Herztier

by Herta Müller

Rumänien in den achtziger Jahren: Eine Gruppe von Freunden leistet Widerstand gegen das Terrorregime Ceausescus, sie schreiben oppositionelle Gedichte und dokumentieren die alltägliche Überwachung durch die Securitate. Allmählich aber werden sie selbst Opfer der Verfolgung. Als drei von ihnen in den Westen ausreisen, geht dort der Terror weiter.

Genres: Fiction, Romania, Historical Fiction, Nobel Prize, German Literature, Literature, Novels

253 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Herta Müller was born in Niţchidorf, Timiş County, Romania, the daughter of Swabian farmers. Her family was part of Romania's German minority and her mother was deported to a labour camp in the Soviet Union after World War II.

She read German studies and Romanian literature at Timişoara University. In 1976, Müller began working as a translator for an engineering company, but in 1979 was dismissed for her refusal to cooperate with the Securitate, the Communist regime's secret police. Initially, she made a living by teaching kindergarten and giving private German lessons.

Her first book was published in Romania (in German) in 1982, and appeared only in a censored version, as with most publications of the time.

In 1987, Müller left for Germany with her husband, novelist Richard Wagner. Over the following years she received many lectureships at universities in Germany and abroad.

In 1995 Müller was awarded membership to the German Academy for Writing and Poetry, and other positions followed. In 1997 she withdrew from the PEN centre of Germany in protest of its merge with the former German Democratic Republic branch.

The Swedish Academy awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature to Müller, "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gem from the Nobel Prize-winning author (2009) of The Hunger Angel and The Appointment. She writes about life in Romania under the communist dictator Ceausescu (1965-1989). Muller grew up as a member of Romania’s large German minority and she writes in German.



A group of young people from impoverished rural backgrounds are thrown together in college dorms in the big city – the young women, six to a room. The oppression of the dictator is everywhere and talk of his health is constant. Rumors (hopes) of his illnesses, the more severe the better, are talked about every day. One of the women kills herself and that is followed by compulsory attendance at a meeting in an auditorium to admonish her memory. The rules and regulations, the spying and the reporting, the fear of being followed, the inability to really trust anyone else or to safely hide anything for fear of search is stifling:

“We sat together at a table, but our fear stayed locked within each of our heads, just as we’d brought it to our meetings. We laughed a lot, to hide it from each other. But fear always finds an out. If you control your face, it slips into your voice. If you manage to keep a grip on your face and your voice, as if they were dead wood, it will slip out through your fingers. It will pass through your skin and lie there. You can see it lying around on objects close by.”

The narrator is a young woman and her only escape is that she hangs out with a group of young men in a summer house reading banned books. The thrill of discovery is the only thing that counteracts the fear and the boredom. Resist or die: they chose resistance and experience betrayal.



Here are links to my reviews of two other books I read by Herta Muller:

The Hunger Angel

The Appointment

Top photo from Bucharestlife.net
Bottom photo from Kami's blog Mywanderlust.pl

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

LA MADRE È BRAVA. L'ALBERO È VERDE. L'ACQUA SCORRE. LA SABBIA È PESANTE. IL SOLE BRUCIA.


André Thijssen: Car with Balls, USA, 2002.

Benvenuti al festival della metafora, dove anche un punto fermo è la metafora di una virgola e due punti di un punto interrogativo.
Uno sguardo pieno d'angoscia, al quale la realtà appare gravida di minacce, forse, non poteva esprimersi se non per metafore?

La bestia del cuore del titolo originale (Herztier") si è trasformata nel paese delle prugne verdi della traduzione italiana: chi sa, magari il titolo era già stato usato da un brutto libro italiano di successo, oppure le prugne verdi erano più metaforiche della bestia nel cuore?

L'insalata cresceva rosso scura e ruvida e frusciava nei sentieri come carta. E le patate erano verdi e amare sotto la buccia e avevano occhi sprofondati nella carne.
Non tutte le altre metafore sono così belle e soprattutto così cristalline.


Bucarest

In un paese passato direttamente dalle SS alla Securitate... in un paese dove non si usavano coltelli e forchette, ma solo cucchiai, perché fosse più facile scambiare la paura con la follia... in un paese dove si poteva camminare lentamente o rapidamente, andare di soppiatto, o correre a perdifiato e invece andare a spasso era stato dimenticato... in un paese dove le valigie sono una presenza ossessiva, una sotto ogni letto, e gli armadi nascondono segreti che sono poesie o capelli, ma anche il suicidio bisogna nasconderlo dentro un armadio... in un paese dove si viene picchiati, e se si viene picchiati una ragione deve esserci per forza... in un paese di bevitori di sangue, alle donne va sempre peggio, come ovunque peraltro, le donne vengono stuprate e messe incinta, si impiccano dentro gli armadi... in un paese così, le prugne verdi fanno male e la bestia cresce a dismisura nel cuore.


Dal film del 1993 “Vulpe-vânator” di Stete Gulea, sceneggiato da Herta Müller.

Non è vero che sia un libro che si ama o si odia, non credo a questo genere di definizione, né per i libri né per gli scrittori.
Non è vero che sia un libro difficile: o, almeno, non è il primo, non sarà l'ultimo, e non è il più difficile.
Non è vero che i Nobel per la letteratura si diano ai libri o agli scrittori migliori, spesso si danno per motivi politici, a volte, ma raramente, a scrittori mediocri.
Ci sono pagine e momenti molto belli nel romanzo di Herta Müller, ma non tutto sembra alla stessa altezza.


Tunnel sotterraneo a uso della Securitate.


Non sarà facile 'liberarsi' di questo libro, si appiccica all'anima, è vischioso, continua a far riflettere.
E non è un male.


Documenti di polizia dopo la “primavera” romena dell’inverno 1989.

[İntellecta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Herztier" who would like to Reading this book, should be aware that this is not an entertainment reading. Books about bad times are often rated differently. She tells her story in a highly poetic, very associative, but at the same time in a very robust language. This book leaves a mixed sense. In the shock of the narrated events the admiration for the literary achievement mingles. Especially the language enthusiastic, in which the female characters are described very sensitively. At the beginning, the narrative style also confused me. The text seems to be crack and fragmentary, but one you have read in and adapted to the peculiar style of the author, then you can enjoy this Book.

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

سرد متميز يهتم بالتفاصيل ويحفظ ذاكرة الماضي
رواية من أهم أعمال الكاتبة الألمانية هيرتا موللر
تكتب موللر – كما في أغلب أعمالها- عن الديكتاتورية في رومانيا
الحياة البائسة في ظل نظام الدولة البوليسية فترة حكم تشاوشسكو
الحياة التي عاشتها وعانت منها قبل رحيلها لألمانيا عام 1987
تحكي الراوية التي تنتمي للأقلية الألمانية في رومانيا عن حياتها وأصدقائها
تعرض موللر أحوالهم وأفكارهم وعائلاتهم ومصائرهم الحزينة
وتصور مشاهد القمع والخوف والفقر, والرغبة في التحرر من الرقابة والاضطهاد
ومحاولات الهروب التي تبدأ بالأمل وتنتهي بمزيد من الألم

[Pavel Nedelcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

ORIGINALITATE, FORȚĂ EXPRESIVĂ, PROFUNZIME



O carte excelentă, originală și cu o forță expresivă rar întâlnită la vreun autor român.

Herta Müller scrie din profunzime și cu profunzime, metaforele sale sunt destinate să rămână adânc imprimate în memoria cititorilor.

De la tragicul sfârșit al Lolei la tragedia umană generală, amplificată de foame, sărăcie și abuzurile Securității (ale căpitanului Piele, flancat de câinele Piele), autoarea nu iartă nimic și pe nimeni.

Fiecare cuvânt în acest roman al Hertei Müller a fost cântărit și așezat exact acolo unde trebuia.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the English translation of this novel, originally published under the title Herztier. It’s not really a term that translates to English, so I can see why this version has a completely different title. The term “heart beast” does in fact appear a number of times in the text, and I didn’t fully understand its meaning.

The setting is 1980s Romania, and like the author, the narrator is a member of the country’s once substantial German speaking minority, who refer to themselves as Swabians.

