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Dance by the Canal
A tragicomic satire from the heart of East Germany.
Gabriela grows up in the East German town of Leibnitz. Her father is a famous surgeon, her mother a respected society hostess. The girl, however, struggles to fulfil their expectations. She shows no talent as a violinist and, worse, she fails to choose the right friends at school. When her father falls out of favour with the communists, Gabriela drops out of school. Eventually she ends up living beneath a canal bridge. Then the Wall falls. Can Gabriela seize a second chance in the new, united, Germany?
Why Peirene chose to publish this
'When I pass homeless women, I look into their faces and why her and not me? I sense that maybe our differences are not as great as I would like to believe. Dance by the Canal tells the story of a woman who fails to find her place in society - neither in communist GDR nor in the capitalist West. Her refusal to conform to the patriarchal structures of both societies forces her into ever-increasing isolation. This book will make you think.' Meike Ziervogel, publisher at Peirene Press
'An intense story… grotesque, macabre, poetic.' Neues Deutschland
'An authentic story of East Germany.' Die Ost-West-Wochenzeitung
'30 years of East German history narrated with laconic irony.' Die Zeit
Gabriela grows up in the East German town of Leibnitz. Her father is a famous surgeon, her mother a respected society hostess. The girl, however, struggles to fulfil their expectations. She shows no talent as a violinist and, worse, she fails to choose the right friends at school. When her father falls out of favour with the communists, Gabriela drops out of school. Eventually she ends up living beneath a canal bridge. Then the Wall falls. Can Gabriela seize a second chance in the new, united, Germany?
Why Peirene chose to publish this
'When I pass homeless women, I look into their faces and why her and not me? I sense that maybe our differences are not as great as I would like to believe. Dance by the Canal tells the story of a woman who fails to find her place in society - neither in communist GDR nor in the capitalist West. Her refusal to conform to the patriarchal structures of both societies forces her into ever-increasing isolation. This book will make you think.' Meike Ziervogel, publisher at Peirene Press
'An intense story… grotesque, macabre, poetic.' Neues Deutschland
'An authentic story of East Germany.' Die Ost-West-Wochenzeitung
'30 years of East German history narrated with laconic irony.' Die Zeit
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
September 20, 2017
I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel narrated by a homeless person before. Gabriela von Haßlau has a noble name and a solid upper-middle-class background – her father was a surgeon and chief medical officer specializing in varicose veins; her mother was trained as a radiographer before becoming a housewife and society hostess – but her life took a turn for the worse at some point and she now lives in an encampment under a canal bridge in the town of Leibnitz (a fictional stand-in for Leipzig).
It’s July 1994 and she decides to write her life story on whatever scraps of paper she can get her hands on. She remembers being forced to play the violin as a child even though she was largely unmusical, enduring mockery at school for being one of the intelligentsia, playing hooky with her best friend Katka, and failing at a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. The narrative toggles between Gabriela’s memories and her present situation: getting blankets and food from a shelter and trying to avoid being sent to the mental hospital.
My unfamiliarity with German history, especially that relating to East Germany and reunification, means I probably missed some nuances of the plot; I found the ending quite sudden. What was most worthwhile about the book for me was experiencing homelessness with Gabriela and tracing some of the unfortunate events that led her to this situation. It’s also interesting to see how she shapes her life story in scenes and streams of consciousness.
Note: Peirene Press issues its translated European novellas in trios. This is the final installment in the “East and West: Looking Both Ways” series; I’ve also reviewed the first two, The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch and The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
It’s July 1994 and she decides to write her life story on whatever scraps of paper she can get her hands on. She remembers being forced to play the violin as a child even though she was largely unmusical, enduring mockery at school for being one of the intelligentsia, playing hooky with her best friend Katka, and failing at a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. The narrative toggles between Gabriela’s memories and her present situation: getting blankets and food from a shelter and trying to avoid being sent to the mental hospital.
