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Før sol går ned
Før sol går ned sammenfletter virtuost flere fortællinger fra forskellige perspektiver. Romanen har sin begyndelse i starten af det 20. århundrede i de østrig-ungarske provinser. Herfra fortælles om et forældrepars livforløb, efter at deres barn dør i vuggen.
Faren flygter til Amerika, og den forladte mor, der er undertrykt af sine jødiske bedsteforældres religiøsitet, tvinges ud i prostitution og til at leve med sin bitre mor. Det andet fortællespor giver et indblik i, hvad der kunne være sket, hvis barnet overlevede og voksede op under barske omstændigheder i det 20. århundrede. Med krigstid, hungersnød i Wien, antisemitisme, Berlinmurens fald, men også kærlighedssorger og eksistentielle kriser. Romanen peger på, at ’skæbnen’ er en kombination af historiske omstændigheder, familiefortællinger og personlige forviklinger.
Faren flygter til Amerika, og den forladte mor, der er undertrykt af sine jødiske bedsteforældres religiøsitet, tvinges ud i prostitution og til at leve med sin bitre mor. Det andet fortællespor giver et indblik i, hvad der kunne være sket, hvis barnet overlevede og voksede op under barske omstændigheder i det 20. århundrede. Med krigstid, hungersnød i Wien, antisemitisme, Berlinmurens fald, men også kærlighedssorger og eksistentielle kriser. Romanen peger på, at ’skæbnen’ er en kombination af historiske omstændigheder, familiefortællinger og personlige forviklinger.
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First published January 1, 2012
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About the author
Jenny Erpenbeck
30 books1,133 followersJenny Erpenbeck (born 12 March 1967 in East Berlin) is a German director and writer.
Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor.
From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director (studying with, among others, Ruth Berghaus, Heiner Müller and Peter Konwitschny) at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. After the successful completion of her studies in 1994 (with a production of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in her parish church and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles, she spent some time at first as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany and Austria, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen, Acis and Galatea at the Berlin State Opera and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide in Nuremberg/Erlangen.
In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose and plays: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a biweekly column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Erpenbeck lives in Berlin with her son, born 2002.
Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor.
From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director (studying with, among others, Ruth Berghaus, Heiner Müller and Peter Konwitschny) at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. After the successful completion of her studies in 1994 (with a production of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in her parish church and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles, she spent some time at first as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany and Austria, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen, Acis and Galatea at the Berlin State Opera and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide in Nuremberg/Erlangen.
In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose and plays: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a biweekly column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Erpenbeck lives in Berlin with her son, born 2002.
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June 9, 2025
DI PASSAGGIO
” Der Himmel über Berlin - Il cielo sopra Berlino” di Wim Wenders. 1987
La piccola aveva solo pochi mesi, da poco conosceva la culla: ed è morta! Soffocata. La più dura delle novecentotre morti, come spiega il Talmud.
La madre passa la settimana di lutto seduta sul panchetto, avuto come regalo di nozze dalla nonna, accanto alla culla rimasta vuota, senza toccare cibo. La bimba è forse morta per punirla d’aver sposato un goj contro il volere del nonno?
Il padre di lei è morto da tempo, fatto a pezzi dai polacchi a colpi d’ascia durante un pogrom, alla moglie rimase in mano solo il braccio di lui.
Il goj l’ha forse sposata per ripianare un debito che lo stipendio del suo impiego alle ferrovie non avrebbe mai permesso di saldare? Anche lui accusa il colpo per la morte della figlia appena nata: ma invece di trascorrere la settimana di lutto a casa, la passa alla locanda a ubriacarsi.
”Napszállta – Tramonto” magnifico film dell’ungherese László Nemes presentato al festival di Venezia nel 2018, ambientato a Budapest subito prima della Grande Guerra.
Di conseguenza le donne fanno tutte un passo indietro: la madre rimane moglie e torna figlia, la nonna retrocede a essere solo sua madre, e anche la bisnonna perde un grado e arretra al ruolo di nonna.
Ma se la piccola non morisse, e la coppia non si sfaldasse, e da Brody, al confine russo, si trasferisse nella capitale, a Vienna, dove lui ottenesse un impiego migliore, nell’istituto meteorologico, e la piccola crescesse, e alla prima si aggiungesse un’altra bimba, tredici anni dopo…: cosa sarebbe?
Sliding doors: variazioni di storia e destino che fanno prendere una piega diversa alle esistenze dei personaggi in presenza di un “se” niente affatto meccanico come nel film omonimo (appunto Sliding Doors del 1998): qui colpisce l’attenzione e la precisione alle psicologie, alle motivazioni e alle sensazioni.
”Babylon Berlin” la bella serie Tv tedesca andata ambientata negli anni della Repubblica di Weimar.
Cinque capitoli lunghi, separati da quattro intermezzi brevi, nei quali si salta dal primo Novecento alla Repubblica di Weimar, dal Terrore staliniano all’orrore nazista, per approdare alla Berlino dopo la caduta del Muro, riunificata e post-sovietica.
Ci si sposta geograficamente, ma non di molto, l’humus culturale rimane racchiuso.
Ancora una volta Erpenbeck ripercorre la storia del Novecento con l’occhio puntato sull’essere ebreo nella sua terra, prima austro-ungarica, poi imperial-regia, poi germanica, e infine tedesca.
”Saul fia - Il figlio di Saul”, il capolavoro del 2015 del regista László Nemes premiato con L’oscar per il miglior film non in lingua inglese.
In maniera simile ma diversa all’operazione realizzata quattro anni prima col suo romanzo Di passaggio, dove lì il luogo restava lo stesso ed erano i personaggi a cambiare, mentre qui la stessa donna viene seguita nel suo percorso esistenziale, includendo la variabile sliding doors, cioè quel che sarebbe potuto loro succedere se, e sono le geografie a variare.
Immaginiamo di poter seguire dall’alto il percorso di una vita – un po’ come fanno gli angeli sopra Berlino nel film di Wenders – e guardiamo il numero di possibilità non realizzate che ogni esistenza si porta dietro. Immaginiamo che questo nostro sguardo dall’alto segua una donna attraverso il Novecento, da quando potrebbe abbandonare la vita ancora in culla, e però un energico intervento materno quella vita conserva e ristabilisce (ghiaccio a contatto della pelle all’altezza dei polmoni, e il respiro ricomincia): avremo davanti l’intelaiatura che Erpenbeck ci presenta, composta da cinque possibili vite, e da cinque esiti fatali, con protagonista la stessa donna.
Con lo stesso stile, ricorrendo a corsivi per riportare brani di sacre scritture, oppure filastrocche, o perfino estratti da Osservazioni sul terremoto in Stiria, con frequenti ripetizioni che non servono tanto a ribadire quanto a creare una musicalità di scrittura ritmica e percussiva, con sottile ironia e infinita empatia, inserendo dettagli e informazioni spiazzanti e imprevisti (per esempio, coordinate geografiche, oggetti che passano di man in mano, percorso di un capo d’abbigliamento che per povertà si trasforma da abito a berretto), il martellio della toponomastica, Erpenbeck realizza un romanzo che non si dimentica.
Come una e una sola causa possa avere migliaia di effetti diversi nei più diversi luoghi e contrade. È come se, di tutto ciò che vede e incontra, andasse sbriciolandosi all’improvviso lo strato che finora gli ha impedito di comprendere, e adesso riuscisse finalmente a scorgere ciò che sta sotto.
”Good Bye Lenin” di Wolfgang Becker, 2003.
” Der Himmel über Berlin - Il cielo sopra Berlino” di Wim Wenders. 1987
La piccola aveva solo pochi mesi, da poco conosceva la culla: ed è morta! Soffocata. La più dura delle novecentotre morti, come spiega il Talmud.
La madre passa la settimana di lutto seduta sul panchetto, avuto come regalo di nozze dalla nonna, accanto alla culla rimasta vuota, senza toccare cibo. La bimba è forse morta per punirla d’aver sposato un goj contro il volere del nonno?
Il padre di lei è morto da tempo, fatto a pezzi dai polacchi a colpi d’ascia durante un pogrom, alla moglie rimase in mano solo il braccio di lui.
Il goj l’ha forse sposata per ripianare un debito che lo stipendio del suo impiego alle ferrovie non avrebbe mai permesso di saldare? Anche lui accusa il colpo per la morte della figlia appena nata: ma invece di trascorrere la settimana di lutto a casa, la passa alla locanda a ubriacarsi.
”Napszállta – Tramonto” magnifico film dell’ungherese László Nemes presentato al festival di Venezia nel 2018, ambientato a Budapest subito prima della Grande Guerra.
Di conseguenza le donne fanno tutte un passo indietro: la madre rimane moglie e torna figlia, la nonna retrocede a essere solo sua madre, e anche la bisnonna perde un grado e arretra al ruolo di nonna.
Ma se la piccola non morisse, e la coppia non si sfaldasse, e da Brody, al confine russo, si trasferisse nella capitale, a Vienna, dove lui ottenesse un impiego migliore, nell’istituto meteorologico, e la piccola crescesse, e alla prima si aggiungesse un’altra bimba, tredici anni dopo…: cosa sarebbe?
Sliding doors: variazioni di storia e destino che fanno prendere una piega diversa alle esistenze dei personaggi in presenza di un “se” niente affatto meccanico come nel film omonimo (appunto Sliding Doors del 1998): qui colpisce l’attenzione e la precisione alle psicologie, alle motivazioni e alle sensazioni.
”Babylon Berlin” la bella serie Tv tedesca andata ambientata negli anni della Repubblica di Weimar.
Cinque capitoli lunghi, separati da quattro intermezzi brevi, nei quali si salta dal primo Novecento alla Repubblica di Weimar, dal Terrore staliniano all’orrore nazista, per approdare alla Berlino dopo la caduta del Muro, riunificata e post-sovietica.
Ci si sposta geograficamente, ma non di molto, l’humus culturale rimane racchiuso.
Ancora una volta Erpenbeck ripercorre la storia del Novecento con l’occhio puntato sull’essere ebreo nella sua terra, prima austro-ungarica, poi imperial-regia, poi germanica, e infine tedesca.
”Saul fia - Il figlio di Saul”, il capolavoro del 2015 del regista László Nemes premiato con L’oscar per il miglior film non in lingua inglese.
In maniera simile ma diversa all’operazione realizzata quattro anni prima col suo romanzo Di passaggio, dove lì il luogo restava lo stesso ed erano i personaggi a cambiare, mentre qui la stessa donna viene seguita nel suo percorso esistenziale, includendo la variabile sliding doors, cioè quel che sarebbe potuto loro succedere se, e sono le geografie a variare.
Immaginiamo di poter seguire dall’alto il percorso di una vita – un po’ come fanno gli angeli sopra Berlino nel film di Wenders – e guardiamo il numero di possibilità non realizzate che ogni esistenza si porta dietro. Immaginiamo che questo nostro sguardo dall’alto segua una donna attraverso il Novecento, da quando potrebbe abbandonare la vita ancora in culla, e però un energico intervento materno quella vita conserva e ristabilisce (ghiaccio a contatto della pelle all’altezza dei polmoni, e il respiro ricomincia): avremo davanti l’intelaiatura che Erpenbeck ci presenta, composta da cinque possibili vite, e da cinque esiti fatali, con protagonista la stessa donna.
