The spatial ambiguity of the island. Marion Poschmann’s Pine Islands (2017)

Abstract

In Marion Poschmann's novel The Pine lslands, originally published in German in 2017 with the title Die Kiefemi11se/11, the protagonist refers to an essay by the famous Japanese author Juni'chiro Tanizaki1 describing a distinct East-West dichotomy in the aesthetic perception of space. He reflects about these cultural differences by referring to light, both metaphorically and literally; "illumination" shapes space in different ways: The West, one could pithily summarise, is bright; it not only brings with it the illumination of the Enlightenment, but also lights up every street, every town, every room with dazzling lamps, so that every single object will for evermore be sharp and delineated. The East, conversely, prefers to allow things to emerge only vaguely from the background, to hold their mutability and fragmentariness as their defining qualities, so that it would be considered the peak of aesthetic experience to catch only a glimmer of an object. (qtd. in Poschmann 162)