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Built on Sand
Berlin: long-celebrated as a city of artists and outcasts, but also a city of teachers and construction workers. A place of tourists and refugees, and the memories of those exiled and expelled. A city named after marshland; if you dig a hole, you'll soon hit sand.
The stories of Berlin are the stories BUILT ON SAND. A wooden town, laid waste by the Thirty Years War that became the metropolis by the Spree that spread out and swallowed villages whole. The city of Rosa Luxemburg and Joseph Roth, of student movements and punks on both sides of the Wall. A place still bearing the scars of National Socialism and the divided city that emerged from the wreckage of war.
BUILT ON SAND centres on the personal geographies of place, and how memory and history live on in the individual and collective imagination. Stories of landscapes and a city both real and imagined; stories of exile and trauma, mythology and folklore; of how the past shapes and distorts our understanding of the present in an age of individualism, gentrification and the rising threat of nativism and far-right populism.
Together, these stories offer a portrait of a city three decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the legacy of that history in a city that was once divided but remains fractured and fragmented.
The stories of Berlin are the stories BUILT ON SAND. A wooden town, laid waste by the Thirty Years War that became the metropolis by the Spree that spread out and swallowed villages whole. The city of Rosa Luxemburg and Joseph Roth, of student movements and punks on both sides of the Wall. A place still bearing the scars of National Socialism and the divided city that emerged from the wreckage of war.
BUILT ON SAND centres on the personal geographies of place, and how memory and history live on in the individual and collective imagination. Stories of landscapes and a city both real and imagined; stories of exile and trauma, mythology and folklore; of how the past shapes and distorts our understanding of the present in an age of individualism, gentrification and the rising threat of nativism and far-right populism.
Together, these stories offer a portrait of a city three decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the legacy of that history in a city that was once divided but remains fractured and fragmented.
- GenresGermany
400 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2019
6 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 23, 2019
[3.5 - reviewed later]
March 22, 2019
Built on Sand, by Paul Scraton, is centred on Berlin. It explores the varied effects of an ever evolving place on those who call it home for a time. Told through events in the lives of the author’s friends and acquaintances while he was living there, it looks at, amongst other things: shifting borders and beliefs, dispossession, those who leave and return across generations. It is a story of individuals, their relationships and psychogeography. It portrays the transience of people and what defines them, as much as the place.
The first chapter introduces Annika, a mapmaker whose products are sold in a small number of bookstores and galleries. Her maps are themed to well known historical figures who have links to Berlin, providing details on significant locations during their stays there. Many of the buildings they would have frequented have gone but the street layout remains largely the same. Annika walks the city to gain a feel for what she is attempting to recreate.
“Bad news. Her maps, as a whole, told the story of the city, from its medieval origins on a malarial swamp to fifteenth-century riots, reformation and industrialisation, militarism and nationalism, National Socialism and communism, the Marshall Plan and the European Union.”
This sense of history permeates the city – its numerous destructions and endless rebuilding. The author is interested in the ghosts of the past that linger and how they affect those who pass through today.
The second chapter introduces a trio of men who met as boys living in the GDR and remained friends despite taking very different political paths as men. The author’s girlfriend retains her disdain for Markus in particular as he worked for the Stasi. The author is more interested in learning why Markus chose this path and how what he was required to do has affected him long term.
Other key characters in the narrative include the two young men the author shared a flat with when he first moved to Berlin. Their’s is a story of a close friendship when young that does not survive the changes wrought by passing years. At its heart is a tragedy and its repercussions.
Interesting additions to the cast are young people who were raised outside Germany, whose forebears told them stories of the country as it was then, including the lives and lands lost when they fled as refugees. The children or grandchildren visit and find themselves connected to the place despite it bearing little resemblance to the shared memories.
These personal anecdotes offer a vision of a city that exists only in such memories. Each of the people passing through are creating their own version which they will then carry and polish.
Over time borders are moved, walls built and knocked down, housing provided for workers and subsequently renovated for incomers. Reminders of conflict exist in memorials or the scarring of buildings by bullets or shrapnel. The people who come and go follow changing social and political beliefs. They may fight for what they think is right but this too changes with hindsight.
People are shaped by the stories they grow up with and how they interpret them when exposed to wider thinking. Some will embrace new developments but many hanker after what drew them to settle, even if only for a short while, in any given place. They value its history and the ghosts of their past selves, echoes existing in the shadows of recollection.
The writing has a melancholy edge which befits the many horrors Berlin has witnessed. The diverse reactions to events offer a variety of perspectives to consider. Although a very personal account the narrative offers broad insights, not least the folly of trying to cling to what has already passed by. It is a compelling, humane and intelligent portrayal of a city, its residents and inevitable change.