I was enormously impressed by this novel, but actually considering quitting it after about 20 pages. If this is typical of Herta Müller’s work, then she has a distinctive writing style. The novel consists of short passages, jumping from one scene to another. At the beginning we are placed with the narrator into a six-bed dorm in a student residence, though only one of the other girls, Lola, is mentioned by name. These passages are interspersed with childhood memories, I assume from the narrator herself. I had to adjust to the style of the book before I could start to appreciate its eloquence, and eloquent it certainly is.

Lola fades from the book and the narrator interacts mainly with 3 male students, Edgar, Kurt and Georg, also “Swabians”, and a Romanian woman called Tereza. There is also the sinister Captain Pjele, from the Security Police of the Romanian dictatorship of the period. The 4 Swabians are considered politically suspect. Without actually being sent to prison, they are subjected to unrelenting harassment and bullying from Pjele and from the authorities generally, in a way that completely wears them down psychologically. In terms of fiction, this is one of the best books I’ve read about the insidious effects of such treatment.

The novel also conveys the fear of living in such a society. Early on the staff of the university organise an assembly of the students, to vote on the expulsion of one of their number.

“The gym instructor was the first to raise his hand. All the other hands flew up after his. While raising their hands, everyone looked at the raised hands of the others. If someone’s raised hand wasn’t as high as the others’, he would stretch his arm a little further. People kept their hands up until their fingers grew tired and started to droop and their elbows began to feel heavy and pull downward. Everyone looked around, and since no one else’s arm was lowered, they straightened their fingers again and extended their elbows…”

At another point, the narrator’s mother, a peasant woman, is detained because of her daughter’s activities.

“The policeman kept Mother locked in his office for ten hours. She sat down by the window…Each time someone passed, she rapped on the glass. No one in the street looked up. People know they are not allowed to look up there, said Mother. I wouldn’t have looked up myself, because there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

As might be imagined, the mood is mostly downbeat, although there are a few humorous episodes to occasionally lighten the mood.

I’ve read a few decent novels in the last few months, but this is probably the one I’ve been most impressed with so far this year.

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 5 out of 5]

چقدر عالی بود. واقعا لذت بردم. چقدر آدم هاش آشنا بودند. لولا گئورگ کورت پجله و... به دوستانی که نخوانده اند و توی لیست گذاشته اند اکیدا توصیه می کنم بخوانند و لذت ببرند.
********************************************************************************
وقتی لب فرو می‌بندیم و سخنی نمی‌گوییم، غیر قابل تحمل می‌شویم و آنگاه که زبان می‌گشاییم، از خود دلقکی می‌سازیم. ص 9 کتاب
به نظر من هر کسی که می‌میرد، کیسه‌ای لبریز از کلمات از خودش به جا می‌گذارد. ص 9 کتاب
مگر نه اینکه مجبور بودیم در این مملکت در ترس و وحشت راه برویم، غذا بخوریم، بخوابیم و عشق بورزیم...ص 10 کتاب
من به خودم گفتم هر چیز�� که به گورسازان صدمه بزند مفید است. ادگار، کورت و گئورگ، با نوشتن شعر و عکس گرفتن و گهگاه با زمزمه آواز، باعث ترویج نفرت نسبت به گورسازان می‌شدند. این نفرت به پاسداران آسیب می‌زد. این نفرت باعث می‌شد که کم کم تمام پاسداران و دست آخر خود دیکتاتور، کارشان به دیوانگی بکشد. ص 59 کتاب
ادگار گفت: «پلیس مخفی خودش درباره‌ی بیماری دیکتاتور شایعه می‌سازد تا مردم دست به فرار بزنند و بعد آنها را دستگیر کند و یا مردم با هم در گوشی حرف بزنند تا بتواند آنها را به بند بکشد. دزدیدن گوشت یا کبریت، گندم یا مواد پاک کننده، شمع یا پیچ، سنجاق سر یا میخ، تیر و تخته نمی‌تواند بهانه‌ای برای دستگیری مردم باشد.» ص 59 کتاب
ادگار، کورت و من نمی‌خواستیم کشور را ترک گوییم، نه‌از طریق دانوب، نه از راه هوا و نه به وسیله قطار باری. ما به پارک نکبتی رفتیم. ادگار گفت: «اگر فقط شخص مربوطه کشور را ترک می‌کرد، بقیه می‌توانستند بمانند.» او خودش این قضیه را باور نداشت. هیچ کس معتقد نبود که شخص مربوطه باید برود. ما هر روز درباره‌ی بیماری قدیم و جدید دیکتاتور شایعاتی می‌شنیدیم. البته هیچ کس باور نمی‌کرد، هر چند آدم‌ها با اولین کسی که رو به رو می‌شدند، راجع به آن در گوشی پچ پچ می‌کردند. ما هم شایعه پراکنی می‌کردیم. گویی شایعات حامل ویروس کشنده‌ای بود که امکان داشت به صورت خزنده، گریبان دیکتاتور را بگیرد و او را نفله کند. ص 70 کتاب
همه از مرگ قریب الوقوع دیکتاتور احساس شادمانی می‌کردند، اما مرگی در کار نبود. هر کسی می‌توانست جنازه او را در نظر مجسم کند که مانند زندگی نکبت بارش، از میان کاسه سرش به بیرون می‌خزد. همه می‌خواستند بیشتر از دیکتاتور عمر کنند. ص 71 کتاب

[William2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possesses a narrative patterning that is strikingly beautiful. There's compression, too, and suspense, though it's not a mystery or thriller. It's character driven so there's no real plot. Yet the vivid picture Herta Müller paints of Communist Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu is an absolute horror. I mean, the inanity of harassing perfectly harmless people and interrogating them and humiliating them for no purpose other than to instill fear and, thus, submission. Hannah Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil" springs to mind. Herta Müller has taken a hideous thing and made transcendent art from it. A captivating stunner of a novel but dark, dark.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was all in their eyes, Romanian eyes, eyes of fear, eyes of suffering, eyes of sadness. Fast forward, 1989, December 25, how could I forget, Christmas day. Family, festive spirits, presents, death by firing squad, Nicolae Ceaușescu, wife Elena, two tickets, one way...Hell. "The Land of Green Plums" a moving account for a group of students trying to better themselves under Ceaușescu's reign of terror, living in a totalitarian state, that would effect every aspect day after day. Poverty stricken, tormented souls, hope a million miles away, stand hand in hand with the oppressors, or perish like a fist full of dust. Trapped behind the Iron certain, no gaps in between, no sun. Despondent faces stare at the ground, desolate eyes look to the heavens. Müller's prose, hypnotic, mentally agonizing, relentlessly powerful, bleak and wholly unconventional. Read partly in a cafe, on the metro, and the comforts of home, but would have seemed more fitting to have sat on an old stool, in the corner of a small room, facing walls of decay.
Final thoughts?... gruelling ,debilitating, stunned!, the writing at times was almost too much to bear. Will never forget, but don't want to remember.

[Katayoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

چه حجمی از اندوه داشت! قلبم تیر میکشه 🥺

این کتاب سیاه است و روح و روان خواننده‌اش را مچاله می‌کند... داستانی تلخ و نفس‌گیر از دیکتاتوری رومانی

[Peiman · Rating 2 out of 5]

ریویوو نسبتاً بی ربط به کتاب

عمیقاً جای خالی دوست صمیمی رو توی زندگیم حس میکنم، نه که هیچوقت نداشتما، دیگه ندارم. یکی مهاجرت کرد، یکی ازدواج کرد، یکی هم تصمیم گرفت دیگه دوست نباشه، چرا؟ الله اعلم. حالا تو این سن و سال آدم دیگه دوست هم به راحتی پیدا نمیکنه چه برسه به دوست صمیمی. آدمها به هم بی اعتماد شدن، و البته حق دارن، به محض اینکه یک قدم به یه نفر نزدیک بشی، پیش خودش میگه یعنی این چه نیتی داره؟ بگذریم....ه