My unfamiliarity with German history, especially that relating to East Germany and reunification, means I probably missed some nuances of the plot; I found the ending quite sudden. What was most worthwhile about the book for me was experiencing homelessness with Gabriela and tracing some of the unfortunate events that led her to this situation. It’s also interesting to see how she shapes her life story in scenes and streams of consciousness.
Note: Peirene Press issues its translated European novellas in trios. This is the final installment in the “East and West: Looking Both Ways” series; I’ve also reviewed the first two, The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch and The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
September 3, 2017
Novella set in GERMANY (East and West, looking both ways)
3.5*
“When I pass homeless women, I look into their faces and wonder: why her and not me? I sense that maybe our differences are not as great as I would like to believe. Dance by the Canal tells the story of a woman who fails to find her place in society – neither in the communist GDR nor in the capitalist West. Her refusal to conform to the patriarchal structures of both societies forces her into ever increasing isolation. This book will make you think.”
This is Book No. 24 from Peirene Press who excel at producing short books translated from Europe: “Truly big stories inNovella set in Germany small packages“.
Dance by the Canal is the story of Gabriela Von Haßlau, the “von” denoting a lineage of (in this case Anhaltian) nobility. She is born into a wealthy and seemingly cultured family, where her father is an esteemed vascular surgeon and her mother a society hostess. She is given a violin when she is 5 years old but her teacher Frau Popiol labours to extract Gabriela’s musical talent. Fleeting intimate contact, in part, derails Gabriela’s future intellectual efforts.
The von Haßlau’s part of the country is under Communist rule and the von has to go. It’s too bourgeois. And unless Gabriela joins the Free German Youth, she will not even be allowed to study at a Socialist University. As it turns out, she has no option but to take on the intensive training as a mechanical engineer when she leaves school, but she drops out and comes to rely on handouts from the state. (It was very common in the days of Communist rule, that in order to achieve an egalitarian society, the offspring of intellectuals had to take on more menial work, they were forbidden to enter a similar profession as their parent).
Leibnitz is a fictional industrial German town, in former East Germany, the waterways polluted by effluent from local factories. The villa of Gabriela’s childhood sounds regimented, but materially wanting for nothing. There is a sense that the family, with all their partying and celebrating, is on borrowed time….
The narrative is one long set of paragraphs. Time periods are distinguished by Gabriela’s childhood trauma “life under communism”, of coping with an alcoholic father, and coming to terms with her mother who abandons the family; and “bridge life”, where she sleeps under the bridges dotted around Leibnitz, during the 1990s (after the Fall of the Wall). The two time periods dovetail throughout.
Her fall from a relatively comfortable beginning is in truth sobering. It highlights how childhood experience combined with the rigidity of a political system can cause lasting, often unconscious damage to an individual. When, for example, Gabriela is randomly attacked, the police choose to adhere to political systems over the welfare of the individual and dismiss her charge: such attacks cannot possibly happen in a socialist state, she must surely have made it up, and harmed herself….. It is overall a sad read, seeing the demise of someone so young, with little or no emotional support.
For me, however, this novel is one of the least polished of Pereine’s books that I have read to date. The role of a translator is to bring to life the essence of the book and to transpose the words therein into the native language of the reader. I think the translator in this instance has struggled with this task: “A Flat Five in Civics” would, I imagine, mean nothing to an English speaker who is unfamiliar with the German language. Perhaps the translation reflects a rather wooden German prose in the original, it’s hard to say. A staccato construct, coupled with a procession of lightweight characters, makes up much of the text and it just wasn’t altogether one for me.
3.5*
“When I pass homeless women, I look into their faces and wonder: why her and not me? I sense that maybe our differences are not as great as I would like to believe. Dance by the Canal tells the story of a woman who fails to find her place in society – neither in the communist GDR nor in the capitalist West. Her refusal to conform to the patriarchal structures of both societies forces her into ever increasing isolation. This book will make you think.”
This is Book No. 24 from Peirene Press who excel at producing short books translated from Europe: “Truly big stories inNovella set in Germany small packages“.
