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Here in Berlin
Here in Berlin is portrait of a city through snapshots, an excavation of the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin; its complex, troubled past still pulsing in the air as it was during the years of World War II. Critically acclaimed novelist Cristina Garcia brings the people of this famed city alive, their stories bristling with regret, desire, and longing.
An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character--vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine for five months, only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him; the young Jewish scholar whose husband hides her in a sarcophagus until he can find them safe passage to England; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes, setting personal guilt against the larger flow of history; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich on the Russian front, at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at The Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace.
A meditation on war and mystery in the spirit of Christopher Isherwood and Robert Walser's classic Berlin Stories, this an exciting new work by one of our most gifted novelists, one that seeks to align the stories of the past with the stories of the future.
An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character--vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine for five months, only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him; the young Jewish scholar whose husband hides her in a sarcophagus until he can find them safe passage to England; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes, setting personal guilt against the larger flow of history; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich on the Russian front, at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at The Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace.
A meditation on war and mystery in the spirit of Christopher Isherwood and Robert Walser's classic Berlin Stories, this an exciting new work by one of our most gifted novelists, one that seeks to align the stories of the past with the stories of the future.
224 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2017
136 people are currently reading
2215 people want to read
About the author
Cristina García
122 books366 followersAfter working for Time Magazine as a researcher, reporter, and Miami bureau chief, García turned to writing fiction. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban (1992), received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting (2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature. Her fourth novel, A Handbook to Luck, was released in hardcover in 2007 and came out in paperback in April 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 168 reviews
October 26, 2017
3.5 A unknown, unnamed visitor arrives in Berlin, and sets off to discover exactly what this city has gone through and become. It is, 2013 and as she travels she talks to many different people, discovering their stories, writing them down. She calls them by different titles such as nurse, just putting their real names in small print shove the titles. Many of those she talks to had different roles during WWII, and some are Cubans who moved here during that time.
These are vignettes, snapshots of the people who make up this city. They come from all walks of life, and many of their roles during the war are ones I had never heard about before. In the vignette simply called Preachers, a young girl working as a linguistic anthropologist, fluent in seven languages, is sent by the Nazis to the American South to study the oratory skills of the Black preachers. The young Jewish woman who was hidden in a tomb for several days, until her husband could get them passage to England. Many other stories, so many, all so very interesting seeing the city through these snapshots.
History's long shadow cast over a burgeoning city that has changed much. Uncovered stories and unforgotten memories, very well done. I believe the visitor is a stand in for us, the readers and the thing she sees and thinks are inserted between the vignettes.
These are vignettes, snapshots of the people who make up this city. They come from all walks of life, and many of their roles during the war are ones I had never heard about before. In the vignette simply called Preachers, a young girl working as a linguistic anthropologist, fluent in seven languages, is sent by the Nazis to the American South to study the oratory skills of the Black preachers. The young Jewish woman who was hidden in a tomb for several days, until her husband could get them passage to England. Many other stories, so many, all so very interesting seeing the city through these snapshots.
History's long shadow cast over a burgeoning city that has changed much. Uncovered stories and unforgotten memories, very well done. I believe the visitor is a stand in for us, the readers and the thing she sees and thinks are inserted between the vignettes.
November 19, 2017
I have enjoyed the work of Cristina Garcia since I read her Dreaming in Cuban for the first time when she first published it. Chock full of the Latina brand of magical realism that I enjoy, I went on to read Garcia's subsequent books, most notably The Aguero Sisters. When I saw that Garcia had written a new book, I could not resist. Here in Berlin, however, is not full of magical realism, but a series of vignettes focusing on the people of Berlin as told to a visitor who is most likely Garcia herself. While not the genre I was expecting, I gleaned much from reading snapshots of German people who have lived with their memories of the Holocaust for over seventy years.
Garcia at the coaxing of her friend Alfredo Franco who encouraged her to spend time in Berlin, decided to spend a summer in the city. While in Berlin, she visited tourist sites as well as locales frequented by locals to get a feel for the city. In the course of her encounters, she jotted notes on each resident, which would be the basis for the book. Each snapshot is only a few pages in length and does not even approach short story length, but readers do get a brief feel for how the city has coped with its collective pathos following World War II. Normally, I read memoirs and history books about the Holocaust but never from the German perspective as it is difficult for me to sympathize with her people. Yet, here individuals state that they were not members of the Nazis and even gentiles were targeted by the government had they chosen to support the wrong people. Many Cubans ended up in East Berlin as supporters of the Soviet Union, and Garcia sought out her countrymen as well. The result was a wide variety of memories from inhabitants of Germany's capital.
