Description
Book SynopsisIn Textual Silence, literary scholar Jessica Lang asserts that language itself forms barriers between the author and the reader in Holocaust texts-and that these barriers, or silences, are not a lack of substance, but an essential characteristic of the genre.
Trade Review"A valuable and timely resource that speaks to the necessity of ethical reading in regard to Holocaust representation." -- Victoria Aarons * O.R. & Eva Mitchell Endowed Chair in Literature, Trinity University *
"Lang's exquisitely wrought study defines and explores the challenges of reading trauma literature, shedding light on the irony that reading does not equate to understanding." -- Alan L. Berger * Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1
1 Readability and Unreadability: A Fractured Dialogue 9
Part I
Generational Differences in Holocaust Literature
2 Before, During, and After: Reading and the Eyewitness 35
3 Reading to Belong: Second-Generation and the Audience of Self 58
4 The Third Generation’s Holocaust: The Story of Time and Place 87
Part II
Pushed to the Edges: The Holocaust in American Fiction
5 American Fiction and the Act of Genocide 119
6 Receding into the Distance: The Holocaust as Background 155
Afterword: Reading the Fragments of Memory 175
Acknowledgments 179
Notes 181
Bibliography 199
Index 209