در مورد کتاب

سرزمین گوجه‌های سبز داستان زندگی چند دختره که در رومانی در زمان حکومت چائوشسکو زندگی میکنند و در تلاش هستند تا زندگی بهتری داشته باشند اما... احتمالاً یا من در زمان مناسبی این کتاب رو نخوندم، یا اینکه واقعاً نظرات باعث شده انتظار من خیلی بره بالا! کتاب بدی نیست اما حجم غم و سخت خوانی توأمان کتاب خیلی من رو اذیت کرد. کتابی نیست که من به کسی پیشنهاد بدم اما قطعاً کسی بخواد بخونه بهش نمی‌گم نخون. از نظر من اورریتده. یک فیلمی دیدم قبلاً به اسم «چهار ماه و سه هفته و دو روز» که فضاش خیلی شبیه به این کتابه هر چند نویسنده و کارگردان اقتباس از این کتاب رو گردن نگرفتن ولی خب اونم آش دهن سوزی نبود 😂 از دنده‌ی چپ بلند شدم گویا.ه

[Rêbwar Kurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

در جهانی که نفس کشیدن نیز باید از فیلتر قدرت بگذرد، زبان به ابزاری مضاعف برای شکنجه و انکار بدل می‌شود. سرزمین گوجه‌های سبز، روایتی‌ست از زندگی در یکی از تاریک‌ترین برهه‌های تاریخ اروپای شرقی؛ زمانی که نه تنها آزادی، که خود فردیت نیز در چرخ‌دنده‌های ایدئولوژی له می‌شود. هرتا مولر، زنی که خود زخم‌خوردهٔ آن سال‌هاست، با نثری سرشار از استعاره و ایهام، دوزخی را پیش چشم می‌گذارد که در آن خفقان، تسلیم و مراقبت دائمی، تنها شکل ممکن زیستن است.

داستان در رومانی دوران چائوشسکو می‌گذرد؛ اما آن‌چه روایت می‌شود، نه صرفاً یک مقطع تاریخی، بلکه بازتابی‌ست از سازوکار هر دیکتاتوری ایدئولوژیک: چهره‌هایی بی‌نام و بی‌صدا، تن‌هایی خسته، ذهن‌هایی هراسان، و آینده‌ای که از پیش مرده است. شخصیت‌ها، عمدتاً جوانان دانشجو و روشنفکر، در میان سطرها جان می‌گیرند، اما نه به عنوان قهرمانان، بلکه به عنوان تن‌های در تبعید، روان‌هایی مجروح که حتی در خلوت خود نیز از نگاه پلیس مخفی در امان نیستند.

«گوجه‌های سبز» در دهان مأموران امنیتی، تصویری‌ست که در ذهن می‌ماند: نشانه‌ای از عادی شدن ابتذال خشونت. چماق در دست، لب‌ها پر از میوه، و سکوتی مرگبار در فضا. اینجا، زندگی نه یک زیستن آزادانه، که تمرینی دائمی برای سازش و سرکوب است.

مولر با نثری شاعرانه، زبانی تراش‌خورده و پرکنایه خلق می‌کند؛ اما این زیباییِ زبانی، خود به نوعی مقاومت در برابر زشتی دیکتاتوری بدل می‌شود. استعاره‌ها در متن او بیهوده نیستند؛ آن‌ها جای حقیقتی را می‌گیرند که گفتنش یا ممنوع است یا غیرممکن. لحنی سرد و بی‌تعارف، آغشته به اندوهی پنهان و گاه خشم فروخورده، فضای روایت را به تنگ‌نایی شبیه می‌کند که خواننده را خفه می‌کند، نه با فریاد، بلکه با نجوا.

از «افزایش جمعیت اجباری» تا «ممنوعیت سقط جنین»، از نابودی روستاها تا خلق مصنوعی شهرک‌های صنعتی، همه چیز در این روایت سندی‌ست از قدرتی که می‌خواهد آفرینش را نیز از آنِ خود کند. شباهت‌های این نظام با دیکتاتوری‌های دینی نیز در متن موج می‌زند: همان‌گونه که خدایان آسمانی نیازمند ستایش‌اند، خدایان زمینی نیز خواهان تعظیم‌اند. ایدئولوژی، چه دینی باشد و چه ضددینی، اگر به ابزار سلطه بدل شود، یک نقطهٔ اشتراک دارد: نفی فرد و تحقیر انتخاب.

مولر، با نوشتن این اثر، نه صرفاً وضعیت سیاسی یک کشور، بلکه وضعیت هستی‌شناسانه انسان در دل ماشین قدرت را به تصویر می‌کشد. جایی که انسان، حتی برای گریستن، نیازمند مجوز است. جایی که عشق، صمیمیت و حتی مرگ، تحت نظارت قرار گرفته‌اند. به‌همین دلیل است که مرگ، در این کتاب نه پایان، بلکه شاید رهایی‌ست؛ اما رهایی‌ای که خود نیز بی‌معنا شده است.

این اثر، بیشتر از آن‌که داستان بگوید، فضا می‌سازد. فضایی از تنهایی، ترس، بی‌هویتی، و مقاومت خاموش. و همین فضا، ربطی عمیق با تجربه‌ی زیسته‌ی بسیاری از انسان‌ها در حکومت‌های تمامیت‌خواه دارد—نه فقط در رومانی، بلکه در هرجایی که قدرت از حقیقت بزرگ‌تر شده.

خواندن سرزمین گوجه‌های سبز آسان نیست. نه از آن‌رو که زبانی دشوار دارد، بلکه به‌دلیل زخمی که با هر سطر به جان خواننده می‌زند. زخمی که ما را به یاد می‌آورد: گاه، تنها راه بقا، دیوانه‌وار دست زدن به چیزی‌ست که سزاوار گریه است.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When i started to read, i thought: "Oh no, stream-of-conscious-like, unconnected episodes in a weird language....", but as i progressed i slowly started to appreciate Müller's unusual language. The metaphors are strange, but are very expressive.They make you feel the opressive atmosphere in a totalitarian regime, one starts to feel persecuted by "harmless men with dogs" walking behind you, one can relate perfectly well to how the characters grow more and more hopeless and depressed despite of their deep friendship and mutual support. The descriptions of a bleak, barren suppressed country are very accurate, and the story of Lola, the girl with a poor area stamped on her face who commits suicide is terrifyingly sad. I love the author for her criticism not only of the dictatorship and its blind followers, but also herself: After the death of the girl, there's a conference at school for expulsing her post mortem of the communist party and all the teachers raise arms to show their loyalty in the voting out of fear to be suspicious themselves if they don't. After the scene, the narrator (who is easily identifiable with the author) sits in a park and counts all the people who would've done the same, and is devastated at the realisation that she wouldn't be an exception. it shows how a system of control and angst corrupts virtually everyone.

this is a really weird little book, it even haunted me during night....or better, the vulnerable, yet strong voice of the narrator which pierces like glass despite of being quite obscure in some sequels....if you want to understand how life was in communist Romania - and probably in any system depending on control and censorship -, read this book. despite of the bleak topic it's a beautiful, if not enyoyable read. i don't know about the competition, but i do think that Herta Müller deserves the praise and awards she got.

[Caterina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone had a friend in every wisp of cloud
that’s how it is with friends where the world is full of fear
even my mother said, that’s how it is
friends are out of the question
think of more serious things.

Did you ever feel ashamed for taking pleasure in a book? The title “The Land of Green Plums” and even the cover illustration are (at first) dreamy. The prose is original, austere, and poetic — yet also somehow dreamy, surreal like a Russell Edson prose poem. The effect is a terror that sneaks up, builds like slow poison, like the green plums that grow everywhere in Romania, whose soft, edible pits contain a toxin. Children eat the plums despite their mothers’ warnings, and the young men who crave jobs as police officers, their only opportunity for any kind of power, are constantly stealing them out of gardens and stuffing their faces with them. In truth I didn't take pleasure for long, but the book is a work of art, and worth reading.

I found myself reading and re-reading to glean meanings from the indirect, subtle text that mirrors the indirection necessary under the dictatorship. Some aspects (maybe cultural?) remain a mystery to me. But also I dragged my feet, I didn’t want to read what might come next. The biggest mystery was what had these students — or any of the other countless victims of the regime — done to deserve to be terrorized and sometimes murdered or driven to suicide? In short, nothing. It wasn’t what they did or did not do, it was the pleasure those in power took in abuse, control, manipulation, torment, destruction.