A few stories stood out for me because they represent the variety of people who make Berlin their home. Djazia Alves is an eye doctor originally from Luanda, the product of an African named Mae and her one night lover, an unnamed Cuban soldier. Mae and her daughter eventually escaped Africa and wind up in Germany, Mae going through a series of lovers. Djazia eventually gains independence from her unreliable mother and goes to medical school in Berlin, settling in the German capital as a respectable ophthalmologist. She resurfaces in other vignettes as senior citizens note their eye doctor is an African lady, pointing out that even in the current climate of Europe, there are perhaps few African or female eye doctors living in Germany. Yet, Alves appears to enjoy her life in Berlin, pointing out that it is still a better existence than the one she would have had she stayed in Africa.
Another snapshot that spoke to me was Signals, a story about two Russian soldiers who were sent to the Berlin front. Yelena tells of how she and Raya stuck together as their were few women in their battalion and they craved female companionship. A superior officer got Raya pregnant but he was killed, leaving Raya to suggest that she and Yelena should become a 'couple' and raise their children together. Yelena never had children, but the two women brought up Raya's son together, neither choosing to marry, as they dealt with the ghosts of their past.
Also meaningful to me was the story of a Cuban prisoner of war on a German U-boat who won over the hearts of the crew and was allowed to return to Cuba rather than Germany. Eventually he attended school in Germany and married a Berliner, raising their children bilingually. I thought that Garcia gravitated to the Cubans she encountered in Berlin as they were a reminder of the comforts of home, the people choosing to commiserate with one another. These encounters with other Latinos brought out the best of Garcia's Cuban culture, which I am familiar with from her other books, in a way that her vignettes of native Germans did not. As a result, the snapshots here seem as rushed as her visit to the country, making me long for her earlier books which took place on Cuban soil.
Here in Berlin may not have been as moving to me as Cristina Garcia's earlier books but I still feel that it is a meaningful read. Germans are still coping with the baggage of World War II even seventy years later. While the country as a whole has been friends to the Jews, individuals still feel the wrath of Nazism. In her encounters with Berliners, Garcia paints a picture of the city that in the 21st century is home to a vibrant, immigrant culture. A short book which I read in the course of a day, Here in Berlin makes me long for Garcia's magical realism yet is still engaging in informing her readers of the current social situation in Germany.
3 stars
Garcia at the coaxing of her friend Alfredo Franco who encouraged her to spend time in Berlin, decided to spend a summer in the city. While in Berlin, she visited tourist sites as well as locales frequented by locals to get a feel for the city. In the course of her encounters, she jotted notes on each resident, which would be the basis for the book. Each snapshot is only a few pages in length and does not even approach short story length, but readers do get a brief feel for how the city has coped with its collective pathos following World War II. Normally, I read memoirs and history books about the Holocaust but never from the German perspective as it is difficult for me to sympathize with her people. Yet, here individuals state that they were not members of the Nazis and even gentiles were targeted by the government had they chosen to support the wrong people. Many Cubans ended up in East Berlin as supporters of the Soviet Union, and Garcia sought out her countrymen as well. The result was a wide variety of memories from inhabitants of Germany's capital.
A few stories stood out for me because they represent the variety of people who make Berlin their home. Djazia Alves is an eye doctor originally from Luanda, the product of an African named Mae and her one night lover, an unnamed Cuban soldier. Mae and her daughter eventually escaped Africa and wind up in Germany, Mae going through a series of lovers. Djazia eventually gains independence from her unreliable mother and goes to medical school in Berlin, settling in the German capital as a respectable ophthalmologist. She resurfaces in other vignettes as senior citizens note their eye doctor is an African lady, pointing out that even in the current climate of Europe, there are perhaps few African or female eye doctors living in Germany. Yet, Alves appears to enjoy her life in Berlin, pointing out that it is still a better existence than the one she would have had she stayed in Africa.
Another snapshot that spoke to me was Signals, a story about two Russian soldiers who were sent to the Berlin front. Yelena tells of how she and Raya stuck together as their were few women in their battalion and they craved female companionship. A superior officer got Raya pregnant but he was killed, leaving Raya to suggest that she and Yelena should become a 'couple' and raise their children together. Yelena never had children, but the two women brought up Raya's son together, neither choosing to marry, as they dealt with the ghosts of their past.
Also meaningful to me was the story of a Cuban prisoner of war on a German U-boat who won over the hearts of the crew and was allowed to return to Cuba rather than Germany. Eventually he attended school in Germany and married a Berliner, raising their children bilingually. I thought that Garcia gravitated to the Cubans she encountered in Berlin as they were a reminder of the comforts of home, the people choosing to commiserate with one another. These encounters with other Latinos brought out the best of Garcia's Cuban culture, which I am familiar with from her other books, in a way that her vignettes of native Germans did not. As a result, the snapshots here seem as rushed as her visit to the country, making me long for her earlier books which took place on Cuban soil.
