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D'une Allemagne à l'autre: Journal de l'année 1990
Le 1er janvier 1990, Günter Grass entreprend de tenir un journal, ce qu’il n’a pas fait depuis longtemps, et il le poursuit pendant treize mois : ceux au cours desquels s’opère la réunification des deux Allemagnes, qui est son principal souci, car les formes qu’elle prend l’inquiètent et le révoltent.
Écrivant peu, cette année-là, l’auteur dessine, réfléchit, dialogue, jardine, cuisine, voyage d’une Allemagne à l’autre : entre RFA et RDA, mais aussi entre l’Allemagne d’hier et la nouvelle, avec des crochets vers son Gdansk natal et sa Cachoubie, vers le Danemark, le Portugal, vers Prague, et vers Paris où il a écrit jadis Le Tambour.
Ce journal conserve tout son intérêt politique : la réunification allemande fut un petit laboratoire de la mondialisation. Mais c’est aussi un témoignage exceptionnel sur le travail de l’artiste graphiste, d’habitude éclipsé par l’écrivain, et sur la genèse de deux romans : L’Appel du crapaud, et surtout la grande fresque Toute une histoire, controversée en Allemagne mais souvent considérée comme un de ses chefs-d’œuvre.
Écrivant peu, cette année-là, l’auteur dessine, réfléchit, dialogue, jardine, cuisine, voyage d’une Allemagne à l’autre : entre RFA et RDA, mais aussi entre l’Allemagne d’hier et la nouvelle, avec des crochets vers son Gdansk natal et sa Cachoubie, vers le Danemark, le Portugal, vers Prague, et vers Paris où il a écrit jadis Le Tambour.
Ce journal conserve tout son intérêt politique : la réunification allemande fut un petit laboratoire de la mondialisation. Mais c’est aussi un témoignage exceptionnel sur le travail de l’artiste graphiste, d’habitude éclipsé par l’écrivain, et sur la genèse de deux romans : L’Appel du crapaud, et surtout la grande fresque Toute une histoire, controversée en Allemagne mais souvent considérée comme un de ses chefs-d’œuvre.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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About the author
Günter Grass
308 books1,840 followersNovels, notably
The Tin Drum
(1959) and
Dog Years
(1963), of German writer Günter Wilhelm Grass, who won the Nobel Prize of 1999 for literature, concern the political and social climate of Germany during and after World War II.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 23, 2021
Finished this before bed and the somber resignation of the diary appears to have distilled in my sleep, I feel it heavy in my veins. Grass began the journal to document the year of German reunification and his concerns about such. The year sees him travel back and forth between the holiday home in Portugal and his residence in Germany, he has countless encounters with his children from four different women and all the while he gives readings, tends to the garden and ponders what to write next. It is remarkable to see Call of the Toad and Too Far Afield in such nascent form. That reflects (if not exemplifies) the artist despite pessimism. The Diary ends with the first Gulf War and violence erupting across the former Yugoslavia. At times I was uncomfortable with the hectoring tone of the great author, especially as he was still keeping his membership in the SS secret. There are echoes of The Flounder everywhere as so often it is meal preparation which dominates an entry, even if acid rain and other climate change phenomenon are lamented within. Certainly this isn't for everyone but I did find it like an Adam Curtis documentary within a single person's notation.
July 23, 2019
Diario personal del autor que abarca desde enero de 1990 hasta enero de 1991, año lleno de acontecimientos políticos y sociales que la verdad uno (o al menos yo) toma a la ligera, no es el 45 ni el 68, pero vaya que ocurrieron cosas este año. El suceso político más importante y en el que el autor se encuentra inmerso es la reunificación alemana (tras la caída del muro de Berlín el año anterior), y me sorprende que una nación abatida por las guerras y conformada hace relativamente poco (antes de 1990 eran dos naciones, después solo una) hoy en día sea una de las superpotencias más influyentes del mundo. Cabe señalar que el autor es precavido sobre las consecuencias de esta reunificación y no es que estuviera en contra. Otros de los sucesos que empezaron este año fueron la desintegración de Yugoslavia y el inicio de la primera Guerra del Golfo Pérsico (también hablan sobre el conflicto en Lituania). Y para que no se diga que todo es malo, hasta el mundial de fútbol tuvo lugar en este diario.