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 5 out of 5]

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کتاب منو یاد این شعر انداخت که با صدای شاهین نجفی بارها گوش داده بودم...تک تک مصرع ها متناسب بود

انگار کتاب شعر بود اگه میخواستم جملات زیبا رو بنویسم باید بنویسم کل کتاب ،اما جمله ای که خودم باهاش حال کردم

^^ هر آنچه که موجودیت داشته باشد روزی از بین خواهد رفت^^

نکته آخر :این کتاب رو نباید یبار خوند ،اونا که خوندن میفهمن چی میگم ،جمله آخر کتاب نمایانگر اینه بنظر من
🔄





نکند پنجره‌ای ﭘﺸﺖ ﺻﻠﻴﺒﻢ ﺑﺎﺷﺪ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﻣﻴﮑﺮﻭﻓﻮنی ﺩﺍﺧﻞ ﺟﻴﺒﻢ ﺑﺎﺷﺪ

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺍﻳﻦ «اس‌ام‌اس» ﺩﺭ جایی ﺛﺒﺖ ﺷﻮﺩ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ گریه‌ی ﭘﺸﺖ ﺗﻠﻔﻦ، ﺿﺒﻂ ﺷﻮﺩ

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺷﺎﻫﺪ ﺩﻋﻮﺍﻣﺎﻥ ﺩﺭ ﻣﺎﺷﻴﻨﻨﺪ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺩﺍﺧﻞ ﺣﻤّﺎﻡ، ﺗﻮ ﺭﺍ می‌بینند

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺍﺳﻢ ﺗﻮ ﺭﺍ ﺑﺎ ﺩﻫﻨﺶ ﺑﺨﺶ ﮐﻨﺪ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺭﺍﺯ ﻣﺮﺍ ﺗﻠﻮﻳﺰﻳﻮﻥ ﭘﺨﺶ ﮐﻨﺪ

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ می‌داند ﺁﻧﭽﻪ ﮐﻪ ﻣﻦ می‌دانم!
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ پس‌فردا، ﺗﻴﺘﺮِ ﻳﮏِ «ﮐﻴﻬﺎﻧﻢ»
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ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺭﺧﻨﻪ ﮐﻨﺪ ﺩﺭ ﺩﻝ ﺍﻳﻤﺎﻧﻢ ﺷﮏ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﻟﻮ ﺑﺪﻫﻢ ﺍﺳﻢ ﺗﻮ ﺭﺍ ﺯﻳﺮ ﮐﺘﮏ

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ نامه‌ی ﺟﻌﻠﻲ ﻣﺮﺍ ﭘُﺴﺖ ﮐﻨﻨﺪ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ این‌همه ﺑﺪ، ﻗﻠﺐ ﻣﺮﺍ ﺳﺴﺖ ﮐﻨﻨﺪ

ﺗﻠﺨﻢ ﻭ ﺣﻞ ﺷﺪﻩ ﮐﺎﺑﻮﺱ ﻭﺟﻮﺩﻡ ﺩﺭ ﺳﻢ
ﻏﻴﺮ ﺗﻮ ﺍﺯ همه‌ی آدم‌ها می‌ترسم

ﻫﻤﻪ ﺩﺍﻧﺴﺘﻪ ﻭ ﻧﺎﺩﺍﻧﺴﺘﻪ ﺟﺎﺳﻮﺳﻨﺪ!
ﺩﺳﺘﺸﺎﻥ حلقه‌ی ﺩﺍﺭ ﺍﺳﺖ ﻭ ﺗﻮ ﺭﺍ می‌بوسند

ﻟﺨﺖ ﺩﺭ جیغ‌ترین لحظه‌ی ﺗﺨﺘﺖ ﻫﺴﺘﻨﺪ
ﻓﮑﺮِ ﺩﺭ ﺭﻓﺘنِ ﺍﺯ ﻫﺮ شبِ ﺳﺨﺘﺖ ﻫﺴﺘﻨﺪ

خسته‌ام ﺍﺯ ﺷﺐ ﻧﻔﺮﻳﻦ ﺷﺪﻩ ﺩﺭ بی‌رحمی
خسته‌ام... می‌ترسم... ﻭ ﺗﻮ ﻓﻘﻂ می‌فهمی!...
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کاشکی ﺁﺧﺮ ﺍﻳﻦ ﺳﻮﺯ، بهاری ﺑﺎﺷﺪ
کاشکی ﺩﺭ ﺑﻐﻠﺖ، ﺭﺍﻩ ﻓﺮﺍﺭی ﺑﺎﺷﺪ

ﮐﺎشکی ﺍﺯ ﻫﻤﻪ مخفی ﺑﺸﻮﺩ ﺍﻳﻦ ﺷﺎدی
ﮐﺎشکی ﻭﺻﻞ ﺷﻮﺩ ﻋﺸﻖ ﺗﻮ ﺑﻪ ﺁﺯﺍﺩی

ﮐﺎشکی ﺑﺪ ﻧﺸﻮﺩ ﺁﺧﺮِ ﺍﻳﻦ قصّه‌ی ﺑﺪ
ﮐﺎشکی ﺑﺎﺯ ﺑﺨﻮﺍﺑﻴﻢ... ولی ﺗﺎ ﺑﻪ ﺍﺑﺪ...
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ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﺩﺍﺭ، ﺳﺮﺍﻧﺠﺎﻡ ﺩﺭﺧﺘﻢ ﺑﺎﺷﺪ
ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﻣﻴﮑﺮﻭفونی ﺩﺍﺧﻞ ﺗﺨﺘﻢ ﺑﺎﺷﺪ

ﻧﮑﻨﺪ ﻣﺎ ﺭﺍ ﺍﺯ ﺗﻠﻮﻳﺰﻳﻮﻥ می‌بینند...
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سید مهدی موسوی

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu yılı bitirirken böyle çarpıcı bir kitap okumak yıl sonu hediyesi gibi oldu. Romen yazar Herta Müller’in iç yakan, ruh karartan, acı ilaç gibi tad bırakan, adı gibi ilginç, oldukça farklı bir romanı “Yürekteki Hayvan”. Çavuşesku dönemi Romanya’sında geçen bence otobiyografik öğelerle zenginleştirilmiş bir hikaye. Almanya’ya iltica eden ve romanını 1994’de Almanca yayınlayan Müller muhalif olarak dikta yönetimi altında yaşamanın imkansızlığını anlatmayı hedeflemiş. Bunun yanında Çavuşesku yönetimindeki ülkesinde insanlarının çaresizliklerini, köy ile kent insanları arasındaki uyumsuzluğu, yalnızlığa düşen rejime uyum sağlamak istemiyen kişilerin kendilerine çıkış ararken yaşadıkları travmaları da anlatmış.

Dili çok farklı, çok iddialı olacak ama zaman kavramı zamansızlaşmış, geriye dönüşler ve ileriye sıçramalar içiçe, hiç bu kadar zamanla oynayan bir yazar okumadım şimdiye kadar. Aslında kullandığı dil çok basit ve anlaşılır olmasına rağmen okura oldukça mesafeli duruyor, bu seçimi yazarın bir diğer etkileyici yönü. Kitabı hakkıyla anlayabilmek için ya iki kez okumak ya da sıkça baş taraflara dönüp tekrar okumak gerekiyor ki, ben ikinci yöntemi yoğun kullandım. Hayat hikayesini okuyunca kitaptaki anlatıcının yazar olduğunu düşünüyorum. Lütfen kitaba başlamadan yazarın özgeçmişini okuyun. Taşrada bir genç kadının üniversite okumak için geldiği şehirde dikdörtgenler dedikleri odaları olan yurtta kalışı ile hikaye başlasa da romanda bu dikdörtgenlerin baskısı rejim baskısıyla yanyana hep hissediliyor. Oda arkadaşı Lola’nın ölümündeki şüphe, intihar mı cinayet mi ikilemi kadar Lola’nın ölümünde kullanılan kemerinin de bu ölümde sorumlu mu değil mi ikilemi anlatıcıyı kıskıvrak yakalıyor.

