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the complete review - fiction

Exiled Shadow

by
Norman Manea

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

A- : a neat approach to writing about exile, well done

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Der Schatten im Exil liefert eine facettenreiche Darstellung literarischer Eindrücke während und nach der Flucht, in der das Fragmentarische sinnbildlich für die Ambivalenz und Zerrissenheit im Exil steht." - Carlota Brandis, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  
  
• "El interesante enigma, la ambigüedad incitante están en el corazón de este nuevo libro de Manea. (...) La sombra exiliada es un conjunto, no de fotografías, sino de fragmentos, piezas sueltas pero relacionadas entre sí que representan ese inefable momento presente. (...) La maravillosa historia de Peter Schlemihl permite a Manea hilar una vaga trama a través de los fragmentos que componen este libro." - Alberto Manguel, El País
  
  
• "The key to Norman Manea's latest book seems to hide in its half-serious, half-joking subtitle: A novel in collage. For "collage" is not only its most striking outward feature but also its deep core and generating matrix. Manea has always had a penchant for experimental writing, but he has rarely experimented more boldly, and with more evident delight, than here. (...) (T)he plot is not easy to pin down; it is unapologetically sprawling, whimsical and idiosyncratic, when not interrupted by dream sequences and hallucinations (.....) Exiled Shadow is the natural conclusion to a long life of experimentation with deracination, self-deconstruction and -recreation -- of dancing on the brink of the abyss." - Costica Bradatan, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "Mirroring Manea’s biography, the text brilliantly weaves these threads together to ponder the difference between “the shadow (how one is perceived socially)” and “the soul (one’s individual existence).”" - Michele Levy, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The guiding text for Exiled Shadow's narrator is Adelbert von Chamisso's 1814 novella, Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte -- specifically, the yellow Reclam-booklet edition --, the story in which the title character sells his shadow only to find himself an outcast; as noted in the (End)Notes, Schlemihl: "will accompany the reader like a shadow" through the book as well. Like his character, Chamisso was also: "An exile, like us", as the nameless narrator tells a friend of his, and the Manea stand-in whose account this is -- "The exile with the code name 'Nomadic Misanthrope'" -- clearly identifies with both.
       Exiled Shadow is described as A Novel in Collage, and while a strong narratorial voice and thread anchor the story, there are many sections with passages and longer pieces from a variety of other writers -- including excerpts from the narrator's (presumably Manea's own) student's essays on exile and Peter Schlemihl. Other outside work includes almost ten pages of excerpts from Thomas Mann's 'Chamisso'-essay, poems by Celan and Montale, excerpts from Alan L. Berger on Elie Wiesel and Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows, and several pages by Alberto Manguel in a chapter titled: 'From Alberto's Personal Papers' (which Manguel mentions in his own review of the novel -- noting: "Juzgo que el hecho de que uno de los fragmentos lleve el nombre de este reseñador no invalida la calidad del resto de la obra"; Manguel also provides a blurb for the English-language edition of the work).
       The story is basically Manea's own, the Romanian author pushed into exile in the mid-1980s, winding up first in Germany, where he spends time with fellow exile Günther Buicliu, "rebaptized Becker, after his German mother who had brought him to Berlin", who was a true believer, a rare critic of the Communist regime from the left, rather than the right, "a rebel against comic book communism". Eventually, the narrator comes to the United States, where he gets a position at 'Buster Keaton College' -- a barely disguised Bard, "the college that has played host to my estrangement", where Manea long taught. (While never named, all pretense is eventually given up when Manea writes, at some length, about the real-life Irma Brandeis, who taught and is buried there.)
       The most significant figure in the narrator's life is his half-sister, Tamar "called Tamara", trained as a doctor (who works in the United States as a head nurse) going through a divorce. Like the 'Nomadic Misanthrope', they have a code name for her: Agatha -- and, yes, Musil is: "his favorite author", and the choice of 'Agatha' suggests just how close the sibling-relationship is .....
       Exiled Shadow is a reflection on exile, and what it means to be an exile. There is much discussion of that, and the collage-material, with its other voices, supports the narrator's account well. The shadow-concept, and the Peter Schlemihl-story in particular are also well-used throughout the narrative (and they are near-omnipresent -- a shadow always over the text, as it were) -- including in the amusing scene when the narrator leaves his homeland and mistakenly hands over the yellow Reclam booklet instead of his passport to the customs official, who is immediately suspicious:

     "What did you say ? A guidebook ? Something that small, that tiny, tiny enough to be hidden in a pocket ? What kind of a guide can it be ? Is it code ? Maybe it's in code. Is that it ? Is that it !"

- M.A.Orthofer, 6 August 2023

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Links:

• Yale University Press publicity page
• Polirom publicity page
• Hanser publicity page
• Galaxia Gutenberg publicity page

• culturamas (Spanish)
• Entreletras (Spanish)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• Jüdische Allgemeine (German)
• Letralia (Spanish)
• Los Angeles Review of Books
• Observator Cultural (Romanian)
• el periódico de España (Spanish)
• Tablet
• Tagesspiegel (German)
• World Literature Today

• Faculty page

• The Lair

• See Index of Eastern European literature
• Other books from Yale University Press - The Margellos World Republic of Letters under review

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About the Author:

       Romanian author Norman Manea was born in 1936. He teaches at Bard.

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© 2023-2024 the complete review

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