Berlin Solstice

by Sylvia Fraser

A group of people carouse in the anarchic days of the Weimar Republic.

Genres: Historical Fiction

383 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Sylvia Fraser (born 8 March 1935 in Hamilton, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, journalist and travel writer. Fraser was educated at the University of Western Ontario. In her fifty year career as a journalist, she has written hundreds of articles, beginning as a Feature Writer for The Toronto Star Weekly (1957-68), and continuing with articles for many other magazines and newspapers including the Globe & Mail, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the Walrus and Toronto Life. She taught creative writing for many years at Banff Centre and at various university workshops. She has participated in extensive media tours, given lectures and readings throughout Canada, the United States, Britain and Sweden. She served on the Arts Advisory Panel to Canada Council and was a member of Canada Council's 1985 Cultural Delegation to China. She was a founding member of The Writers’ Union of Canada and for many years was on the executive of The Writers' Trust, a charitable organization for the support of Canadian authors and literature. Fraser lived in Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

[Tuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

novel of wwii berlin and hitler and especially the assassination of heydrich in prague. well written, fact filled, ghastly as expected. but also has lots of weimer berlin hijinks, cross dressers, singers, actors, painters. but we know that didn't last as a h ramped up his master race plan, killing subhumans to cleanse the fatherland. has a bit about the lebernsborn too, where hitler found a bunch of superior aryan type women to breed with ss dudes, because of germany;s low birth rate. that didn't work out too well either. i think philip kerr cited this as a source in his new novel "prague fatale" and really, it could be considered better than kerr, which for me is good indeed. Prague Fatale
fantastic wwii fiction here with much more humor and humanism than expected.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Goodreads description for Berlin Solstice reads: "A group of people carouse in the anarchic days of the Weimar Republic." That description is a little misleading. The book only partially takes place during the Weimar Republic.

There are four main characters: Carmel Kohl, (a glamorous nightclub singer turned film star), Wolfgang von Friedrich (a charming, opportunistic count) Kurt Schmidt (a ruthless SS officer), and Kurt's wife Ilse. Kurt becomes obsessed with Carmel after a chance meeting with her as a young man, and their paths end up crossing near the end of the story.

This has to be one of the most meticulously, painstakingly researched historical novels I've ever read. In an author's note, the author claims she read over a hundred books for research (I believe her!) and even lists some of her sources. I really felt like I was transported back in time to Nazi Germany. But that's where my praise ends.

First off, I wasn't a fan of Sylvia Fraser's bloated, dense writing style. It made the book feel like a chore to read at times. I didn't really care about any of the main characters, they all felt like two-dimensional archetypes. Wolf disappears for large portions of the story, Kurt is a one-dimensional evil nazi he has no problem killing his own son to advance his career., the only character with any real development is Ilse. Frau Fuchs, a crossdressing club owner, was the standout character for me. He/she was hilarious and stole every scene they were in! I would happily read an entire book about Frau Fuchs's adventures. Carmel and Wolf? Not so much.

I can tell Fraser was trying to write an ambitious historical epic, but this book is SO slow. (And most of the potentially interesting stuff, like Wolf's activity as a double agent, happens offscreen) But it does pick up a bit in the second half, and I'm glad I stuck with it. The scene of Reinhard Heydrich's assassination was the high point.

Near the end of the book, after Wolf is tortured to death by the Gestapo he sees his life pass before him in a surreal parade. This is an interesting idea in theory. But it drags on for too long and overstays its welcome. I did like the final scene, where Kurt tries to escape from Berlin- now a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic hellscape. But again, it drags on too long and could have been trimmed a bit.

Berlin Solstice is trying to be a character-driven novel about the fall of the Weimar Republic and rise of the Third Reich. Trying. The problem is, none of the main characters are particularly interesting. (at least, not to me) I think the author got so caught up in trying to tell a big, epic, powerful story, her characters got a bit lost in the shuffle. This book is technically impressive, and I respect what the author was trying to do here. Unfortunately it didn't quite work for me.

[Donald Schopflocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Follows a loosely connected group of young Germans through the tumultuous rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Told through intricate vivid vignettes that convincingly portray the rise of the Nazis, as well as the atrocities, the resistance, and the final defeat. Both an insightful and a terrifying reminder in this age of Trump.

[Maneki Neko · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but it just wasn't very good. It was predictable and riddled with cliches. A sad disappointment.

[Peter Learn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous account of the fall into evil in Nazi Germany