Dance by the Canal is the story of Gabriela Von Haßlau, the “von” denoting a lineage of (in this case Anhaltian) nobility. She is born into a wealthy and seemingly cultured family, where her father is an esteemed vascular surgeon and her mother a society hostess. She is given a violin when she is 5 years old but her teacher Frau Popiol labours to extract Gabriela’s musical talent. Fleeting intimate contact, in part, derails Gabriela’s future intellectual efforts.
The von Haßlau’s part of the country is under Communist rule and the von has to go. It’s too bourgeois. And unless Gabriela joins the Free German Youth, she will not even be allowed to study at a Socialist University. As it turns out, she has no option but to take on the intensive training as a mechanical engineer when she leaves school, but she drops out and comes to rely on handouts from the state. (It was very common in the days of Communist rule, that in order to achieve an egalitarian society, the offspring of intellectuals had to take on more menial work, they were forbidden to enter a similar profession as their parent).
Leibnitz is a fictional industrial German town, in former East Germany, the waterways polluted by effluent from local factories. The villa of Gabriela’s childhood sounds regimented, but materially wanting for nothing. There is a sense that the family, with all their partying and celebrating, is on borrowed time….
The narrative is one long set of paragraphs. Time periods are distinguished by Gabriela’s childhood trauma “life under communism”, of coping with an alcoholic father, and coming to terms with her mother who abandons the family; and “bridge life”, where she sleeps under the bridges dotted around Leibnitz, during the 1990s (after the Fall of the Wall). The two time periods dovetail throughout.
Her fall from a relatively comfortable beginning is in truth sobering. It highlights how childhood experience combined with the rigidity of a political system can cause lasting, often unconscious damage to an individual. When, for example, Gabriela is randomly attacked, the police choose to adhere to political systems over the welfare of the individual and dismiss her charge: such attacks cannot possibly happen in a socialist state, she must surely have made it up, and harmed herself….. It is overall a sad read, seeing the demise of someone so young, with little or no emotional support.
For me, however, this novel is one of the least polished of Pereine’s books that I have read to date. The role of a translator is to bring to life the essence of the book and to transpose the words therein into the native language of the reader. I think the translator in this instance has struggled with this task: “A Flat Five in Civics” would, I imagine, mean nothing to an English speaker who is unfamiliar with the German language. Perhaps the translation reflects a rather wooden German prose in the original, it’s hard to say. A staccato construct, coupled with a procession of lightweight characters, makes up much of the text and it just wasn’t altogether one for me.
February 18, 2025
I liked this novella a lot, but I found it a little hard to follow. It offers a scathing look at overlap between patriarchy and state violence as well as a savage depiction at western capitalism profiting off exploitation of those in need. I’m pretty sure there is a lot more going on that I didn’t quite assimilate. I’d read it again, but I got it through ILL and it’s overdue, so there won’t be an opportunity to do that anytime soon.
Gabriella von Haßlau is homeless. She does not fit in. She has never fit in. The book opens with her living under a bridge over the canal in her home town, the fictional East German city of Leibnitz, shortly after reunification. She doesn’t fit in here either. She decides to salvage her fragmented life by writing an account of it. All she has to work with are cast off remnants of paper she can scrounge: the back of a poster, the inside of a disassembled paper bag, part of a shipping carton.
The narrative is fragmented as Gabriella’s life. It pulls in two directions at once: forward from her early childhood to the present; at the same time it spirals backward from the starting point of the novella. Sometimes it is hard to tell which part of the narrative we are in. I found this challenging, but I don’t think it is a defect. It is part of how we witness and experience the disjointedness of her life. She is a victim of misunderstanding and gaslighting, and she experiences repeated verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical or sexual violence. One of the most horrifying things is the detached way her narrative conveys the violence and accepts it as normal.
I found myself admiring her because she does not submit to any of the persons (including two rather awful parents) or institutions that try to control her. They may overpower her some of the time, but she does not submit.
