Awakening to the Great Sleep War

by Gert Jonke, Jean M. Snook (Translator)

One of the loveliest riddles of Austrian literature is finally available in English Gert Jonke’s 1982 novel, Awakening to the Great Sleep War, is an expedition through a world in constant nervous motion, where reality is rapidly fraying―flags refuse to stick to their poles, lids sidle off of their pots, tram tracks shake their stops away like fleas, and books abandon libraries in droves. Our cicerone on this journey through the possible (and impossible) is an “acoustical decorator” by the name of Burgmüller―a poetical gentleman, the lover of three women, able to communicate with birds, and at least as philosophically minded as his “Everything has suddenly become so transparent that one can’t see through anything anymore.” This enormously comic―and equally melancholic―tale is perhaps Jonke’s masterwork.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, German Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Gert Jonke was an Austrian poet and playwright.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Some days the buildings pull in their protruding bay window stomachs and bashfully fold back their elegantly pointed balcony breasts, as if obeying an order to stand at attention with their mortar smoothed flat and their walls erect, because the municipal authorities, that is, their superiors, the towers, have come to make a report. They have put on their clockwork cupolas and are wearing the marshal’s baton tips of their weathercockscomb teeth on the bell chambers.

Some days the streetcar tracks spring out of the asphalt, shake off bothersome stops and move their terminals several meters up in the air.

What were you looking for in that city, Burgmüller?!

In that city, some nights moor their black sailing fleets so firmly to the buoys of the church steeples that they’re still there the next day. Far over the heads of the townspeople, the dust swarms of their thick night bird shadows pass through all the walls of the airspace vault and its ceiling fresco, drawing curved lines in the air.

What did you lose in that city, Burgmüller?!"


If that appeals to you, then you will enjoy this a great deal. If not, then steer clear.

I intend to write more when I have some time, but there were some incredible moments in this, well worth the occasional section which seemed to drag...

A high 4, to be sure, but a 4 nonetheless.

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the very first page, Gert Jonke’s Awakening to the Great Sleep War boldly announces that it will defy definition as a standard piece of easy digestible fiction by introducing its protagonist as a man who converses with telamones, atlantes, and caryatids and tries rather unsuccessfully to persuade them to appear for dinner at his apartment. Conversation and invitation in of itself isn’t all that strange. Conversation with supposedly inanimate objects like stone support columns and marble statues most certainly is.

This protagonist, a name named Burgmüller, works as an acoustic interior designer, which one would assume involves creating buildings that will maximize the potential for superior sound quality within their walls. Perhaps it’s this possession of a unique skill set that allows him alone to discover a path to communication between the inanimate and the organic, one that leads to an odd friendship between that which is considered permanent and that which is ultimately destined to live a transitory life. It’s this idea of permanence vs. temporal that’s on full display in the novel’s opening pages and continues to be explored throughout the text.

READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/awake...

[Swarthout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this as Bernhard with a drizzle of Flann O'Brien.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't do a whole lot for me right now. I had trouble following it. I may just need to revisit it sometime later.