La bestia del corazón

Por Herta Müller

PREMIO NOBEL DE LITERATURA 2009
Un grupo de cuatro amigos que se resisten a ser anulados por el sistema, ven en el suicidio de Lola, una joven estudiante del sur de Rumanía que intenta escapar de la pobreza durante el régimen de Ceausescu, una razón para continuar resistiéndose. Porque La bestia del corazón nos habla de la resistencia que se ha de tener para que no destruyan nuestra individualidad. Y habla también de la corrupción y la asimilación social, de la violación de las normas, del hastío del mundo, de ser «un error para nosotros mismos». Herta Müller nos describe en esta sobrecogedora novela, llena de poesía, una sociedad que excava su propia tumba a través de la supresión y de las privaciones materiales: «Si nos mantenemos en silencio, nos odiamos a nosotros mismos. Si hablamos, nos volvemos ridículos».

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Siruela
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 20 sept 2010
• ISBN: 9788498414912

Herta Müller

Herta Müller is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the European Literature Prize. She is the author of, among other books, The Hunger Angel and The Land of Green Plums. Born in Romania in 1953, Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceausescu's secret police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin.

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La bestia del corazón

Glosario

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Créditos

La bestia del corazón

Todo el mundo tenía un amigo en cada pedazo de nube

es lo que pasa con los amigos en un mundo donde todo es terror también mi madre me dijo: es muy normal

los amigos no vienen a cuento

piensa en cosas más serias

Gellu Naum

Cuando callamos, nos tornamos desagradables, dijo Edgar. Cuando hablamos, nos tornamos ridículos.

Llevábamos demasiado rato en el suelo, delante de las fotos. Se me habían dormido las piernas de estar sentada.

Con las palabras en la boca aplastamos tantas cosas como con los pies sobre la hierba. Pero también con el silencio.

Edgar guardó silencio.

Aún hoy no puedo imaginarme una tumba. Sólo un cinturón, una ventana, una nuez y una soga. Cada muerte es para mí como un saco.

Si te oyen decir eso, dijo Edgar, te tomarán por loca.

Y cuando pienso en ello, tengo la sensación de que cada muerto deja tras de sí un saco repleto de palabras. Siempre me acuden a la mente el barbero y la tijera de manicura, porque los muertos ya no los necesitan. Y también se me ocurre que los muertos ya nunca más perderán un botón.

Tal vez intuyen cosas distintas a nosotros, dijo Edgar, quizás intuyen que el dictador es un error.

Poseían la prueba, pues también nosotros éramos un error para nosotros mismos. Porque en este país nos veíamos obligados a andar, comer, dormir y amar con miedo hasta que volvíamos a necesitar al peluquero y la tijera de manicura.

Alguien que sólo por el hecho de andar, comer, dormir y amar hace cementerios, dijo Edgar, es un error aún mayor que nosotros. Es un error para todos, un error dominante.

La hierba despunta sobre la cabeza. Cuando hablamos queda segada. Pero también cuando callamos. Y entonces, la segunda y la tercera hierba crecen a su antojo. Y pese a todo, somos afortunados.

Lola procedía del sur del país, y se advertía en ella una tierra que no había logrado salir de la miseria. No sé dónde se advertía, tal vez en los pómulos, en la comisura de los labios o en el centro de los ojos. Resulta difícil afirmarlo con seguridad, se trate de una tierra o de un rostro. Todas las tierras del país habían quedado sumidas en la miseria, también todos los rostros. Pero la tierra de Lola, ya se detectara en los pómulos, las comisuras de los labios o el centro de los ojos, era aún más pobre quizás. Más tierra que paisaje.

La aridez todo lo devora, escribe Lola, salvo las ovejas, los melones y las moreras.

Pero no fue la aridez lo que empujó a Lola a la ciudad. Lo que aprendo nada le importa a la aridez, escribe Lola en su cuaderno. La aridez no nota cuánto sé. Sólo lo que soy, o sea quien soy. Convertirme en alguien en la ciudad, escribe Lola, y regresar al pueblo al cabo de cuatro años. Pero no abajo, al camino polvoriento, sino arriba, a las ramas de las moreras.

También en la ciudad había moreras. Pero no en las calles, sino en los patios. Y no en muchos. Sólo en los patios de los ancianos había moreras. Y bajo el árbol había una silla de asiento acolchado y tapicería de terciopelo. Pero el terciopelo aparecía salpicado de manchas y desgarrado. Y alguien había rellenado el agujero desde abajo con paja. La paja estaba aplastada por el peso de quienes se sentaban, y pendía bajo el asiento como una trenza.

Si te acercabas a la silla desechada, podías distinguir las briznas de la trenza. Y comprender que algún día habían sido verdes.

En los patios con moreras, la sombra caía como un manto de tranquilidad sobre un rostro anciano sentado en la silla. Como un manto de tranquilidad, porque yo entraba en aquellos patios para mi propia sorpresa y raras veces regresaba. Y en aquellas raras ocasiones, un hilillo de luz que descendía en línea recta desde la copa del árbol sobre el rostro anciano mostraba una tierra lejana. Un escalofrío me recorría la espalda, porque aquella tranquilidad no procedía de las ramas de la morera, sino de la soledad de los ojos. No quería que me vieran en aquellos patios. Que alguien me preguntara qué hacía allí. No hacía nada más de lo que veía. Contemplaba las moreras durante largo rato. Y entonces, antes de marcharme, me volvía una vez más hacia el rostro de la silla. En aquel rostro había una tierra. Veía un muchacho o una muchacha abandonar aquella tierra con un saco en el que llevaba una morera. Veía todas las moreras traídas a la ciudad.