Two things reappeared at key moments: references to the variously colored pollution in the canal, and moss cottage that strongly evoked Grimm’s tales. They intrigued me, but I confess I didn’t quite figure out what role either played in the book. Maybe someone else who has read the book has some thoughts about these elements.
3.5 stars
Gabriella von Haßlau is homeless. She does not fit in. She has never fit in. The book opens with her living under a bridge over the canal in her home town, the fictional East German city of Leibnitz, shortly after reunification. She doesn’t fit in here either. She decides to salvage her fragmented life by writing an account of it. All she has to work with are cast off remnants of paper she can scrounge: the back of a poster, the inside of a disassembled paper bag, part of a shipping carton.
The narrative is fragmented as Gabriella’s life. It pulls in two directions at once: forward from her early childhood to the present; at the same time it spirals backward from the starting point of the novella. Sometimes it is hard to tell which part of the narrative we are in. I found this challenging, but I don’t think it is a defect. It is part of how we witness and experience the disjointedness of her life. She is a victim of misunderstanding and gaslighting, and she experiences repeated verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical or sexual violence. One of the most horrifying things is the detached way her narrative conveys the violence and accepts it as normal.
I found myself admiring her because she does not submit to any of the persons (including two rather awful parents) or institutions that try to control her. They may overpower her some of the time, but she does not submit.
Two things reappeared at key moments: references to the variously colored pollution in the canal, and moss cottage that strongly evoked Grimm’s tales. They intrigued me, but I confess I didn’t quite figure out what role either played in the book. Maybe someone else who has read the book has some thoughts about these elements.
3.5 stars
February 11, 2021
Elegantly written in a style of "show, don't tell".
I read it in the original German with the Peirene Press translation alongside. Very well translated, it follows the original text very closely.
Some notes that I took at a meeting with the author organised by Peirene Press in London: -
The author says that life is her inspiration. She writes to ask questions, not to provide answers. The dance in the title refers to desire for movement, freedom, rhythm of life. The end was not a resolution, it left things open. The story was intentionally vague.
I would say that the more one knows and understands about the former East Germany, the more one would be able to understand and read into this novella.
Update, 11 February 2021:
Couldn't help thinking of this book when I listened to The paper that helped the homeless, an episode of the BBC World Service Witness History podcast. A real life story of a homeless man who tried to distract himself from his misery by scribbling his life story in a notebook and became a published author. Life imitating art!
I read it in the original German with the Peirene Press translation alongside. Very well translated, it follows the original text very closely.
Some notes that I took at a meeting with the author organised by Peirene Press in London: -
The author says that life is her inspiration. She writes to ask questions, not to provide answers. The dance in the title refers to desire for movement, freedom, rhythm of life. The end was not a resolution, it left things open. The story was intentionally vague.
I would say that the more one knows and understands about the former East Germany, the more one would be able to understand and read into this novella.
Update, 11 February 2021:
Couldn't help thinking of this book when I listened to The paper that helped the homeless, an episode of the BBC World Service Witness History podcast. A real life story of a homeless man who tried to distract himself from his misery by scribbling his life story in a notebook and became a published author. Life imitating art!
September 4, 2017
Dance by the Canal, by Kerstin Hensel (translated by Jen Calleja), tells the story of Gabriela von Haßlau, the only child of the Chief Medical Officer at the surgical clinic in Leibnitz, and his wife, Christiane. Gabriela’s father, Ernst, is proud to descend from noble Anhaltinian stock. Christiane’s family he prefers to forget. In communist East Germany drawing attention to bourgeois standing could be regarded as dangerous.
When the tale opens Gabriela is living under a bridge by the canal, writing the story of her life on pilfered scraps of paper. She remembers back to when she was five years old and expected to learn to play the violin. Although unable to master the instrument her teacher had a lasting impact, one her father would prefer she forget. Ernst has high hopes for his daughter which she struggles to comply with let alone attain.
