The Short End of the Sonnenallee: A Novel

by Thomas Brussig, Jonathan Franzen (Translator), Jenny Watson (Translator)

Thomas Brussig’s classic German novel, The Short End of the Sonnenallee, now appearing for the first time in English, is a moving and miraculously comic story of life in East Berlin before the fall of the Wall

Young Micha Kuppisch lives on the nubbin of a street, the Sonnenallee, whose long end extends beyond the Berlin Wall outside his apartment building. Like his friends and family, who have their own quixotic dreams—to secure an original English pressing of Exile on Main St., to travel to Mongolia, to escape from East Germany by buying up cheap farmland and seceding from the country—Micha is desperate for one thing. It’s not what his mother wants for him, which is to be an exemplary young Socialist and study in Moscow. What Micha wants is a love letter that may or may not have been meant for him, and may or may not have been written by the most beautiful girl on the Sonnenallee. Stolen by a gust of wind before he could open it, the letter now lies on the fortified “death strip” at the base of the Wall, as tantalizingly close as the freedoms of the West and seemingly no more attainable.

The Short End of the Sonnenallee, finally available to an American audience in a pitch-perfect translation by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson, confounds the stereotypes of life in totalitarian East Germany. Brussig’s novel is a funny, charming tale of adolescents being adolescents, a portrait of a surprisingly warm community enduring in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. As Franzen writes in his foreword, the book is “a reminder that, even when the public realm becomes a nightmare, people can still privately manage to preserve their humanity, and be silly, and forgive.”

Genres: German Literature, Fiction, School, Historical Fiction, Germany, Contemporary, Historical

135 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1999

About the author

Thomas Brussig is a German writer best known for his satirical novels that deal with the German Democratic Republic.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

With "Sonnenallee", Thomas Brussig tried to take a new approach to telling a story set in the GDR: His intention was not to explain the last German dictatorship, but to humourously reflect what it felt like to be a teenager who lives under these circumstances in East Berlin ("Sonnenallee" is an actual street that was divided by the wall). And it was the humour in the movie and the novel that provoked some critcism: Is it allowed to laugh when discussing the Stasi, the Todesstreifen ("death zone" were people got shot at the wall), the despotism, the Siberian labor camps? Brussig points out that his story is not about "Ostalgie", the nostalgic longing for the lost East, or about making light of the crimes of the GDR. Rather, he wanted to represent the experiences of young people who grew up in the system, who were longing for the same things as teenagers everywhere, who fell in love, who wanted to try things out and prove themselves, to find their crowd and fit in, but who were living with very particular restrictions.

For me as a person from the West who was very young when the wall came down, it is basically impossible to judge how correct or adequately told this story is, so I will refrain from doing it. But I think that's an interesting point: This is my home country, and I feel like there is still a lot about the East that I cannot quite grasp - and I know I'm not alone with that. What I do know though is that apart from people I got to know and non-fiction, books like Als wir träumten and movies like "The Lives of Others" or "The Tower" have shaped my idea of the GDR -and this is also true of "Sonnenallee", although it is a comedy. You got to love Micha who has a crush on a girl who dreams of being free, Mario who gets kicked out of school for making fun of Lenin, and of course my personal favorite, Wuschel, who does everything to get hold of a (forbidden) record by the Rolling Stones.

Brussig sold the movie script and only then he wrote the book - and it shows: The movie is much better than the novel, also thanks to director Leander Haußmann, producer Detlev Buck and actors like Alexander Scheer and Robert Stadlober (in case you don't know much about German cinema: This is a top-notch line-up). But the book is fun as well, and apparently, some German states made it part of their school curricula. Still, I'd like to close with the movie trailer that perfectly captures the spirit of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js9Dp...

[Matthew Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

81st book of 2023.

Admittedly I took this out of a box with pure interest solely because of the words on the front, 'Translated by Jonathan Franzen', but I'm glad I did. The Short End of the Sonnenallee was originally published in German in the 1990s, but with this new translation, it's here in England again. It's a bizarre little novel about a group of young boys living in East Berlin. It's a funny read, bordering on slapstick at times (which I detest), but this made it work. I was expecting deeper moments throughout the book, but they never fully came, from start to finish it's purely playful. One boy is desperate to get an illegal copy of the Rolling Stone's Exile on Main Street (God I love 'Tumbling Dice'), our main boy is desperately trying to fall in love and get laid. The last two pages involving a real historical figure are as ridiculous as they are humorous. Surprisingly good stuff.