The first chapter introduces Annika, a mapmaker whose products are sold in a small number of bookstores and galleries. Her maps are themed to well known historical figures who have links to Berlin, providing details on significant locations during their stays there. Many of the buildings they would have frequented have gone but the street layout remains largely the same. Annika walks the city to gain a feel for what she is attempting to recreate.
“Bad news. Her maps, as a whole, told the story of the city, from its medieval origins on a malarial swamp to fifteenth-century riots, reformation and industrialisation, militarism and nationalism, National Socialism and communism, the Marshall Plan and the European Union.”
This sense of history permeates the city – its numerous destructions and endless rebuilding. The author is interested in the ghosts of the past that linger and how they affect those who pass through today.
The second chapter introduces a trio of men who met as boys living in the GDR and remained friends despite taking very different political paths as men. The author’s girlfriend retains her disdain for Markus in particular as he worked for the Stasi. The author is more interested in learning why Markus chose this path and how what he was required to do has affected him long term.
Other key characters in the narrative include the two young men the author shared a flat with when he first moved to Berlin. Their’s is a story of a close friendship when young that does not survive the changes wrought by passing years. At its heart is a tragedy and its repercussions.
Interesting additions to the cast are young people who were raised outside Germany, whose forebears told them stories of the country as it was then, including the lives and lands lost when they fled as refugees. The children or grandchildren visit and find themselves connected to the place despite it bearing little resemblance to the shared memories.
These personal anecdotes offer a vision of a city that exists only in such memories. Each of the people passing through are creating their own version which they will then carry and polish.
Over time borders are moved, walls built and knocked down, housing provided for workers and subsequently renovated for incomers. Reminders of conflict exist in memorials or the scarring of buildings by bullets or shrapnel. The people who come and go follow changing social and political beliefs. They may fight for what they think is right but this too changes with hindsight.
People are shaped by the stories they grow up with and how they interpret them when exposed to wider thinking. Some will embrace new developments but many hanker after what drew them to settle, even if only for a short while, in any given place. They value its history and the ghosts of their past selves, echoes existing in the shadows of recollection.
The writing has a melancholy edge which befits the many horrors Berlin has witnessed. The diverse reactions to events offer a variety of perspectives to consider. Although a very personal account the narrative offers broad insights, not least the folly of trying to cling to what has already passed by. It is a compelling, humane and intelligent portrayal of a city, its residents and inevitable change.
July 21, 2020
Wow... A really boring Berlin and a very lazy narrative.
July 18, 2019
Scraton's fiction resembles non-fiction. I enjoyed his Ghosts on the Shore about Germany's Baltic coast. A fictional section in the middle didn't read as true as the non-fiction, and I don't mean to sound obvious when I say that. This novel read sincere to me. The narrator, like the author, leads tours of Berlin, and while the novel has main characters and an arc, the side stories are based on the local history that the author/narrator collects. If the narrator was named, I missed it, and I'd have a better time keeping the two separate if the narrator had a name. I enjoyed the presence of Berlin, built on Sand, and Scraton's point that humanity's position in the world is just as precarious, shifting like the city itself. Maps prove key to his vision. I too love maps and would love to have seen the fictional (I assume) maps of Annika included. Other key maps: the one in the unnamed town museum midway between Berlin and the Baltic, the one on the wall in Boris's apartment, and Hobrecht's maps marking his wanderings through the city. A place specifies a particular meaning. As we try to find meaning in life, those places matter--although I am not sure what conclusions to draw from Scraton's musings. There may be none to make. He's pointing that out, and the novel was for me like a pleasant conversation with a like-minded person.
Scraton quotes Stendhal (190): 'What could have possessed people to found a city in the middle of all this sand?' I saw that in Richie's history of Berlin, Faust's Metropolis, but she didn't provide a source.)
144 The narrator's walk in the town where he and K are stranded by snowstorm reminds me of TS Eliot's circular imagery (..."and know the place for the first time," Little Gidding). "I kept walking, the path along the walls offering me a purpose now, a destination in mind and a circle to complete."
123 The problem with delving into the past: some questions cannot be answered
I supported his earlier book published by Influx and would have supported this one, if I'd had the chance. I enjoy Influx's thoughtful books, most with a similar attention to the importance of place and knowing it by walking through it.
A small criticism, perhaps more a reflection of how sleepy I was as I finished the final pages, but the chronology of those last pages was confusing. They'd spent the night in the pub but then it was night again? Not important.
Scraton quotes Stendhal (190): 'What could have possessed people to found a city in the middle of all this sand?' I saw that in Richie's history of Berlin, Faust's Metropolis, but she didn't provide a source.)
144 The narrator's walk in the town where he and K are stranded by snowstorm reminds me of TS Eliot's circular imagery (..."and know the place for the first time," Little Gidding). "I kept walking, the path along the walls offering me a purpose now, a destination in mind and a circle to complete."