Más tarde leí en el cuaderno de Lola: lo que se saca de la tierra se lleva en el rostro.

Lola quería estudiar cuatro años de ruso. El examen de ingreso había sido fácil, pues las plazas no escaseaban ni en la universidad ni en las escuelas rurales. Poca gente quería estudiar ruso. Los deseos son difíciles, escribe Lola, los objetivos resultan más sencillos. Un hombre que estudia, escribe Lola, lleva las uñas limpias. Dentro de cuatro años vendrá conmigo, pues este tipo de hombres sabe que será un señor en el pueblo. Que el barbero vendrá a su casa y se descalzará antes de entrar. Nunca más ovejas, escribe Lola, nunca más melones, sólo moreras, pues todos tenemos hojas.

Un pequeño cubículo por habitación, una ventana, seis chicas, seis camas, bajo cada una de ellas una maleta. Junto a la puerta un armario empotrado, en el techo sobre la puerta un altavoz. Los coros obreros cantaban del techo a la pared, de la pared a las camas hasta que caía la noche. Sólo entonces callaban, como las calles ante la ventana y el parque desgreñado por el que ya nadie paseaba. En cada residencia había cuarenta de aquellos cubículos.

Alguien dijo que los altavoces ven y oyen todo lo que hacemos.

La ropa de las seis chicas estaba apretujada en el armario. Lola era quien menos ropa tenía. Se ponía los vestidos de todas las demás. Las medias de las chicas se guardaban en las maletas que yacían bajo las camas.

Alguien cantó:

Mi madre dice

que me dará

cuando me case

veinte cojines grandes

llenos de mosquitos

veinte cojines pequeños

llenos de hormigas

veinte cojines blandos

llenos de hojas podridas

y Lola se sentó en el suelo, junto a la cama, para abrir su maleta. Rebuscó entre las medias y levantó un amasijo de piernas, dedos y talones. Dejó caer las medias al suelo. Le temblaban las manos, y parecía tener más de dos ojos en el rostro. Tenía las manos vacías, más de dos manos en el aire. Casi tantas manos en el aire como medias en el suelo.

Ojos, manos y medias no se soportaban en una canción que se cantaba a dos camas de distancia. Que se cantaba desde una cabeza pequeña que se mecía con una arruga de pesar en la frente. Una canción de la que la arruga desaparecía de inmediato.

Bajo cada cama había una maleta llena de medias de algo - dón enredadas. En todo el país recibían el nombre de medias estándar. Medias estándar para chicas que querían medias lisas y transparentes. Y también querían laca, rímel y esmalte de uñas.

Bajo las almohadas de las camas había escondidas seis cajitas de rímel. Seis chicas escupían en la caja y removían el tizne con palillos hasta que la pasta negra se adhería a ellos. Luego abrían los ojos de par en par. El palillo les arañaba los párpados, las pestañas se tornaban negras y espesas. Pero al cabo de una hora se abrían lagunas grises en las pestañas. La saliva se secaba, y el tizne se desplomaba sobre las mejillas.

Las chicas querían tizne en las mejillas, rímel en el rostro, pero nunca más el hollín de las fábricas. Sólo un montón de medias transparentes, porque se hacían carreras en seguida, y las chicas tenían que atraparlas en los tobillos y en los muslos. Atraparlas y sellarlas con esmalte de uñas.

Costará mantener blancas las camisas de un señor. Será mi amor cuando al cabo de cuatro años regrese conmigo a la aridez. Si consigue deslumbrar a los paseantes del pueblo con muchas camisas blancas, será mi amor. Y si es un señor a cuya casa acude el barbero y se descalza antes de entrar. Costará mantener blancas las camisas con toda esa porquería infestada de pulgas.

Pulgas incluso en las cortezas de los árboles, dijo Lola. No son pulgas, contestó alguien, sino piojuelos. Lola escribe en su cuaderno: Los piojuelos son peores aún. Alguien dijo, no atacan a la gente, porque la gente no tiene hojas. Lola escribe, lo atacan todo cuando quema el sol, incluso el viento atacan. Y todos tenemos hojas. Las hojas caen cuando dejamos de crecer, porque la niñez ha terminado. Y las hojas vuelven cuando nos marchitamos, porque el amor ha terminado. Las hojas crecen a su antojo, escribe Lola, como la hierba alta. Dos o tres niños del pueblo no tienen hojas y viven una gran niñez. Son hijos únicos cuyos padres son personas cultas. Los piojuelos convierten a los niños mayores en niños pequeños, a un crío de cuatro años en uno de tres, a uno de tres en uno de un año. Y en uno de medio año, escribe Lola, y en un recién nacido. Y cuantos más hermanos crían piojuelos, más pequeña es la niñez.

Un abuelo dice: Mi tijera de podar. Envejezco y cada día me encojo y adelgazo más. Pero mis uñas crecen más deprisa, más gruesas. Se cortaba las uñas con la tijera de podar.

La niña no se deja cortar las uñas. Duele, dice. La madre ata a la niña a la silla con los cinturones de sus vestidos. La niña grita con los ojos nublados. A la madre se le cae la tijera de manicura. La tijera cae al suelo por cada dedo, piensa la niña.

Uno de los cinturones, el de color verde hierba, se mancha de sangre. La niña sabe que sangrar significa la muerte. Los ojos de la niña se empapan, y la madre se desdibuja ante ella. La madre quiere a la niña. La ama con locura y no puede controlarse, pues su razón está atada al amor igual que la niña está atada a la silla. La niña sabe: la madre debe cortarle los dedos a causa de su amor atado. Debe guardarse los dedos cortados en el bolsillo de la bata y salir al patio, como si fuera a tirar los dedos. Y en el patio, donde nadie la vea, debe comerse los dedos de la niña.