When I was a little younger than they are, I was in Berlin myself and I still have a chunk of the Wall in my bedside drawer which I bought from a souvenir shop. It's probably just a chunk of random rubble with a bit of spray paint on it, but I was hopeful and naive when I bought it.

[Ruben · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

I fear I don't have the same sense of humour as this author, which is problematic given it is a comic novel... The little window into life in the GDR was interesting, but there were also elements that felt so dated it wasn't really fun.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee delivers with humor the story of a clique of 15 year old boys who have the same problems with school, girls and family faced by their peers throughout the "developed" world. What distinguishes this story is that the boys live in East Berlin around 1980. So, in addition to the usual problems of teenagers, they must deal with teachers and school administrators who not only try to keep a lid on the daily madness of the kids, but also try to produce good communists or, failing that, completely obedient and subservient citizens of a state whose primary danger was constituted by its own citizenry. Although there was the occasional saber rattling (primarily for consumption by the Kremlin and the East German people), the only shooting done by the East German security apparatus was at its own people. I lived in (West) Germany at this time, and I recall reading about such killings in the Todesstreifen (death strip) between East and West Germany every month or so.

But there are no killings in this novel; that would disturb the deliberately light (and marketable) mood Brussig maintains.(*) Even the encounters with the neighborhood wardens and the state police, Stasi , have no real sense of threat. Of course, threat doesn't sell, unless it comes in the form of a vampire, or werewolf, or witch, or serial killer - why, again, do these sell? OK, back to the threats which don't sell... There aren't any in this book. Hmmmm, that must be clear now.

Brussig won't make it into my little pantheon of German stylists with his simple, paratactic sentences and his omniscient narrator, but I did enjoy the occasional use of Ossi colloquialisms.(**) And he did make me laugh, even though there was no subtlety to the humor.

Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee is a light and quick read, but I have my eyes on some more serious novelizations of East German life in its sunset years.

(*) He co-wrote the screenplay for a movie of the same name, which had some success (I haven't seen it), and he later wrote this book, claiming that he had some ideas he wasn't able to wedge into the movie. I shall take him at his word...

(**) By the way, we have all groaned at reviews in English which complain that there are too many big words and complicated sentences in a book, or that the author is pretentious (I seriously suspect the latter is believed to be a less shameful way to say the former). The counterpart in German is "verschachtelte Sätze" (sentences involving multiple dependent and independent clauses and some uniquely German constructions which require some active deciphering), the great boogeyman for the amateur reader - you won't find any complaints about these in the reviews for this book!

[annina · Rating 1 out of 5]

(schullektüre)
Wahrscheinlich sollte das Buch einen authentischen Einblick in das Leben von Jugendlichen in der DDR geben. Es wirkt aber mehr wie eine zusammenhanglose Aneinanderreihung von seltsamen Szenen, die ganz sicher nicht authentisch sind. Nebenbei zeigt dieses Buch auch, dass man anscheinend keinen Namen mehr hat, sobald man homosexuell oder dick ist oder eine Brille trägt. Stattdessen sollte man auf jeden Fall diskriminierende Wörter wählen. (oder eben auch nicht) Sorry, aber einfach nein.

[Toralf Saffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein nett - witziger Blick auf das Leben Jugendlicher "hinter" der Mauer. Das Buch hat sicher nicht den Anspruch als Zeitzeugnis zu dienen und manches ist recht überspitzt - aber es ist eine nette Geschichte über Liebe, Träume und Enttäuschungen.
Die Zeit ist mir vertraut, ich bin auch in der DDR erwachsen geworden - und ich habe mich gut unterhalten gefühlt. Der Film von Detlef Buck setzt die Sache toll um.

[od1_40reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franzen made me do it…

Casual homophobia aside, this is a bittersweet little tale, that pokes fun at the absurdity of oppression by the GDR in East Berlin. And it’s kind of glorious just for that.

[Jörg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The son of my French partner asked if I owned this book. He will read this in his German class. I forgot that I owned it but found it when looking through my book shelves to make sure I didn't have it. It's short, readable in about 3 hours. So I read it again to be able to help him with it in case he asks me to.

It's the accompanying book to the movie Sonnenallee which was released before the book and was a huge success in Germany with more than 2.6 million visitors. Brussig worked on that film as well and while the film differs from the book, the topic of a youth in the German Democratic Republic, the cast and some scenes are the same. While the movie is set in 1973, the book never mentions a year.

The quintessence of both is a positive humorous view on growing up in the GDR notwithstanding the difficult times. The dire straits are recognized. Not being able to state your true opinions, voicing support of the regime and the institutions while keeping your thoughts to yourself, your family and selected friends. The scarcity of goods, the harassment by government officials controlling you whenever they feel like it, the hypocrisy of pretending to be a model socialist when you wanted to make a career or gain benefits.