Con lo stesso stile, ricorrendo a corsivi per riportare brani di sacre scritture, oppure filastrocche, o perfino estratti da Osservazioni sul terremoto in Stiria, con frequenti ripetizioni che non servono tanto a ribadire quanto a creare una musicalità di scrittura ritmica e percussiva, con sottile ironia e infinita empatia, inserendo dettagli e informazioni spiazzanti e imprevisti (per esempio, coordinate geografiche, oggetti che passano di man in mano, percorso di un capo d’abbigliamento che per povertà si trasforma da abito a berretto), il martellio della toponomastica, Erpenbeck realizza un romanzo che non si dimentica.
Come una e una sola causa possa avere migliaia di effetti diversi nei più diversi luoghi e contrade. È come se, di tutto ciò che vede e incontra, andasse sbriciolandosi all’improvviso lo strato che finora gli ha impedito di comprendere, e adesso riuscisse finalmente a scorgere ciò che sta sotto.
”Good Bye Lenin” di Wolfgang Becker, 2003.
May 1, 2019
Incredibly brilliant writing on, essentially, the interconnections between a series of alternate universes. I bought the book without knowing anything about it (except my affection for Erpenbeck), and I think I might have benefited from not knowing the concept (which has been spoiled all over Goodreads, but I won't address it here). This is structurally fascinating - 5 linked short novels that congeal into a whole that sums up a life better than a realist novel could. There are stylistic differences based on era that help set the books apart. My plea is to give it through part two - until then, it might feel a bit cliched, but she's building something wonderful here.
This complaint is nothing definitive, but I found myself drifting when I read it, particularly at the confusing beginning of part 3 (there's a reason it is written the way it is, but I think it's a misstep). Part 4 is the highlight of the book, and has an absolute sublime 3 pages (107-109 in my edition) that sing. This is a sad, sad, sad piece of fiction, so bear that in mind too. It's not really like anything else, which is its best quality.
This complaint is nothing definitive, but I found myself drifting when I read it, particularly at the confusing beginning of part 3 (there's a reason it is written the way it is, but I think it's a misstep). Part 4 is the highlight of the book, and has an absolute sublime 3 pages (107-109 in my edition) that sing. This is a sad, sad, sad piece of fiction, so bear that in mind too. It's not really like anything else, which is its best quality.
September 9, 2012
Already the title of Jenny Erpenbeck's new novel, ALLER TAGE ABEND (THE END OF ALL DAYS), gives me pause. It is an old fashioned phrase that goes back at least to Martin Luther. The story begins at the grave site of a baby girl, and, while the grandmother accepts this death without questioning the why?, the thoughts of the mother wander into all the possible future lives that the girl might have had... "One death is not the end of all days", first spoken by the grandmother, becomes the underlying theme that weaves through the book. The author builds her novel around the fundamental question:" what if..?" What coincidences, unforeseen encounters, personal actions or external events shape our lives, could have shaped the life of this one nameless little girl? From that first scene of mourning and grief, Erpenbeck spins an extraordinary and complex narrative in which she intertwines a personal, intimate family story of three generations with pertinent political events and historical changes taking place in the course of the twentieth century - from 1902 to 1992. Brilliant! Without hesitation - very rare for me - I can say that this is the most powerful and thought provoking book I have read this year if not longer.
In five "books", each linked to the next by an 'intermezzo', the author composes the novel like a musical arrangement - a symphony maybe - where each book has its own style and rhythm, yet picks up one or another elements from the previous only to develop it into another variation of the underlying theme "what if?..." The language can be stark or lyrical, the rhythm slow or fast. All depends on the pace of the story and images created. Nonetheless, each book contains its concrete setting in time and place. This could be Galicia, home of the Jewish grandmother, Vienna, Siberia, Berlin... Each locale has a role to play in the story's events as it does in the historical contexts. Each politically pertinent period is explored through the personal lens of the protagonists, a very effective way to bring difficult concepts to the fore, such as the Stasi system of neighbours spying on neighbours or the degrading "self-critique", common in the Soviet Union.
Like in her award winning novel VISITATION and other works, Erpenbeck is hesitant to give personal names to her characters. Their individuality, however, could not be more strongly presented. At the same time, by not giving her characters names they can be perceived also in a broader context of human behaviour. What if ..., for example, we were born under different circumstances in a different place how would our lives have evolved? How would we have behaved if confronted with the challenges the novel's characters have?
I am very reluctant to expand on the content of the novel in a review. As I said in the beginning it is one of the most engaging book I have read in quite some time. The intense pleasure of reading ALLER TAGE ABEND operates on different levels and also lies in the step by step discover of its composition and different story lines.
In five "books", each linked to the next by an 'intermezzo', the author composes the novel like a musical arrangement - a symphony maybe - where each book has its own style and rhythm, yet picks up one or another elements from the previous only to develop it into another variation of the underlying theme "what if?..." The language can be stark or lyrical, the rhythm slow or fast. All depends on the pace of the story and images created. Nonetheless, each book contains its concrete setting in time and place. This could be Galicia, home of the Jewish grandmother, Vienna, Siberia, Berlin... Each locale has a role to play in the story's events as it does in the historical contexts. Each politically pertinent period is explored through the personal lens of the protagonists, a very effective way to bring difficult concepts to the fore, such as the Stasi system of neighbours spying on neighbours or the degrading "self-critique", common in the Soviet Union.
Like in her award winning novel VISITATION and other works, Erpenbeck is hesitant to give personal names to her characters. Their individuality, however, could not be more strongly presented. At the same time, by not giving her characters names they can be perceived also in a broader context of human behaviour. What if ..., for example, we were born under different circumstances in a different place how would our lives have evolved? How would we have behaved if confronted with the challenges the novel's characters have?
I am very reluctant to expand on the content of the novel in a review. As I said in the beginning it is one of the most engaging book I have read in quite some time. The intense pleasure of reading ALLER TAGE ABEND operates on different levels and also lies in the step by step discover of its composition and different story lines.
August 28, 2015
I have read 50% of this book and I am no further on than when I had 1% read as this book is making absolutely no sense to me. When is the right time to give up on a book? I hate giving up on a novel but I am getting zero satisfaction from this story and frustration is starting to set in. So I think now is the time to part company with this one.
One of the difficulties for me is that neither the main character or her parents, sister, husband, grandparents and great-grandparents are given names (in the 50% that I read) I found this made the story or stories quite difficult to follow as was the 5 versions of the life and death of the protagonist. I was reading this on holiday and thought... AAAhhhhhhh enough is enough :-)
One of the difficulties for me is that neither the main character or her parents, sister, husband, grandparents and great-grandparents are given names (in the 50% that I read) I found this made the story or stories quite difficult to follow as was the 5 versions of the life and death of the protagonist. I was reading this on holiday and thought... AAAhhhhhhh enough is enough :-)
January 16, 2015
“The End Of Days” was published nearly the same time as Kate Atkinson’s “Life After Life” which is interesting that two authors had a similar idea at the same time. I favor “The End Of Days” in comparison of the two. Erpenbeck went deeper into the idea of: what if events were different, how would that affect a life? How would one person change based upon events. What part of our character is a result of events and what is inherent?
In this novel, Erpenbeck wrote five “books” or lives. It’s five different lives of one female protagonist given different circumstances. Erpenbeck uses Intermezzos between each life/book. In the Intermezzos, she introduces the events that caused the circumstances of the next book/life.
The first life begins in the early 1900’s in Eastern Europe. Erpenbeck uses her characters to tell the story of the remarkable political and historic changes that occurred in Eastern Europe between 1900 through the 1990’s. We, as readers, live through those painful times as an average, if not poor, common person. I found the first life to be most bleak. As you would assume, with each new life, circumstances follow a better track. Yet, Erpenbeck doesn’t allow her common person to fully arise above her common circumstances until the end. She shows how the common person is trapped by governmental circumstances that are beyond control of average citizens.
The most emotionally difficult life, in this reader’s opinion, involved communist Russia and Nazi Germany. It’s book/life III and it’s full of paranoia and fear. It’s a stressful life, as one would imagine.
It’s a short book but it’s filled with historical information. The book humanizes the impact of WWI, WWII, socialism and Nazism. It’s a fabulous novel that explores how the nature of political and social events can impact common folk.
In this novel, Erpenbeck wrote five “books” or lives. It’s five different lives of one female protagonist given different circumstances. Erpenbeck uses Intermezzos between each life/book. In the Intermezzos, she introduces the events that caused the circumstances of the next book/life.
The first life begins in the early 1900’s in Eastern Europe. Erpenbeck uses her characters to tell the story of the remarkable political and historic changes that occurred in Eastern Europe between 1900 through the 1990’s. We, as readers, live through those painful times as an average, if not poor, common person. I found the first life to be most bleak. As you would assume, with each new life, circumstances follow a better track. Yet, Erpenbeck doesn’t allow her common person to fully arise above her common circumstances until the end. She shows how the common person is trapped by governmental circumstances that are beyond control of average citizens.
The most emotionally difficult life, in this reader’s opinion, involved communist Russia and Nazi Germany. It’s book/life III and it’s full of paranoia and fear. It’s a stressful life, as one would imagine.
It’s a short book but it’s filled with historical information. The book humanizes the impact of WWI, WWII, socialism and Nazism. It’s a fabulous novel that explores how the nature of political and social events can impact common folk.
January 30, 2019
Breathtaking, vivid writing but it almost didn't feel like the writing belonged in a novel. It felt like it should have been music, instead. As I read I got the same feeling I get when I listen to Barber's Adagio for Strings. As with the Barber piece there are beautiful incantatory phrases that build to piercingly beautiful and very sad resolutions. But the resolutions are lyrical and thematic, rather than providing narrative closure. The language does not build to a resolution as a novel typically does. There is almost no sense of narrative momentum. So I'm not sure if I love this work as a novel, to be read silently. I'd love this story set to music, as a choral piece, maybe--words to be sung aloud in a holy place.
June 2, 2016
Death After Death
I read the first long section of this intricate novel in German as Aller Tage Abend over a year ago. It was about the time that Kate Atkinson's Life After Life was going to press, so there can be no accusation of plagiarism between the two authors, but the concepts are nonetheless very similar. Atkinson tells a forty-year story in which a setback in one chapter—an infant's death, say—is immediately followed by another in which that outcome is erased and replaced by an alternative version. Erpenbeck does much the same, only with fewer sections (five to Atkinson's fifty or more) and a longer time-span (virtually the whole of the last century), but I think with greater depth.
The novel begins with the death of an infant girl in Galicia. The death causes a rift between the father and mother. Although Christian, he has married a Jewess for financial reasons, but the mixed marriage hinders his promotion in the civil service and causes his wife to be disowned by her orthodox family. With the death of the child, the strongest bond between them, their family unit disintegrates. Their lives and hardships—poverty, persecution, emigration—might stand in for thousands of individuals fleeing Eastern Europe in the years before WW1; it is not insignificant that they, and everybody else in the book, are denied proper names, though they do come across as individuals.
But then follows an Intermezzo. In this, the child's grandmother tries an old folk remedy and the baby lives. Book II takes us to Vienna in 1919, but to more poverty, and eventually to another death. Another Intermezzo, another major section. This takes us to Russia, where the daughter, now a professional writer, is trying not to fall victim to Stalinist purges. And so it goes, through the fall of the Wall to the modern era. It is enormously to Erpenbeck's credit that she both stays true to her schema and varies it, so that while the pattern remains, it is never predictable. Deaths which might have been prevented by a simple "if only," are intermingled with the natural ones that come for us all, and which cannot be turned back. There is also a beautiful closing of the circle in the final chapters, created partly through the failing memories of the central character, and partly by the author's use of repetitions and other stylistic devices that shape the book as a vast arch. Erpenbeck is a writer of the greatest intelligence; she may lack the popular touch of Atkinson, but her vision is larger and her historical conscience more acute.
