Description
Book SynopsisIn Textual Silence, literary scholar Jessica Lang asserts that language itself forms barriers between the author and the reader in Holocaust textsand 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