Politik yakınlaşmalarla kurduğu arkadaşlıklar (Georg, Kurt, Edgar) bazen anlatıcıya nefes aldırırken bazen kabus olarak hayatına giriyor. Bir de bunlara iş yeri arkadaşı apolitik kişilikteki Tereza da katılmakta. İşkenceler, sorgular, ölümler ağır havayı daha da ağırlaştırıyor. H. Müller bu ağırlığı kullandığı olağanüstü metaforlar ve imgelerle mükemmel bir şekilde hem hafifletiyor hem de ağırlığı daha da hissettiriyor. Örneğin ham erik, külotlu çorap, tahta kavun, teneke koyun, altındaki deliklerden yolu gören yolcular, başları eğik sanki uyuyarak oturan yolcular, oyuncaklar, örümcek kuşu, berber makası, fındık vb.

Dört kişi çıktıkları yolda iki kişi kalan anlatıcı hem kendisi hem de Macar asıllı evsahibi Margit üzerinden göçmenliğin zorluğunu ve hüznünü de hikayesine yedirmiş. Aslında çok katmanlı bir roman, şöyle ki; 2. Dünya Savaşı sonrası oluşan Nazi nefretini Führer hayranı bir SS subayı olan babasına kadar, oradan da Almanlara kadar genişleten anlatıcı sonuçta çözümü Almanya’ya kaçmakta buluyor. Sovyetlerdeki rejim ve 2. Dünya Savaşı’nda Sovyet askerlerinin yerel halka davranışı da yazarın kaleminden kağıda dökülmüş. Yüzbaşı Pjele tiplemesi ise tüm otokratik rejimlerde olmazsa olmazlardan.

Çeviri (Çağlar Tanyeli) mükemmel, yazı karakteri ve kullanılan font ölçeği okumayı çok rahatlatıyor, baskı hatası nerdeyse hiç yok, kapak tasarımı da özenli ve dikkat çekici, bu yönleriyle de kitap parıldıyor. Siren Yayınları iyi iş çıkarmış. Kitabın ağır ve sarsıcı olması sadece konusundan değil yazarın dili ve kullandığı edebiyat yöntemleriyle de ilgili. Buna rağmen okumanızı öneriyorum, farklı bir okuma olacağından eminim.

Kitap bitti yüreğime bir hayvan geldi oturdu…

[مجید اسطیری · Rating 1 out of 5]

راستش من این رمان را نیمه کاره کنار گذاشتم. حالا یا به خاطر ترجمه بود یا به خاطر بی حوصلگی . البته خوندن کارهایی که روایت منسجم ندارند نیاز داره که لااقل خودت در اون مقطع انسجام داشته باشی و من اون موقع نداشتم. ولی خب فکر نمیکنم واقعا شاهکار بود. نوبل گرفته ها هم متوسط شده ن و همه این را قبول دارند. هه باب دیلن! مسخره س!!!

[Narges · Rating 4 out of 5]

پر بود از سیاهی و تاریکی...
شاید کتابی باشه که ادم اصلا در ابتدا و یا حتی در اواسط داستان جذبش نشه و هر لحظه بخواد بزارتش کنار ولی به بعضی کتابا باید فرصت داد تا به شما حس خوبی منتقل کنن و این از اون دسته کتاب ها بود
من دوسدارم به حسی که در آخر از یه کتاب میگیرم امتیاز بدم نه حسایی که اول یا وسطش داشتم
شاید اگه یکم حالت شاعرانه اش در بعضی جاهای کتاب کمتر بود من بهش پنچ ستاره میدادم
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وقتی لب فرو میبندیم و سخنی نمی گوییم ، غیرقابل تحمل می شویم و آنگاه که زبان می گشاییم ، از خود دلقکی می سازیم
به نظر من هر کسی که می میرد ، کیسه ای لبریز از کلمات از خودش به جا می گذارد

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are (were) Germans in Romania? Swabians, I think they are called. I confess a gap here. I knew, of course, about Germans in Czechoslovakia. A convenient casus belli. But there was this community of Germans in Romania after one shuffling of nations. (Don't tell Adolf!)

Herta Müller was one of them. This work (maybe all her works, from what I've read) is semi-autobiographical. Her father had been a member of the Waffen SS during World War II, and earned a living as a truck driver in Communist Romania. Romania, sensing a loser, switched sides midway. In 1945 her mother, then aged 17, was along with 100,000 others of the German minority deported to forced labor camps in the Soviet Union, from which she was released in 1950. The Swabians were put upon by the Ceaușescu regime, seems to be the point of Müller's work.

Fully understanding that I might be penalized by the Nobel Committee, I nevertheless am hard-pressed to cough up any sympathy for Nazis or their children. I'm a hard case. I do not equate the snooping through mail with the eradication of Jews, Poles, Homosexuals and Gypsies. A word of contrition would have helped.

That said....

As a purely literary effort, this had merit. It's poetic, and rife with symbolism.

My brother drives the sheep home in the evening, writes Lola. He has to cross through the melon field. He's left the pasture too late, it's getting dark, and the sheep with their bony shanks are stepping on the melons and smashing them. My brother sleeps in the shed, and the sheep have red feet the whole night long.

(Is there a point where symbolism is too obvious? Watermelons, Müller's sheep and McCarthy's ( Suttree) mental deficient: Contrast and Compare. Discuss.)

I've tried these two sober and, you know, otherwise:

Booze protects the skull from the forbidden, and fodder protects the mouth. Even when the tongue can only babble, the habit of fear does not desert the voice.

And....

People say it only snows when a good person dies. That's not true.

And yet I liked it. I do because I do not condemn, well not always, when I read, if I learn something (I did) and if the writing is good (it was).

I could have taken the snarky out and just quoted what I liked. And there would have been plenty. But then I might have lost my Herztier.* So let me choose just one of many passages which moved me, in a literary kind of way, something perhaps which will make you want to read this:

The child has two grandmothers. One brings her love to the child at bedtime, and the child looks up at the white ceiling because she knows that Grandmother is about to start praying. The other brings her love to the child at bedtime, and the child gazes into her dark eyes, because she knows that Grandmother is about to start singing.

When the child can no longer bear the sight of the ceiling or the dark eyes, she pretends to sleep. The first grandmother doesn't finish her prayer. She gets up in the middle and walks out. The other grandmother finishes her song, her face is crooked because she loves singing so much.

When her song is finished, she thinks the child is fast asleep. She says: Rest your heart-beast now, you've played so much today.

The singing grandmother outlives the praying grandmother by nine years. And she outlives her own reason by six years. She no longer recognized anyone in the house. All she remembers are her songs.

One evening she walks from the corner of the room to the table and says, in the glow of the light, I'm so glad you're all with me in Heaven. She doesn't realize she's alive and that she'll have to sing herself to death. No illness will come to help her die.

*Herztier, the title of this book in the original German, is, I'm reliably told, not a word in German. But it is translated here as 'heart-beast'. Make your own meaning. More or less. But know it has a rapid pulse. It comes from asking How to Be Both. It wants to be calmed, soothed, by some lullaby. Which works, I promise...

...until the next night.

[Salathiel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I really did. With it being the spawn of a Nobel Laureate and a book that purposed to explore the human side-effects of dictatorial Romania, I was certain that this book would tickle my literary side while also indulging my inner humanitarian. But sadly, it didn't.

The biggest reason for it's failure? It simply was too confusing. I love the well-turned phrase as much as the next one, but when poetry and beauty starts to inhibit the progression of plot and understanding, then I begin to wish that the author had perhaps written with a more fine tuned balance. The writing at times was beautiful, hauntingly so. But when I, who by my own humble estimations am a very perceptive and strong reader, would finish passages and pages to be left wondering what has just happened; then I am not only left to scratch the head, but I am also left wondering if age has finally caught up with me and the destruction of my brain cells has officially begun. Not my idea of the results of "pleasurable" reading.

This novel was about a subject matter that I am sure few Westerners have ever explored, that being the totalitarian government that emerged in Romania following World War II. While I am not necessarily a historical novel buff, I do appreciate it when I can read a fictitious account that while successfully entertaining me, also is simultaneously teaching me. The fact that I was able to complete this novel and am leaving with pretty much the same knowledge of this phase in Romania's history as when I came in, means that something went dismally awry. I didn't expect, and never really desired, to feel like I was reading a history text, but I did expect to feel somehow absorbed in and connected to this period of history in a more intimate way.