La niña intuye que, por la noche, la madre mentirá y asentirá cuando el abuelo le pregunte si ha tirado los dedos.

Y también intuye lo que ella misma hará por la noche. Gritará Los tiene ella y lo delatará todo:

Ha salido con los dedos al patio. Ha estado en la hierba, también en el jardín, en el camino y en el parterre. Ha andado a lo largo de la pared, detrás de la pared. Ha estado en el armario de las herramientas, con los tornillos. Y también en el ropero. Ha llorado en el armario. Se secaba las mejillas con una mano mientras metía la otra en el bolsillo de la bata. Una y otra vez.

El abuelo se lleva una mano a la boca. Quizás quiere mostrar aquí en la casa cómo se come un dedo en el patio, piensa la niña. Pero la mano del abuelo permanece inmóvil.

La niña sigue hablando, y algo se le queda pegado a la lengua. La niña piensa, no puede ser más que la verdad, posada sobre la lengua como un hueso de cereza que no quiere bajar por la garganta. Mientras la voz sigue entrando en el oído, espera la verdad. Pero en cuanto calla, piensa la niña, todo se convierte en mentira, porque la verdad ha caído al pozo de la garganta. Porque la boca no ha pronunciado la palabra comido.

La niña es incapaz de articular esa palabra. Sólo: Ha estado junto al ciruelo, no ha pisoteado la oruga en el sendero, la ha esquivado.

El abuelo baja los ojos.

La madre intenta escurrir el bulto y saca aguja e hilo del armario. Se sienta en la silla y se alisa la bata hasta dejar al descubierto el bolsillo. Hace un nudo en el hilo. La madre miente, piensa la niña.

La madre cose un botón. El hilo recién cosido cubre el viejo. Algo de verdad hay en la mentira de la madre, porque el botón está suelto. Cose el botón con el hilo más grueso. También la luz de la bombilla tiene hilos.

La niña cierra los ojos con fuerza. Tras los párpados cerrados, la madre y el abuelo penden de una soga de luz e hilo encima de la mesa.

El botón cosido con el hilo más grueso será el más resistente. La madre jamás lo perderá; antes se romperá en pedazos.

La madre arroja la tijera al ropero. Al día siguiente, y cada miércoles desde entonces, el barbero del abuelo entra en la habitación.

El abuelo dice: Mi barbero.

El barbero dice: Mi tijera.

En la Primera Guerra Mundial se me cayó el pelo, dice el abuelo. Cuando me quedé completamente calvo, el barbero de la compañía me dio friegas de savia en el cuero cabelludo. El pelo volvió a crecerme. Más bonito que antes, me dijo el barbero. Le gustaba jugar al ajedrez. Se le ocurrió la idea de la savia porque yo había traído unas ramas cubiertas de follaje de las que tallé un juego de ajedrez. Las ramas de aquel árbol tenían hojas color gris ceniza y rojo. Y tan distinta como las hojas era la madera. Tallaba la mitad de las figuras con la madera oscura y la otra mitad con la madera clara. Las hojas claras no oscurecían hasta finales de otoño. Los árboles eran de dos colores porque las ramas gris ceniza crecían con mucho retraso cada año. Los dos colores les sentaban bien a mis figuras de ajedrez, dijo el abuelo.

El barbero le corta el pelo al abuelo. El abuelo permanece sentado en la silla sin mover la cabeza. El barbero dice: El pelo se enmaraña si no lo cortas. Mientras, la madre ata a la niña a la silla con los cinturones de sus vestidos. El barbero dice: Si no te cortas las uñas, los dedos se convierten en palas. Sólo los muertos tienen derecho a llevarlas así.

Suéltame, suéltame.

De las seis niñas del cubículo, Lola era la que tenía menos medias transparentes. Y las pocas que tenía estaban llenas de parches de esmalte en los tobillos y los muslos. También en las pantorrillas. Las carreras se formaban también cuando Lola no podía frenarlas, porque ella misma tenía que ir a la carrera, ya fuera en la acera o en el parque desgreñado.

Lola tenía que correr y huir con su anhelo de camisas blancas, ese anhelo que seguía siendo tan pobre como su tierra aun en la felicidad más extasiada.

A veces, Lola no podía frenar las carreras de las medias porque estaba en clase. Con el catedrático, decía Lola sin saber cuánto le gustaba aquella palabra.

Por la noche, Lola colgaba sus medias en la ventana con los pies hacia afuera. No podían gotear, porque nunca las lavaba. Las medias pendían de la ventana como si llevaran en su interior los pies y las piernas de Lola, los dedos y los talones endurecidos, las pantorrillas y las rodillas abolladas. Podrían haber atravesado solas el parque desgreñado hasta la ciudad en tinieblas.

Alguien del cubículo preguntó, dónde están mis tijeras de la manicura. Lola dijo, en el bolsillo del abrigo. Alguien preguntó, en qué abrigo, en el tuyo, por qué te la volviste a llevar anoche. Lola dijo, me la llevé al tranvía, y dejó la tijera sobre la cama.

Lola siempre se cortaba las uñas en el tranvía. A menudo viajaba en él sin rumbo. Durante el trayecto se cortaba y limaba las uñas, se retiraba las cutículas con los dientes hasta que la media luna blanca de cada uña se convertía en una alubia.

En las paradas, Lola se guardaba la tijera en el bolsillo y miraba hacia la puerta cuando subía alguien. Porque de día siempre sube alguien que actúa como si nos conociéramos, escribe Lola en su cuaderno. Pero de noche, esa misma persona sube como si me buscara.

