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Jahrestage #3-4
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968–August 1968
Contains books 3 and 4 of the German 4-book series.
Anniversaries, Volume 2 begins on April 20, 1968. Before long Marie will be devastated by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, even as the news of the Prague Spring has awakened Gesine’s long-dashed hopes that socialism could be a humanism. Meanwhile, her boss at the bank has his own ideas about Czechoslovakia, and Gesine faces the prospect of having to move there for work.
Continuing the story of her past from Anniversaries, Volume 1, Gesine describes the Soviet occupation of her hometown, Jerichow, where her father was installed as mayor and ended up in a brutal prison camp. Gesine herself charts a rebellious course through school, ever more bitterly conscious of the moral ugliness of life behind the Iron Curtain. As the year of the novel comes to its end, past and present converge and the novel circles back to its beginnings.
Anniversaries, Volume 2 begins on April 20, 1968. Before long Marie will be devastated by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, even as the news of the Prague Spring has awakened Gesine’s long-dashed hopes that socialism could be a humanism. Meanwhile, her boss at the bank has his own ideas about Czechoslovakia, and Gesine faces the prospect of having to move there for work.
Continuing the story of her past from Anniversaries, Volume 1, Gesine describes the Soviet occupation of her hometown, Jerichow, where her father was installed as mayor and ended up in a brutal prison camp. Gesine herself charts a rebellious course through school, ever more bitterly conscious of the moral ugliness of life behind the Iron Curtain. As the year of the novel comes to its end, past and present converge and the novel circles back to its beginnings.
787 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Uwe Johnson
103 books65 followersUwe Johnson was a German writer, editor, and scholar.
Johnson was born in Kammin in Pomerania (now Kamień Pomorski, Poland). His father was a Swedish-descent peasant from Mecklenburg and his mother was from Pommern. At the end of World War II in 1945, he fled with his family to Anklam (West Pomerania); his father died in a Soviet internment camp (Fünfeichen). The family eventually settled in Güstrow, where he attended John-Brinckman-Oberschule 1948–1952. He went on to study German philology, first in Rostock (1952–54), then in Leipzig (1954–56). His Diplomarbeit (final thesis) was on Ernst Barlach. Due to his lack of political support for the Communist regime of East Germany, he was suspended from the University on 17 June 1953 but was later reinstated.
Beginning in 1953, Johnson worked on the novel Ingrid Babendererde, rejected by various publishing houses and unpublished during his lifetime.
In 1956, Johnson's mother left for West Berlin. As a result, he was not allowed to work a normal job in the East. Unemployed for political reasons, he translated Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (the translation was published in 1961) and began to write the novel Mutmassungen über Jakob, published in 1959 by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main. Johnson himself moved to West Berlin at this time. He promptly became associated with Gruppe 47, which Hans Magnus Enzensberger once described as "the Central Café of a literature without a capital." [1]
During the early 1960s, Johnson continued to write and publish fiction, and also supported himself as a translator, mainly from English-language works, and as an editor. He travelled to America in 1961; the following year he was married, had a daughter, received a scholarship to Villa Massimo, Rome, and won the Prix International.
1964 - for the Berliner Tagesspiegel, Reviews of GDR television programmes boycotted by the West German press (published under the title "Der 5. Kanal", "The Fifth Channel", 1987).
In 1965, Johnson travelled again to America. He then edited Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti. Buch der Wendungen. Fragmente 1933-1956 (Me-ti: the Book of Changes. Fragments, 1933-1956). From 1966 through 1968 he worked in New York City as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace & World and lived with his family in an apartment at 243 Riverside Drive (Manhattan). During this time (in 1967) he began work on his magnum opus, the Jahrestage and edited Das neue Fenster (The new window), a textbook of German-language readings for English-speaking students learning German.
On 1 January 1967 protesters from Johnson's own West Berlin apartment building founded Kommune 1. He first learned about it by reading it in the newspaper. Returning to West Berlin in 1969, he became a member of the West German PEN Center and of the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts). In 1970, he published the first volume of his Jahrestage (Anniversaries). Two more volumes were to follow in the next three years, but the fourth volume would not appear until 1983.
Meanwhile, in 1972 Johnson became Vice President of the Academy of the Arts and was the editor of Max Frisch's Tagebuch 1966-1971. In 1974, he moved to Sheerness on the English Isle of Sheppey; shortly after, he broke off work on Jahrestage due partly to health problems and partly to writer's block.