Here in Berlin may not have been as moving to me as Cristina Garcia's earlier books but I still feel that it is a meaningful read. Germans are still coping with the baggage of World War II even seventy years later. While the country as a whole has been friends to the Jews, individuals still feel the wrath of Nazism. In her encounters with Berliners, Garcia paints a picture of the city that in the 21st century is home to a vibrant, immigrant culture. A short book which I read in the course of a day, Here in Berlin makes me long for Garcia's magical realism yet is still engaging in informing her readers of the current social situation in Germany.
3 stars
October 2, 2017
I won an ARC of this book in a goodreads drawing.
A literary novel about a visitor who comes to Berlin with a camera, and traces the history of the city through the last 80 years or so. There's a lot of shifting viewpoints that leads to the narrative of the novel. I know some people don't like this technique, but it seems en vogue just now.
I enjoyed it, though I thought it took a while to really get going despite being a fairly slim book.
A literary novel about a visitor who comes to Berlin with a camera, and traces the history of the city through the last 80 years or so. There's a lot of shifting viewpoints that leads to the narrative of the novel. I know some people don't like this technique, but it seems en vogue just now.
I enjoyed it, though I thought it took a while to really get going despite being a fairly slim book.
November 4, 2017
A delightful meandering and novel book.
Christina Garcia has produced a compelling novel made up from a patchwork of mainly Berlin based stories observed by an unnamed "visitor" that are somewhat intertwined yet separate.
Reflecting on the personal stories of Berliners from Cuban migrants to the Stasi and the Nazis she has produced an unlikely composition of semi fictional short biographies that show the varied population and the upheavals of Berlin's recent history.
It took a little while to get into this but once in I was hooked.
Thanks to Edelweiss for the review copy. I was not obliged to write a favourable review.
Christina Garcia has produced a compelling novel made up from a patchwork of mainly Berlin based stories observed by an unnamed "visitor" that are somewhat intertwined yet separate.
Reflecting on the personal stories of Berliners from Cuban migrants to the Stasi and the Nazis she has produced an unlikely composition of semi fictional short biographies that show the varied population and the upheavals of Berlin's recent history.
It took a little while to get into this but once in I was hooked.
Thanks to Edelweiss for the review copy. I was not obliged to write a favourable review.
May 14, 2018
I think my experience with Here in Berlin a little confusing because it's not quite what I expected. I thought Berlin itself was going to become almost a character--I'm not sure it did. The dust jacket promised a "meditation on war and mystery." I'm not sure, having finished, the words meditation and mystery quite suit it. It is terribly interesting, though. The premise is of a Visitor who travels the city taking photos and talking to various dwellers of the city. Their stories are the short vignettes making up the book. It's Berlin, of course, but there's a strange Cuban connection to some of their stories. Garcia's roots are Cuban, and we don't mind if writers work from material they're most familiar with, but to me Cuba and Berlin don't fit well together because the underlying foundation of the vignettes-- both the book's Big Bang and original sin--is World War II. All narrative flows outward from that, creating all the tensions and character alignments of the vignettes. To me, because I think one doesn't normally associate Cuba with the war unless you're thinking of Hemingway, these Cuban elements within the individual stories seemed forced, as if cantilevered into them to make them fit. So here's the Berlin of today, modern and thriving but still impacted by the destruction of 70 years ago, the inhabitants the Visitor meets remembering being in thrall to a powerful ideology but also reeling from their contact with occupiers from east and west.
March 29, 2018
As a Berlin scholar, any new book about Berlin - and especially the idea of walking in Berlin - warrants being read. And so I picked up Garcia's Here in Berlin and was excited to read it.
The verdict: Meh. Some parts were interesting, some touching, some clichéd, some great.
But I think the two things that kept bugging me was Garcia's use of having the narrator speak directly to the reader. I just came across as so cheesy, for lack of a better word.
And the constant fixation on WWII, - well. Yes, I get it. But also, really? A whole book about modern Berlin and all you can see if the war that once was raging? It felt like the typical outsiders point of view, where all that Europe is is a monument to the past, without seeing the present that is also there (of course, as a result of the past, but that's of course the case with everything under the sun. We are the result of history.).
Glad I read it, not sure I'd recommend it to others.
The verdict: Meh. Some parts were interesting, some touching, some clichéd, some great.
But I think the two things that kept bugging me was Garcia's use of having the narrator speak directly to the reader. I just came across as so cheesy, for lack of a better word.
And the constant fixation on WWII, - well. Yes, I get it. But also, really? A whole book about modern Berlin and all you can see if the war that once was raging? It felt like the typical outsiders point of view, where all that Europe is is a monument to the past, without seeing the present that is also there (of course, as a result of the past, but that's of course the case with everything under the sun. We are the result of history.).
Glad I read it, not sure I'd recommend it to others.
May 4, 2018
There is the air of documentary about the format of this “novel,” which is a compilation of 35 imaginary interviews, elicited by a Visitor to Berlin who wanders the city to plumb its depths by speaking to its residents. Berlin is the kind of place where almost everyone has a story to tell, and therein lies the sense that this might all be true.