I believe I have now read all of Erpenbeck's fiction. It seems that she oscillates between two main styles. One is poetic—"incantatory" in the words of one of the critics cited on the cover—stepping back and viewing matters in the vast context of geography, history, or faith:
And so to Book V, the shortest of all, a small miracle. For here, Erpenbeck ties the waning century to the wandering mind of a very real old woman in a Berlin retirement home. "The day room is full of stories not being told." Not told in words, perhaps. But then the author embarks on a stunning coda, recapitulating the tragedy of the century in terms of objects: a patched valise, a gilt carriage clock, and a leather-bound set of Goethe. I can't say why, but their fate moved me at least as much as the many deaths of her central character. Whatever happens to this novel in its middle section, its opening and closing are the fruits of genius.
P.S. I have learned from a friend that the life of the protagonist here (shorn of the various possible earlier deaths that were later rescinded) has much in common with that of the author's grandmother. If so, this puts a different complexion on the book. It makes the lack of names, for example, poignant rather than distancing. It explains the long Soviet nightmare in the middle. And it enhances the special qualities of the final section, making them even more moving, as a posthumous personal tribute.
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*
Here is the original German of the first passage quoted above:
I read the first long section of this intricate novel in German as Aller Tage Abend over a year ago. It was about the time that Kate Atkinson's Life After Life was going to press, so there can be no accusation of plagiarism between the two authors, but the concepts are nonetheless very similar. Atkinson tells a forty-year story in which a setback in one chapter—an infant's death, say—is immediately followed by another in which that outcome is erased and replaced by an alternative version. Erpenbeck does much the same, only with fewer sections (five to Atkinson's fifty or more) and a longer time-span (virtually the whole of the last century), but I think with greater depth.
The novel begins with the death of an infant girl in Galicia. The death causes a rift between the father and mother. Although Christian, he has married a Jewess for financial reasons, but the mixed marriage hinders his promotion in the civil service and causes his wife to be disowned by her orthodox family. With the death of the child, the strongest bond between them, their family unit disintegrates. Their lives and hardships—poverty, persecution, emigration—might stand in for thousands of individuals fleeing Eastern Europe in the years before WW1; it is not insignificant that they, and everybody else in the book, are denied proper names, though they do come across as individuals.
But then follows an Intermezzo. In this, the child's grandmother tries an old folk remedy and the baby lives. Book II takes us to Vienna in 1919, but to more poverty, and eventually to another death. Another Intermezzo, another major section. This takes us to Russia, where the daughter, now a professional writer, is trying not to fall victim to Stalinist purges. And so it goes, through the fall of the Wall to the modern era. It is enormously to Erpenbeck's credit that she both stays true to her schema and varies it, so that while the pattern remains, it is never predictable. Deaths which might have been prevented by a simple "if only," are intermingled with the natural ones that come for us all, and which cannot be turned back. There is also a beautiful closing of the circle in the final chapters, created partly through the failing memories of the central character, and partly by the author's use of repetitions and other stylistic devices that shape the book as a vast arch. Erpenbeck is a writer of the greatest intelligence; she may lack the popular touch of Atkinson, but her vision is larger and her historical conscience more acute.
I believe I have now read all of Erpenbeck's fiction. It seems that she oscillates between two main styles. One is poetic—"incantatory" in the words of one of the critics cited on the cover—stepping back and viewing matters in the vast context of geography, history, or faith:
"Whoso findeth," his friend congratulated him at his wedding fifty-two years before, and this finding continues today—find: the wisdom in the Torah, a good wife, a peaceful life, down to the last shovelful of earth on the coffin; find: a death easy as a kiss, "like the kiss with which the Lord awoke Adam to life," he blew breath into his nose, and one day, if you're lucky, he'll gently, lightly kiss it away again.Sure, she could have said this more simply, but the intricacy of its fragmentation and repetitions are the essence of what might be called Erpenbeck's high style. It is even more resonant in the German;* the main reason why I abandoned my first reading is that I was aware of so many other layers of reference beneath the surface that I feared I was missing. So kudos to translator Susan Bernofsky for retaining so much of the poetry, and not trying to turn everything into prose. Not that Erpenbeck's "prose" level is to be sneezed at either. She has a way of writing with devastating simplicity, as in the following, a complete chapter, set as a kind of epilogue to Book II:
In 1944 in a small forest of birch trees, a notebook filled with handwritten diary entries will fall to the ground when a sentry uses his rifle butt to push a young woman to the ground, and she tries to protect herself with arms she had previously been using to clutch the notebook to her chest. The book will fall in the mud, and the woman will not be able to return to pick it up again. For a while the book will remain lying there, wind and rain will turn its pages, footsteps will pass over it, until all the secrets written there are the same color as the mud.Much of the success of Erpenbeck's breakout novel Visitation came from the balance of these two styles: the poetic invocation of a Brandenburg lake over decades, centuries, and aeons, and the simple account of the brief lives led in a house on its shores. The End of Days attempts much the same thing; it is also an account of an entire century of German history, told through sharply characterized vignettes. So is this latest novel as good as its predecessor? I would have to say not quite. While it mesmerized me with its poetic vision and infolded layers of narrative, I missed the balance of the earlier book; I was intrigued, but seldom devastated. In particular, the lethal absurdity of Soviet bureaucracy which constitutes the whole of Book III first confused and then annoyed me, as communist dialectic tends to do. I was glad to return to a saner world in Book IV.
And so to Book V, the shortest of all, a small miracle. For here, Erpenbeck ties the waning century to the wandering mind of a very real old woman in a Berlin retirement home. "The day room is full of stories not being told." Not told in words, perhaps. But then the author embarks on a stunning coda, recapitulating the tragedy of the century in terms of objects: a patched valise, a gilt carriage clock, and a leather-bound set of Goethe. I can't say why, but their fate moved me at least as much as the many deaths of her central character. Whatever happens to this novel in its middle section, its opening and closing are the fruits of genius.
P.S. I have learned from a friend that the life of the protagonist here (shorn of the various possible earlier deaths that were later rescinded) has much in common with that of the author's grandmother. If so, this puts a different complexion on the book. It makes the lack of names, for example, poignant rather than distancing. It explains the long Soviet nightmare in the middle. And it enhances the special qualities of the final section, making them even more moving, as a posthumous personal tribute.
======
*
Here is the original German of the first passage quoted above:
Finden und finden," hat ihm sein Freund bei der Hochzeit gewünscht, zweiundsiebzig Jahre zuvor, und so dauert das Finden bis heute an, finden, die Weisheit in der Tora, finden, eine gute Frau, finden, ein friedliches Leben bis zur letzten Schaufel Erde, die auf den Leichnam geworfen wird, finden, einen Tod, der leicht ist wie ein Kuss, "wie der Kuss, mit den der Herr Adam zum Leben erweckt hat," Atem hat er ihm durch die Nase geblasen, und küsst den Atem, wenn man Glück hat, eines Tages sanft und leicht wieder fort.The repetitions of the words finden, Kuss, and Atem show Erpenbeck's poetic bent better than anything else. Also the easy flowing of one idea into another, almost regardless of syntax, with nothing stronger than a comma. Looking at this again, I can't help feeling that Susan Bernofsky may have overpunctuated her translation, trying to give logical structure to something that is merely intended as a free sequence of thoughts. Perhaps something like the following?
Find and find, his friend wished him at his wedding, seventy-two years earlier, and the finding continues to this day, find, wisdom in the Torah, find, a good wife, find, a peaceful life until the last shovelful of earth is tossed on the corpse, find, a death as easy as a kiss, the breath with which the Lord waked Adam to life, the breath that he blew into his nostrils, and the breath that, if one is lucky, he will one day kiss softly and gently away. [translation mine]
September 30, 2012
A child dies. But this is not the end, no, the beginning. What if she hadn't died? What if her life went on and she died in the despair of unrequited love, or in a senseless pogrom of 'Trotskyite' elements, or celebrated, at the height of literary fame, or in obscurity, forgotten and alone in an old people's home? What does it take to survive the twentieth century? To be tossed on the waves of two wars, the Spanish flu, economic collapse, totalitarian regimes, the fall of communism, and yet keep bobbing up to the surface? How do you cheat death, waiting just outside the window? A lump of snow, a patch of ice, different clothes, a party functionary who remembers your apple strudel, the right foot instead of the left on the stairs.... Life as contingent, death as a freak, the step between the two worlds no more than a breath. Unless you are the old (great) grandfather, for whom dying is like crossing a vast room whose far side is not visible.
This is a boldly conceived story, and magnificently executed. Jenny Erpenbeck's sixth book is about the contingency of life, and mid Europe from 1902 to 1992. That might sound a little hard to take, great unpalatable lumps of philosophy and history, but although she offers us here five possible biographies, she never lets her gaze wander from the human individual, the human cost, the human pain. Her tone is quiet, fatalistic, melancholy; the five sections vary in pace and perspective.
Erpenbeck seems to have a marked distaste for handing out names, the child in The Old Child and Other Stories never has one at all, and most of the people in Visitation are referred to in their role, the gardener, the architect, the architect's wife. Here, the women are mother, grandmother. That works fine as long as there are no more than three generations. Here, there are four. Tiny quibble. It keeps you on your toes.
This is a boldly conceived story, and magnificently executed. Jenny Erpenbeck's sixth book is about the contingency of life, and mid Europe from 1902 to 1992. That might sound a little hard to take, great unpalatable lumps of philosophy and history, but although she offers us here five possible biographies, she never lets her gaze wander from the human individual, the human cost, the human pain. Her tone is quiet, fatalistic, melancholy; the five sections vary in pace and perspective.
Erpenbeck seems to have a marked distaste for handing out names, the child in The Old Child and Other Stories never has one at all, and most of the people in Visitation are referred to in their role, the gardener, the architect, the architect's wife. Here, the women are mother, grandmother. That works fine as long as there are no more than three generations. Here, there are four. Tiny quibble. It keeps you on your toes.
Read
December 27, 2024I was much more impressed by this than by Gehen, ging, gegangen, and the two are so different in technique and voice that I can only look forward to going backwards and reading Erpenbeck's even earlier books, before daydreaming about what strange new beast she might publish next.
On the other hand both books share a degree of melancholy. Gehen, ging, gegangen opens with a powerful intimation of death, here each of the five books that the volume is divided into is built around a death (there is also an intermetzo between each book). Perhaps it is a mild spoiler to say that each death is the death of the same person born in 1902 deep in the distant eastern fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
So when I finished I thought of Durer's print Melancholia I, the five books here could be described as melancholia I,II, III, IV, and V even though death is not always melancholy and in literature especially it can feel a fitting point of closure for a character. In this case I was left wondering when it was best to die, the early deaths in this book are lives full of potential cut short, the later deaths by contrast might be over lived and have extended into realms of pain. So not altogether cheerful, but there is plenty of humour, the set up of repeated versions of the same life - rather like as though in a computer game in which you can learn to avoid being killed only to die at some later point, allows for intertextual jokes and references between the five books and four intermetzos, objects and references carry over, maybe playfully, perhaps poignantly. It's clever, always clever, though occasionally it felt too clever by half.