De noche, cuando ya nadie paseaba por la calle ni por el parque desgreñado, cuando se oía el viento y el cielo no era más que el ruido que emite, Lola se puso sus medias transparentes. Y antes de cerrar la puerta tras de sí, se advirtió a la luz del cubículo que Lola tenía pies dobles. Alguien preguntó, adónde vas. Pero los pasos de Lola ya resonaban en el pasillo largo y desierto.

Tal vez en los primeros tres años, yo me llamaba alguien en aquel cubículo. Pero todos menos Lola podían llamarse alguien. Porque alguien de aquel cubículo no quería a Lola. Y ese alguien eran todas.

Alguien se acercó a la ventana, pero no vio la calle ni a ninguna Lola pasar por allí. Sólo una diminuta mancha saltarina.

Lola fue al tranvía. Cuando alguien subió en la siguiente parada, abrió los ojos de par en par.

Alrededor de medianoche sólo subían los hombres que volvían a casa después del último turno en la fábrica de detergentes o en el matadero. Surgen de la noche a la luz del tranvía, escribe Lola, y veo a un hombre tan cansado que dentro de su ropa no queda más que una sombra. Y en su cabeza hace tiempo que no hay amor, y en el bolsillo no tiene dinero. Sólo detergente robado o despojos de animales sacrificados: lenguas de buey, entrañas de cerdo o hígados de ternera.

Los hombres de Lola se sentaban en el primer banco. Se adormecían en la luz, bajaban la cabeza y se sobresaltaban cuando chirriaban las vías. En un momento dado se aprietan las bolsas contra el pecho, escribe Lola, y veo sus manos sucias. A causa de las bolsas me miran un instante.

En esa mirada breve, Lola encendía una llama en una cabeza fatigada. Ya no cierran los ojos, escribe Lola.

En la parada

Comentarios para La bestia del corazón

[veracite · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Harrowing in a quiet, implacable way.

[cbl_tn · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Because we were afraid, Edgar, Kurt, Georg, and I met every day. 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 wool, 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 unnamed female narrator paints a picture of life in Romania under a dictatorship. The narrator and three male friends, all college students from provincial villages, come under surveillance for an unspecified reason. The four are aware that they're being watched, and their fear and paranoia increase with the passage of months and years as they await their uncertain future. Their friendship disintegrates as the few freedoms they have are gradually taken away from them.This wasn't an easy read. The author uses a lot of symbolism, and I'm sure I missed plenty of it. It probably didn't help that I was reading the English translation, my only option since I don't speak German. I suspect that this was a difficult book to translate because of the nature of the book. Language seems to be an important aspect of the book, and the author most likely used words for a specific purpose for which there isn't an exact English equivalent. More experienced readers of this kind of fiction will be able to appreciate this novel more than I did, particularly if they're able to read it in its original German.

[cameling_2 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

In Romania during Ceaucescu's reign of terror, young people from the impoverished country fled to the cities,thinking they'd find better prospects for themselves there. Instead, they find continued oppression under the totalitarian dictator's regime. The atmosphere is rife with fear, tension, misery and paranoia.It took me a while to get into the writing, and I'm not sure if it's because of the translations or if the original wasn't written as smoothly either. Some phrases were repeated, and I'm sure there must have been some symbolism behind the oft repeated mention of the green plums which lend themselves to the title, but apart from signifying greed, I couldn't see what else they could have been referring to. If you're into stark and depressing dystopian stories, this will be right up your alley.

[cbjames_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

How true is this opening line?When we don't speak, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.Ms. Muller opens and closes her novel, The Land of Green Plums, with this line so she must thinks it's important. It must be the key her novel's theme. What meaning can we find in it? How different is the thought behind it from Mark Twain's comment "Better to keep your mouth closed and appear foolish, than to open it and remove all doubt." Mr. Twain speaks of how others will view us, while Ms. Muller speaks of the price we must pay for choosing to speak or to remain silent.The Land of Green Plums concerns a young woman sent from the Romanian countryside to attend school in the city during the closing years of Nicolae Ceausecu's dictatorship. As the novel follows her life and the lives of her friends, we see how all four are affected by the suicide of one, Lola, who hangs herself after realizing none of the school's authorities or the police will take action against the gym instructor who is sexually abusing her. If we don't speak about things like this, how will that secrecy affect us, asks the opening line. How does the collective weight of all our silences damage us? There is a pop-psychology notion in America that we are only as sick as our secrets. If this is true, then the Romania of Ms. Muller's childhood was one very sick place. Her novel gives the reader a clear sense of the big picture by focusing on the specific smaller ones of her character's experiences. The daily grind of life under Ceausecu, the constant threat of surveillance, the lack of freedom, the lack of opportunity, were all mundane facts of life in Romania for Ms. Muller's characters. After Lola's death, the narrator and her close friends all fall under the suspicion of government agents, though I missed whatever it was they did to be considered anti-government. This may be the point. The interrogations and the surveillance they endure seem pointless because they probably were. They were students who wrote a few poems that some might consider radical. It's difficult to see why any functioning government would consider them a threat. But they are seen as threats, so much so that they all end up applying for passports to leave the country of their birth knowing they will never return. But if they tell their stories, they only seem foolish. The characters themselves do appear a bit foolish by the end of The Land of Green Plums, but it's the government itself that really comes away looking bad--the government and the people of Romania who acquiesced to it for so long. If we read the narrator as a stand-in for Ms. Muller and the novel as a portrait of the artist as a young woman, which I think is a justified reading, then the book is the author's reply to the opening line's question. Better to speak, on some level, than to remain silent, even though Ms. Muller had to flee Romania in order to speak freely.Maybe that is the point Ms. Muller is leading us to--that we must face this push-pull between needing to tell the truth about ourselves and our fear that doing so will make us look bad. Can we face what really happened when doing so means facing our own complicity in a history we'd like to deny whether that history be personal or cultural? By writing The Land of Green Plums, Ms. Muller answers in favor of speaking, though the price be high.

