Thought I was gonna get away with not posting for July but… Here just a few thoughts on some of the stuff I did in July when I should have been writing.
Current read is Rummelplatz (German link) by Werner Bräunig. What a wonderful book! I love books that get me thinking, especially the writing and imaginative part of thinking. Not even half-way through this book I started paralleling it with my world. I think that’s cool.
Anywho.
Was just in the US for a short summer visit with my son. We went to Washington DC and I showed him some of the museums and, of course, the various houses of misconstrued power. While explaining the basics of how US democracy functions to a nine-year-old (who is being schooled in another country) I snapped this speck of time of the Capitol with my handy camera. I kinda like this pic and I’ll try to explain what it has to do with the current book I’m reading. Thank you for your patience.
After reviewing the snap-shots of time I made during my visit with my son to my home country (which I hope he’ll adopt as his home country as well), I was struggling through a chapter in Werner Bräunig’s book. This book is really doing a number on me. Unlike English I find myself more often than not getting lost in German words. This may have something to do with my disillusionments or my prejudices. In a way, I’m obsessed with all-things German. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Especially German women, the bier, trips to Tuscany for Italian red wine… But that’s not important here.
If you’re into things German and have any bit of interest in Germany’s very recent history Rummelplatz (German link) is a must read. But it ain’t available in English. Yet. It takes place in Germany directly after WW2 and brilliantly and subtly chronicles the splitting of a very confused nation. I’m gonna be working with this book for a while so this isn’t really a book-review. German literary circles, though, consider this book a very important discovery and it is being hailed along the lines of other (in)famous German writers, including Mr. Grass.
In short, Rummelplatz is something of a lost novel. Bräunig’s son seems to have inherited the manuscript and he gave it up to Aufbau Verlag. It’s caused a bit of ruckus in some circles. Christa Wolf says that every German should read it if they want to understand the former DDR. This book was not allowed publication while Bräunig was alive and that seems to have done-in the author. He died relatively young (early forties?) due to drink. He managed, though, to create a piece of work that may well turn out to be something great. Or maybe not.
While reading it I couldn’t help think about all the confusion in my home country. The politcs of the day – no matter what day – seem to be never changing. Werner Bräunig brilliantly transcribes the happenings of a blossoming political system. This book bleeds ideology – it gunks from the pages. I think if this book had somehow found it’s way out of the East in the nineteen-sixties or seventies it wouldn’t carry so much weight; it would have been drowned or annihilated along with everything else that could have been good had not Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., put their needy fingers on it. Then, suddenly, there I stood. Along side me a nine-year-old yearning for the fun America offers. He said to me, Dad, why did they build a big mirror to show that building twice? I then explained the reflecting pool. He hadn’t yet noticed the water below. He listened to me and before we left the view he said, Dad, the Atlantic is kind of like a reflecting pool, isn’t it.
The thing I love most about children is how smart they are. Yet another reason some men should never grow up.
-tgs-
Technorati Tags: novel, reading, Germany, politics, career, books
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