Gabriela’s schooling in particular proves a disappointment to Ernst. The girl’s chosen friend, Katka, is quickly banned as undesirable company for his daughter leading to undercover assignations lasting many years. The school encourages pupils to revere the state. When Ernst insists that his child should not join the sanctioned youth organisatons he ensures she is set further apart from her peers.
The timeline moves between Gabriela’s homeless experiences and those of her childhood, eventually explaining how the daughter of a once respected doctor ends up living under a bridge. The prose is dreamlike in places as Gabriela navigates her memories whilst trying to survive the increasing harshness of the streets.
The story is told in jigsaw pieces which the reader must fit together, the picture emerging being more impressionist than linearly complete. Gabriela’s pain and confusion as she tries to find a place in the life assigned her shine through the cracks, despite her emotional distance in the telling.
This is a laconic yet vivid account of societal failure in a communist state. Gabriela, like her story, resist further classification
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Peirene Press.
When the tale opens Gabriela is living under a bridge by the canal, writing the story of her life on pilfered scraps of paper. She remembers back to when she was five years old and expected to learn to play the violin. Although unable to master the instrument her teacher had a lasting impact, one her father would prefer she forget. Ernst has high hopes for his daughter which she struggles to comply with let alone attain.
Gabriela’s schooling in particular proves a disappointment to Ernst. The girl’s chosen friend, Katka, is quickly banned as undesirable company for his daughter leading to undercover assignations lasting many years. The school encourages pupils to revere the state. When Ernst insists that his child should not join the sanctioned youth organisatons he ensures she is set further apart from her peers.
The timeline moves between Gabriela’s homeless experiences and those of her childhood, eventually explaining how the daughter of a once respected doctor ends up living under a bridge. The prose is dreamlike in places as Gabriela navigates her memories whilst trying to survive the increasing harshness of the streets.
The story is told in jigsaw pieces which the reader must fit together, the picture emerging being more impressionist than linearly complete. Gabriela’s pain and confusion as she tries to find a place in the life assigned her shine through the cracks, despite her emotional distance in the telling.
This is a laconic yet vivid account of societal failure in a communist state. Gabriela, like her story, resist further classification
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Peirene Press.
July 13, 2021
More of a 3.5 star I think.
I keep going back and forth with my rating. I think a 3.5 though is good though for where I am. But for sure more of a higher 3.5 that a lower one.
This was so odd but really good for something so short. It was interesting but I will say I was a little lost at times. I found the story and how it was formatted going back and forth between her childhood and being an adult interesting and I liked both sides of the story. I think the end is just what got me a little lost and I was like huh at the end.
I don’t know tooo much about East German history. I love this time of history in general so that’s why I was intrigued in picking it up from the start. I feel like I would’ve gotten more from it if I knew more about East Germany and about the split within the country and all. I should actually look more into the history of Germany at this time for sure though.
I keep going back and forth with my rating. I think a 3.5 though is good though for where I am. But for sure more of a higher 3.5 that a lower one.
This was so odd but really good for something so short. It was interesting but I will say I was a little lost at times. I found the story and how it was formatted going back and forth between her childhood and being an adult interesting and I liked both sides of the story. I think the end is just what got me a little lost and I was like huh at the end.
I don’t know tooo much about East German history. I love this time of history in general so that’s why I was intrigued in picking it up from the start. I feel like I would’ve gotten more from it if I knew more about East Germany and about the split within the country and all. I should actually look more into the history of Germany at this time for sure though.
September 28, 2020
I’ve always had a soft spots for down and outs from Lucille Ball’s ‘Florabelle’ in Slone Pillow to Patricia Hayes’s ‘Edna’ in Edna the Inebriate Woman. Gabriela von Haßlau seemed like she might be a worthy addition to that canon and I enjoyed the first few sections jumping back and forth between her childhood, the daughter of an eminent vascular surgeon and the only child in her class with an ‘I’ beside her name in the register (‘I’ for ‘Intelligentsia’), and the present day, 1994. How does a child born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth end up sleeping under a bridge by the canal?