[kant1066 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Herta Muller was born in the German-speaking region of Banat in central Romania, and grew up under Ceausescu. It was only in 1987 at the age of 34 that she and her husband were able to settle in West Berlin. This novel is difficult to appreciate apart from Muller's personal experience of living under an authoritarian dictatorship, and having German as a first language but being forced to learn Romanian in primary school.Herta Muller's third novel tells the story of a group of young university students living in Ceausescu's Romania. One of the young women, Lola, has violent sexual encounters with men in semi-public places, and we are left to guess why. To keep party officials satisfied? For food? Pure sublimation? She ends up dead one day - found hanging in her closet - under circumstances every bit as mysterious. Everyone's lives are full of paranoia, angst, and fear of being turned into the state officials, who filter into and out of the characters' lives in both latent and manifest forms. Unlike her friend who committed suicide (or was she killed?), the narrator of the novel decides to emigrate to Germany to face an uncertain future.I must admit that I had a very difficult time with this novel, but not in the normal ways: it wasn't difficult to read, or difficult to understand in historical context. It simply offered nothing new for me. The story, the tale of the lives of a young woman and a few of her male friends seemed, with all of its verisimilitude, straight out of history. Anyone that has read about Romania under Ceausescu knows about his cult of personality, the utter deprivation that his people constantly lived under, and surviving only to think possibly of one day being "disappeared." The lives of Lola, Edgar, Georg, and Kurt are not unfamiliar to history.The lessons this book teaches are the lessons of history, not of literature. I have a small amount of familiarity, gained solely through reading, about that time and place. In those books, I read of people like the major characters presented in the book. But at least for me, Muller's novel presents no added value to the history I already know. Great fiction has to be more than "litterature verite." It needs to bring something to the table that history cannot, something that speaks to the human condition differently than a historian does. Muller's writing lacked this, at least for me.Michael Hofmann's translation is poetic, meditative, disjointed, which I found appropriate for the tone and subject matter of Muller's novel. I look forward to reading more of Muller's work in the future, and hope to appreciate it more than I did "The Land of Green Plums."

[vibrantminds · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The story of Ceausecu's Romania and what can happen in a totalitarian state under the dictatorship of a cruel leader. Four youths set out to find themselves only to have their hopes and desires dashed. They rely on each other to let their frustrations known in a subtle way without drawing too much attention. However it backfires when a poem they recite is brought to the attention of a Captain Pejele who interviews them and tells them the poem was an incitement to leave the country. He begins to follow them and torments each of their lives. Full of dark symbolism as the story is told in bits and pieces, not chronologically, to allow a deeper understanding of the despair and unhappiness in this state.

[seidchen · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This lyrical, atmospheric book takes its time unfolding, as bit by bit Herta Mueller brings to light, and mourns, the crippling effects of living under a police state.

[roblong_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Bleak. Mueller's writing is brilliant, there's an edginess and a lack of clarity in it that makes everything in the book seem untrustworthy, or at least that real depths are being concealed, and not even allowed to develop, for fear of what openness would bring. The 'plot' such as it is, moves imperceptibly slowly, but it works as a depiction of a country where everything is so stagnant. Ceaucescu's Romania keeps its status as the most horrifying place I've ever read about.

[the_awesome_opossum · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

"The old men go into the forest with their whistles and drive the birds crazy. The birds lose their way among the trees and nests. And once they get outside the forest, they mistake the water in the puddles for the sky. They plummet to their deaths."Such heavy symbolism permeates the entire text of The Land of Green Plums. Everything is layered and metaphorical, but just barely. This is how it also is for the four young adults living under Romania's totalitarianism. They devise ways to communicate they're being followed, they leave strands of hairs around to check if they're being searched, and every action has more drastic implications than are immediately apparent. Yet these strained symbols and double-speak also indicate the means of resistance by the four. Their actions and subterfuge often appear less about not being noticed and more about testing exactly the boundaries of the enforcement officer keeping an eye on them - resistance that undercuts the state's regime by simply not playing along. The book opens with this line: "When we don't speak, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves." Both the characters and the novel itself split the difference by veiled political references that only stand to goad the regime, rather than overtly call it out. The subtlety of irony is lost within totalitarian thought, yet such subterfuge becomes a valuable literary tool for countering the same unyielding political force.

[dylanwolf · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A heavy, leaden book telling the story of four friends struggling to survive in Ceacescu's Romania. Themes and symbols repeat themselves throughout the grimness; metaphors, like the green plums of the title, abound. Not jolly reading but perhaps not as difficult as this makes it sound. There is a social security that is offered in exchange for the physical and spiritual deprivations of a communist tyranny. This is the great power of the state used to subjugate citizens and suppress dissension but it hones a keen, politically aware and innovative youth out of those whose survive. There is a human spirit that engulfs such great darkness and allows a candle still to burn even through the most unbearable of injustices.

[johnlundy · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

This is what life was like in communist Romania under Nicolai Ceausescu, according to Herta Muller's fictional memoir:"The gym instructor was the first to raise his hand. All the other hands flew up after his. While raising their hands, everybody looked up at the raised hands of the others. If someone's own hand wasn't as high as the others', he would stretch his arm a little farther. 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. Sweat stains showed under the arms; shirts and blouses came untucked. Necks were stretched, ears turned red, lips parted and stayed half-open. Heads kept still, while eyes slid from side to side."It was so quiet among the hands, someone said inside the cube, that you could hear the breathing up and down the wooden benches. And it stayed that quiet until the gym instructor laid his arm across the lectern and said: There's no need to count, of course we're all in favor."I like this book for the picture it gives of that era, which is of interest to me. I don't like it because it's just so strange. Great writing, perhaps, but not the sort of writing that my brain processes very well.

