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Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on July 14, 2008
Literature and Theology 2008 22(4):475-490; doi:10.1093/litthe/frn023
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press 2008; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Nostalgia and Redemption in Joseph Kanon's The Good German

William D. Buhrman

Theology Department, St. Mary's University, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78228-8503, USA

wbuhrman{at}stmarytx.edu


  Abstract

This article explores Joseph Kanon's depiction and challenge in The Good German to two prevailing American memories about World War II, that of a beneficent American occupation and of a universal German guilt. The article describes these deeply held memories as metanarratives that fashion identities within the setting of the novel by establishing who needs to be redeemed and who does not. The novel provides a ready example of the way postmodern nostalgia can be used not only to save oneself through memory but also condemn the other who is the object of the metanarrative but nevertheless hidden by it.


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