Pfarrers Kinder, Müllers Vieh. Memoiren einer unvollkommenen Pfarrfrau.

by Amei-Angelika Müller

Text: German

Genres: Comedy

446 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Amei-Angelika Müller's memoirs of being an unconventional and imperfect pastor's wife (at least according to her and some choice members of her rather large and at times overly puritanical pastoral birth family) are in no way masterpieces of German literature, they rank amongst my very favourite go-to books when I need a dose of nostalgia and humour (they actually rank almost as high for me as James Herriot, and that says an awful lot). What I appreciate most is not only the author's often rather perverse and sly sense of for me laugh-out-loud humour, but also that Amei-Angelika Müller does not ever seem to shy away from looking at not only the world, but also herself (and her family, her own nearest and dearest) with a critical (but still always tenderly human and compassionate) eye. Recommended for anyone who enjoys clever and deliciously humorous nostalgic memoirs, although fluency in German is strongly suggested (and a further small caveat that as Amei-Angelika Müller's husband Manfred is given a preaching post in a small and relatively isolated Swabian village, there are more than a few instances where dialect is featured, which I personally both enjoy and appreciate, but which can, of course, also lead to issues of comprehension, as the Swabian dialect is in many ways quite majorly different from standard German orthography and semantics).

When I purchased this novel on the Amazon Germany website a couple of years ago (along with the author's other memoirs), I accidentally ordered the "Großdruck" edition (with larger letters and a thicker font for reading ease). While I originally was a bit annoyed at this, this fact has now become an absolute godsend, as I was actually able to easily read the text WITHOUT having to don my (still massively annoying) reading glasses (and I wish that more North American and British publishing houses would consider these types of larger fonted editions, as they really help with potential eyestrain, tracking issues and simply not needing reading glasses for everything).

[Carina]

Herrliches Buch. Loved it!