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wretchedtheo's review against another edition
4.0
Heartfelt and throbbing with life, this novel made me smile, laugh and cry all in one sitting.
carosbcher's review against another edition
1.0
Mir war das Buch zu trist und durchzogen von viel zu vielen Familienproblemen und Fremdgehepisoden, die ich nicht unbedingt hätte erfahren müssen. Interessant fand ich die Verknüpfung zwischen Familien- und Weltgeschichte, doch auch das hat mich das Buch nicht zu Ende lesen lassen. Bei der Hälfte habe ich abgebrochen.
arirang's review against another edition
3.0
The book contains three strands, in alternating chapters each of around 15 pages, telling the story of four generations of an East German family, and indirectly the history of the German Democratic Republic.
The most successful strand tells the story of one day, in October 1989, as the family celebrate the 90th birthday of the head of the family, a much decorated Communist functionary. We see the events from the perspective of different family members ranging from the grandfather himself to his 12 year-old great grandson. This was obviously a key moment in German history, just weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall was imminent, and Ruge captures well the different hopes and fears of each character, albeit none of them suspecting such epochal events are so imminent, and all in reality as concerned with their personal dramas as the march of history.
I actually felt that the book might have been better just to stick to this strand, allowing the different narrators to fill in the back story.
Instead much of this is provided by a sequence of chronological episodes, again with a revolving cast of narrators, set at roughly 5 year intervals from 1952 to 1995. This I felt was a little less successful, as each is too short to truly capture the feel of each era, and much of the drama takes place off-page between rather than in chapters (e.g. the grandson, a key character, manages to get married, become a father and then break-up with his wife entirely between two episodes).
That said, it is satisfying to see how Ruge revisits certain events - e.g. a hint by a wife in one chapter that she might arrange a threesome with her husband and her friend is picked up in the chapter set 23 years later.
And there is one lovely illustration of the pre- and post- re-unification East. Two chapters begin, "If anyone had asked Irina about the source of the apricots...."
In 1976 this is followed by a three page saga involving an old friendship in a labour camp in the 1940s leading 30 years later to a complicated tale of bartering a caviar gift for the apricots via some ceramics, skylights and eels.
In 1991, this becomes simply "the apricots came from the supermarket", followed by a lament as to how western convenience stores take all the challenge out of life.
The third narrative strand was the least convincing to me. It is set in September 2001, as the terminally-ill and now middle aged grandson visits Mexico where his grandparents spent the years 1940-1952 in exile.
This didn't seem to add anything to the story, and the deliberate setting at another key historic event, 9/11, seemed rather forced. Indeed Ruge himself downplays the link having his character surprisingly, indeed unrealistically, unaware of what had happened ("all the passengers seemed to be reading the same newspaper with a picture on the front page of an airplane flying into a skyscraper? Or was it a cruise missile") - which begs the question of why set the chapter then.
As for the translation, Anthea Bell is a wonderful translator (Austerlitz by WG Sebald being her crowning glory in my view). But from comments on those that have read the book in German, I wonder if she stuck too closely to a style that worked well in the original language but which feels awkward in English. But full marks to the translator and publisher for the book's title which is both faithful to the original and evocative in English.
The most successful strand tells the story of one day, in October 1989, as the family celebrate the 90th birthday of the head of the family, a much decorated Communist functionary. We see the events from the perspective of different family members ranging from the grandfather himself to his 12 year-old great grandson. This was obviously a key moment in German history, just weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall was imminent, and Ruge captures well the different hopes and fears of each character, albeit none of them suspecting such epochal events are so imminent, and all in reality as concerned with their personal dramas as the march of history.
I actually felt that the book might have been better just to stick to this strand, allowing the different narrators to fill in the back story.
Instead much of this is provided by a sequence of chronological episodes, again with a revolving cast of narrators, set at roughly 5 year intervals from 1952 to 1995. This I felt was a little less successful, as each is too short to truly capture the feel of each era, and much of the drama takes place off-page between rather than in chapters (e.g. the grandson, a key character, manages to get married, become a father and then break-up with his wife entirely between two episodes).
That said, it is satisfying to see how Ruge revisits certain events - e.g. a hint by a wife in one chapter that she might arrange a threesome with her husband and her friend is picked up in the chapter set 23 years later.
And there is one lovely illustration of the pre- and post- re-unification East. Two chapters begin, "If anyone had asked Irina about the source of the apricots...."
In 1976 this is followed by a three page saga involving an old friendship in a labour camp in the 1940s leading 30 years later to a complicated tale of bartering a caviar gift for the apricots via some ceramics, skylights and eels.
In 1991, this becomes simply "the apricots came from the supermarket", followed by a lament as to how western convenience stores take all the challenge out of life.
The third narrative strand was the least convincing to me. It is set in September 2001, as the terminally-ill and now middle aged grandson visits Mexico where his grandparents spent the years 1940-1952 in exile.
This didn't seem to add anything to the story, and the deliberate setting at another key historic event, 9/11, seemed rather forced. Indeed Ruge himself downplays the link having his character surprisingly, indeed unrealistically, unaware of what had happened ("all the passengers seemed to be reading the same newspaper with a picture on the front page of an airplane flying into a skyscraper? Or was it a cruise missile") - which begs the question of why set the chapter then.
As for the translation, Anthea Bell is a wonderful translator (Austerlitz by WG Sebald being her crowning glory in my view). But from comments on those that have read the book in German, I wonder if she stuck too closely to a style that worked well in the original language but which feels awkward in English. But full marks to the translator and publisher for the book's title which is both faithful to the original and evocative in English.