Herta Müller is
a German-Romanian novelist, poet, essayist and the recipient of the 2009
Nobel Prize in Literature. She describes her life under communism in her Cristina and her Double: Selected Essays. There is a particularly strange revelation when she gets access to her secret police files: There is another, parallel, Herta Müller, a ruthless party member, the obverse of the real one.
But ludicrous is always more destructive than crazy. When Herta Müller’s first book was published in Romania, the censors removed, among other things, the word “suitcase” whenever it occurred. Apparently it suggested travel or, worse, flight. Linguistic engineers renamed Christmas-tree angels “year-end winged creatures.” Similarly, the language and imagery of death were thought to undermine the sense of endless happiness that citizens no doubt experienced in the GDR. Something had to be done. Instead of “coffin,” officials proposed “earth furniture.” In the same manner, the office in charge of arranging celebrations and funerals for the Party’s bigwigs was renamed “The Department of Joy and Sorrow.”
Beneath the absurdity lies the essence of all totalitarianism: The belief that words can change reality. If religious terms are removed from language, people will stop having religious feelings; if the vocabulary of death is properly engineered, people will stop being afraid of dying.
But ludicrous is always more destructive than crazy. When Herta Müller’s first book was published in Romania, the censors removed, among other things, the word “suitcase” whenever it occurred. Apparently it suggested travel or, worse, flight. Linguistic engineers renamed Christmas-tree angels “year-end winged creatures.” Similarly, the language and imagery of death were thought to undermine the sense of endless happiness that citizens no doubt experienced in the GDR. Something had to be done. Instead of “coffin,” officials proposed “earth furniture.” In the same manner, the office in charge of arranging celebrations and funerals for the Party’s bigwigs was renamed “The Department of Joy and Sorrow.”
Beneath the absurdity lies the essence of all totalitarianism: The belief that words can change reality. If religious terms are removed from language, people will stop having religious feelings; if the vocabulary of death is properly engineered, people will stop being afraid of dying.
Language is not simply a tool, it has its own essence. It is part of you.
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