Being a ‘von’ (which everyone insists on pronouncing “fffon” sets her apart and she isn’t helped by her father’s reluctance to bow to the state:
This is a book about identity and character and, unavoidably although not primarily, gender because pretty much everything that happens to Gabriella could’ve happened to a Gabriel.
I’m a big fan of novellas in general and there’re subjects they’re suited too and subjects they’re not. I felt this book could’ve done with being maybe a third longer than it is. It was all fine up until the point she stops working at the machinery factory and maybe I blinked twice or something but suddenly she was on the street and I didn’t really get how that happened. I’ve read other reviews that talk about “a shady deal” and being asked to spy on her friends and report back but I missed that. I think I started to lose interest at this point. The child Gabriella is far more interesting than the adult (I was reminded of the first series of My Brilliant Friend when the girls are kids) and once she was off the page it was just the chore of finishing the book and a number of reviewers have complained about the “muddled” ending which I have to agree with.
Being a ‘von’ (which everyone insists on pronouncing “fffon” sets her apart and she isn’t helped by her father’s reluctance to bow to the state:
– Noble Anhaltinian stock, said Chief Medical Officer Ernst von Haßlau.He refuses to permit his daughter should to join the sanctioned youth organisations thus ensuring she is set further apart from her peers. Her parents both disapprove of her one and only friend, “Katka, the smallest, fattest and dirtiest among the girls in 1a” and so, from a very early age, Gabriella becomes used to living, and becomes comfortable living, two separate lives, for two months at least until she’s caught “walking arm in arm with Katka [having] stolen pick and white peppermint stick” she was never allowed at home. Then it’s off to the psychologist with her. Society disapproves of her; her parents disapprove of her; what’s a girl to do?
– A bourgeois relic, said our teacher Fräulein Brinkmann.
This is a book about identity and character and, unavoidably although not primarily, gender because pretty much everything that happens to Gabriella could’ve happened to a Gabriel.
I’m a big fan of novellas in general and there’re subjects they’re suited too and subjects they’re not. I felt this book could’ve done with being maybe a third longer than it is. It was all fine up until the point she stops working at the machinery factory and maybe I blinked twice or something but suddenly she was on the street and I didn’t really get how that happened. I’ve read other reviews that talk about “a shady deal” and being asked to spy on her friends and report back but I missed that. I think I started to lose interest at this point. The child Gabriella is far more interesting than the adult (I was reminded of the first series of My Brilliant Friend when the girls are kids) and once she was off the page it was just the chore of finishing the book and a number of reviewers have complained about the “muddled” ending which I have to agree with.
October 16, 2010
A friend gave me this ages ago - part of the body of German fiction providing different perspectives of life in East Germany before, during and after the "Wende", reunification. This is interesting because it's from a women's perspective, an inside look at the particular degradations women could be subjected to, and at landing on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Interesting, not great, but added a few impressions and bits of knowledge to my sense of that period.
March 22, 2021
Maybe I’m not cut out for literary fiction. I found this entire book confusing and hard to follow, and even now I’ve finished it I still don’t know what was going on, or understand any of the plot.
Probably doesn’t help that I read the first half of the book four months ago, but I guess it speaks volumes that the only thing that made me pick it back up to finish it was the fact it’s still on my goodreads ‘currently reading’ list, and I wanted to get shot of it. Not one for me I’m afraid.
Probably doesn’t help that I read the first half of the book four months ago, but I guess it speaks volumes that the only thing that made me pick it back up to finish it was the fact it’s still on my goodreads ‘currently reading’ list, and I wanted to get shot of it. Not one for me I’m afraid.
November 5, 2017
I was pretty tired when I read this book, so maybe that was the problem, but I sincerely have no idea what it was about. I couldn't tell what was real and what was imagined, I completely lost sight of the plot and ended up with no idea at all as to who the narrator really was. I would have stopped reading it had it not been so short.