In three books a play is mentioned repeatedly, these were Iphigenia in Tauris, The Wild Duck, and Othello the only connection obvious to me between them and Erpenbeck's volume is the death of the woman. The Woman in most of her lives writes a novel called "Sisyphus" and part of my melancholy was the feeling that each of these lives was a sisyphian labour, a great boulder worked with difficulty up a slope only to roll down the other side, as these repeated attempts to play through a woman's life are attempts at living through the Twentieth century in central Europe, the volume as a whole could be read as a commentary on the difficulties of making it though that tumultuous and at times over exciting era.
However I have to temper this review by saying that now I can remember nothing about this novel, even reading reviews does not prompt any memories of it to pop up!
On the other hand both books share a degree of melancholy. Gehen, ging, gegangen opens with a powerful intimation of death, here each of the five books that the volume is divided into is built around a death (there is also an intermetzo between each book). Perhaps it is a mild spoiler to say that each death is the death of the same person born in 1902 deep in the distant eastern fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
So when I finished I thought of Durer's print Melancholia I, the five books here could be described as melancholia I,II, III, IV, and V even though death is not always melancholy and in literature especially it can feel a fitting point of closure for a character. In this case I was left wondering when it was best to die, the early deaths in this book are lives full of potential cut short, the later deaths by contrast might be over lived and have extended into realms of pain. So not altogether cheerful, but there is plenty of humour, the set up of repeated versions of the same life - rather like as though in a computer game in which you can learn to avoid being killed only to die at some later point, allows for intertextual jokes and references between the five books and four intermetzos, objects and references carry over, maybe playfully, perhaps poignantly. It's clever, always clever, though occasionally it felt too clever by half.
In three books a play is mentioned repeatedly, these were Iphigenia in Tauris, The Wild Duck, and Othello the only connection obvious to me between them and Erpenbeck's volume is the death of the woman. The Woman in most of her lives writes a novel called "Sisyphus" and part of my melancholy was the feeling that each of these lives was a sisyphian labour, a great boulder worked with difficulty up a slope only to roll down the other side, as these repeated attempts to play through a woman's life are attempts at living through the Twentieth century in central Europe, the volume as a whole could be read as a commentary on the difficulties of making it though that tumultuous and at times over exciting era.
However I have to temper this review by saying that now I can remember nothing about this novel, even reading reviews does not prompt any memories of it to pop up!
August 30, 2019
Ξεκινώ αποφαινόμενος. Και αυτό το βιβλίο φέρνει την "κατάρα" όσων (συνεχώς μειούμενων) έργων σύγχρονης λογοτεχνίας έχω διαβάσει: Αγωνιά! Να είναι σημαντικό, να είναι ιδιαίτερο, να αφήσει το στίγμα του, να ξεφύγει από την επίδραση, από τη σκιά των προγόνων (βαριά η κληρονομιά της γερμανικής λογοτεχνίας!)
Δεν υποστηρίζω πως η Erpenbeck ζει με τον… καημό αυτό - πιθανότατα εγώ κάνω προβολή προσωπικών μου σκέψεων και προθέσεων. Εντούτοις, κατά την ταπεινή μου άποψη, το αποτέλεσμα είναι σαφώς κατώτερο των σχετικά υψηλών προσδοκιών που είχα για το εν λόγω. Όχι για άλλους λόγους, αλλά επειδή εν όπλοις αδελφοί/αναγνώστες έχουν κατά καιρούς εκφέρει διθυραμβικές κριτικές και απόψεις για ��η συγγραφέα και το έργο της.
Το… "μικρό καλάθι" μου όμως γέμισε πολύ γρήγορα, αφήνοντάς μου μια αίσθηση κενού. Καίτοι οι αρκτικές σελίδες υπήρξαν εντυπωσιακές, με ένα πυκνό αφηγηματικό ύφος που στήριζε την ενδιαφέρουσα υπόθεση, παίζοντας με το θέμα της μνήμης, των ταυτοτήτων, του θανάτου και άλλων σημαντικών θεματικών που από μόνες τους προϊδεάζουν για κάτι εξόχως ενδιαφέρον…απλά έχασα το ενδιαφέρον μου.
Συν τω χρόνω, η αρχική θετική αίσθηση άρχισε να μουδιάζει, με αποτέλεσμα λίγο πριν από τη μέση να νιώθω πως κάναμε συνεχώς κύκλους, ε��ανερχόμενοι στα ίδια θέματα αλλά με όχι τόσο ενδιαφέροντα τρόπο. Σαν να χάθηκε η αρχική ορμή, η έμπνευση και να αντικαταστάθηκε από ικανοποιητική τεχνική (όχι άρτια), ανίκανη όμως να στηρίξει το οικοδόμημα, το οποίο έχοντας σαθρά θεμέλια, άρχισε να ραγίζει στην κορυφή του, συμπαρασύροντας το ενδιαφέρον μου για τους ήρωες και τη μοίρα τους.
Οδεύοντας προς το τέλος, η Erpenbeck εμφάνισε σημάδια κόπωσης, αδυνατώντας να ξεφύγει από τη στασιμότητα – παράδοξο, εντούτοις, καθότι το βιβλίο δεν είναι πολυσέλιδο, ώστε να δικαιολογήσει αυτού του είδους την αιώρηση που απέτρεπε μεν την πτώση στο ναδίρ των ατάλαντων, ταυτόχρονα όμως εμπόδιζε την άνοδο στη στρατόσφαιρα όπου οι μεγάλοι συγγραφείς κατοικούν.
Και εγώ, ο μοναχικός επιβαίνων (κάθε αναγνώστης είναι μοναχικός, μονήρης και μονομανής) του σκάφους αυτού, απλά ανέμενα μια ανέφελη πορεία ολοκλήρωσης δίχως περιττά κενά αέρος προτού τροχοδρομήσει το σκάφος με κυβερνήτη την Erpenbeck, για να κατέβω από το αεροσκάφος, γνωρίζοντας πως δεν πρόκειται να επιστρέψω ξανά, αποχαιρετώντας μια "λογοτεχνική πτήση" που τελικά αναβλήθηκε προτού καν ξεκινήσει.
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2019/08/...
Δεν υποστηρίζω πως η Erpenbeck ζει με τον… καημό αυτό - πιθανότατα εγώ κάνω προβολή προσωπικών μου σκέψεων και προθέσεων. Εντούτοις, κατά την ταπεινή μου άποψη, το αποτέλεσμα είναι σαφώς κατώτερο των σχετικά υψηλών προσδοκιών που είχα για το εν λόγω. Όχι για άλλους λόγους, αλλά επειδή εν όπλοις αδελφοί/αναγνώστες έχουν κατά καιρούς εκφέρει διθυραμβικές κριτικές και απόψεις για ��η συγγραφέα και το έργο της.
Το… "μικρό καλάθι" μου όμως γέμισε πολύ γρήγορα, αφήνοντάς μου μια αίσθηση κενού. Καίτοι οι αρκτικές σελίδες υπήρξαν εντυπωσιακές, με ένα πυκνό αφηγηματικό ύφος που στήριζε την ενδιαφέρουσα υπόθεση, παίζοντας με το θέμα της μνήμης, των ταυτοτήτων, του θανάτου και άλλων σημαντικών θεματικών που από μόνες τους προϊδεάζουν για κάτι εξόχως ενδιαφέρον…απλά έχασα το ενδιαφέρον μου.
Συν τω χρόνω, η αρχική θετική αίσθηση άρχισε να μουδιάζει, με αποτέλεσμα λίγο πριν από τη μέση να νιώθω πως κάναμε συνεχώς κύκλους, ε��ανερχόμενοι στα ίδια θέματα αλλά με όχι τόσο ενδιαφέροντα τρόπο. Σαν να χάθηκε η αρχική ορμή, η έμπνευση και να αντικαταστάθηκε από ικανοποιητική τεχνική (όχι άρτια), ανίκανη όμως να στηρίξει το οικοδόμημα, το οποίο έχοντας σαθρά θεμέλια, άρχισε να ραγίζει στην κορυφή του, συμπαρασύροντας το ενδιαφέρον μου για τους ήρωες και τη μοίρα τους.
Οδεύοντας προς το τέλος, η Erpenbeck εμφάνισε σημάδια κόπωσης, αδυνατώντας να ξεφύγει από τη στασιμότητα – παράδοξο, εντούτοις, καθότι το βιβλίο δεν είναι πολυσέλιδο, ώστε να δικαιολογήσει αυτού του είδους την αιώρηση που απέτρεπε μεν την πτώση στο ναδίρ των ατάλαντων, ταυτόχρονα όμως εμπόδιζε την άνοδο στη στρατόσφαιρα όπου οι μεγάλοι συγγραφείς κατοικούν.
Και εγώ, ο μοναχικός επιβαίνων (κάθε αναγνώστης είναι μοναχικός, μονήρης και μονομανής) του σκάφους αυτού, απλά ανέμενα μια ανέφελη πορεία ολοκλήρωσης δίχως περιττά κενά αέρος προτού τροχοδρομήσει το σκάφος με κυβερνήτη την Erpenbeck, για να κατέβω από το αεροσκάφος, γνωρίζοντας πως δεν πρόκειται να επιστρέψω ξανά, αποχαιρετώντας μια "λογοτεχνική πτήση" που τελικά αναβλήθηκε προτού καν ξεκινήσει.
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2019/08/...
September 7, 2021
‘Günün sonunda ölüm olsa da, bütün günlerin akşamı olmamıştır daha.’
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Hayatınızın gidişatının bambaşka olabileceğini kaç kez düşündünüz? Seçtiğiniz bölümü okumasaydınız, gelen teklifi geri çevirseydiniz, o gün eve erken gitseydiniz… Her şey değişir miydi?
Ölmeye çok yaklaştığınızda elinizi tutan biri sizi çekip kurtarsaydı örneğin? Her anınızı bir lütuf olarak mı görürdünüz?
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8 aylık bir bebeğin ölümüyle başlıyor üç kuşağın hikayesi. Biz bu kuşakların kadınlarıyla tanışıyoruz. Çektikleri açlıkları dinliyoruz, komşularının bile gün gelip düşman oluşlarına şaşırıyoruz. Okudukça bir bebeğin büyüyüp anne oluşuna da, o annenin torununa şefkatine de tanık oluyoruz.
Baştaki alıntıya dönüyoruz.
Ömürlerin sonu ölümle bitse de, nefes almaya devam edecekleri unutmuyoruz.
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Uzun zamandır biçim anlamıyla beni zorlayan bir eser okumuyordum. Kitabın parçalı ancak iç içe geçmiş yapısına alışmam uzun sürse de büyük bir ilgi ve sevgiyle tamamladım eseri. Jenny Erpenbeck Viyana’dan Moskova’ya oradan Berlin’e götürüyor okuru. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan İkinci Dünya Savaşı’na ve oradan da soğuk savaşın izlerine. Bunu yaparken beş bölüme bölüyor anlattıklarını, beş sona ve beş ‘kader anı’na.
Velhasıl tavsiye eder misin diye sorarsınız, kesinlikle derim. Kuşak hikayelerini, alternatif sonları, mekanlarda kaybolmayı seviyorsanız özellikle.
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Regaip Minareci çevirisi ve Utku Lomlu kapak tasarımıyla ~
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Hayatınızın gidişatının bambaşka olabileceğini kaç kez düşündünüz? Seçtiğiniz bölümü okumasaydınız, gelen teklifi geri çevirseydiniz, o gün eve erken gitseydiniz… Her şey değişir miydi?
Ölmeye çok yaklaştığınızda elinizi tutan biri sizi çekip kurtarsaydı örneğin? Her anınızı bir lütuf olarak mı görürdünüz?
.
8 aylık bir bebeğin ölümüyle başlıyor üç kuşağın hikayesi. Biz bu kuşakların kadınlarıyla tanışıyoruz. Çektikleri açlıkları dinliyoruz, komşularının bile gün gelip düşman oluşlarına şaşırıyoruz. Okudukça bir bebeğin büyüyüp anne oluşuna da, o annenin torununa şefkatine de tanık oluyoruz.
Baştaki alıntıya dönüyoruz.
Ömürlerin sonu ölümle bitse de, nefes almaya devam edecekleri unutmuyoruz.
.
Uzun zamandır biçim anlamıyla beni zorlayan bir eser okumuyordum. Kitabın parçalı ancak iç içe geçmiş yapısına alışmam uzun sürse de büyük bir ilgi ve sevgiyle tamamladım eseri. Jenny Erpenbeck Viyana’dan Moskova’ya oradan Berlin’e götürüyor okuru. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan İkinci Dünya Savaşı’na ve oradan da soğuk savaşın izlerine. Bunu yaparken beş bölüme bölüyor anlattıklarını, beş sona ve beş ‘kader anı’na.
Velhasıl tavsiye eder misin diye sorarsınız, kesinlikle derim. Kuşak hikayelerini, alternatif sonları, mekanlarda kaybolmayı seviyorsanız özellikle.
.
Regaip Minareci çevirisi ve Utku Lomlu kapak tasarımıyla ~
May 27, 2018
Μετά από την ανάγνωση ενός τόσο σπουδαίου βιβλίου τι μπορείς να γράψεις ; Είμαι μια αναγνώστρια που πραγματικά δεν ξέρει τι θα μπορούσε να γραψεί για τη συγγραφέα που της έκλεψε την καρδια. Μετά τον Κρασναχορκάι (Πόλεμος και Πόλεμος) και τον Καμπρέ (Confiteor), η θεατρική και ποιητική φωνή της Τζέννυ Έρπενμπεκ ήρθε να συνταάρξει την υπαρξιακό και ιστορικο-κοινωνικο-σε προσωπικο επιπεδο τουλαχιστον. Η Συντέλεια του Κόσμου δεν ειναι ευκολο βιβλιο, ωστοσο κυλαει σαν ενα ρυακι με καθαρο νερο, αφου δινει την δυνατοτητα στον αναγνώστη να δινει καθαρα την αληθεια για την Ιστορια, τις κοινωνικές δομές και ρίζες του. Η αλήθεια ποτε δεν είναι ευχάριστη, ειδικά οταν έχουμε να κάνουμε με ιστορικά γεγονότα που σημάδεψαν την ιστορια της Ευρώπης τον 20ο αιώνα. Οι λέξεις, ο ρυθμός, ο χρόνος, ακόμη και η σύνταξη είναι σαν ποιήμα..Ένα ποιημα που γράφει κάποιος στον εαυτό του θελοντας να του θυμίσει την ταυτότητα, τις ρίζες του και τον ιστορικό χρόνο στον οποίο έζησε...Οι λέξεις κοβουν, οι εικόνες τρομάζουν, τα κειμήλια δεν αφήνουν περιθόρια. Η κόρη γεννιεται, πεθαινει, γεννιεται, πεθαινει, γεννιεται, πεθαινει, γεννιεται..και τελικα κλεινει τον κυκλο της μεσα στο χαος των αναμνησεων της μεσα σε ενα γηροκομειο. Δεν ξέρω πόσες φορες έκλαψα καθε φορα που διαβαζα το βιβλιο, δεν ξερω εαν εχουν αξια τα δακρυα, εκεινο που εχει σημασια ειναι οτι η Τζεννυ ηταν διπλα μου στην αναγνωση...Σταθερά και με μεγαλή αγαπη και σεβασμο προς τον αναγνώστη της. Η αποδοχή του ποιος εισαι και που πηγαινεις ειναι κατι πολυ δυσκολο και ίσως δεν εξηγείται ευκολα. Το υποσυνείδητο και η αναγκη επιβιωσης πολλες φορες ειναι σε συγκρουση και η αποδοχη ειναι αυτη που θα τυραννάει την ανθρώπινη υπαρξη. Τελος, θελω να πω ενα μεγαλο μπραβο στον μεταφραστη Αλεξανδρο Κυπριώτη που πραγματικά έδωσε εναν αγώνα για αυτη τη μετάφραση και τον οποιο περιγράφει με γλαφυρότητα στο επιμετρο. Περιμενω με αγωνια να διαβάσω και το νεο βιβλιο της Τζεννυ και ας μην κερδισε το Man Booker 2018.
May 8, 2020
Αποχαιρετισμούς θυμάμαι. Πόσο αδυνατισμένος κι άσπρος φαινόταν ο Ρ. κάτω απ’ τα μαλλιά του, όταν του είπα τα λέμε την τελευταία φορά, κι εκείνος μου έκανε νόημα χωρίς να σηκώσει το κεφάλι του απ’ το μαξιλάρι, κλείνοντας, μόνο, για λίγο τα μάτια· που δεν ξαναπήγα στο κρεβάτι του, αλλά έκλεισα απλώς την πόρτα πίσω μου. Την επόμενη μέρα έμελλε να παραλάβω τα πράγματά του απ’ το νοσοκομείο, μεταξύ άλλων την ξυριστική μηχανή που την προηγούμενη μέρα την είχα φορτίσει για ’κείνον. Η ξυριστική μηχανή ήταν φορτισμένη, αλλά ο Ρ. ήταν νεκρός.
Η γιαγιά μου στεκόταν όρθια, όταν έφευγα από ’κείνη, σ’ ένα παράθυρο μέσα σ’ ένα σκοτεινό δωμάτιο και με χαιρετούσε, το περίγραμμά της φωτιζόταν μόνο από το φως που έκαιγε πίσω της στο χωλ, όπου λίγο πριν είχαμε αποχαιρετιστεί. Δυο μέρες μετά έπεσε, κι εγώ την ξαναείδα με το πρόσωπο ανέκφραστο και κλειστά τα μάτια στο νοσοκομείο, όπου ήταν σε κώμα και λίγο καιρό μετά πέθανε.
Θυμάμαι πώς μου έκανε νόημα ο Ρ., αφού είχε εξετάσει κάτι, ένα αυτοκίνητο, ένα καινούργιο διαμέρισμα, πώς λαχάνιαζε κι εκείνος όταν παίζανε τσιγγάνικη μουσική σ’ ένα ουγγαρέζικο μαγαζί, θυμάμαι τους σηκωμένους ώμους του όταν γύριζε έναν δίσκο στην κουζίνα. Από τη γιαγιά μου έχω συγκρατήσει μέχρι τώρα πώς έλεγε «όχου, όχου» όταν βιαζότανε και δεν ήξερε τι να πρωτοκάνει, θυμάμαι τα χέρια της με τα στραβά νύχια και το γέλιο της. Απ’ το γέλιο της πάντως δεν έχω συγκρατήσει ακριβώς αν το στόμα της ήταν ανοιχτό ή κλειστό, αλλά έχω συγκρατήσει τουλάχιστον πώς ακουγότανε και πώς έσβηνε σιγά σιγά το γέλιο μέσα στο γέλιο από μόνο του.
Λίγα είναι αυτά που μπορώ να πιάσω, να δω και ν’ ακούσω με την ανάμνησή μου. Οι σκέψεις κάποιου που δεν υπάρχει πια μεταφράζονται μες στις δικές μου σκέψεις, και οι πράξεις εκείνου μες στις δικές μου πράξεις, αλλά το χειροπιαστό μέρος των αναμνήσεων αργά ή γρήγορα γίνεται από μόνο του αποσπασματικό, όταν η πραγματικότητα δεν μεγαλώνει πια, γίνεται σκελετός, γίνεται μεμονωμένα κόκκαλα με πολύ χώμα ανάμεσά τους. Τον τελευταίο καιρό κάθομαι συχνά απέναντι από κάποιον, και παρ’ όλ’ αυτά τον κοιτάζω σαν να έχει ήδη εξαφανιστεί. Αρχίζω τότε να ξεδιαλέγω, λίγο ελπίζοντας, λίγο όλο ντροπή, τις σκηνές από την ταινία που δεν έχει τελειώσει ακόμα, λες και θα μπορούσα εκ των προτέρων να μάθω απ’ έξω τις αναμνήσεις μου, για να μπορώ μετέπειτα να τις ανακαλώ με σιγουριά. Και όσον αφορά κι εμένα την ίδια, έχω ήδη σκεφτεί αν θα μείνει στη μνήμη κάποιου το σκούπισμα της μύτης μου, ή ο τρόπος με τον οποίο βλέπω στην τηλεόραση έναν αγώνα πυγμαχίας, ή τα γόνατά μου.
Η γιαγιά μου στεκόταν όρθια, όταν έφευγα από ’κείνη, σ’ ένα παράθυρο μέσα σ’ ένα σκοτεινό δωμάτιο και με χαιρετούσε, το περίγραμμά της φωτιζόταν μόνο από το φως που έκαιγε πίσω της στο χωλ, όπου λίγο πριν είχαμε αποχαιρετιστεί. Δυο μέρες μετά έπεσε, κι εγώ την ξαναείδα με το πρόσωπο ανέκφραστο και κλειστά τα μάτια στο νοσοκομείο, όπου ήταν σε κώμα και λίγο καιρό μετά πέθανε.
Θυμάμαι πώς μου έκανε νόημα ο Ρ., αφού είχε εξετάσει κάτι, ένα αυτοκίνητο, ένα καινούργιο διαμέρισμα, πώς λαχάνιαζε κι εκείνος όταν παίζανε τσιγγάνικη μουσική σ’ ένα ουγγαρέζικο μαγαζί, θυμάμαι τους σηκωμένους ώμους του όταν γύριζε έναν δίσκο στην κουζίνα. Από τη γιαγιά μου έχω συγκρατήσει μέχρι τώρα πώς έλεγε «όχου, όχου» όταν βιαζότανε και δεν ήξερε τι να πρωτοκάνει, θυμάμαι τα χέρια της με τα στραβά νύχια και το γέλιο της. Απ’ το γέλιο της πάντως δεν έχω συγκρατήσει ακριβώς αν το στόμα της ήταν ανοιχτό ή κλειστό, αλλά έχω συγκρατήσει τουλάχιστον πώς ακουγότανε και πώς έσβηνε σιγά σιγά το γέλιο μέσα στο γέλιο από μόνο του.
Λίγα είναι αυτά που μπορώ να πιάσω, να δω και ν’ ακούσω με την ανάμνησή μου. Οι σκέψεις κάποιου που δεν υπάρχει πια μεταφράζονται μες στις δικές μου σκέψεις, και οι πράξεις εκείνου μες στις δικές μου πράξεις, αλλά το χειροπιαστό μέρος των αναμνήσεων αργά ή γρήγορα γίνεται από μόνο του αποσπασματικό, όταν η πραγματικότητα δεν μεγαλώνει πια, γίνεται σκελετός, γίνεται μεμονωμένα κόκκαλα με πολύ χώμα ανάμεσά τους. Τον τελευταίο καιρό κάθομαι συχνά απέναντι από κάποιον, και παρ’ όλ’ αυτά τον κοιτάζω σαν να έχει ήδη εξαφανιστεί. Αρχίζω τότε να ξεδιαλέγω, λίγο ελπίζοντας, λίγο όλο ντροπή, τις σκηνές από την ταινία που δεν έχει τελειώσει ακόμα, λες και θα μπορούσα εκ των προτέρων να μάθω απ’ έξω τις αναμνήσεις μου, για να μπορώ μετέπειτα να τις ανακαλώ με σιγουριά. Και όσον αφορά κι εμένα την ίδια, έχω ήδη σκεφτεί αν θα μείνει στη μνήμη κάποιου το σκούπισμα της μύτης μου, ή ο τρόπος με τον οποίο βλέπω στην τηλεόραση έναν αγώνα πυγμαχίας, ή τα γόνατά μου.
