To Prussia with Love: Misadventures in Rural East Germany

by Roger Boyes

Farce meets romance in this amusing travel memoir set in East Germany In a desperate attempt to save his relationship with girlfriend Lena and take a break from the world of journalism, Roger Boyes agrees to make a great escape from the easy urban lifestyle of Berlin and decamp to the countryside. He has hopes for Italy, but Lena has inherited a run-down old manor in the deepest, darkest area of Brandenburg. Needing a form of income, they decide to set up a bed and breakfast with a British theme. Enter unhelpful Harry and his Trinidadian chef cousin, a mad Scotsman to advise them on rebranding Brandenburg, some suicidal frogs, and a posse of mad tourists. It all culminates in a cricket match between the British and the Germans on an old Russian minefield.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Germany

254 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[Prabhjot Kaur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roger and Lena have been together for sometime now but they feel that their relationship isn't the same as it used to be at the start. When Lena inherits some property in the rural East Germany, they both decide to move there. They obviously need a regular income and they decide to run a B&B. They meet up with some of the locals and what follows is a chain of events that lead them to form a Cricket team and some disasters on and off the pitch.

I was walking past a bookshop when this book cover caught my eye and I bought it instantly. I didn't know anything about the book before diving into it. It was captivating in the beginning but then things took a drastic turn which I didn't find funny as it was supposed to be. I liked the story and I know it was inspired by the writer's own life. A couple moving to the rural area or countryside to salvage their relationship and opening a new business and having hilarious hijinks there but it failed to make a mark on me. I liked the start and the end and the writing was okay but other than that it was underwhelming.

3 stars

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suspect the book is based very loosely on actual events, that were blown up into (what Boyes considers) humorous episodes. I bailed on his previous book, but saw this one on the library New Books shelf, and decided to give it a chance. Overall, the story wasn't all that funny, but I managed to get through it ... just. Not Particularly Recommended.

[Sarah83 sbookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

War ganz ok. Aber alles in allem schien manches übertrieben und ein wenig albern.

[Alberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a slight disappointment. The lovely cover, reviews, and the feel told me it would be good and this time I was wrong. It had nothing of its promised wit, the major plot twist was predictable, the ending wasn`t surprising. The novel did, however, bring the feel of a shabby old manor. I suppose I wouldn`t be so critical if I hadn`t seen the BBC series `Ghosts` and read `Pansija pilī` by Anšlavs Eglītis. These both artworks have said everything I want to hear about the topic of old houses and hotel ideas in them.

[Ulrike Hildebrandt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sehr schade, dass das Buch sich so auf Klischees und Vorurteile konzentriert. Das hat dann leider auch nichts mehr mit Satire zu tun, sondern ist schlicht nur noch platt. Wenn man auch 20 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung (ausgehend vom Erscheinungsjahr des Buches) immer noch so tun muss, als ob die Ostdeutschen hinterwäldlerisch und dumm sind - traurig. Aus der ganzen Geschichte hätte man sicher mehr machen können.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly but entertaining, which is pretty much exactly what I was in the mood for

[Freya · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull and unoriginal. I am surprised I finished it

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Catchy book, easy read, fun topic. But rather dated in terms of values and relationships.

[Mikey Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book to waste some time - real page turner, Roger Boyes writes with such ease and just enough comedy to keep you engaged and hungry for more.

[Liralen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm always interested in 1) house memoirs and 2) location memoirs that take place in places that aren't written about all that much, and in theory this fits the bill—restoration of a crumbling old manor house in Brandenburg! Yes please. Unfortunately, I forgot that I really can't stand British Male Humour™, and that's...what this book is.

Berlin is a city-state, surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, which covers a geographically much larger area but has a markedly smaller population than Berlin. (For context, Berlin has a population of roughly 3.6 million; Potsdam, which is Brandenburg's biggest city and in some ways functions as a suburb of Berlin, has a population of about 160,000.) Brandenburg was part of East Germany, and even now it's the sort of place that people are more likely to come from than to move to by choice. So when Boyes and his partner found themselves with the opportunity to move to Brandenburg and restore an old mansion, his feelings were—not unreasonably—somewhat mixed.

Boyes paints the experience as something quite slapstick, but I have to assume that there is barely a scene in here in which Boyes has not used extensive creative license to make things funnier, in a British Male Humour™ kind of way. (A quite racist British Male Humour™ kind of way, as it happens.) The bare bones of it is: British man and German woman move to German woman's family house in the sticks; they don't quite have money for reno so he decides that they'll turn it into a BnB; she isn't happy that he's steamrolling over everything, and he can't understand why; very, very, very minor shenanigans ensue and he does his best to blow them into Drama of epic proportions. I expect that most of the conversations in here are either "Well, that's what I would have said if I'd thought of it in time" or "Of course I said that; I thought it would make a funny line in the book I was planning to write about it".

I'm very tired now, and tempted to swear off cis male writers for a while again.

[Karschtl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ein spontaner Kauf im Urlaub, und auch sofort gelesen. Animiert zum Kauf hat mich der Untertitel des Buches, da ich selbst aus der brandenburgischen Provinz komme, in die es den Autor verschlägt (auch wenn es in seinem Fall ein ganz anderer Teil des großen Landes ist - soo viel Unterschied wird es da wohl nicht geben).

Allerdings muss ich sagen, dass ich weder mich selbst noch andere Brandenburger in den Figuren wiedererkannt habe. Es kommen auch generell nur sehr wenige brandenburgische Provinzler vor, viele Hauptfiguren sind mit Engländern besetzt.

In der Story geht es zunächst darum, ein altes enteignetes (und nun mangels Mittel zur Instandhaltung freimütig zurückgegebenes) Gutshaus, dass von Lena und Roger wieder auf Vordermann gebracht wird um darin ein Bed & Breakfast zu eröffnen. Dafür fehlen aber zum einen noch die nötigen finanziellen Mittel und auch die Unterstützung durch das Dorf, in dem das Gutshaus steht. So muss sogar der engl. Botschafter in Berlin und am Ende sogar der britische Premierminister helfend eingreifen, um die Unternehmnung zum Erfolg zu führen.

Der Anfang war noch recht plausibel, am Ende wurde es dann doch eine Spur zu skurril, wie ich fand.

[Cheenee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is surprisingly one of the funniest books I've read for the past 12 months. I bought it at Readings in Melbourne for its cute cover, but never expected too much from it. However, when I finally read it almost 2 years after purchasing it, I regret not having read it earlier. It is a good book to read when you just want to chill out and have a laugh at random misadventures and at bigots! :) Now I want to read Roger Boyes' other books, too!

[Broderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to what other reviewers have said, I found this to be a very entertaining read. It may not be based entirely on actual events, but that's beside the point. It had me laughing out loud on my train trip into work each day, and has inspired me to look up some of Theodor Fontane's writings. Definitely worth reading!

[Rene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was alright...there seemed to be a lot of grammar issues with the copy I own. Story was questionable at times. I guess I just don't understand relationships very well yet. :/ For any Hetalia fans, I recommend this story. :)

[Lisa Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, easy, amusing read.