I will say, that as the novel progressed, I was able to steady myself a bit, and to appreciate the happenings with a more discerning eye. However, though the muddying cleared to provide windows of clarity, I still found myself not as emotionally invested as I envisioned I would be. This was a story of college students being tormented by the government for being liberal minded and nonconformist. And while that premise would draw most readers in, including myself, the happenings that surrounded these students were unnecessarily muted simply because the style of writing did not support the kind of character investing that makes these events memorable. Even now, writing this review about a week after finishing, I can barely remember who lived, who died, how did the novel end, and what lesson did the nameless protagonist take with her that somehow made this story, her story, worth being told.

With all that being said, I would not dissuade anyone from reading this book. It helped Muller win the Nobel Prize for a reason, and I am certain that a more refined reader will find the patience to methodically read this one and think heavily on each image and analogy. This book felt big, and even though I have been more scathing than gentle, even I can understand that this book was heavy with layers that went beyond a rehashing of events and emotions. There is a message here, and if you are willing to take a deep plunge, I am sure you will glean what that message is.

Muller's writing was a paradigm of beauty, but for me it got in the way of what I felt should have been not simply a story, but an experience. I feel blasphemous for rating this one a two, and maybe when I am older and more seasoned I will come to regret such willfulness, but as of right now, a two is more than fitting to capture my experience traipsing through The Land of Green Plums .

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 5 out of 5]

gece kitabı bitirdiğimde uyuyamadım sıkıntıdan. herta müller’in siren’den çıkma diğer kitaplarını da okudum ama onlar beni bu denli etkilememişti sanki. ya da ben yaşlanıyorum, dünya berbatlaşıyor, her şeyden daha çok etkileniyorum.
başı ve sonu birbirine bağlanan sarmal bir roman “yürekteki hayvan”. zaman sıçramalarıyla ilerliyor, lineer bir biçimde değil. o nedenle ilk başta çok da anlamlandıramadığımız ilk sayfaları romanı bitirdikten sonra yine okumakta fayda var. o zaman her şey yerine oturuyor.
adını bilmediğimiz taşralı genç kadın anlatıcının üniversite içim kente gelip öğrenci yurdunu anlatmasıyla başlıyor olup bitenler. yer romanya, diktatör çavuşesku, muhtemelen 70-80’li yıllar. ikinci dünya savaşı sonrası alman ve nazi nefreti baki, oysa anlatıcımız romanya’nın alman azınlığından. babası eski bir ss.
romanda herhangi bir olaydan anlatıcının çocukluğuna dönmesi o kadar ustalıklı geçişler ve etkili imgelerle yapılmış ki hayran kaldım. oyuncak, ham erik, devedikenleri, mezar yerleri… herta müller’in dili hep şiirsel, bu kez imgeler ve tekrarlarla dilini çokça destekliyor.
ölümler, ölümler, ölümler… yurt arkadaşı lola’nın anlatıcıyı hiçbir zaman terk etmeyecek intiharı ve tabii ki intihar olup olmadığının bilinememesi. sonra isteyerek, severek değil politik mecburiyetlerle arkadaş olduğu kurt, georg ve edgar. bu dörtlünün başına gelenler, işkenceler, bu mecburi arkadaşlık yüzünden birbirlerinin canlarını acıtmaya çalışıp durmaları.
köylüler, acımasızlık, pislik ve bu ortamda artık komünizme inanmamak, partiden, işten atılmak, iş bulmalarına engel olunması… bunu kendine iş edinmiş bir düşman: yüzbaşı pjele.
köylerdeki aileler, onlara yapılan tacizler, haklarında çıkarılan dedikodular. her şey ama her şey sinir harbi.
anlatıcının gerçekten severek, mecburiyet olmadan, apolitik tek bir arkadaşı oluyor: tereza. o ise bu korku ortamında bambaşka bir ihanetin kahramanı oluyor.
azala azala geldikleri yolda, varabildikleri almanya’da iki kişi kalıyor artık. bunca ölüm ve bu ölümlerin hangisinin gerçekten intihar olup olmadığının bilinmemesinin verdiği ağırlık.
almanya bir kurtuluş mu? değil. anlatıcının ev sahibi bayan margit’ten biliyoruz göçmenliğin hiç bitmeyen bir keder olduğunu.
çok ağır, çok sarsıcı bir roman. okuması kolay değil. herta müller’in o soğuk ve mesafeli dilini çağlar tanyeri mükemmel çevirmiş.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to say openly how they feel in their hearts. Some people have to keep their hearts hidden." - Alfred Chester

A table and a chair now stood in the cube where Lola's bed had been. And on the table, a big preserving jar with long sprays from the scruffy park, dwarf white roses with delicately serrated leaves. The branches put down white roots in the water. The girls could walk and eat and sleep in the cube. They weren't afraid to sing in front of Lola's leaves.

The friends of the uniformed suicidal, carrier of the hunger fleas from her province, go looking for the drum beats of hunger pains like it was a dust bowl in dream songs (gotta be country songs) no one remembers all the way to their bitter end because no one wrote them down on waking. The girls in the cube couldn't speak in front of Lola. The group-think pamphlets sprung up around her bed. They were the eyelash tears of little Alice in her jar. Won't you help me, somebody. Lola's notebook spoke the truth of a dream you can't remember. It was Alice with her angry confusion when none of it made any sense. It didn't really know what anyone else's hearts looked like either. I think this is important. She really liked the title of the "head director" of the school. I wouldn't have uttered a word around Lola, either. You just can't trust her.

I don't blame anyone who didn't like Lola. She stole their clothes, returning them to their closet unwashed. Yes, she was hungry. But do her hunger pains wash the rains from the faces of anyone else?

Everyone had a friend in every wisp of cloud
that's how it is with friends where the world is full of fear
even my mother said, that's how it is
friends are out of the question
think of more serious things

She puts a finger to her cheek to count herself in the thousand out of every thousand. Will no one stand up? She won't. She knows that Lola wouldn't have either. She falls in step with three male friends. They meet to talk about Lola. Georg, Edgar and Kurt. They meet to keep her notebook in their heads as if the cheap ink of their country would stain their fingertips to speak for them what they never would. You can tell by my hands that they would make gestures they never would in real life. What is real life.

They recite the poem about every wisp of cloud. It beats their friends, it keeps distances, it feeds the hunger with a larger stomach to hold more emptiness. Trust no one.

Have you seen the National Geographic documentary on North Korea? The one hosted by Lisa Ling. Did you want to punch in her in the face when she interviews a "typical" family in their home? Pushing them to express doubts, or criticize their leader. This family lived for what passes for a blessed life in North Korea. But she would have them condemn themselves and everyone related to them (anyone who will ever again be related to them) to life in prison or death. Just for her stupid interview. She made a lot of smug "Look how brainwashed everyone is!" faces to the camera. Talk about really not getting it.

The group of friends meet to read secret books in the language of their families, German. When they leave school they split the books between them and they will become the wisp of cloud in those unfortunate enough to associate with them. Not that they, like the insufferable Lisa Ling, get it. They will not read the books again. I thought that was important.

When she speaks to her friends they will write down the words of Lola. They don't write her own words, Lola's replacement. I had the feeling she would only write her own words when she was dead like Lola. Not dead in life but on one side with no moving limbs to touch other colors, another truth. Like when the married lover she doesn't give a fuck about dies escaping over the border with his wife. He is only real when she thinks he might have thought she might be able to sing (their official tormentor, the Captain Pjele, has her sing his words). What would he have done to her? When the cost is final she is real like Lola. Lola was real when she was dead. I don't know what "safe" is but I had that squirmy feeling about the open eye on trespassers. She will "accidentally" leave contraband in the homes of unsuspecting associations. She never knew them. They carry secrets in their hearts, their own lives and pains. She doesn't know them. What can you do for me? When she has been allowed to escape Romania into Germany she will cut off her friend Tereza (and wouldn't you know they bear grudges against this woman who THEY are using, not the other way around) for pretending to go around with the Captain to be allowed a German visit before cancer takes her once and for all. Oh, but she tries to let the grasses of love grow again. Or does she want to nurse the old viper once and for all of death of the heart. Muller's book puts a toe in both truths but the toe steps more often on the side of your ass is grass and I've got a lawn mower. They don't think the authorities had something on Tereza to threaten her with because THEY put the books in HER home, in HER office locker. Every wisp of cloud, right?