This was not a completely unproductive period. Johnson published some shorter works and continued to do some work as an editor. In 1977, he was admitted to the Darmstädter Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt Academy for Speech and Writing); two years later he informally withdrew. In 1979 he gave a series of Lectures on poetics at the University of Frankfurt (published posthumously as Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen).
In 1983, the fourth volume of Jahrestage was published, but Johnson broke off a reading tour for health reasons. He died on 22 February 1984 in Sheerness in England. His body was not found until
Johnson was born in Kammin in Pomerania (now Kamień Pomorski, Poland). His father was a Swedish-descent peasant from Mecklenburg and his mother was from Pommern. At the end of World War II in 1945, he fled with his family to Anklam (West Pomerania); his father died in a Soviet internment camp (Fünfeichen). The family eventually settled in Güstrow, where he attended John-Brinckman-Oberschule 1948–1952. He went on to study German philology, first in Rostock (1952–54), then in Leipzig (1954–56). His Diplomarbeit (final thesis) was on Ernst Barlach. Due to his lack of political support for the Communist regime of East Germany, he was suspended from the University on 17 June 1953 but was later reinstated.
Beginning in 1953, Johnson worked on the novel Ingrid Babendererde, rejected by various publishing houses and unpublished during his lifetime.
In 1956, Johnson's mother left for West Berlin. As a result, he was not allowed to work a normal job in the East. Unemployed for political reasons, he translated Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (the translation was published in 1961) and began to write the novel Mutmassungen über Jakob, published in 1959 by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main. Johnson himself moved to West Berlin at this time. He promptly became associated with Gruppe 47, which Hans Magnus Enzensberger once described as "the Central Café of a literature without a capital." [1]
During the early 1960s, Johnson continued to write and publish fiction, and also supported himself as a translator, mainly from English-language works, and as an editor. He travelled to America in 1961; the following year he was married, had a daughter, received a scholarship to Villa Massimo, Rome, and won the Prix International.
1964 - for the Berliner Tagesspiegel, Reviews of GDR television programmes boycotted by the West German press (published under the title "Der 5. Kanal", "The Fifth Channel", 1987).
In 1965, Johnson travelled again to America. He then edited Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti. Buch der Wendungen. Fragmente 1933-1956 (Me-ti: the Book of Changes. Fragments, 1933-1956). From 1966 through 1968 he worked in New York City as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace & World and lived with his family in an apartment at 243 Riverside Drive (Manhattan). During this time (in 1967) he began work on his magnum opus, the Jahrestage and edited Das neue Fenster (The new window), a textbook of German-language readings for English-speaking students learning German.
On 1 January 1967 protesters from Johnson's own West Berlin apartment building founded Kommune 1. He first learned about it by reading it in the newspaper. Returning to West Berlin in 1969, he became a member of the West German PEN Center and of the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts). In 1970, he published the first volume of his Jahrestage (Anniversaries). Two more volumes were to follow in the next three years, but the fourth volume would not appear until 1983.
Meanwhile, in 1972 Johnson became Vice President of the Academy of the Arts and was the editor of Max Frisch's Tagebuch 1966-1971. In 1974, he moved to Sheerness on the English Isle of Sheppey; shortly after, he broke off work on Jahrestage due partly to health problems and partly to writer's block.
This was not a completely unproductive period. Johnson published some shorter works and continued to do some work as an editor. In 1977, he was admitted to the Darmstädter Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt Academy for Speech and Writing); two years later he informally withdrew. In 1979 he gave a series of Lectures on poetics at the University of Frankfurt (published posthumously as Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen).
In 1983, the fourth volume of Jahrestage was published, but Johnson broke off a reading tour for health reasons. He died on 22 February 1984 in Sheerness in England. His body was not found until
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 18, 2023
Finishing the second half of this 1600-plus page novel. I won’t deny it’s been a bit of a slog at times, but I’m going to miss it when I’m done.
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August 21, 2025Review to come once I can gather my thoughts, but feeling very accomplished for now to have finished this, which I'm fairly sure is (combined with its first volume) the longest book I've ever read.