123 The problem with delving into the past: some questions cannot be answered
I supported his earlier book published by Influx and would have supported this one, if I'd had the chance. I enjoy Influx's thoughtful books, most with a similar attention to the importance of place and knowing it by walking through it.
A small criticism, perhaps more a reflection of how sleepy I was as I finished the final pages, but the chronology of those last pages was confusing. They'd spent the night in the pub but then it was night again? Not important.
May 13, 2019
This is an astonishingly good book. It manages to blend fact, fiction, memory, travelogue, and tender insight with the ease of a well-tuned Jaguar on a newly paved racetrack. Personal disclaimer: This book is a love letter written to Berlin; the city of the past and of the present, by someone who has come from another country and made it his own. I am also in love with Berlin, also an expat, and I find deep resonance with the author in his connection to the place.
On the surface, the book is a set of intertwining tales about people who have chosen to make their lives in and around the city, and it reflects the trials and tribulations of the mid-late 20th century. But it is so much more. Scraton gently pulls back the curtain on several significant aspects of recent history that are not always apparent to the naked eye: how Reunification affected friendships; how the landscape is both revered and subjugated; how immigrants both join and transform the culture and direction of the city whether they intend to or not.
One character hides his unemployment from his wife for a year, choosing instead to take a different walk every day. "You can't know it all," he said. "But you know something. And that's what makes it feel like home. That's what makes you feel you belong. And it is open to anyone, whether you were born here or if you're only just arrived....It's not about birth. You don't inherit it. You choose to be a part of it. By walking and talking, by listening and learning the stories of others. That's what makes you belong."
On the surface, the book is a set of intertwining tales about people who have chosen to make their lives in and around the city, and it reflects the trials and tribulations of the mid-late 20th century. But it is so much more. Scraton gently pulls back the curtain on several significant aspects of recent history that are not always apparent to the naked eye: how Reunification affected friendships; how the landscape is both revered and subjugated; how immigrants both join and transform the culture and direction of the city whether they intend to or not.
One character hides his unemployment from his wife for a year, choosing instead to take a different walk every day. "You can't know it all," he said. "But you know something. And that's what makes it feel like home. That's what makes you feel you belong. And it is open to anyone, whether you were born here or if you're only just arrived....It's not about birth. You don't inherit it. You choose to be a part of it. By walking and talking, by listening and learning the stories of others. That's what makes you belong."
September 28, 2022
Upon learning I was exploring the field of psychogeography and interested in writing about Berlin as a place, Scraton’s (no doubt autobiographical) novel was recommended to me. If any place might have ghosts, I’d vote for Berlin. This is a quiet book, somehow, though not insubstantial exactly – it’s chock full of historical references that seem to me, after 30+ years of exploring the city, to be quite correct. The characters are a bit pale, the action seems to take place off-stage. Yet as a work evoking both this specific city and framing how to think about a place, it’s quietly touching.
I didn’t expect to find such diverse opinions about this book here.
I didn’t expect to find such diverse opinions about this book here.
July 25, 2020
A fascinating psychogeography of Berlin, set as a narrative linking a set of fictional characters of natives and also those from elsewhere in the GDR and further East. At the end the story acknowledges its own short-comings in not tackling immigration from elsewhere. It also continues the limited norm of addressing the Nazi camps only from a Jewish point of view, which misses entirely Berlin's new status at a centre for LGBT acceptance.
June 30, 2019
Very evocative stories about Berlin. I found that reading this and listening to Rowan Rheingans "Red Dress" went really well together. The sadness of the past and the inability to leave the ghost of the past behind are key. Yet like a moth I am drawn to these stories.
January 20, 2021
Berlin deserves better literature
March 21, 2021
I've never been to Berlin but it's always been on the "to go" list. Reading this before going will absolutely help me to see the city with more than tourist eyes. An insightful read.
September 9, 2023
Intrecci di vite e storie, di una Berlino vissuta diversa dalla Berlino che conosciamo oggi. Un libro pieno di nostalgia.
July 28, 2021
3.5 rounding up to 4. Intrigued by the 'non-fiction' tone of the fictional (or perhaps auto-fiction?) stories of this book.
January 28, 2023
Nicely written and an interesting perspective on berlin, there were aspects of it I really enjoyed. But it really needed a major edit - it was far too long.
August 21, 2025
Built on Sand by Paul Scraton is a great read that mixes history and personal stories about Berlin. Tinged with joy and sadness, the writing is clear and engaging, pulling you into the city’s past and present.
December 31, 2020
The format didn't work super well for me, but overall the book does a good job of both fictionalising and critically examining the intrigue of Berlin, dipping in and out of the histories of characters who've been both drawn into and cast out of the city, as is to be expected from Paul Scraton.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews