A Worthy Literature Nobel
Posted by TM Lutas on October 9th, 2009 (All posts by TM Lutas)
All the head scratching over this year’s peace nobel is overshadowing the Nobel Literature Prize, given to Herta Muller, a surprise pick. Mrs. Muller’s writings deal with Communism, focusing on Romania, and she is an activist in the cause of exposing the truth of what happened during the communist period and where are these people today. Her works are sure to gain in popularity though they necessarily must remain difficult. The reality of communism is difficult, there is no getting around that.
chicagoboyz.net
“All children live in blocks of flats or in houses,” says Amalie. “Every house has rooms. All the houses together make one big house. This big house is our country. Our fatherland.”
Posted by onparkstreet on October 17th, 2009 (All posts by onparkstreet)
From the Herta Müller novel The Passport. As previously mentioned on chicagoboyz, Herta Müller is the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. The above excerpted passage continues:
Amalie points at the map. “This is our Fatherland,” she says. With her fingertip she searches for the black dots on the map. “These are the towns of our Fatherland,” says Amalie. “The towns are the rooms of this big house, our country. Our fathers and mothers live in our houses. They are our parents. Every child has its parents. Just as the father in the house in which we live is our father, so Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu is the father of our country. And just as the mother in the house in which we live is our mother, so Comrade Elena Ceausescu is the mother of our country. Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu is the father of all the children. And Comrade Elena Ceausescu is the mother of all the children. All the children love comrade Nicolae and comrade Elena, because they are their parents.”
Chilling, no?
chicagoboyz.net
# Shannon Love Says:
October 17th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
The idea of a political leader as a paternal figure is very common in pre-industrial societies. The theory of the Japanese Imperial family is based explicitly on the idea of the Emperor as patriarch of a vast extended family. Whats really weird is seeing these ideas resurrected in the guise of industrial-socialism. You even have instances of children inheriting leadership form parents just like the kings of old.
I think this shows that many places are still stuck in very old cultural patterns. Socialism just changes the names and titles without changing the ties of loyalty or the status hierarchy. They may call themselves Presidents or Premiers but they’re really just kings.
chicagoboyz.net |