July 4, 2016
The first two sections of this novel took my breath away. I slowed my pace down to a close-reading level, absorbing the resonances between the first two possible lives of this girl-child and entertaining the possibilities in subtle shifts that might change a life. I immediately found it more profound than Kate Atkinson's Life After Life which starts at a galloping pace (and a very different style). An infant who suffers a crib-death finds herself with suicidal ideations in another life: "Does he know what a burden she is finding life, which from inside always looked to her like a sphere with perfectly smooth, black walls, and you keep running and running and there isn't even a shabby little door to let you out?"
I cleared my Sunday evening, it was just me and the cat - to read the second half, the three sequential possible lives of the character that take up near where the previous ended. The: what might have happened if this was different?, or if one tiny change was made? I felt challenged as a reader to enter the later lives as deeply as I had the early lives - I was still absorbing the impact of the first 100 pages. I wished for the Books to be longer, so that I could spend more time with her in each new setting.
In Book III the character turns to Communism and this section was more distancing and elliptical, fragmented, cold. I realize that the style was a reflection of the rhetoric of the comrades, so it was deliberate. In Book IV our character's son is a central figure, recounting his and his mother's life, simultaneously with her death as she falls down the stairs (if only she'd stepped differently, if only, if only). By Book V she is an old woman. I had some trouble fully imagining her in a retirement home. These are minor complaints and probably my failure as a reader and not legitimate problems with the book. The return of the Goethe volumes and the resonances from all the possible lives moved me.
I had been listening to the audio of Moorehead's tragic Holocaust history A Train in Winter in the days leading up to reading this, and the horrors of death camps and the human struggle against meaningless evil were informing my reading of Erpenbeck. The twentieth century itself - the century of thanatos - and Germany, are backdrops, essential influences, and I felt invited to apply the "If only" questions to the great wars and deaths of the century.
I cleared my Sunday evening, it was just me and the cat - to read the second half, the three sequential possible lives of the character that take up near where the previous ended. The: what might have happened if this was different?, or if one tiny change was made? I felt challenged as a reader to enter the later lives as deeply as I had the early lives - I was still absorbing the impact of the first 100 pages. I wished for the Books to be longer, so that I could spend more time with her in each new setting.
In Book III the character turns to Communism and this section was more distancing and elliptical, fragmented, cold. I realize that the style was a reflection of the rhetoric of the comrades, so it was deliberate. In Book IV our character's son is a central figure, recounting his and his mother's life, simultaneously with her death as she falls down the stairs (if only she'd stepped differently, if only, if only). By Book V she is an old woman. I had some trouble fully imagining her in a retirement home. These are minor complaints and probably my failure as a reader and not legitimate problems with the book. The return of the Goethe volumes and the resonances from all the possible lives moved me.
I had been listening to the audio of Moorehead's tragic Holocaust history A Train in Winter in the days leading up to reading this, and the horrors of death camps and the human struggle against meaningless evil were informing my reading of Erpenbeck. The twentieth century itself - the century of thanatos - and Germany, are backdrops, essential influences, and I felt invited to apply the "If only" questions to the great wars and deaths of the century.
August 19, 2019
Ruminating (over) life
Reading the German author Jenny Erpenbeck always is quite a challenge. In this novel too, you are constantly puzzling: who is talking here, what is it about, how does this chapter relate to the others, etc…? Endless questions that may not even be relevant.
What keeps recurring is the theme of the leanness of life: a child’s life that is broken in the bud by cot death, a girl who suddenly commits suicide together with a boy, an activist woman who is constantly on her guard against the betrayal of Communist friends, a celebrated East-German writer who’s reputation is annulled when the Wall fell, a demented 90-year-old woman who dies in a desolate retirement home. You cannot call this uplifting reading, and with a German title as "Aller tage Abend" (“always evening”) that was predictable. In every episode, death has the final word, as it should be, or shouldn’t it?
The interlude pieces suggest that Erpenbeck always sketches an episode of the life of a woman in very different contexts, a woman who could in fact always be the same person, resurrected in a different time, in a different context, given some kind of coincidence. One of the intermezzos is a long staccato of "what if ..."-sentences, and this makes you conclude that with a small change ("a handful of snow") lifes can take a completely different turn and can be revived endlessly. But you are not going to hear me say that this is the "message" that Erpenbeck has put into this novel, she is intelligent enough to leave that to the reader.
Just like in "Heimsuchung" (Visitation), the very dramatic German history of the 20th century forms the background for this novel, and of course this volatility lends itself perfectly to the very changeable situations she describes. Once again this is done in a very ingenious way, with intertwined stories that ultimately refer to each other. And again regularly there are appealing poetic passages. But I personally found that first novel (Visitation) to be more homogeneous and successful in this regard. In any case, Erpenbeck definitely is a writer for ruminants.
Reading the German author Jenny Erpenbeck always is quite a challenge. In this novel too, you are constantly puzzling: who is talking here, what is it about, how does this chapter relate to the others, etc…? Endless questions that may not even be relevant.
What keeps recurring is the theme of the leanness of life: a child’s life that is broken in the bud by cot death, a girl who suddenly commits suicide together with a boy, an activist woman who is constantly on her guard against the betrayal of Communist friends, a celebrated East-German writer who’s reputation is annulled when the Wall fell, a demented 90-year-old woman who dies in a desolate retirement home. You cannot call this uplifting reading, and with a German title as "Aller tage Abend" (“always evening”) that was predictable. In every episode, death has the final word, as it should be, or shouldn’t it?
The interlude pieces suggest that Erpenbeck always sketches an episode of the life of a woman in very different contexts, a woman who could in fact always be the same person, resurrected in a different time, in a different context, given some kind of coincidence. One of the intermezzos is a long staccato of "what if ..."-sentences, and this makes you conclude that with a small change ("a handful of snow") lifes can take a completely different turn and can be revived endlessly. But you are not going to hear me say that this is the "message" that Erpenbeck has put into this novel, she is intelligent enough to leave that to the reader.
Just like in "Heimsuchung" (Visitation), the very dramatic German history of the 20th century forms the background for this novel, and of course this volatility lends itself perfectly to the very changeable situations she describes. Once again this is done in a very ingenious way, with intertwined stories that ultimately refer to each other. And again regularly there are appealing poetic passages. But I personally found that first novel (Visitation) to be more homogeneous and successful in this regard. In any case, Erpenbeck definitely is a writer for ruminants.
February 2, 2023
No question twentieth century Germany provides a wealth of material for a novelist and this is the subject of Jenny Erpenbeck's stunningly beautiful book. It's not easy to give a simple overview of this novel. We get three different versions of the same woman's life. The detail of each life depending on small spins of chance. The woman of Jewish ancestry lives through the aftermath of WW1, the rise of the Nazis and communist rule. I've now read two of her books and they have both been five star reads.
May 1, 2021
bir ailenin hem yaşanmış hem yaşanmamış ya da ne yaşanmış na yaşanmamış hikayelerini birinin bittiği yerden başlatıp araya intermezzo dediği bir giriş yaparak beş kitapta yazmış jenny erpenbeck. ilk 100 sayfada adapte olmakta zorlansam da sonlara doğru akıp gitti, ben de romanın yapısına yazarın o mesafeli anlatımına iyice alışmış oldum. öyle ki sonlarda tüm roman boyunca önemli leitmotifler, nesneler bitişe yaklaştığımızı hissettirircesine tek tek bir daha anılırken roman bir 5 kitap daha sürsün istedim. 5 kitap 5 ayrı hayat demekti çünkü, böyle de olabilirdi denen bir ihtimalle başlayıp olabildiğini gösterirdi.
1900'lerde yahudi büyük büyük annenin gençliğindeki korkunç olayla başlayıp nesiller atlaya atlaya 1990'ların sonuna ailenin dördüncü kuşağına geçiyor. 1 ve 2. dünya savaşları, sefalet, açlık, ölümler, komünizm, sscb, doğu almanya derken başa döngüsel bir yolculuk da yapıyoruz.
çocuk ölümünü de baba ölümünü de anne ölümünü de ve sonda yaşlılığı da müthiş anlatıyor erpenbeck. hem mesafeli bir anlatıcıyla hem incelik dolu. stalin döneminde baskıya maruz kalan 3. kuşağın diline yansıyan şaşkınlık, habire yazıp değiştirdiği özgeçmiş, baş harflerle anlatılan insanların olduğu III. kitap ayrı güzellikteydi.
regaip minareci yine ustalıkla çevirmiş ama çok tashih vardı sanki, bir yerden sonra dikkat etmeyi bıraktım.
1900'lerde yahudi büyük büyük annenin gençliğindeki korkunç olayla başlayıp nesiller atlaya atlaya 1990'ların sonuna ailenin dördüncü kuşağına geçiyor. 1 ve 2. dünya savaşları, sefalet, açlık, ölümler, komünizm, sscb, doğu almanya derken başa döngüsel bir yolculuk da yapıyoruz.
çocuk ölümünü de baba ölümünü de anne ölümünü de ve sonda yaşlılığı da müthiş anlatıyor erpenbeck. hem mesafeli bir anlatıcıyla hem incelik dolu. stalin döneminde baskıya maruz kalan 3. kuşağın diline yansıyan şaşkınlık, habire yazıp değiştirdiği özgeçmiş, baş harflerle anlatılan insanların olduğu III. kitap ayrı güzellikteydi.
regaip minareci yine ustalıkla çevirmiş ama çok tashih vardı sanki, bir yerden sonra dikkat etmeyi bıraktım.
June 12, 2021
Bu kitabın yorumlarına baktım, yeterince övülmediğini düşünüyorum; bence gerçekten çok çok iyi. Çok hüzünlü eski bir halk şarkısı dinler gibi hissettim kitabı okurken. Nasıl içli, nasıl güzel, nasıl poetik. Hayatın kırılma noktaları üzerinden alternatif gerçeklikler kurgulamış Erpenbeck. “O gün orada olmasaydım ne olurdu?” gibi hepimizin muhakkak üzerine düşündüğü bir soru üzerinden bir kadının hayatının beş farklı versiyonunu anlatıyor. 90 seneye yayılan kitapta Avrupa tarihinin en belirleyici dönemlerini görüyoruz, Avusturya-Macaristan imparatorluğunun çöküşü, savaşlar (“savaşa karşı savaşmalıyız”), devrimler. Beş küçük novella gibi yazılmış bu beş bölümün dili, anlattıkları döneme göre farklılaşıyor ve yazar bu işi çok iyi kıvırıyor. Kitapta kimsenin adı yok fakat karakterler öyle iyi çizilmiş ki, isimsizlik bir belirsizlik değil, aksine tuhaf bir evrensellik ve aşinalık yaratıyor. Gerçekten çok beğendim. Çağdaş Alman edebiyatını, kendisiyle haşır neşir oldukça daha çok seviyorum, bunu da not edeyim. “Günün sonunda ölüm olsa da, bütün günlerin akşamı olmamıştır daha.”
July 19, 2024
How profound can one life be? How many crossroads do we encounter in the journey of our lives? I know the risks of reading any translated work and often feel disconnected at the end of the story. And there are losses in this translation as well; the story is difficult enough without adding translational lapses. However, the underlying theme is crystal clear; the paths of our lives can change in an instant or in a decade, we are the result of one decision and many. The “ordinary” life traced by this story is no different. Whether the protagonist dies in infancy or lives to age 90, the web of her life is intertwined with many others and with her past selves. Thus, her story is our story and leaves much to ponder. Recommended.
March 13, 2017
There were moments of great beauty and poignancy in this book, but for some reason it just left me a bit cold - I never really felt a connection. The lack of character names didn't really work for me, I found it too baffling. Probably a case of it's not the book, it's me but still, I feel slightly relieved to have finished!!
March 13, 2022
Jenny Erpenbeck okumaya bu kitabı ile başlamayın.
3,5/4
3,5/4
July 10, 2017
This is a profoundly moving book, a poetic reflection on the fragility of life and the endurance of the human spirit which follows the life of a woman through the traumas and upheavals of twentieth century Europe, from Austria to East Berlin via Moscow. In each section of the book, alternative scenarios are explored in which small and apparently random events lead to her early death, and the story often moves focus between global events and deeply personal experiences.
April 16, 2021
"Bir insan yaşamında yaşama mal olabilecek böyle kaç cephe vardı acaba? Eğer ölmüyorsan onca savaşı kazanmak çok zahmetliydi."
Çıkış noktası çok güzel; Viyana, Moskova ve Berlin'de Hitler ve Soyvet dönemine, savaşa dair güçlü bir anlatım var aslında. Ama bir türlü içine giremedim.
Çıkış noktası çok güzel; Viyana, Moskova ve Berlin'de Hitler ve Soyvet dönemine, savaşa dair güçlü bir anlatım var aslında. Ama bir türlü içine giremedim.
June 21, 2020
I was very disappointed in this book. It started out as a possible 4- or-5-star book for me, and then it’s as if the writer a) grew tired of writing or b) was replaced by a Martian from outer space.
Initially to me the book was so good that, knowing I had to write a review, I took a time-out from reading after the first 116 pages and set about writing a synopsis of what had transpired in those pages. I never went back to finishing the synopsis because after that everything after that was written was either by the tired author or a Martian. 👽
The premise of the novel was very good: The novel was broken down into 5 Books and separating each of the Books was an “intermezzo” (an interval or break between the books). In Book I, a girl was born to two poor parents in the early 1900s of the Habsburg Empire. Well that girl at 8 months dies…cause of death was suffocation (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is what it would be called nowadays). It was tragic and it had its consequences as laid out in Book I. But then the first intermezzo presented an alternative to the girl dying….the girl actually lived due to an intervention on the part of the mother (can’t say what that is, or I’d have to add a spoiler alert).
So then Book II takes off where Book I ends but with the alternative presented in the intermezzo—the girl is not dead and lives on. And Book II is about what happens to the girl…well at the end of Book II she dies (all of this information is given on a page that precedes the title page so I’m not providing spoilers per se). Again, an intermezzo with an alternative to what happened in Book II regarding the girl and once again that alternative has her living. It was at this point I thought this was an extremely interesting technique the author was using but she was presenting a lot of information (i.e., lots of information in a story and then alternatives to the story) so I figured if I wanted to write a review of the novel I should start writing some of the stuff down (so as to give a coherent review).
Well then Book III started and it all went to hell in a handbasket. The girl, now a woman, was writing letters or manifestos or a confession….beats me…and it was in italics, but also in italics was somebody interrogating somebody else (names not given), and people were called Comrade followed by a capital letter (e.g., Comrade H., Comrade O). The stuff in non-italicized text in Book III was interspersed with italicized words or phrases and this was confusing too. Book III had something to do with the peri-World War I birth of Communism…I think it was in the Soviet Union but can’t be sure. Books III-V went eventually to Russia and then I think at novel’s end to East Berlin and then Berlin ~1989. Aye-yi-yi.
I have to say that if the novel had continued on for Books III-V with the same style of writing as in Books I and II with their intermezzos, I would be very enthusiastic about this novel.
Perhaps those people with a much better grounding in history regarding the birth of Communism will have a much better grasp of novel than I and can appreciate the novel as a whole more than I.
I have a suspicion I will be an outlier on my lack of enthusiasm for this book given the prizes it has won (prestigious 2014 Hans Fallada Prize, 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and the accolades I read on the inside front cover of the book.
Reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo... (Jim: a well-written review…it appears I should read her book “Visitation”)
https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-is...
Initially to me the book was so good that, knowing I had to write a review, I took a time-out from reading after the first 116 pages and set about writing a synopsis of what had transpired in those pages. I never went back to finishing the synopsis because after that everything after that was written was either by the tired author or a Martian. 👽
The premise of the novel was very good: The novel was broken down into 5 Books and separating each of the Books was an “intermezzo” (an interval or break between the books). In Book I, a girl was born to two poor parents in the early 1900s of the Habsburg Empire. Well that girl at 8 months dies…cause of death was suffocation (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is what it would be called nowadays). It was tragic and it had its consequences as laid out in Book I. But then the first intermezzo presented an alternative to the girl dying….the girl actually lived due to an intervention on the part of the mother (can’t say what that is, or I’d have to add a spoiler alert).
So then Book II takes off where Book I ends but with the alternative presented in the intermezzo—the girl is not dead and lives on. And Book II is about what happens to the girl…well at the end of Book II she dies (all of this information is given on a page that precedes the title page so I’m not providing spoilers per se). Again, an intermezzo with an alternative to what happened in Book II regarding the girl and once again that alternative has her living. It was at this point I thought this was an extremely interesting technique the author was using but she was presenting a lot of information (i.e., lots of information in a story and then alternatives to the story) so I figured if I wanted to write a review of the novel I should start writing some of the stuff down (so as to give a coherent review).
Well then Book III started and it all went to hell in a handbasket. The girl, now a woman, was writing letters or manifestos or a confession….beats me…and it was in italics, but also in italics was somebody interrogating somebody else (names not given), and people were called Comrade followed by a capital letter (e.g., Comrade H., Comrade O). The stuff in non-italicized text in Book III was interspersed with italicized words or phrases and this was confusing too. Book III had something to do with the peri-World War I birth of Communism…I think it was in the Soviet Union but can’t be sure. Books III-V went eventually to Russia and then I think at novel’s end to East Berlin and then Berlin ~1989. Aye-yi-yi.
I have to say that if the novel had continued on for Books III-V with the same style of writing as in Books I and II with their intermezzos, I would be very enthusiastic about this novel.
Perhaps those people with a much better grounding in history regarding the birth of Communism will have a much better grasp of novel than I and can appreciate the novel as a whole more than I.
I have a suspicion I will be an outlier on my lack of enthusiasm for this book given the prizes it has won (prestigious 2014 Hans Fallada Prize, 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and the accolades I read on the inside front cover of the book.
Reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo... (Jim: a well-written review…it appears I should read her book “Visitation”)
https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-is...
August 6, 2023
My first Jenny Erpenbeck novel certainly won’t be my last! This was excellent. In Book 1, an infant dies in her crib, and the ripples of her death irrevocably affect the lives of her family members - the young mother lost in her grief, the Jewish grandmother who thought she had assured her daughter’s future through marriage to a goy, the young father who makes a sudden decision that takes him far away. It was one of the most powerful and compelling starts to a book that I’ve read in a long time. And then, in the Intermezzo, the structure of the book reveals itself, as the narrative voice undoes the choices and chances that led to the baby’s death. She lives, and the novel moves forward. In each new book, she dies at a different point in twentieth century history, in a different life, and in each Intermezzo, the death is unravelled and undone.
The first two books/intermezzi were the most powerful to me, but I maintained my strong interest throughout, as we moved from early twentieth century Galicia through post-First World War Vienna to the Stalinist Soviet Union, the GDR, and today’s united Germany. 4.5.
“Is it a sign of cowardice if one leaves one’s life behind, or a sign of character if one has the strength to start anew?”
“The future is not lowering its prices, certainly not in times like these; but you can buy it only with the past. Lot’s wife, who was too weak to leave her homeland without a final glance, who turned back knowing that the place she would see was destined for destruction, was turned into a woman of salt. This daughter is smarter.”
“Instead of taking on Hitler jointly, Communists and Social Democrats jointly erred; on the basis of two carefully differentiated, but equally faulty, assessments of the situation, they apparently arrived at two carefully differentiated but equally faulty positions. The Social Democrats described the Communists as radicalinskis, as terrorists and subversives, while the Communists decried the Social Democrats as the murderers of the workers, the slaves of Big Capital and Social Fascists. Once labels of this sort were applied, an alliance was no longer possible. But did all these words matter?”
The first two books/intermezzi were the most powerful to me, but I maintained my strong interest throughout, as we moved from early twentieth century Galicia through post-First World War Vienna to the Stalinist Soviet Union, the GDR, and today’s united Germany. 4.5.
“Is it a sign of cowardice if one leaves one’s life behind, or a sign of character if one has the strength to start anew?”
“The future is not lowering its prices, certainly not in times like these; but you can buy it only with the past. Lot’s wife, who was too weak to leave her homeland without a final glance, who turned back knowing that the place she would see was destined for destruction, was turned into a woman of salt. This daughter is smarter.”
“Instead of taking on Hitler jointly, Communists and Social Democrats jointly erred; on the basis of two carefully differentiated, but equally faulty, assessments of the situation, they apparently arrived at two carefully differentiated but equally faulty positions. The Social Democrats described the Communists as radicalinskis, as terrorists and subversives, while the Communists decried the Social Democrats as the murderers of the workers, the slaves of Big Capital and Social Fascists. Once labels of this sort were applied, an alliance was no longer possible. But did all these words matter?”
March 21, 2018
Alman yazar Jenny Erpenbeck’in End of Days’i (başlık İncil’deki kıyamet kavramına bir gönderme), 20. yüzyıl Avrupa tarihinden bir ailenin/kadının dramı temelinde bir kesit.
Beş ana bölümden oluşan roman, 1902’de Avusurya-Macaristan imparatorluğunda taşrada yaşayan bir çiftin 8 aylık bebeğinin ölümüyle başlıyor. Ama kitap bu bebeğin alternatif hayat hikayesi. 1.Dünya Savaşı sonrasının zorlu yaşam koşullarında Viyana (babanın bu zorluklardan tek başına kaçarak göç ettiği ABD’ye gelişi kitabın en güçlü yerlerinden), Nazizimin yükseldiği 1930’lardaki Viyana ve Stalin terörünün estiği 1950’lerin Sovyetler Birliği ile devam ediyor, nihayet duvarın yıkıldığı Berlin’de tamamlanıyor. Batı edebiyatında, sinemasında hala sıklıkla dönülen Anti-Semitizm/Holokost teması da yedirilmiş kitaba. Tarihsel açıdan çok iddialı bir fon. Her bölümde, şayet ölmemiş olsa bebeğin, genç kızlıktan 90’lık bir yaşlı kadın oluşuna kadar, izleyebileceği hayat çizgisi anlatılıyor. Her bölümün sonunda ölen/öldürülen kahramanımız, bölümler arasına konulan kısa “intermezzo”larda verilen izahatla tekrar diriltiliyor. Bu tabii ilginç bir yöntem ama kitap ilerledikçe etkisini kaybediyor.
Esasen kitabın ilk iki bölümü çok iyi, ama yazar yakaladığı ivmeyi kalan bölümlerde sürdürememiş. Örneğin SSCB kısmını, ki çok ilgi çekici olması gerekirdi, neredeyse atlayarak okumak istedim. Özellikle bu bölümde, Erpenbeck’in karakterlerine isim vermeme saplantısı metni çok itici kılmış. Bu tercihi dilimize çevrilen tek kitabı olduğunu sandığım Gölün Sırrı’nda da (Helikopter) kullanmış Erpenbeck.
Aynı zamanda bir opera bestecisi ve yönetmeni olan yazarın, bu romanı da intermezzolar ve bölümler halinde bir müzikal parça olarak tasarladığı anlaşılıyor. Sonuç olarak bana gerek üslup gerek hikaye çizgisi bakımından biraz zorlama geldi.
Kahramanını sürekli öldürüp diriltmesi dışında bir ailenin değişen siyasi koşullardaki ve farklı tarihsel dönemlerdeki hikayesini anlatmasıyla (ayrıca bu kitap gibi özgün dili Almanca olmasıyla) benzettiğim Shida Bazyar’ın Geceleri Sessizdir Tahran bence End of Days’ten çok daha güçlü bir kitap.
Beş ana bölümden oluşan roman, 1902’de Avusurya-Macaristan imparatorluğunda taşrada yaşayan bir çiftin 8 aylık bebeğinin ölümüyle başlıyor. Ama kitap bu bebeğin alternatif hayat hikayesi. 1.Dünya Savaşı sonrasının zorlu yaşam koşullarında Viyana (babanın bu zorluklardan tek başına kaçarak göç ettiği ABD’ye gelişi kitabın en güçlü yerlerinden), Nazizimin yükseldiği 1930’lardaki Viyana ve Stalin terörünün estiği 1950’lerin Sovyetler Birliği ile devam ediyor, nihayet duvarın yıkıldığı Berlin’de tamamlanıyor. Batı edebiyatında, sinemasında hala sıklıkla dönülen Anti-Semitizm/Holokost teması da yedirilmiş kitaba. Tarihsel açıdan çok iddialı bir fon. Her bölümde, şayet ölmemiş olsa bebeğin, genç kızlıktan 90’lık bir yaşlı kadın oluşuna kadar, izleyebileceği hayat çizgisi anlatılıyor. Her bölümün sonunda ölen/öldürülen kahramanımız, bölümler arasına konulan kısa “intermezzo”larda verilen izahatla tekrar diriltiliyor. Bu tabii ilginç bir yöntem ama kitap ilerledikçe etkisini kaybediyor.
Esasen kitabın ilk iki bölümü çok iyi, ama yazar yakaladığı ivmeyi kalan bölümlerde sürdürememiş. Örneğin SSCB kısmını, ki çok ilgi çekici olması gerekirdi, neredeyse atlayarak okumak istedim. Özellikle bu bölümde, Erpenbeck’in karakterlerine isim vermeme saplantısı metni çok itici kılmış. Bu tercihi dilimize çevrilen tek kitabı olduğunu sandığım Gölün Sırrı’nda da (Helikopter) kullanmış Erpenbeck.
Aynı zamanda bir opera bestecisi ve yönetmeni olan yazarın, bu romanı da intermezzolar ve bölümler halinde bir müzikal parça olarak tasarladığı anlaşılıyor. Sonuç olarak bana gerek üslup gerek hikaye çizgisi bakımından biraz zorlama geldi.
Kahramanını sürekli öldürüp diriltmesi dışında bir ailenin değişen siyasi koşullardaki ve farklı tarihsel dönemlerdeki hikayesini anlatmasıyla (ayrıca bu kitap gibi özgün dili Almanca olmasıyla) benzettiğim Shida Bazyar’ın Geceleri Sessizdir Tahran bence End of Days’ten çok daha güçlü bir kitap.
January 20, 2015
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/1086662...
There is an old man back in my home town in Michigan, my place of birth, who sits alone in a chair in a rest home, no longer aware of who he is or what he is doing there, or anywhere. He no longer remembers what certain words mean nor what gadgets are meant to do, or even why tasks have to be performed. The only meaning left in his life are the brief moments of memory that come to him in a flash, but then mostly escape him. It seems his days are spent simply waiting for whatever it is, this life, to end.
But there are countless other ways his life, instead, could have meandered. And Jenny Erpenbeck relates a tale to us in five separate parts that show us how and perhaps what might have happened along the way to the woman she profiles who is afforded the chance to live and to die herself five distinct times.
It may be Erpenbeck’s honesty that is the tie that binds me to her work, her world, and thus, her thinking. Living in my America, a United States full of promise and deception, falsehood and pretension, it is comforting to feel someone is telling me the truth especially in a work of fiction. Jenny Erpenbeck may be the most gifted storyteller living in our midst these days. And by my lights there are not many.
She is obviously a sharp and clever woman, and certainly well-served by a Bernofsky translation. Such a powerful team, and one I am sure will be recognized in time for its several brilliant acts upon the page. There is no telling where a story will go with Erpenbeck at the helm, but it is guaranteed to be interesting and thoughtful to the core.
The first two books in this collection of a total of five interconnected pieces, and each leading to a longer life and different death for an unnamed woman protagonist, were what was predictably expected of Erpenbeck, her typically strong and piercingly good literature. But the third book, in the middle of it all, its focus being on comrades and fellow communists, her detainment and her acquaintances who either became traitors or executed because of their political or religious affiliations, was certainly boring and hard for me to to get a firm handle on. I kept waiting for the reason of my continued reading to reveal itself and to answer finally why I was still attempting to engage with this book when I rarely give another writer the same latitude with my precious time. But historically Erpenbeck has often delivered the goods for me and I expected she would find a way through all this sludge to again knock my socks off. I kept reasoning that this communist party preview was somehow preparing me for a better ending, even if it would ultimately be the protagonist’s own.
The cruelty and bitter truth behind the meaning of this life portrayed in The End of Days is that ultimately by the moment of our death none of it really matters. We have what we have when we have it, and then all is taken away from us. And the very cruelest of these awful days must begin with the ending of language. And though it took Erpenbeck far too long to get to where she was going, the fact remains that she tried. And that is all we can possibly do until we lose our understanding. For me, this Erpenbeck novel could just as easily been titled The End of Words. Compared to the strength and hardness of her previous collections, this book fails. And I must admit, that saddens me.
There is an old man back in my home town in Michigan, my place of birth, who sits alone in a chair in a rest home, no longer aware of who he is or what he is doing there, or anywhere. He no longer remembers what certain words mean nor what gadgets are meant to do, or even why tasks have to be performed. The only meaning left in his life are the brief moments of memory that come to him in a flash, but then mostly escape him. It seems his days are spent simply waiting for whatever it is, this life, to end.
But there are countless other ways his life, instead, could have meandered. And Jenny Erpenbeck relates a tale to us in five separate parts that show us how and perhaps what might have happened along the way to the woman she profiles who is afforded the chance to live and to die herself five distinct times.
It may be Erpenbeck’s honesty that is the tie that binds me to her work, her world, and thus, her thinking. Living in my America, a United States full of promise and deception, falsehood and pretension, it is comforting to feel someone is telling me the truth especially in a work of fiction. Jenny Erpenbeck may be the most gifted storyteller living in our midst these days. And by my lights there are not many.
She is obviously a sharp and clever woman, and certainly well-served by a Bernofsky translation. Such a powerful team, and one I am sure will be recognized in time for its several brilliant acts upon the page. There is no telling where a story will go with Erpenbeck at the helm, but it is guaranteed to be interesting and thoughtful to the core.
The first two books in this collection of a total of five interconnected pieces, and each leading to a longer life and different death for an unnamed woman protagonist, were what was predictably expected of Erpenbeck, her typically strong and piercingly good literature. But the third book, in the middle of it all, its focus being on comrades and fellow communists, her detainment and her acquaintances who either became traitors or executed because of their political or religious affiliations, was certainly boring and hard for me to to get a firm handle on. I kept waiting for the reason of my continued reading to reveal itself and to answer finally why I was still attempting to engage with this book when I rarely give another writer the same latitude with my precious time. But historically Erpenbeck has often delivered the goods for me and I expected she would find a way through all this sludge to again knock my socks off. I kept reasoning that this communist party preview was somehow preparing me for a better ending, even if it would ultimately be the protagonist’s own.
The cruelty and bitter truth behind the meaning of this life portrayed in The End of Days is that ultimately by the moment of our death none of it really matters. We have what we have when we have it, and then all is taken away from us. And the very cruelest of these awful days must begin with the ending of language. And though it took Erpenbeck far too long to get to where she was going, the fact remains that she tried. And that is all we can possibly do until we lose our understanding. For me, this Erpenbeck novel could just as easily been titled The End of Words. Compared to the strength and hardness of her previous collections, this book fails. And I must admit, that saddens me.
September 4, 2025
Probuđen mi je strah od prolaznosti i smrti za kakav nisam mislila da sam sposobna. Bespomoćnosti pred istorijom i geopolitikom sam bila svesna i ranije.
June 17, 2017
Wat een indringend gevoelig geschreven portret waarin het leven van een vrouw langzaam vorm krijgt. Of niet, want hangt niet elk leven af van de willekeur van het moment? Zo sterft ze, zo leeft ze.
Prachtig van taal en ritme, zo vloeiend dat het lijkt of het gezongen is…. Dan weer zacht en amper uitgesproken dan weer melodisch en vol harmonie en waar het leven raast weer hard en staccato.
Prachtig van taal en ritme, zo vloeiend dat het lijkt of het gezongen is…. Dan weer zacht en amper uitgesproken dan weer melodisch en vol harmonie en waar het leven raast weer hard en staccato.
June 8, 2018
“Life After Life” style book – examining the various lives of one women – each section finishes with her death, with then an intermezzo imagining how she might have lived rather than died and filling in some more detail. The first section assumes that she dies as a baby in Galacia (on the fringes of the Austro Hungarian Empire in the 1900s) and follows the fortunes of her Jewish mother and Catholic railway official father as they split after her death; the last is about her “final” death, suffering with dementia in an old people home and about her son searching for memories of her in Vienna. In the intermediate stages she grows up in starvation struck, immediate post war Vienna and ends up in a suicide pact; enters Russia as a Communist activist and emigrant from Austria, but then is caught up in Stalinist purges; is mourned by her teenage son when she dies from a fall in Communist Berlin having carved out a career as a Socialist writer.
The strength of the book is how it captures, in a single life and in a short novel, so much of 20th Century central European history. A clear theme is the arbitrariness of great political events and how they affect individual lives by chance (in one of the strongest Intermezzo’s an increasingly hierarchy of Soviet officials decide on a whim whether to pass her file on up for eventual arrest and even execution, or if to hold it back). The weakness is perhaps some of the individual passages – which are muddled and uninteresting (what is less clear is whether this is the translation or the original).
The strength of the book is how it captures, in a single life and in a short novel, so much of 20th Century central European history. A clear theme is the arbitrariness of great political events and how they affect individual lives by chance (in one of the strongest Intermezzo’s an increasingly hierarchy of Soviet officials decide on a whim whether to pass her file on up for eventual arrest and even execution, or if to hold it back). The weakness is perhaps some of the individual passages – which are muddled and uninteresting (what is less clear is whether this is the translation or the original).
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