The officers escaped from the there are worse jobs in the provinces of hunger to eat unripened plums on the side of the road. Walk as quietly as you can, don't let them notice you too much.

I wouldn't have been able to hold their pain with my own, if I were living with them. Tereza is always saying that all of the food reeks. I would smell the reek, it would turn my appetite to dust in my mouth. Kurt is obsessed with if the men who work in the slaughterhouse where he is an engineer are blood guzzlers. He will speak of nothing else. I was surprised he ended his own life. I am surprised he didn't have a wisp of cloud to whisper the possibility that the hungry men might drink his blood too. Someone has to stay warm. He fucked one of their little daughters and hated her for it. I don't know if I would have had enough left over to pity Kurt or Georg when the poor little girl with nothing is used so cruelly by them. If you can see another human being as garbage can you say it is the fault of someone else, your government, when you have a secret heart of I can't. When the girl in their group leaves a burden on the seamstress, doesn't know that she is Hungarian after all, was the life of motions of whomever may be watching the burden of the audience. Tereza, the one they abandon, says that she wasn't German yet knew her friend was. That's right. You don't have to be someone else to accept that they have a heart and a life of their own. I don't care they dismissed Tereza as stupid or not as good as them. Stupid means good enough to use? Tereza took the risk on friendship. Both girls have broken hearts but I feel that only one didn't push the pain along with fevered reassurances of death.

But they forgot that they were no longer permitted to stroke or slap this face. That they could no longer touch it. Our mothers' illnesses sensed that, for us, untying was a beautiful word.

Muller is also kind of a genius with overlaying the letters from home. Behind words of how life has made them sick they pleaded for their children to remember them. Love me. Give me meaning. The (privileged) college students would not understand what they had because they had to be free from the love of home. They couldn't see as they were counting the thousand in every thousand of who they couldn't trust what anyone else had, or what they had had. I think that is most likely common everywhere from all times that anyone with a mother cannot feel past that weight how it feels for someone else. I saw that Edgar was goddamned lucky to have a family to come home to.

After I read The Land of Green Plums I went online to look for a book about prostitution in communist countries (unsuccessful. Recommendations would be appreciated, if anyone knows of any good ones). I have had this impression for a long time that it was taken for granted that all women were prostitutes by the men (and the women. The cutting of returning female soldiers in Russia was just so awful). It really pissed me off. I kinda love Muller for a quote from another book of hers that where others saw a woman selling herself for bread she saw a beautiful woman and hunger hurts. I don't think that she could see windows with the light left on in others and nothing but dark masses for the rest. But the toe does return too often to one sore spot. "Plums" would write inside my head book when it knew that people like the seamstress were people in their own right, with secrets of their own, more than some other loud truth of how you can't trust anyone. Lola speaks louder once she is dead. Georg falls to his death and his friends feel safe to love him, now. This bothers me more than I can say. From what I've read about her other books I have had this feeling that silence and what a person will live with about their true selves is important to Muller. It is. But it isn't only important to one person. People have to live. So I don't care if North Koreans are public about hating their leader if it means they have to die to do it. I don't know what is in their hearts and I will never say they or anyone else doesn't have one. Her female protagonist returns often to thoughts of those in her community who are succumbed to insanity (blessed or victims is debatable). To her it is an option. I don't know how I feel about death or insanity as options against a common reality. You don't know. This is a hard book. It rubs up against all of the hard places and reminds you of where it hurts, where it has been untied and where there isn't weight. I hope to never be like them and think I know about everyone else. It's hard in this world. Everyone has to sell every day. Governments take your money and do something unspeakable to someone else. You go to work and your days go by to where you don't want to be. You get tired. Someone talks too much about blood guzzlers and reekers and you want it all to stop. I know and I know. I'll probably read The Hunger Angel next. I think a lot about the "luxury" of tears and she does too.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

it seems to me that if you want or need to write about the intensely traumatic life of people under a brutal dictatorship, writing with the language of children is a good way to go.

i deduce from other things i've read by herta mūller (okay, basically only her nobel lecture, which i can't recommend highly enough), that this novel is autobiographical, and i find profoundly inspirational that she helped herself through the process of writing about her trauma by using great inventiveness of imagery and language, and fantastic turns of events. in spite of being dark, this book is suffused with the special sweetness that comes from narrating events through the lens of child-play. trauma is so, so difficult to tell, and if lovely simple imagery helps us through the telling, well, dang, we should totally use it.

so look, this is not a super easy book to read, because you need to don your childlike glasses and let yourself be taken by plums and wooden objects and tin objects and sacks of canvas and pillowcases and barbers and nailclippings, and at first, since you are so thoroughly weaned from the magic of childhood, you will be confused. you will want to understand; you will expect the narrator to explain. eventually, though, the language will train you back into looking at things with the eyes and forbearance of a child, and you will understand pretty much everything.

which is -- the everything that needs to be understood -- that petty quotidian abuse and the systematic reminder that your freedom is taken away from you without rhyme or reason or any possibility for appeal cause a distress so deep that surviving it is well nigh impossible. there are, maybe, hints of true blue torture in here, but mostly what grinds down the soul of the young and older people who populate this beautiful, beautiful novel is their daily subjection to indignity, oppression, humiliation, suspicion, and fear.

i don't want to give the impression that this is all high fantasy, because it isn't. under the language of childish words there is a clear, realist story, and you can reconstruct it pretty well. but the language, well the language made the book more tolerable for me to read, and maybe (this is my starting theory) more tolerable for the writer to write, too.

because children have this tremendous tolerance for horror, and what is horrific to us -- the wolf eating red riding hood's grandmother -- is story to them, and stories make you stronger. stories allow you to experience pain without too much bite. stories give you the demons and the saviors, too.

the present-time of the narration is alternated with flashbacks of the narrator's childhood, and i found these little vignettes, inserted seamlessly in the text, very powerful. they felt to me reminders that this is a book written in some ways by a child (in some ways, because the narrator is in fact a university student), but since the stories contained in them are pretty straightforwardly bitter, they also brought home to me that it is easier for the childlike narrator to play a little when telling the story of her present trauma if she tells the pain of her childhood straight up. in other words, the childlike narrator has to establish herself as a lucid and direct narrator of her own childhood, so that the childlike quality of her narrative of her adulthood be grounded and rooted in the honesty and truthfulness of the story of her childhood pain.

i don't quite know why things were not better for our narrator when she was a child. i don't know whether she looks back at her childhood and tinges it with the horrors of the present. i don't know if her childhood is meant to represent the childhood of all children and all adults under ceausescu. It is quite possible that this was her childhood -- that it wasn't a good childhood. those were the parts that hit me the most: the unadorned pain of a little girl.

even though this, for the reasons i have explained, was not the easiest read, i couldn't put it down, and always looked forward to going back to it. it's beautiful writing, and an important story, and in my opinion quite a masterpiece.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the Aira novel I just reviewed, I felt something lost in translation here. I picked up this novel after reading Jesse Ball's Curfew and seeing another critic on Goodreads claim that Land of Green Plums was a better entry in the genre. The genre, I guess, is that of Kafka-- absurdist fairy tales of life in a police state. It seems a little silly to rank Muller and Ball. The difference between them might be summed as the difference between a Central/Eastern European and an American sensibility. Ball is attracted to the genre as an exotic aesthetic; for Muller, this is realism. The question for Muller as for so many Soviet-era writers (I'm thinking of the newly departed Vaclav Havel) is how to write about terror as a way of life. A certain distance is needed, thus the parable form. That said, Muller is harrowingly blunt. The novel proceeds like an unfolding nightmare that goes on and on, one horrible image following another. The prose is fascinating-- on the one hand, the sentences are simple and quick to read; however, the progression of images are so blunt and jarring that I often found myself stopping and re-reading a section to get a clearer sense of the implication of an action. The novel follows a group of friends trying to live in the capitol, with some degree of youthful aspiration to build their careers, who inescapably get drawn into the surveillance culture, which progressively dismantles them, killing several of them. At a certain point, it occurred to me that I was reading the dark inverse of Virginia Woolf's The Waves. Whereas Woolf imagines a group of friends flowing from infancy to old age as an awesome journey of development and self-discovery, Muller's youthful community is compromised immediately, and progressively crushed even as they bloom. Leave it to an Eastern European writer to make Virginia Woolf appear the optimist by comparison!

