Intergenerational Translations in Uwe Timm’s Am Beispiel meines Bruders

Abstract

: Uwe Timm ’ s autobiographical novel Am Beispiel meines Bruders (2003) epitomizes the wave of family narratives published in Germany around the turn of the millennium. Indeed, many scholars have noted that the narrator exhibits a nuanced and empathetic approach to his family ’ s Nazi legacy. This article proble-matizes Timm ’ s nuanced tone. I argue that he adopts different narrative strategies to discuss his brother, who volunteered for the SS-Totenkopfdivision at eighteen years of age, and his mother, who remains unnamed throughout the novel. Drawing on Itamar Even-Zohar ’ s polysystem theory of translation, and more specifically on his concept of conservative and innovative repertoires, I argue that Timm translates stories about members of the war generation in a differentiated way, thereby producing distinct effects in each case. More specifically, I demonstrate that the narrator creates a rupture with his brother, subjecting his choice of words to scrutiny and following in the footsteps of the well-established Väterliteratur of the 1970s to the 1980s. Conversely, Timm strengthens his affiliation with his mother by avoiding an overly critical examination of her, focusing instead on her use of non-verbal and non-politically loaded language.