[soylentgreen23 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Is it possible for a book to be too well-written? Herta Muller won the Nobel Prize, and certainly writes like she did - but that makes her writing heavy and you find that it slows down your reading. That happened here, and I found myself plodding through what was otherwise an excellent tale of the horrors of living in a dictatorship.

[praj05_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Land of Green Plums is an overwhelming allegorical saga of Banat Swabians (German minority populace) inhabiting in Romania, who lived under constant scrutiny and fear after WWII; especially throughout vigilant torment of Nicolae Ceaușescu(1965-1989).

** Whatever you carry out of your province, you carry out in your face.

** When we don’t speak, said Edgar, we become unbearable and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.

Muller delineates the story of barren lands, mournful eyes, optimistic hearts and spirited beliefs perishing into nothingness wondering how the sky would look from the cold depths of a grave.

[maxernst11 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Dit schijnt ??n van de meest toegankelijke werken van M?ller te zijn. Dat wil wel wat zeggen, want het blijft een taaie klus om dit nochtans niet zo dikke boek te doorworstelen. Om te beginnen is er geen echt verhaal: de hoofdfiguur, waarschijnlijk M?ller zelf, observeert de wereld om zich heen in regelmatig verschuivende situaties; pas na een tijdje heb je door dat het gaat om een vriendengroep van jonge mensen die zich proberen recht te houden in een verpauperde dictatuur; de verteller registreert elementen van achterstelling en achterlijkheid, van vervolging en pogingen om de geheime politie te ontlopen, en de allesbeheersende angst. Geregeld wordt verwezen naar de ziekten en de aftakeling van de dictator, maar slechts op 1 plaats valt de naam Ceaucescu; tegen dan is het al lang duidelijk dat de auteur het over Roemeni? heeft en met name over de tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog gecompromitteerde Duitstalige minderheid in het westen van het land; en dus dat de beschreven toestanden en voorvallen wellicht autobiografisch zijn.Maar dan is er de geheel eigen schrijfstijl van M?ller: het is even aanpassen, want ze beschrijft bewust vaak heel dromerige, surre?le situaties, in zinnen die plots verspringen en zich niet houden aan de traditionele grammatica. Als je het een beetje gewoon bent, dan spreekt die eigen stijl wel, - ik moest vaak denken aan de droomwereld van Chagall, met telkens terugkerende elementen -, maar het blijft hard werken om te vatten wat M?ller precies bedoelt.Uiteindelijk blijft het beeld achter van een desolate, door angst geregeerde wereld, huiveringwekkend en ontredderend.

[bookomaniac-1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Dit schijnt één van de meest toegankelijke werken van Müller te zijn. Dat wil wel wat zeggen, want het blijft een taaie klus om dit nochtans niet zo dikke boek te doorworstelen. Om te beginnen is er geen echt verhaal: de hoofdfiguur, waarschijnlijk Müller zelf, observeert de wereld om zich heen in regelmatig verschuivende situaties; pas na een tijdje heb je door dat het gaat om een vriendengroep van jonge mensen die zich proberen recht te houden in een verpauperde dictatuur; de verteller registreert elementen van achterstelling en achterlijkheid, van vervolging en pogingen om de geheime politie te ontlopen, en de allesbeheersende angst. Geregeld wordt verwezen naar de ziekten en de aftakeling van de dictator, maar slechts op 1 plaats valt de naam Ceaucescu; tegen dan is het al lang duidelijk dat de auteur het over Roemenië heeft en met name over de tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog gecompromitteerde Duitstalige minderheid in het westen van het land; en dus dat de beschreven toestanden en voorvallen wellicht autobiografisch zijn.Maar dan is er de geheel eigen schrijfstijl van Müller: het is even aanpassen, want ze beschrijft bewust vaak heel dromerige, surreële situaties, in zinnen die plots verspringen en zich niet houden aan de traditionele grammatica. Als je het een beetje gewoon bent, dan spreekt die eigen stijl wel, - ik moest vaak denken aan de droomwereld van Chagall, met telkens terugkerende elementen -, maar het blijft hard werken om te vatten wat Müller precies bedoelt.Uiteindelijk blijft het beeld achter van een desolate, door angst geregeerde wereld, huiveringwekkend en ontredderend.

[icolford · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

The literature of oppression is vast and, tragically, seems to emerge from just about any country where humans exert power over other humans. The Eastern European Communist dictatorships of the latter half of the 20th century have yielded an especially rich harvest of such literature, possibly because the variety of tyranny exercised in those countries was particularly brutal and organized, and because many of those struggling under the thumb of these repressive regimes were literate and highly educated. For those of us living in an open society, this literature provides a frightening but fascinating glimpse into a time and place thankfully remote from our own experience. In her novel The Land of the Green Plums Herta Müller writes about life in Ceausescu's Romania. The loosely structured autobiographical story follows the struggles of a group of young Romanians of ethnic German origin to find work and survive in a country where every aspect of life is controlled by the government and everyone operates under the watchful eye of the Securitate, the Romanian secret police, and its vast network of spies. The unnamed female narrator works as a translator in a factory. She lives in a communal arrangement with other young women, one of whom is Lola. The deprivations suffered by the Romanian people are well documented. Ceausescu's government, increasingly inward-looking and seeking to establish a program of national self-sufficiency, paid off its massive foreign debt, but in the process impoverished its citizens and crippled the economy. With few goods being produced and imported, shops were virtually empty and food hard to come by. Romanians had to find ways to feed themselves and their families using whatever means were at hand. In Müller’s novel, Lola trades sexual favours in exchange for animal offal, which she hoards in the communal refrigerator. Lola also keeps a diary—a dangerous act of defiance in a country where any form of self-expression is frowned upon and regarded as treasonous—and when she succumbs to despair and kills herself, the narrator finds the diary hidden in her (the narrator’s) suitcase. The remainder of the novel describes in episodic fashion the strugglesof the narrator and her friends Kurt, Georg, and Edgar as they attempt to evadthescrutiny of the Securitate and make plans to emigrate to Germany. The novel is narrated in a consistently flat and emotionally detached voice, one that reports all events—the mundane and the horrific—in a monotonously ironic tone. The effect of this is to heighten the tension, but it also leaves the reader somewhat on the outside looking in. It's possible this is what the author intends. Ceausescu's Romania was a nightmare for those who lived through it. Depicting that nightmare literally would result in an unrelentingly grim and distressing work of fiction. The ironic distance that Müller introduces between her reader and the story she is telling makes The Land of the Green Plums easier to digest, but the cost of irony is emotional depth. By telling her story in this fashion, Müller keeps the reader at arms length from the action. Reading the book is a bit like viewing the world it seeks to evoke through the wrong end of a telescope. You can see most of what's happening and you'll probably catch the gist, but some of the detail is fuzzy and you can't always tell what people are feeling. In the end, The Land of the Green Plums is a challenging novel and well worth reading, but one that appeals more strongly to the intellect than the emotions.

[rmckeown_9 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2009. The Land of Green Plums, the second of her books I have read, is set in Romania during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu. It tells the story of four friends trying to survive under a brutal dictatorship. Edgar, Kurt, and Georg are all friends of the unnamed female narrator. Lola is one of her “cube mates.” Müller describes the living conditions, “A little cube of a room, one window, six girls, six beds, under each a suitcase. Next to the door, a closet built into the wall; in the ceiling over the door, a loudspeaker. The workers’ choruses sang from the ceiling to the wall, from the wall to the beds, until night fell. Then they grew quiet, like the street below the window and the scruffy park, which no one walked through anymore. There were forty identical cubes in each dormitory” (4-5). Müller’s style perfectly conveys the oppressive conditions forced upon these students by the regime. The characters all leave strands of hair on their suitcases and in their books, so they know when – not if – the secret police have searched the room. The four friends develop elaborate plans to hide their journals, which include rants against the regime and – the most threatening writings of all – poetry. I often hear the words tyrant, dictator, oppressor, secret police tossed around like bread crumbs in a yard full of birds, but I find it hard to understand how people live and die under such brutal governments. Reading Müller’s work has opened a window for me on the realities many millions struggle under every day. This novel made me more aware of the freedoms we enjoy. I won’t take them for granted. Yet, even in a free society, we see encroachments from all sorts of individuals and government agencies. Facebook and Twitter have opened the books of our lives for anyone with a computer to dig through. And we do this freely and willingly, and even with a nonchalance that sometimes disturbs me.While discussing communication among the four friends, Müller writes, “‘When you write, don’t forget to put the date, and always put a hair with the letter,’ said Edgar. ‘If there isn’t one, we’ll know the letter’s been opened.’” // Single hairs, I thought to myself, crisscrossing the country on trains. A dark hair of Edgar’s, a light one of mine. A red one of Kurt or of Georg. They were both called Goldilocks by the students. “‘The word nail-clipper in a sentence will mean interrogation,’ said Kurt, ‘shoes will mean a search, a sentence about having a cold will mean you’re being followed. After the greeting always an exclamation point, but a comma if your life’s in danger’ (81).This tense style really gave me the willies. Herta Müller’s The Land of Green Plums will stir up the imagination and make the reader knit the brow attempting to understand what can make a regime descend into this pit of hell dragging its citizens down with it. 5 stars--Jim, 6/26/13

[steventx · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Land of Green Plums is a partly-autobiographical novel set in Romania under the harsh rule of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The narrator--a young woman who never gives her name--belongs to the German-speaking minority from western Romania. As the novel opens she is a university student living in a dormitory room with five other girls. Her closest friends, however, are three male students who are also German. They are each the target of suspicion and harassment by the police, as well as occasional persecution by ethnic Romanians. Their belongings are routinely searched, their mail is opened, and they are periodically called in for interrogations by the vile Captain Pjele. At these interrogation sessions the narrator is made to remove all her clothes and, standing naked in the Captain's office, sing a song declaring herself a whore.The four friends graduate and are given jobs in different cities. Separated, and relying on coded letters which they know are being intercepted by the authorities, they are even more vulnerable to despair. Their thoughts turn to two options: escape to Germany or suicide.Exactly what the four friends have done, if anything, to provoke such treatment is never revealed. Their fathers were all members of the Waffen SS during the Second World War--the narrator's father still sings songs in praise of the Führer--yet the police leave them alone. We can only assume that the state is especially fearful of these four students because their education and ethnicity makes them potential dissidents. It's goal seems not to uncover any secrets they may be keeping but simply to break their will to resist.There is actually no mention in the novel of any political or historical issues that are specific to Romania. The narrator could be a member of any ethnic minority in any police state, past, present or future. The focus is entirely on the feelings of the individual who finds herself without freedom, without dignity, and increasingly without friends or hope.Herta Müller's writing is beautiful and lyrical in spite of the grim subject matter. She draws on folk sayings and song, and uses the imagery of nature even in the midst of urban squalor. Her prose consists of short, simple and natural sentences. You have the feel when reading them that you are sitting at the narrator's side listening to her intimate and tearful testimony--rambling at times when one memory triggers another. The Land of Green Plums will disappoint those who want a more detailed picture of Romania under Ceaușescu, but it is a moving depiction of the fear and despair that exists under any repressive régime.