December 23, 2019
Loved this lyrically written and beautifully translated tragi-comic satire narrated by a young homeless woman in former East Germany. She starts life in an affluent middle class home but as Germany moves towards reunification her situation becomes more and more desperate. The story is told with compassion and humour but the stark reality is ever present. A great read.
February 24, 2018
Review of Dance By The Canal by Kerstin Hensel, translated by Jen Calleja
The main character is Gabriela, a homeless woman living under the bridge beside the canal (hence the title) in the early 1990s after the reunification of Germany, as she is occupying herself by writing her memoir while doing so.
The novel starts in early with her life, Gabriela is the daughter of a highly esteemed surgeon. For an early birthday, she receives the present of a violin which she thinks was a dachshund. Her schooling days are marked that she goes to school with children of day labourers and such, she is the only student whose name is annotated with the letter I (meaning Intelligentsia).
This is quite a short novel (The publisher Peirene Press market their books as being equivalent to film using the quote from the times supplement "Literary cinema to be devoured in 2 hours" though it did take me 4 hours, I guess I am a slow reader :( )
The novel shifts between present and past, the past being her growing up, involving her relationship with her parents, violin teacher, school friend Katka) and the present, her life under the bridge and writing and relationship with other homeless people)
Overall I really liked the voice of Gabriela in the novel, this is humourous at times but there is also a very present dark side.
The main character is Gabriela, a homeless woman living under the bridge beside the canal (hence the title) in the early 1990s after the reunification of Germany, as she is occupying herself by writing her memoir while doing so.
The novel starts in early with her life, Gabriela is the daughter of a highly esteemed surgeon. For an early birthday, she receives the present of a violin which she thinks was a dachshund. Her schooling days are marked that she goes to school with children of day labourers and such, she is the only student whose name is annotated with the letter I (meaning Intelligentsia).
This is quite a short novel (The publisher Peirene Press market their books as being equivalent to film using the quote from the times supplement "Literary cinema to be devoured in 2 hours" though it did take me 4 hours, I guess I am a slow reader :( )
The novel shifts between present and past, the past being her growing up, involving her relationship with her parents, violin teacher, school friend Katka) and the present, her life under the bridge and writing and relationship with other homeless people)
Overall I really liked the voice of Gabriela in the novel, this is humourous at times but there is also a very present dark side.
October 12, 2017
Gabriela is an interesting character but I didn't really feel that I completely understood her. The book is told in a series of anecdotes from the past and present but I would have liked to have delved further into her psyche, examining her feelings and sense of who she was, is and wants to be. As always with Pereine, it's a book to make you think : it's an interesting idea that all those nameless, almost faceless, homeless people that you walk past in the street could have such a fascinating and elaborate personal history to share.
full review on my blog : https://madhousefamilyreviews.blogspo...
full review on my blog : https://madhousefamilyreviews.blogspo...
February 11, 2020
The prose is very interesting, however, I couldn't connect with Gabriela, which is a shame, since she is the main character and narrator of the story. Hensel manages to include in very subtle manners references and critiques to both East and West Germany, the treatment of homeless people, classism, and gender roles. However, Gabriela doesn't feel like a person (or a well-rounded character), she feels more like a tool that Hensel uses to convey all of these messages, which made it hard for me to actually care for her and feel for her throughout the book (with some exceptions), and which resulted in the compelling part of the book all the social denounce.
September 14, 2017
Under a bridge in Leibniz, East Germany, alongside the canal that has been part of her life since childhood, Gabriela scribbles away on stolen scraps of paper. She identifies as a writer and poet; others see her as homeless, a challenge to the Communist ideal. As she transcribes her autobiography, punctuated by reports of her daily struggle to find food and, as winter approaches, warmth and shelter, we get a glimpse of the inner homelessness that has brought her to this place.
Full review coming soon to http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
Full review coming soon to http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
September 19, 2017
This was my 3rd Peirene book.