Nonetheless, Micha, Mario and their friends have a good time. They enjoy the same things as the kids on the other side of the wall. They listen to music, they go to parties, they experience all the insecurities, disappointments and joys of first love. All the boys are in love with the local school beauty Miriam while she has an older friend with a cool motorcycle and likes to kiss with guys from West Germany.

Sonnenallee tells their story in several humorous exaggerated scenes which are only loosely linked. They usually end with a punchline, (melo-)dramatic or funny. I had a few good laughs. Brussig's recipe is to keep laughing and good-humoured, no matter what the circumstances are. In a few places, it is mentioned that this is a look back, with resentment replaced by nostalgia. The final sentence reveals his intention:

"Glückliche Menschen haben ein schlechtes Gedächtnis und reiche Erinnerungen."

Due to the laughs, I enjoyed it. It's shallow, it's a one-trick pony. It exuded Ostalgie (nostalgia for the GDR) before that trend became a problem leading East and West Germany further apart. You shouldn't read it with today's sensitivity regarding nicknames or homosexuality though. Given that, I'm not sure if it still is a good choice as a reading for school.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

Die Albernheit einer ununterbrochenen Skurrilitätenkette mag im richtigen Lesemoment wärmen, den Mangel an jedem Erzählversuch und den insgesamt dominierenden Blödsinn rechtfertigt es nicht.
3 Punkte

[KK · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Onaj ko zaista hoće da upamti događaje ne treba da se predaje sećanjima. Ljudsko sećanje je suviše proizvoljan proces da bi se čvrsto držalo u prošlosti; ono je suprotnost onome za šta se izdaje. Jer sećanje može više, mnogo više od toga: ono uporno doživa čudo da bi se sklopio mir s prošlošću, u kome nestaje svaka ozlojeđenost, a veo nostalgije obavlja sve stvari koje smo nekada osećali oštro i bolno.

Srećni ljudi imaju loše pamćenje i bogate uspomene."

[Bagus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Brussig’s novel was shortly released after the film “Sonnenallee” in 1999, the script of which he wrote too. Since I already watched the film several years ago, I could not help but compare the novel to its film adaptation. Both follow a similar trajectory in their focus on the life of the residents of the short end of the Sonnenallee, a street strangely divided by the Berlin Wall, whose house numbering starts at number 379, and whose long end goes in West Berlin. The residents of the Sonnenallee are used to the curious look of the Westerners who often peek at their activities through an observation deck.

Their lives as described by Thomas Brussig are the very antithesis of the common depiction of lives behind the Iron Curtain. Right from the choice of the setting, the author chooses the Sonnenallee (literally means Sun Avenue) to highlight that people’s lives in East Berlin are not always black and white. They still lived their lives like people everywhere else did, making memories, experiencing happy and sad moments, and falling in love with each other, and there were moments of rebellious acts with navigable access to Western goods and relatively easy travels for relatives from the West.

Our main character, Micha Kuppisch, is a fifteen-year-old teenager living with his family in a typical East Berlin household. He has a sister who frequently changes boyfriends and a brother aspiring to be in the military. Other than that, he has an uncle called Heinz living in West Berlin who frequently “smuggles” goods for his family, despite the fact that most of the stuff he smuggles is actually legal to be brought to East Berlin. Also central to Micha’s life is his yearning for the affection of Miriam, the girl who is described as the most beautiful girl in the Sonnenallee and who often makes out with a guy from West Berlin on many public occasions. Rather than painting grim images of East Berlin under the GDR regime, Thomas Brussig tries to bring closer images of typical East German people’s lives. He points out that characters still listen to Western music such as the Rolling Stones or read and discuss Sartre’s works to the point of becoming an existentialist in the story.

As I’ve never felt directly how it would be like living behind the Iron Curtain, Thomas Brussig’s novel offers an alternative point of view, to look into the history of the GDR behind its political clout, that not everything in the GDR needs to be politicised and that not everything is bad about the GDR, bringing stark contrasts to grim accounts of life under totalitarianism which are popularised through works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Milan Kundera, or Václav Havel, among others. Whilst not fully defending the GDR, Thomas Brussig shows that people in the GDR could live a fulfilling life and their stories should not be negated completely following the German reunification.

