A problem of judging. The question of human rights in J. Bernlef’s novel Out of mind

Abstract

In this century, one of the greatest health challenges “is a growing silent pandemic” (Project Alzheimer’s Value Europe [PAVE], 2021), i.e., the alarming rise of neurodegenerative dementing diseases of the elderly, including Alzheimer’s disease. Formerly a tabooed topic in litearature, one of the earliest modern literary novels that deals with dementia and implicitly touches the question of human rights is the bestseller Hersenschimmen by the Dutch author J. Bernlef. It was published in 1984 and translated into English as Out of Mind, which emphasizes just one side of the ambiguous Dutch title. This unique book provides one of the first narratives that describes the disease-related changes of a mentally ailing person connected to dementia from the point of view of an Alzheimer’s sufferer himself. While experiencing states of delusion due to his illness, the protagonist misunderstands different situations and is confounded with former events from the time of the World War II. When he is finally transported to a nursing home, in his helplessness he suspects that he is being deported. This misjudgment opens up the interesting question of human rights in Bernlef. His novel problematizes the human rights for people with dementing diseases. At the same time, author and lawyer Franz Kafka’s parable “Before the law” comes to mind. In order to show the problematic position of people with dementing diseases, this text will be constellated with exemplarily analyzed passages of Bernlef’s novel concerning the issue of human rights. How are the rights of people with dementing diseases narrated? What happens when ailing humans are not lucid, respectively when they lose their ability to reason and to communicate?