El autor fue de alguna manera activista en este proceso de reunificación, y como muchas personas acabo decepcionado, pero en ves de atiborrarnos con política el tono de este diario es más personal y ligero. Habla sobre sus proyectos artísticos, como la elaboración de dibujos, la planeación de la novela que sería "Malos presagios", sus trabajos de jardinería y de los suculentos platillos que comía (al parecer le gustaba la cocina y era bastante proficiente), también habla de su vida familiar y de sus amigos, así como de las diversas lecturas y actividades en las que estaba involucrado. Aburrido quizá, no se nos revelan muchas cosas de golpe y es más bien en las sutilezas donde podemos desentrañar sus pensamientos.
En lo personal a mi me gustó este libro, y el motivo es que encuentro gran afinidad por el escritor, pues disfruta de muchas cosas de las que yo en lo personal también lo hago. Definitivamente no es un libro esencial y fuera de aquellos curiosos por la vida personal del autor poco encontrarán aquí salvo tal vez para aquellos que están interesados en el proceso que el autor tenía en la planificación de sus escritos y un poco de su forma de trabajo. No es para todos y gira de aquellos curiosos no recomendaría este libro más que por aquellos dos motivos.
El autor fue de alguna manera activista en este proceso de reunificación, y como muchas personas acabo decepcionado, pero en ves de atiborrarnos con política el tono de este diario es más personal y ligero. Habla sobre sus proyectos artísticos, como la elaboración de dibujos, la planeación de la novela que sería "Malos presagios", sus trabajos de jardinería y de los suculentos platillos que comía (al parecer le gustaba la cocina y era bastante proficiente), también habla de su vida familiar y de sus amigos, así como de las diversas lecturas y actividades en las que estaba involucrado. Aburrido quizá, no se nos revelan muchas cosas de golpe y es más bien en las sutilezas donde podemos desentrañar sus pensamientos.
En lo personal a mi me gustó este libro, y el motivo es que encuentro gran afinidad por el escritor, pues disfruta de muchas cosas de las que yo en lo personal también lo hago. Definitivamente no es un libro esencial y fuera de aquellos curiosos por la vida personal del autor poco encontrarán aquí salvo tal vez para aquellos que están interesados en el proceso que el autor tenía en la planificación de sus escritos y un poco de su forma de trabajo. No es para todos y gira de aquellos curiosos no recomendaría este libro más que por aquellos dos motivos.
June 20, 2013
Günter Grass, der Guru der deutschen Literatur der Gegenwart...und ich habe vorher noch kein Buch von ihm gelesen. In "Unterwegs von Deutschland nach Deutschland" lässt er uns an seinen Gedanken zur Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands (und anderer Momente in seinem Leben, die mal mehr, mal weniger interessant und mal mehr, mal weniger verwirrend [wie viele Kinder und Frauen hat/te er denn nun eigentlich?]) teilhaben. Sein Schreibstil, nüchtern-poetisch, eine seltsame Mischung, hat mich sehr angesprochen, seine Grundhaltung, links-melancholisch (noch okay) bis pessimistisch-hypochondrisch (teilweise eine Zumutung) war dagegen nicht ganz so nach meinem Geschmack. Oft hätte ich mir auch eine differenziertere Darstellung und Sichtweise gewünscht, vor allem aber hätte dem Buch auch hier und da die Feststellung, dass manchmal Dinge einfach auch gut werden können, gut getan.
Das Buch in einem Zitat: "Schlechte Nacht, leichter Zahnschmerz." (S. 164)
Das Buch in einem Zitat: "Schlechte Nacht, leichter Zahnschmerz." (S. 164)
April 1, 2018
I did not read many diaries, but I assume that if you really intend to publish your diaries you are more interested in spreading you view of the world and not what you ate and where you travelled all day. Not interesting at all. Unfortunately, I also had read a bad translation, without notes or clarifications on Grass's life and ideaa without a clue about his biography, having to constantly check wikipedia to make sure I follow his children names, let alone his intelectual friends. Disappointing!
November 12, 2015
As the 3-star rating indicates, I liked this book. Review forthcoming.