[labfs39 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Four university students get together regularly to discuss poetry, literature, and even songs. The students share, not only a love for literature, but also a common background. All four are from small towns and are trying to create a new, intellectual identity away from their parents' provincial ways. Sounds innocuous and age appropriate, unless you live in a totalitarian regime where dissenting minds are taken as serious threats to the state. The narrator of the story is one of the members, and the only female in the group. When one of her roommates, Lola, is found dead in the closet, the narrator takes and hides Lola's diary so that it won't be found by the political police. Shaken by guilt at not being a better friend and frightened by the subsequent searches of her room, the narrator tells her cohort members, and they work out a system to warn each other when they have been searched, followed, or taken in for questioning by the enigmatic Captain Pjele.The pressure and tension does not relent once the four are out of school and working in unfulfilling jobs. The political police threaten their families, deny them their vocations, and increase the physical threats. The only way to live seems to be to flee the country, although few hold out any hope at all of escaping and have seen the evidence of failed escapes, or to commit suicide. In a world where neither the countryside nor the city provides safety and relationships are overshadowed by the constant fear of betrayal, people live shadow lives. In the end, each of the four must decide how they are going to continue and face the consequences of their choices.Herta Müller, like her characters, suffered a double persecution in communist Romania under Ceauşescu. First, as an intellectual, a young person who left her provincial village to seek education and a modicum of freedom in the city; and second, as a member of the Banat Swabians, a German-speaking minority group. The characters and plot of the novel are based on these two tensions: life in a totalitarian state and life as a minority. But the characters are not well-developed, and the plot is confusing at times. Instead of focusing on the concrete (such as setting in story in time and place), the author focuses on the sensations and appetites of the characters, their distrust yet dependence on one another, and the bleak numbness of spirit which corrodes and corrupts insidiously. Müller is a poet, and the hopeless landscape of the mind when faced with such a regime is the focus of her word pictures and metaphors. The result is less a story of individuals, despite at least one of the characters being a person from Müller's own youth, than a collage of flat emotions and colorless landscapes. This is the second of Müller's books which I've read, the first being Hunger Angel. Although I can appreciate both the author's experiences which are reflected in the pages and the fictitious stories, the emotional emptiness of the books carries over into my connection with them. I'm glad I delved into this Nobel Laureate's world for a time, but I'm not sure I will return.

[brasidas_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Possesses a narrative patterning that is strikingly beautiful in its effects. There's compression, too, and suspense, though it's not a mystery or thriller. The picture Herta Müller paints of Communist Romania under dictator Ceausescu 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.

[knittingmomof3 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

From My Blog...Rich, symbolic and full of lyrical prose, The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller takes the reader to Romania and through the oppression suffered by the people under Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime. The narrator does not tell the story in a linear pattern, rather in bits and pieces that become interwoven to bring forth a masterful tapestry, rich, deep, and dark. The reader learns about Lola and the days leading up to her apparent suicide, which is what brings the narrator together with Edgar, Georg, and Kurt. The four speak of freedom and hope without ever uttering the words. The narrator refers to the proletariats as sheep and wooden melons and speaks of barbers, graveyards and ailing mothers, all seemingly random topics, yet deeply symbolic of a life that offers little happiness or hope. Müller has once again created an intensely intellectual novel, filled with the bleakness that comes from living under such a brutal regime, yet Müller offers up blooms of hope. The Land of Green Plums is a short novel, yet deeply intense, symbolic and intellectual, commanding the reader’s full attention. While the subject matter of those living in oppression is neither light nor cheerful, I strongly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a deeply intellectual read.

[hillerm_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

The Land of Green Plums is the book being read by the Trinity Book Club. As I read this novel, I wondered how much of it was autobiographical in nature. I found it helpful to read her collection of short-stories, Nadirs (which is autobiographical, if you can sort through the thicket of images) to give me some clues as to the material in Green Plums. Perhaps the narrator in Plums is Herta Müller. The story she tells in this novel is compelling.Unlike Nadirs, this takes place not in the village but the city. While I read the book, I went and looked at pictures of Bucharest, once called the "Paris of the East". It is indeed a beautiful city. Very little of that is evident either in the dialogue or scenes painted by Müller. There is a harsh reality that forms the background for the lives of four friends that are depicted in the novel. Educated, all from out-lying villages, idealistic (although limited by circumstance) and cheerful, these young people are quickly beaten down by the system that limits their future and minutely examines their present. Although there is a plot, life and death, victory and defeat, it is not really the point. The devil or the delight, depending on your point of view, is in the details. Village and city life share a grimy and filthy frame. The violence of life is close at hand - and I am not speaking of street violence, but the violence of the slaughterhouse, or of mothers to daughters, and elites to peasants. This is what life is made up in the Romania of Müller. Time exists in a malleable way in this book. The reader shoots forward and backward, without warning. Dialogue is jammed together, with little indication from punctuation as to how a phrase might be handled. And behind all of this are the songs that the narrator remembers - songs from childhood, and really from another culture. Some songs are quoted multiple times - the context constantly providing a new understanding of the words. Dark though it may be, there is life in these pages, and hope as well. There are relationships that are treasured and lost, and there is a future that is not caught in the grip of the Party. Surrounding all of this are the characters that are lost, that live in their own dashed hopes and unrealized futures. This heightens the contrast of the characters we meet - as we hope with them, and are disappointed with them.I wonder if I should get this in German?