I received a review copy of this title from Seagull Books. This book was originally published in German and this edition has been translated by Katy Derbyshire. This is my final contribution to German Literature Month. This has been a fantastic event with over 130 titles reviewed by bloggers.
My Review:
The author, Christa Wolf, wrote this 74 page book in a single sitting as an anniversary gift to her husband. It is a beautiful, heartwarming story that shows us that even in the most extreme and unfortunate circumstances love and kindness can make everything tolerable. August and his mother were forced from their home in East Prussia at the end of World War II and as these refugees were traveling by train to escape the atrocities of war, an accident takes August’s mother. As an orphan August is placed in a hospital, which is actually a former castle turned into a hospital that treats tubercular and consumptive patients.
August is surrounded by sickness and death and sorrow but what he remembers most about his time at the hospital is an older girl named Lilo. Lilo is a teenager, so she is a bit older than August, but her warmth and kindness are something that August constantly wants to be around. Her songs and stories make him forget, at least for a little while, that he is an orphan living in a hospital. No matter how sick or close to death another patient might be, Lilo still visits and tenderly cares for many of the children at the hospital.
August is now a sixty-year-old man looking back on his life and remembering his time in the hospital after the war. It is a testament to the resilency of the human spirit that August doesn’t remember all of the death and destruction around him, but what stands out in his mind is the compassion and generosity of Lilo. August has lived a full and happy life and he is able to look back on it with a warm feeling in his heart and no regrets. August is also very thankful for the wonderful life he has shared with his wife and for his job of driving tourists back and forth from Prague to Dresden. He is a simple man and is so grateful for what might seem to many as insignificant memories.
Written in beautiful, concise prose, Wolf is the perfect example of the fact that even a very short novella can have a powerful and far reaching impact on readers.
About the Author:
A citizen of East Germany and a committed socialist, Mrs. Wolf managed to keep a critical distance from the communist regime. Her best-known novels included “Der geteilte Himmel” (“Divided Heaven,” 1963), addressing the divisions of Germany, and “Kassandra” (“Cassandra,” 1983), which depicted the Trojan War.
She won awards in East Germany and West Germany for her work, including the Thomas Mann Prize in 2010. The jury praised her life’s work for “critically questioning the hopes and errors of her time, and portraying them with deep moral seriousness and narrative power.”
Christa Ihlenfeld was born March 18, 1929, in Landsberg an der Warthe, a part of Germany that is now in Poland. She moved to East Germany in 1945 and joined the Socialist Unity Party in 1949. She studied German literature in Jena and Leipzig and became a publisher and editor.
In 1951, she married Gerhard Wolf, an essayist. They had two children.
Lukas Zbinden lives in a nursing home in Germany and even though he isn’t as fast as he used to be, one of his favorite activities is still taking his daily walk. Most of the book entails Lukas taking walks with Kazim, one of the newly-hired caretakers at the home. On their walks Lukas describes to Kazim the other inhabitants of the home, Lukas’ former life before the nursing home, and Lukas’ philosophical musings on the importance of walking.
Christoph Simon was born in 1972 in Emmental, Switzerland. After travels through the Middle East, Poland, South America, London and New York, he has settled in Bern. His first novel, Franz, or Why Antelopes Run in Herds (2001) has sold over 10,000 copies, while Planet Obrist (2005) was nominated for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Zbinden’s Progress is his fourth novel and won the 2010 Bern Literature Prize.
Stefan Zweig was forced to flee his home in Austria as the Nazis were taking control of his motherland. For years he wandered around Europe as a nomad with no real place to call home. As Europe is ravaged by war, he finds his way to the German community of Petropolis in Brazil and in 1941 he decides to write this brief biography of Michel de Montaigne with whose life he identifies on many levels.
This is one of those classic books that is very difficult to review and do it justice because there are so many ideas contained within the book. It is a coming-of-age story, a commentary on existential philosophy and a beautiful description of a life long friendship. Narcissus is a teacher’s assistant in the cloister of Mariabronn and fully intends to take his vows as a monk. Narcissus is a very talented scholar and it is evident that he will one day serve the church and even become the Abbot of the cloister. He is a cerebral man who values the intellect but his emphasis on the rational also prevents him from having any real friendships or meaningful love in his life. But this all changes when a young boy by the name of Goldmund is dropped off at the cloister by his father.
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) which explore an individual’s search for spirituality outside society.
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