[Julee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die DDR, von allen belächelt. Ein wunderschönes Buch das das normale Leben an der Mauer beschreibt. Auch ich bin in der DDR geboren, zu jung um irgendwas davon mitzubekommen ,aber ich kenne die Geschichten meiner Eltern, das nicht alles schlecht war zu dieser Zeit. Denn trotz des Verzichtens ,keiner freine Meinungsäußerung, und dem eingesperrt sein waren so normale Dinge wie Liebeskummer, Freundschafft, Freude an der Tagesordnung. Egal wie schlimm es ist, jeder lebt sein Leben. Und da wird sogar eine Mauer belanglos, wenn man nur an den besonderen Kuss einer Person denken kann ;-)

[Lovelettersfromanintrovert · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally finished this book. If my house was on fire I would throw this one in the flames. So boring

[Giulio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dieses Buch ist homophob und sehr sexistisch. Rassistische Andeutungen und das M-Wort fallen ebenfalls. Die Charaktere sind laufende Klischees.

[☆ Lara the Ninth ☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have nothing at all to say about this book... which I guess says a lot.

[Peter Jerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short little story going on a classic satirical narrative on the Eastern European communist experience. What sets it aside besides the children's perspective, which is a relatively common setting in this genre of books, is the story's setting: on the Sinnenalle, right next to the wall.

[Yannic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich weiss manchmal nicht so recht, was ich von DDR-Komödien halten soll. Brussigs Roman ist aber wirklich witzig; unter anderem, weil auch der Westen sein Fett wegkriegt. Da sind der West-Onkel, der ständig unnötiges Zeugs schmuggelt oder die theatralischen Hungerrufe für die Touristenbusse. Alles in allem ist es einfach schade, dass dieses Buch schlecht gealtert ist. Besonders Miriam erinnert leicht an ein Manic Pixie Dream Girl und dient in erster Linie als Projektionsfläche für Männerphantasien.

[Aiste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about life in the Eastern side of Berlin just right next to Berlin wall.. The political situation in combination with personal goals lets people to make limited choices in their lives.. Trying to reach what they want they constantly have to overcome different obstacles and very often that leads to comical situations.
For me the book is valuable because it gave me understanding about life in Eastern Germany when it was separated from the rest of the country.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 5 out of 5]

East Germany in the 1980s: laughter in a pressure cooker. The Berlin Wall, a constant reminder of a divided world, could easily sink any attempt at humor, but Thomas Brussig pulls it off with aplomb, focusing on a world he knows well: a goofy teenager stuck in the ironically named GDR, Soviet Russia's most uptight satellite state.

Sixteen-year-old Micha Kuppisch faces a future as bleak as East German skies. Military service hangs over him, his mom pushes studies in the USSR, and Miriam, the girl of his dreams, only kisses West German boys - their kissing, apparently, a whole other level. Drowning in communist dogma and restrictions, Micha and his friends create their own bizarre belief systems while jamming to forbidden Rolling Stones and Doors bootlegs from West Berlin radio. They even hang out by the Wall, peering into the off-limits "death strip." Despite the grim backdrop, the story stays surprisingly upbeat.

The title, "The Short End of the Sonnenallee," refers to Micha's street, the sliver trapped east of the Wall. A mere 60 meters of this once-long avenue falls on the communist side. Micha entertains a hilarious conspiracy theory: a distracted Winston Churchill, at the Potsdam Conference, absentmindedly gifted Stalin this awkward chunk of street as he was busy lighting his cigar. "If only Churchill had paid attention," Micha laments, "we'd be living in the West!"

The story captures the era through Micha and his friends' antics. Obsessed with banned vinyl, they meticulously craft cassette tapes. One friend, Frizz, relentlessly searches for the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main St.," leading him to a shady character named Edge – a gaunt figure with a rectangular bag, perpetually spaced out. We also meet Uncle Heinz, a resident of the West who smuggles cookies, shoes, and other coveted goods strapped to his person, risking arrest or a Siberian vacation for his efforts.

Micha, like his parents, has learned to navigate the complexities of East Berlin. His mom subscribes to the party rag, Bild-Zeitung, prominently displayed for all the neighbors to witness their loyalty. Life throws Micha a curveball when his first love letter takes flight, carried by a mischievous breeze and deposited in the forbidden "death strip." Will it be from Miriam, or perhaps someone else entirely?

"The Short End of the Sonnenallee" offers a refreshing take on the Cold War, celebrating the enduring human spirit and the quirky humor that blossoms even in the most restrictive circumstances.

[Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

DDR-Literatur zu Zeiten der DDR hat mich interessiert, weil es "Unsere" Probleme waren,die dort mehr oder weniger einsichtig verhandelt wurden. Die Nachwendeliteratur über die weiland DDR hat Jahre gebraucht, um das Land und das Schicksal ihrer Menschen wieder einigermaßen ernst zu nehmen. Davon ist bei Brussig nichts zu spüren. Man fragt sich, warum alle Leute, die für das Land eingetreten sind, immer nur zur Karikatur werden? Glaubt jemand im Ernst, dass so das Land 40 Jahre am Laufen gehalten wurde? Vielleicht ist der Film besser, Leander Hausmann hat ja auch noch ein Buch zum Film geschrieben. Warum Brussig auch? Geld verdienen? Vielleicht finden Jugendliche was an dem Text. Ich finde ihn weder witzig noch realistisch noch kritisch noch gut geschrieben. Immerhin hat er mir über drei Schulstunden ohne Schüler hinweg geholfen.

[Barbaraw - su anobii aussi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un modo per saltare i muri

Non ho lesinato sulle stelline, forse perché l'ho appena finito, e una tale freschezza nella scrittura, un tale abilità nella costruzione - che non lascia vedere le cuciture - una tale capacità poetica, nel sorriso, non l'avevo trovata da tempo. Quindi, lascio sfogo all'entusiasmo; si sa, dal film "Goodbye Lenin" in poi, ridere della trappola mortale che fu la Germania dell'est, è stato un modo per fuggirne. Anche qui è così, con una forte tenerezza verso questi ragazzi bisognosi e sognanti, e la mia ammirazione per uno scrittore che riesce a distanziarsi dal malessere. Con ironica ingenuità, fallimenti ripetuti, e capacità di sognare - come si vede nel meraviglioso finale.
Nota: non sono riuscita a trovare l'edizione italiana...Non so leggere il tedesco.

[Lies.l · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geschrieben in 3x3 Wochen, weil viele tolle Ideen im Film Sonnenallee nicht verwirklicht wurden. Der Autor beschreibt die DDR so wie er sie erinnert ohne genaue Präzision.
"Schöne Erinnerung an eine unschöne Zeit. Eine Botschaft die man überall auf der Welt versteht."

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary short German novel. A novel set in the closing years of the DDR, in East Berlin. But it is not a tale of spies or informants; instead, the pervasive grey of East Berlin is filtered through the eyes of children. What is angst in other books is laughter here.

I can’t think of another comparable work. Anyone who spent time in the DDR will recognize every handicap gleefully imposed by the regime. But never treated with humor or, at the end, becoming the sole example (at least translated to English) of German Magical Realism. I’m going to say that again, because there’s a chance those three words never before have been concatenated: German Magical Realism.

This book made me regret, again, not buying that new two-bedroom condo just on the East side of the former Wall, near Checkpoint Charlie. In 1993, it only cost about $100,000.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem of a book.Poignant,funny,sweet and sad.

[Mia Strauß · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das nenne ich mal Unterhaltung!! Es war einfach witzig zu lesen. Man konnte super abschalten. Und das sage ich zu deinem Buch über die DDR? kaum zu fassen

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-4 sterne. fand ich super unterhaltsam, ist nicht umsonst ein klassiker, bisschen aus der zeit gekommen. aber unterrepräsentiertes literarisches thema für jugendliteratur, das hat mir gefallen.

[Nemesia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this novel with my book club, and here are a few discussion points.

• This book almost feels like a sitcom. It’s a historical comedy, an authentically weird satire. Little vignettes are unfolding before our eyes instead of a real driving plot (the way memories work).
• Is Micha an unreliable narrator? Maybe his brain decided to keep only the good parts. He describes nostalgic recollections, and emotions can be misleading.
• The novel is both funny and clever – a seemingly silly take on something serious. But this mechanism is actually a subtle way to talk about a bigger picture: what life was back then.
• Teenagers from all around the world would be the same, given the chance.
• Cringy: the boys don’t always treat Miriam very well, but they finally understand she has her own interiority.
• Stereotypical: each boy is defined by one main feature (fat, glasses, curly hair). It’s both annoying and plausible, because that’s how teenage boys behave in real life. And they can’t help expressing their individuality anyway – even though they sometimes feel too distant, more like characters than people.
• Kudos to the little brother who unknowingly practices capitalism!

[alessia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️

[Sam France · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I didn’t get to finish this book. I accidentally left it in a park on Roosevelt Island and now I owe the library $15. BUT, the 3/4 I did read were snappy and quirky and satirical and I’m going to assume it carried through to the end.

ETA- ok, found it in the NY Public Library and finished it off. I’d call it a 3.5. A little fragmented with an abrupt end