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A review by robertlashley
The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller
5.0
The Land of Green Plums, Herta Müller's novel about student life in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, is a welcome addition to anyone's library. Müller details the ravages dictatorships put on the individual in a voice resonant, devastating, and unbearably beautiful. The novel established her as a leading figure in European fiction and stands today as a fine case for her merit as 2009's Nobel Laureate in Literature.
Plums follows two different plotlines: a world-weary young woman struggling under Romania's Communist regime and the same woman as a child growing up. After the traumatic death of a close friend, she connects with her three classmates Edgar, Kurt and Georg; friendships that, like those of many twentysomethings, are tenative yet genial. After graduation all four are forced to work in menial positions for the state, and each of them -- smart, witty, and hip in their own way -- hate their assigned jobs with a passion. The government puts its foot down, and they are fired, persecuted, and tormented to the point of death solely for failing to subscribe to Ceausecu's cult of personality.
"Because we were afraid, Edgar, Kurt, Georg and I met everyday. We sat on the table but our fear stayed locked within each of our heads , just like when we brought it to meetings. We laughed a lot, to hide from each other. But fear always finds out. If you control your face, it slips past your voice. If you manage to keep a grip on your face and your voice, as if they are deadwood, it will slip out your fingers. It will pass through your skin and lie there. You can see it around on objects lying close by."
--from The Land of Green Plums
The traumatic power of Plums lies in its narrative arc, how each individual loses their identity (and then their minds) under a system that wants to control every aspect of their existence. The novel triumphs not in declaration of politics, but in narrative exposition. The Land of Green Plums is not explicitly polemical; Müller gets her point across through the recollections, threats, interrogations, and mob harassment that come upon each character. Their disparate stories weave together in a way haunting, poetic and reserved; postmodern in structure with the character-driven gravity of 19th century realism.
It's easy to read this novel and see what the AIPAC and Nobel committees saw in Herta Müller. Though The Land of Green Plums tells a story all Müller's own, its themes - friendship, death, the individual in conflict with the group as political extension - tie her to many of the great works of world literature.
Plums follows two different plotlines: a world-weary young woman struggling under Romania's Communist regime and the same woman as a child growing up. After the traumatic death of a close friend, she connects with her three classmates Edgar, Kurt and Georg; friendships that, like those of many twentysomethings, are tenative yet genial. After graduation all four are forced to work in menial positions for the state, and each of them -- smart, witty, and hip in their own way -- hate their assigned jobs with a passion. The government puts its foot down, and they are fired, persecuted, and tormented to the point of death solely for failing to subscribe to Ceausecu's cult of personality.
"Because we were afraid, Edgar, Kurt, Georg and I met everyday. We sat on the table but our fear stayed locked within each of our heads , just like when we brought it to meetings. We laughed a lot, to hide from each other. But fear always finds out. If you control your face, it slips past your voice. If you manage to keep a grip on your face and your voice, as if they are deadwood, it will slip out your fingers. It will pass through your skin and lie there. You can see it around on objects lying close by."
--from The Land of Green Plums
The traumatic power of Plums lies in its narrative arc, how each individual loses their identity (and then their minds) under a system that wants to control every aspect of their existence. The novel triumphs not in declaration of politics, but in narrative exposition. The Land of Green Plums is not explicitly polemical; Müller gets her point across through the recollections, threats, interrogations, and mob harassment that come upon each character. Their disparate stories weave together in a way haunting, poetic and reserved; postmodern in structure with the character-driven gravity of 19th century realism.
It's easy to read this novel and see what the AIPAC and Nobel committees saw in Herta Müller. Though The Land of Green Plums tells a story all Müller's own, its themes - friendship, death, the individual in conflict with the group as political extension - tie her to many of the great works of world literature.