The unnamed Visitor is Cuban-American, and the one quirk of these interviews is the regular appearance of Berliners with Cuban connections, products of the time when East Germany and Cuba were both prized client states of the Soviet Union. In many ways this angle is the most interesting and unexpected part of the novel, probably because the perilous history of 20th-century Berlin has been otherwise so well documented. Among the narratives there are former Nazis, former Stasi agents, and elderly women who had been raped by Russian soldiers, but they pretty much had to be part of the story.
The thirty-five stories are jewel-like, beautifully written and captivating. Yet they are so short that as I moved quickly from one to another, I felt that I was giving them short shrift in the process. I wished to hold on more than a few minutes to each member of this eclectic cast.
As they flash by, we have a fleeting view of the ghosts that haunt individual Berliners, survivors of a peculiar history. The distinctive voices are occasionally linked; an eye doctor, for example, is referenced by several patients, for these story tellers are all elderly. One diminutive inmate of an insane asylum tells of being matched up with one Oskar Matzerath, who was also dwarfish and “the owner of a set of drums.” Readers of Günter Grass will recognize the appearance of the fictional character from The Tin Drum. It was a marvelous and even funny moment.
I believe it would be better to read this book than to listen, as I did, to the audio version. I think it impaired my experience that the movement between interviews was occasionally confusing. I understand that intermittent chapters about the Visitor, our interviewer, were in italics, and that visual cue would have been helpful. In addition, the narrator of the audio, while generally effective, simply butchered much of the German. Oddly, she seemed to have received pronunciation direction on occasional phrases, but not on most others.
Ultimately I found the format not entirely satisfying. It seems like a compilation of too many short, short stories. There is no arguing that Cristina Garcia is gifted with exceptional ability to craft a sentence.
The unnamed Visitor is Cuban-American, and the one quirk of these interviews is the regular appearance of Berliners with Cuban connections, products of the time when East Germany and Cuba were both prized client states of the Soviet Union. In many ways this angle is the most interesting and unexpected part of the novel, probably because the perilous history of 20th-century Berlin has been otherwise so well documented. Among the narratives there are former Nazis, former Stasi agents, and elderly women who had been raped by Russian soldiers, but they pretty much had to be part of the story.
The thirty-five stories are jewel-like, beautifully written and captivating. Yet they are so short that as I moved quickly from one to another, I felt that I was giving them short shrift in the process. I wished to hold on more than a few minutes to each member of this eclectic cast.
As they flash by, we have a fleeting view of the ghosts that haunt individual Berliners, survivors of a peculiar history. The distinctive voices are occasionally linked; an eye doctor, for example, is referenced by several patients, for these story tellers are all elderly. One diminutive inmate of an insane asylum tells of being matched up with one Oskar Matzerath, who was also dwarfish and “the owner of a set of drums.” Readers of Günter Grass will recognize the appearance of the fictional character from The Tin Drum. It was a marvelous and even funny moment.
I believe it would be better to read this book than to listen, as I did, to the audio version. I think it impaired my experience that the movement between interviews was occasionally confusing. I understand that intermittent chapters about the Visitor, our interviewer, were in italics, and that visual cue would have been helpful. In addition, the narrator of the audio, while generally effective, simply butchered much of the German. Oddly, she seemed to have received pronunciation direction on occasional phrases, but not on most others.
Ultimately I found the format not entirely satisfying. It seems like a compilation of too many short, short stories. There is no arguing that Cristina Garcia is gifted with exceptional ability to craft a sentence.
November 3, 2017
A middle aged woman, "The Visitor" goes to Berlin, learns the language and then begins to ask people to tell her their stories. I'm not sure I consider this a novel, because it seemed more like a collection of vignettes bound only by the impact of WWII on their lives and the fact that the Visitor was present in all of them. I found the snippets interesting and the devastation of war will never cease to break my heart, but I had trouble feeling immersed in the book as a whole. Well written with some beautiful prose. 3.5 stars
May 29, 2018
Childhood is a city you never leave.
Middle aged San Franciscan woman of Cuban origin moves to Berlin to look for stories. There is no shortage. Plenty of history provides a large reservoir of stories.
Her own life gives the framework: her second marriage just failed, her relationship with her mother is broken beyond repair, that with her daughter is on pause. After a lonely beginning, she starts talking to people. She never talks about herself in first person, only as ‘the visitor’. Most of the stories, however, are told in first person by the interviewees. Some narrators and characters show up in supporting roles in other stories. That makes much sense, since they all must have moved in the author’s social circles. Assuming the stories are real life stories. If they are not, they are well invented.
The stories are of an autobiographical nature: people, mostly elderly ones, talking about their lives. All stories are very short. That creates an impression of a large mosaic consisting of small tiles.
