Kontrafaktische Geschichtsdarstellung. Untersuchungen an Romanen von Günter Grass, Thomas Pynchon, Thomas Brussig, Miachel Kleeberg, Philip Roth und Christoph Ransmayr

Discussion of the historiography on each author is confined largely to extensive footnotes, a choice which makes sense given that Widmann's main aim is to make claims about the use of contrafactual historical scenarios, rather than about the literaryhistorical position of each authot. The more than one-hundred pages Widmann expends here, though, hardly seem worth it when one reads the case studies of the second section, which stand alone as crisp and sturdy formalist essays on the structural ramifications of one kind of literary device. [...]in the chapter specifically devoted to The Plot Against America, Widmann atgues resolutely against reading the novel in tetms of the political and social situation in the United States at the time of writing and publication.