist nostalgia for 306