I didn't like it anything like as much as the first 2. maybe it got lost in translation but I found the story unconvincing and I didn't really buy any of the characters. Perhaps if I had lived in the DDR it would chime much more, and maybe that's it - fiction to emerge from the German reunification is important to exist, but perhaps tough for British readers properly to get.
I liked the way she dismisses the Big Night in a couple of pages, and she is certainly an accomplished writer. I think the fault lies with me over this one.
I didn't like it anything like as much as the first 2. maybe it got lost in translation but I found the story unconvincing and I didn't really buy any of the characters. Perhaps if I had lived in the DDR it would chime much more, and maybe that's it - fiction to emerge from the German reunification is important to exist, but perhaps tough for British readers properly to get.
I liked the way she dismisses the Big Night in a couple of pages, and she is certainly an accomplished writer. I think the fault lies with me over this one.
February 25, 2018
Short and engaging novella that I (mostly) read while my family were watching a film at the cinema. Dramatic start. Powerful characterisation of the first person homeless woman from a house where she had poor attachment. Some East-West Germany references perhaps lost on me but didn’t spoil the enjoyment. Some aspects of the main character Gabriela slightly tenuous later in the book but didn’t spoil it for me. Common to my friends who have read this and other reviewers, the ending gets muddling but this is probably intentional and mirrors the confusion in the protagonist’s life. I enjoyed it.
January 10, 2024
Als je daklozen passeert, kun je je de vraag stellen waarom zij wel en ik niet? Per slot van rekening zijn de verschillen tussen hen en jou misschien niet zo groot zijn als je zou willen geloven.
"Dance by the Canal" vertelt het verhaal van een vrouw die er niet in slaagt haar plek in de samenleving te vinden – noch in de communistische DDR, noch in het kapitalistische Westen. Haar weigering om zich te conformeren aan de patriarchale structuren van beide samenlevingen dwingt haar tot een steeds groter isolement.
Deze novelle zet je aan het denken.
"Dance by the Canal" vertelt het verhaal van een vrouw die er niet in slaagt haar plek in de samenleving te vinden – noch in de communistische DDR, noch in het kapitalistische Westen. Haar weigering om zich te conformeren aan de patriarchale structuren van beide samenlevingen dwingt haar tot een steeds groter isolement.
Deze novelle zet je aan het denken.
March 29, 2018
Despite being a novella, Dance by the Canal feels much longer. The storyline is deliberately disjointed and dark, stretching between Gabrielle’s childhood in 1960’s Germany and her adult life as a homeless woman. It feels like it is difficult to separate what she consider to be true events from potential delusions and confusion.
October 5, 2017
Three stars because I can't quite decide about this one. There's some brilliantly descriptive passages and the character of the unreliable narrator is interesting but I'm not sure I was as moved by it as I felt I should have been...
May 31, 2022
I read this on the train on the way back from Hadrian's Wall, and then attended a salon, where the author spoke and discussed it, but five years later I cannot remember a thing about it ! Obviously made very little impression.
April 29, 2020
I found this book pretty difficult to follow - but enjoyed the concept of it, it's just not really *there* for me.
December 22, 2020
This book is a monumental piece of writing. It is samefully undervalued. Very well written and simply unforgetable.
January 24, 2021
I didn’t always understand what was happening in “Dance by the Canal” but I loved its prose and the sad story that Gabriela told of her life.
August 22, 2021
now THIS was good. gorgeous translation, witty narrator, a very sad-but-humorous story of a down-and-out with style. heartbreaking, swift, original... I will read it again and again I'm sure
October 3, 2022
i read this for a class (obv) but it was really short and honestly very interesting.
November 3, 2023
give this girl a break jfc
August 18, 2024
Some critic called this light hearted so I picked it up… haha… this was not light hearted
October 27, 2025
Interesting writing, I'm not fully sold on the metaphor but I don't hate it.
October 12, 2017
Translated to English, thanks to Peirene Press, the book was intereting read what was happening in Eastern Germany just before the fall of the wall.
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