November 29, 2017
Wow! Si que me demoré en leer este libro😂. Y es que la historia Alemana para mí siempre ha sido muy compleja. Las guerras, disputas, posiciones políticas, costumbres tan estrictas y pueblos oprimidos, son cosas que tenemos en el pasado regado por todo el mundo, pero la historia de este libro narra principalmente los días del escritor en una Alemania dividida en más de 4 posiciones (hasta 7 distintas) que hacen de un país herido por su pasado y por la guerra del golfo, un país aún más vulnerable e indeciso, con un pueblo que sufre no solo por su historia sino por la carga emocional que dejó su pasado.
May 23, 2019
Grass did a great job of helping me understand the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. His views on the politics and the human side of this are interesting, especially with 30 years of hindsight.
It was frustrating that instead of footnotes he just had a jumble of information at the back of the book and I found myself constantly seeking more background for the things he talked about.
It was frustrating that instead of footnotes he just had a jumble of information at the back of the book and I found myself constantly seeking more background for the things he talked about.
September 11, 2020
Could not got further than 20 pages. Maybe i was expecting something different. Wanted to read about the wall, the stasi, the communists, get to know the feeling of the people following this historical move. But it was just the author talking about politic, cooking, ininteresting stuff. Not a book for me.
July 23, 2017
Günter Grass' diary, complete w/ sketches.
April 4, 2021
Cum a primit asta premiul pentru literatura ma depaseste. Se vorbeste 30% despre problema unificarii Germaniei si 70% despre viata autorului (care e extrem de seaca si neinteresanta).
March 1, 2013
I went into this one knowing a little about German history, nothing about modern German politics, and speaking nary a word of the language. In the end, I felt as though I'd missed a fair amount, though as much from trying to keep Grass' personal life straight as the constant mention of politicians and parties - complete with acronyms!
So, here is what you can expect from the book ... Grass is an old-line leftwing politician who laments German unification as being "imposed" by the Westies, based on offering material goods to the Ossies. As the date grows nearer, he becomes more and more disenchanted with "his" party (SPD, I believe), to the point where he writes that he's thinking of renouncing his German citizenship, to become a "stateless" European. How very noble ... and grandstanding. My reaction was that it might've been more a more meaningful gesture had he gone to live in a real socialist paradise, say ... North Korea? Otherwise, he's another Parlor Pink.
When he's not grumbling about politics, he travels around giving readings (although he seems to intersperse those with political events that to me they became inseparable), and visiting his holiday homes in Portugal and Denmark. Near the end he declares the former getting too commercially developed, so perhaps a place in former East Germany might be better? Get the impression he's cranky yet? There's also quite a bit of rumination about a book he was planning (since published I believe) about a German-Polish couple, which meant nothing much to me.
There is, however, a redeeming feature in that he mentions details of almost every dinner he eats - fascinating, if only he'd held off on the tripe - ick! Moreover, his (travel) observations can be interesting. Attending the wedding of his son to a Swiss woman, he grumbles that the meal was of poor quality, blaming it on the noted Swiss stinginess - ha ha!
His family life is, as they say, complicated: longtime first marriage with divorce after a long separation (and three kids), affairs with two women during said separation (three more kids), and then a second wife, (two step-sons). Just to make things even more merry, the mothers of the three out-of-wedlock kids appear in the story as well. There is a "scorecard" in the back, but it didn't really help much; similar several-page-long one of all the politicians, writers, etc. mentioned was of limited use also.
I'm not sorry I read the book, but didn't come away with a very favorable impression of Grass, except perhaps as a champion self-promoter.
So, here is what you can expect from the book ... Grass is an old-line leftwing politician who laments German unification as being "imposed" by the Westies, based on offering material goods to the Ossies. As the date grows nearer, he becomes more and more disenchanted with "his" party (SPD, I believe), to the point where he writes that he's thinking of renouncing his German citizenship, to become a "stateless" European. How very noble ... and grandstanding. My reaction was that it might've been more a more meaningful gesture had he gone to live in a real socialist paradise, say ... North Korea? Otherwise, he's another Parlor Pink.
When he's not grumbling about politics, he travels around giving readings (although he seems to intersperse those with political events that to me they became inseparable), and visiting his holiday homes in Portugal and Denmark. Near the end he declares the former getting too commercially developed, so perhaps a place in former East Germany might be better? Get the impression he's cranky yet? There's also quite a bit of rumination about a book he was planning (since published I believe) about a German-Polish couple, which meant nothing much to me.
There is, however, a redeeming feature in that he mentions details of almost every dinner he eats - fascinating, if only he'd held off on the tripe - ick! Moreover, his (travel) observations can be interesting. Attending the wedding of his son to a Swiss woman, he grumbles that the meal was of poor quality, blaming it on the noted Swiss stinginess - ha ha!
His family life is, as they say, complicated: longtime first marriage with divorce after a long separation (and three kids), affairs with two women during said separation (three more kids), and then a second wife, (two step-sons). Just to make things even more merry, the mothers of the three out-of-wedlock kids appear in the story as well. There is a "scorecard" in the back, but it didn't really help much; similar several-page-long one of all the politicians, writers, etc. mentioned was of limited use also.
I'm not sorry I read the book, but didn't come away with a very favorable impression of Grass, except perhaps as a champion self-promoter.
August 23, 2018
Gunter Grass is known with his viscous language and his dairy of 1990 is following the manner. The turbulent German politics of reunification does not help to his tone in the dairy either. I can see for a reader who does not have a historical context about German Reunification, it would be very hard to grasp (or even like) this book. Grass definitely reflects his already-public political views and his narrative magnifies what was happening during the unification politically and exhibits his meetings and conversations with politicians. He also partly reflects East German view to the unification that Grass observed during his trips to Altdobern, Leipzig and Berlin. Grass does not avoid mercilessly criticizing how the unification process is completed and the politicians from the same and opposite ideology as he.
Translation was a little rough, as I am sure Gunter Grass did not have intentions to publish this dairy. It is a great book for those who seek a different perspective to the German Unification from a prominent first-hand account.
Translation was a little rough, as I am sure Gunter Grass did not have intentions to publish this dairy. It is a great book for those who seek a different perspective to the German Unification from a prominent first-hand account.
November 19, 2012
I usually like Gunter Grass writing, and more I usually find his memories fascinating, but in this book his ambivalence towards the Germany Unification was a little too much and so this diary was, from time to time, sanctimonious and heavy to read, for me of course.
Di solito mi piace lo stile di Grass, e ancor di più trovo le sue "memorie" affascinanti (come per "Sbucciando cipolle"), stavolta però, non so' se per la sua completa ambivalenza nei confronti dell'unificazione delle due Germanie, questo diario era pesante da leggere e un po' troppo moralistico per i miei gusti.
THNAKS TO NETGALLEY AND HOUGTON MIFFIN HARCOURT FOR THE PREVIEW
Di solito mi piace lo stile di Grass, e ancor di più trovo le sue "memorie" affascinanti (come per "Sbucciando cipolle"), stavolta però, non so' se per la sua completa ambivalenza nei confronti dell'unificazione delle due Germanie, questo diario era pesante da leggere e un po' troppo moralistico per i miei gusti.
THNAKS TO NETGALLEY AND HOUGTON MIFFIN HARCOURT FOR THE PREVIEW
December 28, 2016
Reading this so many years later, some of Grass' predictions about reunified Germany and its position on the world stage seem eerily prophetic. The parts about die Wende (the reunification process) were really interesting, although his pessimism and anti-capitalist sentiment are sometimes a bit much. But his writing about literature didn't really grab me, nor did his family life, which manages to be both dead boring and hideously complicated at the same time. Plus, his egotism, moralizing and sexism get old pretty quick.
January 16, 2014
Esperava literatura de viagens e sai-me algo eminentemente político. Quando as expectativas saem goradas desta forma, um assunto surge que não nos diz grande coisa, corre mal.
Mas está bem escrito e o senhor fala em comida e faz o enquadramento histórico da época (é o diário de um ano particularmente importante para a Alemanha, 1990).
Nota positiva para o tradutor que fez umas extensas notas finais para que nada faltasse ao leitor.
Mas está bem escrito e o senhor fala em comida e faz o enquadramento histórico da época (é o diário de um ano particularmente importante para a Alemanha, 1990).
Nota positiva para o tradutor que fez umas extensas notas finais para que nada faltasse ao leitor.
December 31, 2014
Despite all the German politics, this diary of everyday life of writing, drawing, traveling and gardening made me feel calm and peaceful whenever I read it.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews