'The Crossing of Love': The Inoperative Community and Romantic Love in Feridun Zaimoglu's 'Fünf klopfende Herzen, wenn die Liebe Springt' and Hinterland

Abstract

In the short story ‘Fünf klopfende Herzen, wenn die Liebe springt’ (2004) and the novel Hinterland (2009), Feridun Zaimoglu engages with cosmopolitanism and German Romanticism – both characteristic themes of his more recent fiction. A dialogue between the ideas of love presented by Jean-Luc Nancy and the Romantics Fr. Schlegel, Novalis and Kleist can illuminate the non-identitarian nature of Zaimoglu's cosmopolitanism, suggesting a radical openness to the future and an ontological interrelatedness in line with Nancy's ‘communauté désœuvrée’ (‘inoperative community’), rather than a new cosmopolitan identity with its own moral code. Just as the Romantics invested in the power of love to create a harmonious world, love is equally important for Nancy in that it renders the inoperative community more accessible to us. This understanding of cosmopolitanism can be glimpsed in ‘Fünf klopfende Herzen’, in which falling in love presents the protagonist with the radical possibilities brought about by the interconnected nature of being. Similarly, in Hinterland, in which transnational sensibilities create a cosmopolitan web across Europe, it is implied that being-with is not subordinate to being-one. Zaimoglu's engagement with the Brothers Grimm and the more nationalist aspects of Romanticism also requires close scrutiny, and can be illuminated by an appeal to Nancy's concepts of ‘myth’ and ‘literature’.