64. The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller
translation: from German by Michael Hofmann (1996)
OPD: 1994
format: 242-page hardcover
acquired: 2013 read: Nov 15-23 time reading: 6:59, 1.7 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Novel theme: TBR
locations: Communist Romania ~1970’s
about the author: Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf in Romania in 1953.

A series of sketches of the life of college-educated political dissidents in Romania under Ceaușescu. They deal with constant harassment, abuse, economic strain and suicides.

This being Müller, it's a Swabian perspective. The Swabians are a German minority in Romania. Our main character is the daughter of an SS veteran who came back to Romania after WWII, remaining outrageously sympathetic to Hitler.

I think that hints at the swirl of dark stuff in here. It is relentlessly bleak. This 1994 novel was rejuvenated when Müller won the Nobel Prize in 2009. It is powerful, but tough going and I struggled through (but felt it!). I think there are times I would have lapped this up. But I found myself impatient and beaten down. I never got lost in it and read it mainly in 20-minute sessions, stopping in exhaustion. It will, despite or because of all that, hang around.

This is my 4th novel by Müller. I feel like each was harder to read than the last one. I think her anger at Communist Romania is most present here of all her works I've read. In an odd way, I feel that her act of expressing all that bitter anger has a cathartic element. It's powerful, but I'm not sure who I would recommend this to.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/354226#8292394 ( )

Beautifully written in a fragmented style where the unspoken is as powerful as it was in this environment. I know I obsess over 2nd world lit, but I'd put this in the upper ranks of that collection.
My notes in total were: Astounding. Painful and oblique and true. ( )

In The Land of Green Plums, Herta Muller explores the lives of 4 young adults who have moved to a city in Romania during Ceausescu's reign to try to find work. They the experience tight surveillance and lack of freedom that the dictatorship enforced. There are vivid details about how they try to communicate - code words, putting hairs places to see if they are disturbed, etc. But in spite of the vivid and memorable detail, I felt like I was being kept at arms length the whole book. I'm not sure if this is a translation issue or if the author was unable or unwilling to really delve into the emotions that this sort of life entails. I'm sure, having lived through it herself, it's a painful topic.

Müller is a Nobel Prize winning author, and despite my slight disconnect with the book, I still highly recommend. It has vivid imagery that I won't forget and began to open up my eyes to a historical era that I know little about. ( )

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. ( )

Gritty and determined writing, delivered in short bursts, this novel shows the paranoia and restricted knowledge that plagued Romania under Ceaușescu. A brilliant story, if dark, and an important historical narrative that resonates in parts of the world today. ( )