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Comparative Literature Studies 38.3 (2001) 272-276



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Book Review

Advancing Double Binds: The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable


Advancing Double Binds: The Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable. Edited by Andrew Leak and George Paizis. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 196 pp. $39.95.

The recently published collection of essays, Holocaust and the Text: Speaking the Unspeakable, points right to the heart of the paradox of Holocaust testimony and literature: how can the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust be spoken? Yet the fact that this question has already been addressed by such a diverse set of writers over such an extensive period, beginning before the war even ended, makes one wonder why this question still has a hold on us. Indeed, perhaps the first question to ask about Holocaust and the Text is, why address this paradox, yet again?

One of the many strengths of this collection of essays is that it begins with this very question. In an age in which the Holocaust seems to have become "ever more present, as though refusing to become 'history,'" editors Andrew Leak and George Paizis ask why they should contribute further to this accumulation. Rather than produce yet another theory of how to understand this paradox, their answer sets a tone of political urgency. The need for this book has arisen out of the recent resurgence of the far right, they claim. The editors remind us that far right parties have accounted for anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent of the popular vote across Europe. "The editors of this volume feel that to continue to represent (re-present) the Holocaust, and to debate and theorize the modes of its representation(s), is and will continue to be, for a long time, urgent"(6). The strength of this volume, in many ways, is just that. It does not offer a groundbreakingly new way of understanding the Holocaust, but more modestly and perhaps more importantly, it attempts to intervene in the resurgence of racism and anti-Semitism by continuing the debate.

This worthy aim, however, raises some difficult questions. First and foremost, how will the continuation of these debates intervene in the rise of racism and anti-Semitism across Europe? The editors suggest that this text will fight the "battle for the hearts and minds" of those who vote with the far right but who are not unreconstructed racists, in other words, of those who are "complacent." The battleground, the editors claim, is the gap between knowledge and understanding. Citing Geoffrey Hartman, the editors suggest "while no recent event has elicited so much documentation and analysis, knowledge has not become understanding." That is to say, while knowledge of the Holocaust has been widely circulated, [End Page 272] it is still difficult, if not impossible, to absorb and comprehend the Holocaust without being blocked by such things as compassion fatigue. Those who vote far right may know of the Holocaust, but they fail to truly understand the consequences of a racist political agenda.

While the aim of the book is certainly worthy, it is so lofty that it may be bound to fail. It is difficult to imagine that this book addresses its target audience. If the editors are correct in their assessment that these voters are complacent, it is difficult to imagine that this text will draw them out of their complacency. And yet, this failure may be the book's greatest strength. By framing the essays around the question of political urgency, the editors push readings of these essays which are particularly rigorous. The framing forces us to confront the paradoxes of representation without settling for simple resolutions, and while it encourages readings which I would suggest even amplify these paradoxes, thus animating the force of representations of the Holocaust.

Not only does the framing of the essays provoke such rigorous questioning, but so does the choice of essays, which often work against each other. For example, the first essay by Berel Lang takes considerable distance from the other essays, probing them and also opening itself...

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