Whom do we meet? War time zoo keeper. Cuban pow on German U-Boot. Jewish woman hiding in sarcophagus. Legal defender, post war, of nazi criminals. Stasi officer. Nurse at the Eastern Front. GDR cultural official with hilarious failure. Nazi sex club operator. Angolan eye surgeon. Little woman meets Oskar Matzerath. Captain of a fatally torpedoed holiday ship. Eva Braun Doppelgänger. Grand-daughter of Spanish SS soldier. Lesbian tango dancer. Vietnamese Kiosk owner. Former photographer with amnesia. Dealer of Cuban antiques. Linguistic anthropologist. Woman born in Lebensborn. Former Air Force pilot sells shoes to Max Schmeling. Kiosk owner at central station. Hunter of nazi criminals. Nazi criminal. Primaballerina with limp. Russian kids abducted for adoption. Sachsenhausen guard’s daughter. Unemployed 29y old living with grandmother. Homeless KZ survivor. Nazi movie star with mirror fetish. Cuban volcanologist. Russian female soldier couple stayed on in East Berlin with baby. Ex-Stasi punk rocker. Admirer of Red Army General. Cuban musician unhappily married to divorce lawyer. Philharmonic clarinetist.
Is this a novel, as the title page claims? Hardly. It is a strong collection of moving, tragic, absurd, repulsive, or sometimes humorous stories within a slender frame.
Towards the end, ‘the visitor’ feels overwhelmed by all the war and destruction that her conversations have fed her. She quits after less than a year.
An impressive panorama of Berlin and its history. As an international observer, she finds international tentacles, unavoidably. Relations to Cuba come up frequently, unsurprisingly.
An excellent book.
(But the bread is called Vollkornbrot, not Volkenbrot.)
Middle aged San Franciscan woman of Cuban origin moves to Berlin to look for stories. There is no shortage. Plenty of history provides a large reservoir of stories.
Her own life gives the framework: her second marriage just failed, her relationship with her mother is broken beyond repair, that with her daughter is on pause. After a lonely beginning, she starts talking to people. She never talks about herself in first person, only as ‘the visitor’. Most of the stories, however, are told in first person by the interviewees. Some narrators and characters show up in supporting roles in other stories. That makes much sense, since they all must have moved in the author’s social circles. Assuming the stories are real life stories. If they are not, they are well invented.
The stories are of an autobiographical nature: people, mostly elderly ones, talking about their lives. All stories are very short. That creates an impression of a large mosaic consisting of small tiles.
Whom do we meet? War time zoo keeper. Cuban pow on German U-Boot. Jewish woman hiding in sarcophagus. Legal defender, post war, of nazi criminals. Stasi officer. Nurse at the Eastern Front. GDR cultural official with hilarious failure. Nazi sex club operator. Angolan eye surgeon. Little woman meets Oskar Matzerath. Captain of a fatally torpedoed holiday ship. Eva Braun Doppelgänger. Grand-daughter of Spanish SS soldier. Lesbian tango dancer. Vietnamese Kiosk owner. Former photographer with amnesia. Dealer of Cuban antiques. Linguistic anthropologist. Woman born in Lebensborn. Former Air Force pilot sells shoes to Max Schmeling. Kiosk owner at central station. Hunter of nazi criminals. Nazi criminal. Primaballerina with limp. Russian kids abducted for adoption. Sachsenhausen guard’s daughter. Unemployed 29y old living with grandmother. Homeless KZ survivor. Nazi movie star with mirror fetish. Cuban volcanologist. Russian female soldier couple stayed on in East Berlin with baby. Ex-Stasi punk rocker. Admirer of Red Army General. Cuban musician unhappily married to divorce lawyer. Philharmonic clarinetist.
Is this a novel, as the title page claims? Hardly. It is a strong collection of moving, tragic, absurd, repulsive, or sometimes humorous stories within a slender frame.
Towards the end, ‘the visitor’ feels overwhelmed by all the war and destruction that her conversations have fed her. She quits after less than a year.
An impressive panorama of Berlin and its history. As an international observer, she finds international tentacles, unavoidably. Relations to Cuba come up frequently, unsurprisingly.
An excellent book.
(But the bread is called Vollkornbrot, not Volkenbrot.)
February 8, 2018
This is an interesting collection of short histories, and stories from fictional individuals living in Berlin. There is a wide and surprisingly vast cast of stories, all different enough to keep it going but believable enough that you aren't shaking your head. I will say the one thing that did start to great was the grandiose statements at the end of each segment. These were 3-4, maybe 6 or 7 page stories and each one ended on some profound metaphor or statement. Every story had one of these to tell, probably the most fourth wall breaking parts of this collection.
Besides that it was a fast and engaging read (looking past those required 'deep statements). I would definitely pick up more from this author. The topic and time is one I'm not hugely familiar with, and I would also be interested in read more there.
Besides that it was a fast and engaging read (looking past those required 'deep statements). I would definitely pick up more from this author. The topic and time is one I'm not hugely familiar with, and I would also be interested in read more there.
December 16, 2017
"Every morning I look in the mirror and see darkness where my face should be. Is there any greater freedom than that?" writes Garcia. In this interrelated set of short set pieces, a 'visitor' tours Berlin and tells the story of many WW2/history torn characters. Will this 'visitor' be released from the past, or will this person join those who can't get away from a world of pain? I enjoyed this work, although sometimes the pain felt to real, but that's the point.
July 15, 2017
I received a free copy of Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia in exchange for an honest review. Here in Berlin was presented as a collection of stories and memories, some of them dating back to World War II. A Cuban teenager, a young Jewish scholar, a nurse, a female lawyer, and the son of a zookeeper convey their stories to an unnamed visitor, visiting Berlin. Some of the stories that the visitor heard from these various people, that now lived in Berlin,brought their history alive and allowed the visitor to witness their torments and vivid images that World War II still left upon their memories and quality of their lives.
I would have preferred if the visitor, who was seeking her own answers, interacted with less people and that the author would have gone into more depth developing the characters and the interactions they had with each other. This was not one of my most favorite books. It was unique in the style that it was written.
I would have preferred if the visitor, who was seeking her own answers, interacted with less people and that the author would have gone into more depth developing the characters and the interactions they had with each other. This was not one of my most favorite books. It was unique in the style that it was written.
January 18, 2018
I was torn about this one going in, because I am generally impatient with experimental novels with unusual structure. But so many reviews of this were so good, I kept at it. It’s kind of like a bunch of interconnected short stories, but the connections are very deep and complex. By the end, I cared about several of the characters in greater depth than I expected, and I loved the experience of reading it as someone who knows enough German and Spanish for it to almost make me feel multilingual, even though I’m really not. I’ll read this again sometime soon, so I can get a better picture of the ornate structure.
September 24, 2018
46
An unnamed visitor to the city of Berlin speaks to various people throughout the city who recall history through their personal stories. I found this book fascinating and I love that the stories were short yet so full. It is amazing how easy it is to not realize how awful war is on every level. Until you've read a personal account of living in ruins, or bombs dropping or conquering armies raping women and children...it is very hard to imagine. I must admit I'd not much thought of what the Germans experienced after the war or during.
A scent accompanies her, less a scent than a sweet pressure of the air against my brain . . . —GOTTFRIED BENN
An unnamed visitor to the city of Berlin speaks to various people throughout the city who recall history through their personal stories. I found this book fascinating and I love that the stories were short yet so full. It is amazing how easy it is to not realize how awful war is on every level. Until you've read a personal account of living in ruins, or bombs dropping or conquering armies raping women and children...it is very hard to imagine. I must admit I'd not much thought of what the Germans experienced after the war or during.
A scent accompanies her, less a scent than a sweet pressure of the air against my brain . . . —GOTTFRIED BENN
October 1, 2017
I received a copy of this book from the publisher throug Edelweiss.
These are short stories written by a “visitor” in Berlin. These are memories and mainly are related to WW2. I was hooked to the stories and memories people shared, written as little novels. Stories you don’t read in historical books because they are personal memories. Wonderfully written and placed in this book, disturbing in parts but also important. If you are interested in history or WW2 that might be one for you.
These are short stories written by a “visitor” in Berlin. These are memories and mainly are related to WW2. I was hooked to the stories and memories people shared, written as little novels. Stories you don’t read in historical books because they are personal memories. Wonderfully written and placed in this book, disturbing in parts but also important. If you are interested in history or WW2 that might be one for you.
March 28, 2018
Totally engrossing look at the horrors inflicted on the city of Berlin from the Nazis through the Soviets from the perspective of flawed, complicated individuals. A complicated portrayal of some very dark stuff.
May 11, 2018
هي ليست قصة مدينة و انما قصص لسكان هذه المدينة برلين يرونها لزائرة تلتقي بهم. حقيقة لا تشعر بحضور المدينة هنا و انما اشباح الحرب العالمية الثانية. لذلك جاءت معظم الشخصيات و القصص كئيبة تحمل انكسارات اصحابها بسبب الماضي و حتى بعد سقوط جدار برلين
July 6, 2018
An interesting book to pick up from the library if you get the chance. The author openly used Berlin and her research there as a way to work through her personal issues. Unlike most other books like this, Ms. Garcia succeeds in her efforts.
Find it, Read it.
Find it, Read it.
August 6, 2018
A wonderfully different look on Germany post WWII. I loved the wide range of experiences she touches on. That being said, it seems like it’s a fictionalization non-fiction, and I’m not quite sure why she didn’t just write a nonfiction book. I almost wonder if it is kind of nonfiction but she fictionalized it to protect privacy? Idk.
October 27, 2019
4 1/2 - lyrical and captivating.
November 16, 2024
Brilliant writing, but depressing and sometimes horrifying.
February 13, 2018
Excellent collection of portraits of a wide range of Berlin characters, mostly haunted by the city's past. I highly recommend this book.
November 13, 2019
I purposefully avoid short stories on audiobook, and this came emblazoned with "A NOVEL" on the cover. However, it's really a series of glimpses into the lives of people from Berlin during and after WWII. I think I would have gotten more out of the book if I'd read it in print, or there were different narrators. Sometimes the vignettes would begin and I wouldn't know what kind of character I was listening to because it was the same British-accented woman narrating all these Berliners and Cubans and even Chileans occasionally. It was disorienting.
There are memorable moments, details that I won't soon forget, including an imprisoned Cuban, a woman whose husband entombs her to keep her safe, and how García ties South America into Berliner history. I think I'd recommend this in print, though I didn't get much out of the audio. I personally haven't been much interested in WWII stories lately, listening to this as I walked past 56th Street every day, cordoned off with NYPD security since 2016 because a certain president's tower is nearby. I especially haven't been interested in the ones about those who were complicit though perhaps not legally criminal. It can feel suffocating...and dark. There is something to search for in these stories, but I am too weary to examine the parallels that exist today.
There are memorable moments, details that I won't soon forget, including an imprisoned Cuban, a woman whose husband entombs her to keep her safe, and how García ties South America into Berliner history. I think I'd recommend this in print, though I didn't get much out of the audio. I personally haven't been much interested in WWII stories lately, listening to this as I walked past 56th Street every day, cordoned off with NYPD security since 2016 because a certain president's tower is nearby. I especially haven't been interested in the ones about those who were complicit though perhaps not legally criminal. It can feel suffocating...and dark. There is something to search for in these stories, but I am too weary to examine the parallels that exist today.
September 29, 2018
I was looking for a book in which Berlin, the city, would have more of a starring role. However, many of the short vignettes which make up this book aren't even set in Berlin. I found a couple of them very interesting, including one about a Cuban who claims to have been taken prisoner by a German U-Boat crew during the war and then quietly delivered back to the same beach from which he was snatched shortly before war’s end in defiance of the Nazi authorities who would, had they known about the prisoner, have wanted to make a hostage out of him. He remains friends with one of his captors years later and eventually visits him in Berlin.
But this book is really more about the aftermath of World War II than it is about Berlin. Some of the stories toward the beginning of the book are interesting, but many of the rest are difficult to muddle through because it’s difficult to identify with the people speaking in the first-person in the stories.
If, like me, you are interested in a book about Berlin with some travelogue elements, I can recommend _Berlin Now: The City After the Wall_ by Peter Schneider. It's a bit dated now, but a new edition was released just three or four years ago, and I found it very interesting when I read it recently. Plus there's a newer book out called _Here is Berlin_ which sounds like it may have similar elements. I hope to read that book soon.
But this book is really more about the aftermath of World War II than it is about Berlin. Some of the stories toward the beginning of the book are interesting, but many of the rest are difficult to muddle through because it’s difficult to identify with the people speaking in the first-person in the stories.
If, like me, you are interested in a book about Berlin with some travelogue elements, I can recommend _Berlin Now: The City After the Wall_ by Peter Schneider. It's a bit dated now, but a new edition was released just three or four years ago, and I found it very interesting when I read it recently. Plus there's a newer book out called _Here is Berlin_ which sounds like it may have similar elements. I hope to read that book soon.
April 7, 2018
Not a bad book at all, but it strikes me as rather lightweight, or at least as lightweight as a novel about the wreckage of Berlin's 20th Century parade of atrocities, from Weimar-era deprivation to Nazi-era devastation to Stasi-era desolation, can be. Ms. Garcia's novel is comprised of brief reminiscences, mostly by old feeble Germans, with interstitial observations by a middle-aged Cuban writer (whom we can presume is a stand-in for Ms. Garcia herself) alleviating her mid-life crisis by learning about people with real problems. She makes a few interesting points about pains of overcoming a difficult legacy (something about which your average German knows viel) and the displacement wrought by colonialism (when the narrator isn't chatting up ancient Nazis, she's meeting up with Cuban and African expats), but on the whole, "Here in Berlin" strikes me as more of an exercise than a fully thought-out novel.
August 5, 2019
I would say this is an objectively good book. The novel was organized in a kind of unusual way with the variously connecting stories, which I actually found very intriguing. I absolutely loved the different voices Garcia was able to create for the appearing characters. (See: the absolutely ICONIC Nazi Sex Club). Although most of the stories were in first person—excluding the snippets about the Visitor—there were chapters that were suddenly in third person in the latter half of the book that disoriented me a bit but were still enjoyable. A solid four stars, a worth-while read.
December 9, 2017
This has so many details I never knew. I have to read it again.
From a quote at the beginning of Part II:
"I would like to write as if I had remained silent." -- János Pilinszky
Do people remember only what they can endure, or distort memories until they can endure them?
... the greatest danger in life is certainty. Yes, I do believe that. Our last redoubt in the world is wonder.
From a quote at the beginning of Part II:
"I would like to write as if I had remained silent." -- János Pilinszky
Do people remember only what they can endure, or distort memories until they can endure them?
... the greatest danger in life is certainty. Yes, I do believe that. Our last redoubt in the world is wonder.
February 7, 2024
A haunting collection of stories or vignettes that inhabit that gray area between life and art, fact and fiction. Did they really happen? They could have. Were they told to the author by the people who lived them? Maybe. The stories run the gamut from sad to funny but are all very touching. I'll be keeping a copy of this for my bookshelf.
August 23, 2018
Negligible Nazi nursing home confessionals and other cringeworthy coincidences
November 21, 2017
I picked up Garcia's novel, Here in Berlin, while searching for several novels to read on WWII. Here in Berlin is a novel told from various points of views of characters who have two things in common: presently live in Berlin and have a historical tie to WWII. There are almost 40 different characters in the story whose stories are not necessarily intertwined. Some reviewers say that the chapters are more like vignettes rather than chapters of a cohesive novel. I think that chapters do resemble vignettes, but I still find cohesiveness in the novel's overall themes of displacement, fragmented memories, and shame. I also found myself thinking about the ways that people oftentimes are victims of historical realities and a result of the things they have to do to continue existing.
In the novel, "the Visitor" is the "filter" through which these characters' stories are told. The Visitor is "nameless" and "alone." The Visitor is a Cuban American writer who is on a mission to collect stories in Berlin, but the stories do not immediately emerge. In many ways, the Visitor is like the author's alter-ego in the novel. The presence of the Visitor in the novel was, at first, a little confusing for me because it gave the novel a journalistic feel as if the stories were in some way or another real. Naturally, the setting, details, and historical context of WWII are real. The stories themselves are all fiction. I had the opportunity to meet Garcia at a talk for this book, and I asked her this very question regarding the fictionality of the characters and their stories. Garcia mentioned that the inspiration for each character's story came from little "bubbles" in history that seemed to tell something interesting. It was those moments of opportunity, Garcia explained, that she used to imagine new stories.
Garcia's prose is masterful and enjoyable (One of the many lines I enjoyed: "Nothing of significance can be expressed without the body. To praise and be praised. For this we were created."). Nonetheless, there were some things that "itched" me while reading the novel. I would have preferred fewer characters with more depth that had more significant ties with other characters. Also, the presence of the Visitor is "double-edged" for me: On the one hand, the Visitor ties all the voices together; on the other, the Visitor's filter prevents each character's voice from reaching full realization (meaning that their voices are not as distinct as I wish they would be). I am not one to care much for plot, but I would probably warn readers that Here in Berlin does not contain much of a narrative arc, except for the Visitor's arrival to and departure from Berlin.--stories are scattered as I think is meant to mirror the characters' memories.
I think this novel is a memorable read for anyone into WWII stories and nostalgia. I can't say I am angry about the occasional Cubans popping up in Berlin to joder un poco. I read Here in Berlin directly after Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and Greg Baxter's The Apartment. It's an enjoyable and quick read.
In the novel, "the Visitor" is the "filter" through which these characters' stories are told. The Visitor is "nameless" and "alone." The Visitor is a Cuban American writer who is on a mission to collect stories in Berlin, but the stories do not immediately emerge. In many ways, the Visitor is like the author's alter-ego in the novel. The presence of the Visitor in the novel was, at first, a little confusing for me because it gave the novel a journalistic feel as if the stories were in some way or another real. Naturally, the setting, details, and historical context of WWII are real. The stories themselves are all fiction. I had the opportunity to meet Garcia at a talk for this book, and I asked her this very question regarding the fictionality of the characters and their stories. Garcia mentioned that the inspiration for each character's story came from little "bubbles" in history that seemed to tell something interesting. It was those moments of opportunity, Garcia explained, that she used to imagine new stories.
Garcia's prose is masterful and enjoyable (One of the many lines I enjoyed: "Nothing of significance can be expressed without the body. To praise and be praised. For this we were created."). Nonetheless, there were some things that "itched" me while reading the novel. I would have preferred fewer characters with more depth that had more significant ties with other characters. Also, the presence of the Visitor is "double-edged" for me: On the one hand, the Visitor ties all the voices together; on the other, the Visitor's filter prevents each character's voice from reaching full realization (meaning that their voices are not as distinct as I wish they would be). I am not one to care much for plot, but I would probably warn readers that Here in Berlin does not contain much of a narrative arc, except for the Visitor's arrival to and departure from Berlin.--stories are scattered as I think is meant to mirror the characters' memories.
I think this novel is a memorable read for anyone into WWII stories and nostalgia. I can't say I am angry about the occasional Cubans popping up in Berlin to joder un poco. I read Here in Berlin directly after Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and Greg Baxter's The Apartment. It's an enjoyable and quick read.
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