Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation

Rating:
Summary: Contemporary Theory Meets Historiography
Review: When discussing a particularly strange moment in Philip Roth's _Patrimony_ where a Holocaust survivor's memoirs turn out to be an account of his sexual exploits, Michael Rothberg points out that "there might be something pornographic about making images and ultimately commodities out of the Holocaust. It is as if the fundamental obscenity of the events themselves cannot be represented without a _pornographic_ contamination of the person doing the representing." Throughout his study of Holocaust representations, Rothberg is painfully aware of this danger of contamination and commodification at the same time as he himself, of course, has become part of this ever-increasing discourse on the Holocaust. What saves him and his book is not only an awareness of the dangers and his consequent self-consciousness but also the very method and theoretical apparatus that underlie his study.

As the title _Traumatic Realism_ indicates, Rothberg strives to think simultaneously the two opposing tenets of Holocaust representation: on the one hand, we find an obsessive demand for realism in the form of verifiable truths, facts, and details; on the other hand, the utter extremity of the Holocaust seems to have removed it from our field of experience, thus foreclosing any ability to represent it realistically and as continuous with our reality. This focus on the extraordinary results in representations that fetishize the impossibility to comprehend the Holocaust by stressing its traumatic aspects only.

Rather than trying to decide on one approach or the other as the "right" one, Rothberg succeeds in showing how both modes are compelling and necessary at the same time as neither one can be sufficient or comprehensive. Nor does he attempt to find a common ground between the two by creating a happy union but instead emphasizes the radical antinomy the two constitute. In all the various texts he discusses--philosophical, literary, and cultural--Rothberg exposes the tension between the two approaches within the texts themselves, i.e., he shows us how the representations already have this dichotomy built in.

One particularly compelling example is his discussion of Charlotte Delbo's trilogy _Auschwitz and After_, a powerful account that coincidentally is used as exemplary by two very opposing theorists, Lawrence Langer and Tzvetan Todorov. Using Delbo's moving testimony, Rothberg shows how both Todorov's emphasis on the normal and everyday as well as Langer's attempt to establish the concentrationary universe as utterly exceptional and extra-moral are insufficient. In other words, his discussion reveals the need to simultaneously think the opposition, an approach warranted by both the structure and contents of many survivor testimonies that perform the juxtaposition of the normal and the unthinkable at the same time as they describe the absurd contradictions and oppositions of camp life.

Moving easily between a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, Rothberg discusses Holocaust representations as varied as Ruth Klüger's highly self-conscious eyewitness testimony, Art Spiegelman's comic book _Maus_, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. One thing all his selections have in common, however, is the tension between the traumatic, nonrepresentable scar left by the concentrationary universe and the need and desire to account for the camp world in all its parts.

_Traumatic Realism_ is a well-written book that revisits familiar sites like _Maus_ and _Schindler's List_ with new and insightful readings at the same time as it introduces some lesser-known texts like Delbo's and Klüger's. What distinguishes his book, however, is the clear thesis that drives all his readings, and it is this thesis that has an impact beyond the scope of the particular texts discussed. Bridging the traditional gap between postmodern and poststructural theory and historiographic approaches to the Holocaust, Rothberg shows himself an expert in both as he lets the two encounter one another and communicate over some of the less traditional texts of the literary canon of the Holocaust.

Personally, I found the book exciting and stimulating, both in its command of theory and the ease with which Rothberg integrates it as well as for his close readings and particular interpretations. I would recommend this book to any student of Holocaust literature and anyone interest in the issues of representation in the postmodern age.