{"id":638,"date":"2015-04-21T14:48:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T21:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.evergreen.edu\/losttimestephanie\/?p=61"},"modified":"2015-04-21T14:48:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T21:48:04","slug":"week-three-postmemory-in-dora-bruder-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/week-three-postmemory-in-dora-bruder-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Week Three: Postmemory in Dora Bruder Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modiano went to great lengths to distinguish the types of evidence he used to create Dora Bruder<\/span>. \u00a0At certain points his statements appear to me to be factual, but he does offer his own theories when data is sparse and uses sound deductive reasoning to develop his perspective. \u00a0An exceptionally apt example of this dichotomy is found in the chapter on Dora Bruder’s escape from boarding school. \u00a0In this section Modiano blends facts such as Bruder’s father failing to register her as a, “Jewess” and with conjecture, “I doubt if Dora’s father would have had either the time or the inclination…” (46). \u00a0 He expounds on Dora’s life using a lot of logical reasoning, but I think it’s apparent when his words are citing facts and when they are from his own beliefs or thoughts. \u00a0When so little information is available it becomes essential to fill in the gaps with one’s own imaginings using the collected data (however meager) as a foundation off of which to extrapolate. For example, the author describes imagined, though no less plausible, scenarios that depict what may have transpired at Dora’s disappearance. \u00a0Dora probably left Sunday evening, though he can’t be sure, the Mother Superior either called, maybe it was on the next day, that evening, or maybe, since there isn’t a telephone number listed for the school (at least it didn’t surface during the author’s research), she sent a sister to the Bruder’s place. \u00a0Or still yet, what if the weather was warm and mild and Dora left during the day? Modiano says that knowing trivial or tangential facts would help to explain the story (on page 48) and I believe it’s because there are so many minor details we take for granted in history, in life, details which shape an individual’s thoughts and actions, simply knowing if it was sunny out would introduce a storm of new postulations. \u00a0Modiano’s imagination lends itself well to the call and response style that bridges the gaps between what can be known and what is lost. \u00a0The poised vignettes he creates, such as the scene where Dora escapes in the sunshine of the day, or conversely, when she leaves into the frosty unforgiving night, give stability to the story and make the narrator, Dora, and, to a lesser degree, Modiano’s father, more real. \u00a0Employing this array of tools– introspection, imagination, and research created a narrative from shadows and ashes. \u00a0Dora Bruder lived and escaped the passage of time through anonymity. \u00a0Without supposition and the author’s reflections what we’d know about Dora would be empty, plain, unreal. \u00a0She was Jewish, her father Austrian, he was a disabled veteran, her mother was a seamstress, etc. \u00a0All the facts add up to a few lines on a page. \u00a0And that’s not what makes a person.<\/p>\n

Throughout the novel the narrator recalls his backstory in conjunction with Dora’s. \u00a0He asserts at the beginning of the story that while time progresses, “…perspectives become blurred, one winter merging into another. \u00a0That of 1965 and 1942.” (6). \u00a0I think he uses the anachronistic telling of parts of his life to signify the process he went through to discover Dora Bruder’s life. \u00a0Modiano’s reflections are structured around his relationship with his father, an Italian Jew who lived in Paris during WWII, right around the corner from the Bruder’s basically. \u00a0The significance of the narrator’s relationship with his father is that it aids in explaining and contrasting the past experiences of a stranger who, in so many words, barely seemed to exist (Dora), with strangers and memories of a different nature: Modiano’s unfamiliarity with his father and the stranger who is the narrator to the reader. \u00a0His father clearly made an impression on how he lives his life; from getting arrested because of that father, from the paternal negligence, and the tight-lipped demeanor of such a parent. \u00a0Modiano even emulates his father’s past in some involuntary ways as is the case when Modiano sells stolen goods to a pawn shop guy who knew his father from the black market during the war. \u00a0He goes on to relate the anxiety and panic he felt when he tried and failed to visit his father in the hospital before he died to a similar fear when the narrator is trying to access Dora Bruder’s birth records. \u00a0I think these motifs of absence and strife translate across the narrator’s perspective on his life and are filters through which he accesses Dora’s experiences.<\/p>\n

The final chapter of the book is what makes Dora Bruder real. \u00a0The narrator explains how when he applies a phrase to Dora’s ghost in his mind, he finds her not only real, but like a person he knows. \u00a0When he discusses her (more than likely) final year, he is giving facts about what her life had certainly become. \u00a0He’s also reinstating her humanity by asking questions she herself probably asked, “Will Mother visit before we’re sent away?” He does it again when he reminds readers that Dora had places she visited, had a way in which she spent her time, had secrets that she took with her to her grave, these statements are reinforcements to elements that make people, people. \u00a0Beyond all of that, Dora Bruder had memories and those inextricably make an individual real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modiano went to great lengths to distinguish the types of evidence he used to create Dora Bruder.  At certain points his statements appear to me to be factual, but he does offer his own theories when data is sparse and… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}