"The lindens have all been cut down for firewood. No more trees on Unter den Linden."
"Even the gods cannot overcome stupidity."
One of the best books I've read this year, and definitely one of the best post-war works of German literature I have ever encountered. "Tremendous" is a good word for this novel, and it's too bad that its writing and ideological failure essentially drove Bräunig to drink himself to death, for the world would be a little brighter place had he written more things like this.
A few things should be said. First, Bräunig wrote this novel (it is considered incomplete, though you won't notice that at all if you aren't aware of the fact) as a kind of literary testament to East Germany's progress and achievements and to serve as the inspiration for a kind of blue-collar literature in that country. When his political betters read it, they were appalled by it and his career as a writer was basically destroyed and the novel never published. Second, I'm not sure about Bräunig's ideological stance or how he thought he could pull this novel off, but it's pretty frank and often brutally truthful. East Germany at the time period of the novel, 1949-1953 (it ends with the beginning of the Volksaufstand in June), was very much under Soviet control and this lurks in the background but isn't very salient; this is very much a German novel dealing with a fascinating topic: how the upcoming generation, too young to have fought in WW2 deal with their parents' generation, whether they were Nazis, Communist, or apathetic bystanders. This underscores everything in the novel. Third, whoever writes these cover blurbs needs to have their head checked. This isn't only about some miners in Saxony working for the Wismut. The Seagull edition makes it sound as if it is only about that and "tragedies". This is obscuring 75% of the novel, which is a mosaic tale moving between various characters, yes, some miners, but also their bosses, relatives living in West Germany, a young girl who wants to be the lead on her paper line at the paper mill, and so on. The narrative weaves these characters in and out in an almost dreamlike way and sometimes their lives intersect in entirely unpredictable ways.
A fascinating, swooping novel helped by the fact that Bräunig is a fantastic writer, much recommended!