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Herztier' (English title: The Land of Green Plums) is known to be one of the most accessible works of Müller. Nevertheless, it remains a really tough job to get through this book. First, there is no real story: the main character observes the world around her in regularly shifting situations; only after a while you see it's about a group of young people who are trying to survive in an impoverished country under a brutal dictatorship; the narrator records elements of deprivation and backwardness, of persecution and attempts to escape the secret police, and the everlasting fear.

Regularly reference is made to the sickness and the deterioration of the dictator, but only on 1 place the name of Ceausescu is mentioned; by then it's clear that the author writes about Romania and, in particular, about the German-speaking minority in the West of the country; and so we know that the described situations and occurrences may be autobiographical.

But then there is the unique writing style of Müller: it takes some adjustment, because she describes (deliberately!) often quite dreamy, surreal situations, in phrases that suddenly jump and do not respect the traditional grammar. After a while you become used to this style and it really works - I often thought of the dreamy world of the painter Chagall, with recurring elements -, but it continues to be hard work to conceive what Müller exactly meant. In the end there remains the all pervasive image of a desolate world governed by fear, lurid and devastating. I can't really say I enjoyed this read, but this is literature that hurts in the bones. (2.5 stars)

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Wenn wir schweigen, werden wir unangenehm, sagte Edgar, wenn wir reden, werden wir lächerlich.“

("When we’re silent, we become unpleasant, said Edgar, when we speak, we become laughable.")

I’m finally getting comfortable with Müller’s writing. It is like looking through a disorganized, virtual scrapbook filled with mementos, photos, and short snippets of grainy 8 mm films. The story doesn’t start taking shape until the reader thinks about what connects those mementos and pays as much attention to what’s just outside the frame as what is in it. That, combined with her terse, direct sentences, forms the story. Although I have complained about how Thomas Mann makes the reader work hard, I know that I’m being hypocritical in appreciating it when Müller does it. So call me a hypocrite.

Although I didn’t grow up in Romania behind the Iron Curtain, I did spend significant periods of my teen and early adult years in East Germany (which, admittedly, was not as stark). Müller has a way of bringing back images that I thought I had forgotten. Her story is about the double standards, fears, and simple hopes that totalitarianism bred among its people. Her writing style is appropriate because there is no real linear, sensible way to really appreciate, digest or understand it. One hopefully just does. That's why I like and respect this story so much.

The title, Herztier, or as I would translate it, “animal heart,” seems so appropriate and it is, in my view, a shame that the translators in English chose the title they did. I understand why, but this story is about so much more than the land of plums. It is about the how the heart lost much of its humanity under the rule of Ceausescu. Even if one escapes it, the scars make it hard to become fully, trustingly human. But then again, it's not just totalitarianism that breeds animal hearts among us.

„Wenn wir schweigen, werden wir unangenehm, sagte Edgar, wenn wir reden, werden wir lächerlich.“

[فرشاد · Rating 5 out of 5]

سرزمین گوجه های سبز روایت مردمانیست در حسرت آزادی و در هراس از دیکتاتورهای حکومت توتالیتر .. کتاب از نظر نگارش ساده بود و نثر گزنده داشت .. خوندن این کتاب از اتفاق های خوب زندگی من بود ..

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Land of Green Plums is Herta Muller’s kafkaesk tale of life in Romania under the dictator, Ceaușescu. When the story opens, our narrator is one of five college students of German heritage, and almost immediately she becomes one of only four.

The first 25-30 pages of the book are almost dreamlike. It is difficult to piece together what is going on, but as the story progresses it begins to take shape, and I began to see that the narrator withholds details because she is afraid to say too much. Fear is the overpowering emotion in life, not only for these students, but for everyone around them.

On the first page, she says,

To this day, I can’t really picture a grave. Only a belt, a window, a nut and a rope. To me, each death is like a sack.

This makes little sense in the beginning, it encapsulates everything by the end.

This is totalitarianism at its zenith. No individuality is allowed, no disagreement, so that when a vote is called for there is no dissent, all hands go up and stay up until people are told to put them down.

Only the demented would not have raised their hands in the great hall. They had exchanged fear for insanity.

The writing is expressive and fearful and poetic. Yes, poetic, for Muller is a poet and that shows up in the lyrical way in which she presents even the most horrible of scenes.

All the others were fast asleep. Between my head and the pillow, I heard the dry objects of the mad people rustling: the withered bouquet of the waiting man, the grass pigtail of the dwarf lady, the newspaper hat of the old sled woman, the philosopher’s white beard.

As I was reading, I thought of Kafka’s The Trial. I felt that same sense of resignation to the omniscient authority of the state. One could never know when or why or how, but one could be sure of eventually being caught up in the web into which people disappeared like flies wrapped by spiders.

Even though we all know the true end of the story–Ceausescu executed and Romania emerging from 42 years of Communist rule–the reality of what these people endured is the thing nightmares are made of. I believe I would rather have known Dracula.

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué libro tan duro!! Pero hermoso. Toda la primera parte parece estar hablando solo en un lenguaje de símbolos, como si se hubiera ido hacia adentro y hubiera abandonado el lenguaje que se usa para hablar. Después del suicidio de Lola, como que entra en otro momento más real, pero igual terrible. La gente está como separada por años luz, cada quien que aparece está tan solo, que sientes como si no hubiera aire. Y a la vez en medio de esa desolación, hay estos personajes, que intentan sobrevivir, a veces vencidos por la desesperanza, por el no saber, y tienen recuerdos, están marcados por cosas dolorosas, pero también por sus afectos, por la necesidad que tienen por las otras personas. El nunca poder volver al lugar de donde saliste debe ser algo muy triste.
Creo que algo que se me queda de esta novela, es la tensión. Es algo bueno en los libros, una historia que tiene tensión, entras, te tensas, y se resuelve, o termina, o tienen algún tipo de final que te hace soltar esa tensión. Esta historia no tiene eso, no tiene resolución, pero expresa ese desesperanza de una forma, no se si es la palabra correcta, pero es bella, una belleza humana, que también es triste.

[Raha · Rating 4 out of 5]

بالاخره تمومش کردم!!!هیچوقت حسِ خوشایندی نسبت به اینکه کتابی رو در عرض چندهفته بخونم نداشتم.حس میکنم وقتی که شروع به خوندن مداومِ کتابی میکنم عینِ فردی هستم که در دریایی به سر میبرم که ناگهان با طوفانِ سهمگینی رو به رو میشم و مسلماً فردی که از این طوفان عبور میکنه با اونِ طوقان نزده فرق میکنه:)امّا وقتی کتابی رو هی طولش میدم حس میکنم فقط رگه هایی از طوفان رو شاید حس کنم، که خوشایند نیست برام.

اوایل کتاب شاید خسته کننده باشه ولی با مردن "لولا" درواقع داستان تازه شروع میشه و هر چه جلوتر پیش میریم متوجه میشم که چقدر از سیاست متنفرم!!!در ابتدا خودشون تو رو تشویق میکنن که وارد حزب بشی، برایِ تو جشن معارفه و... میگیرن و در آخر تو براثر مرگ طبیعی ☺️(ناگهانی و عمدی به دستِ خودشون)میمیری و همون افراد ِ قبلی یه جلسه تشکیل میدن و تو رو از حزبشون اخراج میکنن چون لایق حزبشون نبودی!واقعاً عذاب آورترین موضوع در دنیا همین سیاسته.

"در آن زمان باور داشتم که در یک جهان بدون پاسدار مردم مثل کشور ماراه نمی روند،جهانی که در آن مردم مجازند هر طور که می خواهند فکر کنند."