December 22, 2022
feel a real sense of accomplishment in finishing this tome because although reading it was a curious experience it was all too easy to put it down in favour of something which was less of a puzzle. I lived through 1967-68 and the horror of the Vietnam War ( New Zealand provided troops there to our great shame) and have visited Vietnam several times in more recent years, so reading excerpt from the New York Times was fascinating. I am equally fascinated with the GDR years in Germany, and appreciated the minutiae of daily life in Mecklenburg. How could an individual survive first the Nazi regime and then the Soviet influenced GDR government? The mention of things I am already familiar with, such as the story of Sophie Scholl, were woven into the semifictional account with great skill. The part that fascinated me the most was the account of the high school students navigating the uncertain rules regarding rights and responsibilities. However, many ends remained unresolved for me. Gesine‘s relationship with Jakob is hardly described at all. Although she was attracted to him, and he was a great help in getting her to Halle, their intimate relationship was scarcely mentioned at all. And after D.E. had ostensibly been killed, why was Gesine still receiving telegrams from him? And would they fly all over the U.S. just to avoid answering the phone? Perhaps I am being obtuse? I would like to read other comments.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 22, 2026
Actual 3.5.
The second part of the life of Gesine Cresspahl taken one day at a time covering the period from April 1968 to August 1968 and this rounding out her year. I've thoroughly enjoyed taking this one week every day despite the daily entries getting much longer towards the end.
As with the first volume we get snippets from Auntie Times (The New York Times) of current affairs, an insight into the daily life of Gesine and Marie (her daughter) and the recounting of Gesine's life after WW2 in what would become East Germany and then her escape to Berlin and the West.
In the first volume I thought he got the mix about right but this time I felt there was a little too much of Gesine's life in school and the stories of what happened to her many classmates (who at times I struggled to remember). So we get a fairly short section about the murder of RFK which isn't dealt with in as much depth as that of Martin Luther King in volume 1. It also meant that the story of how she moved to the West and her relationship with Jakob felt very rushed and could easily have been expanded.
That said it reads well and never drops into being boring. I liked the mediocrity of the narrative at times when we are in 1968 and the character of Marie is well done and it is clear that all other relationships are secondary to that between child and mother. The idea of South Ferry Day will stick with me.
Not quite as good as the first volume but I'm glad the 1001 books list meant I discovered it.
The second part of the life of Gesine Cresspahl taken one day at a time covering the period from April 1968 to August 1968 and this rounding out her year. I've thoroughly enjoyed taking this one week every day despite the daily entries getting much longer towards the end.
As with the first volume we get snippets from Auntie Times (The New York Times) of current affairs, an insight into the daily life of Gesine and Marie (her daughter) and the recounting of Gesine's life after WW2 in what would become East Germany and then her escape to Berlin and the West.
In the first volume I thought he got the mix about right but this time I felt there was a little too much of Gesine's life in school and the stories of what happened to her many classmates (who at times I struggled to remember). So we get a fairly short section about the murder of RFK which isn't dealt with in as much depth as that of Martin Luther King in volume 1. It also meant that the story of how she moved to the West and her relationship with Jakob felt very rushed and could easily have been expanded.
That said it reads well and never drops into being boring. I liked the mediocrity of the narrative at times when we are in 1968 and the character of Marie is well done and it is clear that all other relationships are secondary to that between child and mother. The idea of South Ferry Day will stick with me.
Not quite as good as the first volume but I'm glad the 1001 books list meant I discovered it.
November 3, 2022
This volume contains the last two of Johnson's four books. The daily entries become longer so this covers only the last four months of the year, 20 April to 20 August 1968. By the end it is clear why we finish on this date, although most readers today will have to check the history.
As in the first volume, we have three strands: the news of the day via the New York Times, which includes the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the ongoing war in Vietnam; the daily activities of Gesine and her daughter Marie, mostly in New York; and Gesine's past history in Germany, which I found became quite confusing as more and more names are introduced of her schoolmates, teachers, and people affected by political events in her East German town.
Some of the entries are so long and detailed, involving only minor characters, that my eyes glazed over. That's my main reason for giving this volume three stars while the first one had four.
As in the first volume, we have three strands: the news of the day via the New York Times, which includes the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the ongoing war in Vietnam; the daily activities of Gesine and her daughter Marie, mostly in New York; and Gesine's past history in Germany, which I found became quite confusing as more and more names are introduced of her schoolmates, teachers, and people affected by political events in her East German town.
Some of the entries are so long and detailed, involving only minor characters, that my eyes glazed over. That's my main reason for giving this volume three stars while the first one had four.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews