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Manja
Written in London by a young Austrian playwright in exile, Manja opens, radically, with five conception scenes one night in 1920. Set in the turbulent Germany of the Weimar Republic, it goes on, equally dramatically, to describe the lives of the children and their families until 1933 when the Nazis came to power. 'What is so unusual,' wrote the playwright Berthold Viertel in 1938, 'is the way the novel contrasts the children's community - in all its idealism, romanticism, decency and enchantment - with the madhouse community of the adults.' Like The Priory, Manja was first published in English in September 1939: a reader 'spent seven nights totally beguiled and shocked by your clever juxtaposition of the two books.' The Preface is by the author's daughter; the new translation is by Kate Phillips.
526 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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574 people want to read
About the author
Anna Gmeyner
4 books5 followersAnna Wilhelmine Gmeyner was an exiled German and Austrian author, playwright and scriptwriter, who is now best known for her novel Manja (1939). She also wrote under the names Anna Reiner, and Anna Morduch. Her daughter was the children's writer Eva Ibbotson.
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September 23, 2015
The story could be set in any times and in many places.
Five children are conceived on the same night, born within days of each other at the same hospital. Their backgrounds are very different, but there are links between their families and they form friendships. It is only with the passage of time that they realise what their parents have always known; that the world will look at them and treat them differently.
This particular story resonates, speaks so profoundly; and that comes from its setting and from its author.
Those five children were born in Germany in 1920. The war was over, there were hopes for a new Germany, but the stringent conditions of Treaty of Versailles that had been signed the previous year would be a heavy burden. The country struggled, but in time a charismatic leader emerged, at the head of a new party offering a path to national pride and a brighter future. His name was Adolf Hitler.
This book, published in 1938, follows the lives of those five children until 1933, when they are twelve years-old. By then the Nazi party was in power, Hitler was Germany’s Chancellor, and the Reichstag Fire Decree had become law, stripping many German citizens of their civil liberties.
Many, fearing for their own futures, fearing that their government would go even further, sought exile abroad.
Anna Gmeyner, Austrian-Jewish by birth, was one of those exiles, and she wrote this book in London. She knew of course that she was writing of a terrible time, but she could not know – though she might suspect – how very, very terrible things would become, for the families of those five children, and for so many other families in Germany and across Europe.
Her book offers a clear, vivid and detailed view of the lives of five disparate families. Each scene is painted clearly and starkly, and, though the narrative those scenes must carry is complex, the author’s clear-sightedness and the skills she deployed to bring each scene to life, meant that I always understood what was significant.
And, though this is always a very human story, social changes are so clearly illuminated. The earlier chapters show the consequences of the War and the Peace, on those who fought and lost, and on those who lived through it. The latter chapters show how that leads to the rise of the Nazi party, and to the appalling shift in society that followed.
Manja, who gives this story its title, is the only girl of the five children, the daughter of a Polish immigrant whose life was thrown off course when her lover killed himself, and who would always struggle with what she had to do to survive and to be a mother to her children.
The four boys have very different backgrounds. Heini is a son of a doctor, who has fine ideals and will always stand by his principles; Franz is the son of a man who will become a Nazi; Karl is the son of a Marxist factory worker; and Harry is the son of a rich industrialist who believes his philanthropy may protect him from his part Jewish heritage. It won’t.
It would be fair to say that their four families represent different sides of society, but the reality of each character and situation, and the naturalness of the links between the different families are such that it never feels didactic.
…. Heini’s father, was the doctor, who cared for both Manja’s and Harry’s mothers after they gave birth; Franz’s father was employed – and dismissed – by Harry’s father; and he endowed Heini’s father’s hospital. And then there were families who lived in the same building; there were children who met at school …..
It feels real, and it feels right that these families stand for so many others.
The children meet each Wednesday and Saturday – at the wall – which is all that remains of a house that once stood above a river. It is there that Manja shows the boys the constellation of Cassiopeia – five stars that they see as symbolic of the ties of friendship between them. As they grow they will come to understand the differences between their families and the tension that brings, but none of that will stop them from being friends.
As the story advances though the changes wrought by the Nazi party have dreadful repercussions for so many. It is terrifyingly, heart-breakingly real.
Manja is vulnerable, the result of her sex, her race, her family situation. I feared for her as I saw the chain of events that led to an and that was both inevitable and tragic.
That, and the whole story was profoundly moving; and the knowledge of what was still to come when this story ended made it still more so.
The author’s first hand experience of Germany during the time she writes about makes her story so vivid, and that she left the country before she began to write leaves me in no doubt that it is honest and authentic.
She told her story so well, using all the skills she must have learned as a dramatist to bring her five families and that Germany that they lived in to life, and in engaging and involving her readers.
I hope – and I have to believe – that she did what she set out to do.
And I am grateful that her book has a place in the Persephone Books list.
Five children are conceived on the same night, born within days of each other at the same hospital. Their backgrounds are very different, but there are links between their families and they form friendships. It is only with the passage of time that they realise what their parents have always known; that the world will look at them and treat them differently.
This particular story resonates, speaks so profoundly; and that comes from its setting and from its author.
Those five children were born in Germany in 1920. The war was over, there were hopes for a new Germany, but the stringent conditions of Treaty of Versailles that had been signed the previous year would be a heavy burden. The country struggled, but in time a charismatic leader emerged, at the head of a new party offering a path to national pride and a brighter future. His name was Adolf Hitler.
This book, published in 1938, follows the lives of those five children until 1933, when they are twelve years-old. By then the Nazi party was in power, Hitler was Germany’s Chancellor, and the Reichstag Fire Decree had become law, stripping many German citizens of their civil liberties.
Many, fearing for their own futures, fearing that their government would go even further, sought exile abroad.
Anna Gmeyner, Austrian-Jewish by birth, was one of those exiles, and she wrote this book in London. She knew of course that she was writing of a terrible time, but she could not know – though she might suspect – how very, very terrible things would become, for the families of those five children, and for so many other families in Germany and across Europe.
Her book offers a clear, vivid and detailed view of the lives of five disparate families. Each scene is painted clearly and starkly, and, though the narrative those scenes must carry is complex, the author’s clear-sightedness and the skills she deployed to bring each scene to life, meant that I always understood what was significant.
And, though this is always a very human story, social changes are so clearly illuminated. The earlier chapters show the consequences of the War and the Peace, on those who fought and lost, and on those who lived through it. The latter chapters show how that leads to the rise of the Nazi party, and to the appalling shift in society that followed.
Manja, who gives this story its title, is the only girl of the five children, the daughter of a Polish immigrant whose life was thrown off course when her lover killed himself, and who would always struggle with what she had to do to survive and to be a mother to her children.
The four boys have very different backgrounds. Heini is a son of a doctor, who has fine ideals and will always stand by his principles; Franz is the son of a man who will become a Nazi; Karl is the son of a Marxist factory worker; and Harry is the son of a rich industrialist who believes his philanthropy may protect him from his part Jewish heritage. It won’t.
It would be fair to say that their four families represent different sides of society, but the reality of each character and situation, and the naturalness of the links between the different families are such that it never feels didactic.
…. Heini’s father, was the doctor, who cared for both Manja’s and Harry’s mothers after they gave birth; Franz’s father was employed – and dismissed – by Harry’s father; and he endowed Heini’s father’s hospital. And then there were families who lived in the same building; there were children who met at school …..
It feels real, and it feels right that these families stand for so many others.
The children meet each Wednesday and Saturday – at the wall – which is all that remains of a house that once stood above a river. It is there that Manja shows the boys the constellation of Cassiopeia – five stars that they see as symbolic of the ties of friendship between them. As they grow they will come to understand the differences between their families and the tension that brings, but none of that will stop them from being friends.
As the story advances though the changes wrought by the Nazi party have dreadful repercussions for so many. It is terrifyingly, heart-breakingly real.
Manja is vulnerable, the result of her sex, her race, her family situation. I feared for her as I saw the chain of events that led to an and that was both inevitable and tragic.
That, and the whole story was profoundly moving; and the knowledge of what was still to come when this story ended made it still more so.
The author’s first hand experience of Germany during the time she writes about makes her story so vivid, and that she left the country before she began to write leaves me in no doubt that it is honest and authentic.
She told her story so well, using all the skills she must have learned as a dramatist to bring her five families and that Germany that they lived in to life, and in engaging and involving her readers.
I hope – and I have to believe – that she did what she set out to do.
And I am grateful that her book has a place in the Persephone Books list.
November 23, 2017
De eerste ruwweg honderd bladzijden waren schitterend om te lezen, ontzettend van genoten. Daarna sloop er langzaam maar zeker iets onprettigs in het verhaal. Het werd dramatisch en wat theatraal. Wel passend bij de tijd waarin het is geschreven, maar voor mij als hedendaagse lezer niet prettig om te lezen. Ik doel hierbij niet op de verschrikkelijke gebeurtenissen van die tijd. Het leek net of de schrijfster een beetje doorsloeg, alsof ze zeker van haar succes kon opschrijven wat ze wilde. Een verhaal waarin alles benoemd en besproken moest worden, niets werd aan de verbeelding overgelaten. Wat zo plezierig begon werd een opgave om uit te lezen.
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February 27, 2011In a coinage which has achieved fame in the annals of internet film criticism, Onion AV columnist Nathan Rabin discussed "a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl": "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Well, not solely in the minds of film writer-directors. We bookish folk must admit that Manic Pixie Dream Girls enjoy a parallel history in written fiction, from Leslie Burke in Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia to (it could be argued) Henry James's Daisy Miller. In both Paterson and James, as in MPDG films, the narrative focus is on the effects of these unorthodox, energetic girls on the male narrators, rather than on the inner lives of the girls themselves. In both cases, the girls cause the males to question their preconceived notions. And in both cases, of course, the girls must die, never to lose their effervescent, youthful energy; never to become mature women; never to threaten the fetishized memories kept inviolate by the men they leave behind.
Anna Gmeyner's 1938 novel Manja is a lesser-known example of the MPDG genre, and it really goes for broke. Rather than merely allowing its vibrant, imaginative young heroine to transform the emotional world of one mopey young man, it has her do it for four of them simultaneously: Karl, the son of Communist activists; Heini, child of educated leftists; Franz, son of a stupid, cruel thug who rises in the ranks of Nazi officialdom, and Harry, the half-Jewish child of a banker whose power is on the wane. The five children form the kind of predictably unpredictable band beloved of childhood fiction (the smart one! the cowardly one!), and yet I must say that Gmeyner pulls off their interactions with a certain amount of subtlety and interest. This interest dwells, not so much in the development of the individual characters, who are fairly transparent "types," but in their interactions and the ways in which the rise of Fascist power affects the group dynamic. In the interactions of Karl and Franz, for example, one can trace the similarities in the militarism of both boys' upbringing, despite their positions on different sides of the political spectrum. When the children play Indians, Harry is cast as the noble chieftan, husband of the princess, while Karl and Franz take the roles of her bloodthirsty kidnappers:
Besides the debate here between the Fascist idea that the few people worthy of goods in the first place should stockpile any leftovers, and the Communist notion that everyone should share equally, there is also an uncomfortable undercurrent in this discussion about sharing Manja's body. Predictably enough for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl narrative, it is Manja whose imagination and forceful personality holds the little group together—but the boys' gradual realization, as they begin to hit adolescence, that their society views girls as objects to be possessed by one male only, begins to undermine their solidarity. And Manja isn't just a girl: she's a poor Polish Jew, and she's growing up in a society that is tightening like a noose around people in all three of those categories. The boys around her are all torn between the desire to protect her against the threats of the outside world; the desire to maintain the status quo (the children make a heartbreakingly naive pledge that they will never allow their relationships to change); the desire to reject her as her friendship becomes a social liability; and the desire to triumph over the other boys and "win" her for his own.
These dynamics are honestly interesting, and I think Gmeyner does a good job with them. So too, she evokes with complexity certain of the children's parents—in particular, I was impressed with the character arc of Harry's father Max Hartung, an anti-semitic Jew who neglects his own son while fawning over the more Aryan-looking child fathered on his wife by one of Max's political rivals. Gmeyner often makes Hartung extremely unlikeable, yet never abandons the attempt to depict his thought processes with compassion. And I admit to seeing myself in the person of the intelligent, leftist but largely impotent-feeling Ernst Heidemann, father of Heini, who finds himself facing the horror of explaining to his son why their country is controlled by murderous bigots who reject the principles of equal human rights embraced by the Heidemann family.
Manja also asks some interesting questions about destiny and character-formation. It opens, unconventionally, with the scenes in which each of the five children are conceived. From this opening extends a preoccupation with the extent to which our origins dictate our fates: certainly an understandable question for an Austrian writing in 1938. Franz, for example, is growing up in a cruel household devoid of love, a reality reflected in his conception by rape. His parents are callous social climbers and bigots; does this necessarily mean Franz will be, as well? His struggle to break free of his father's cruelty, not to repeat it, is a difficult one: he sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails. Similarly, Manja is conceived under circumstances of unlikely but genuine human connection which is nevertheless unable to avert death: this seems an extremely accurate harbinger of her life to come. Dr. Heidemann, making the rounds of the maternity ward at night, "had a strange thought":
Pressing questions at a time when concepts of inborn racial purity or contamination were gaining ever more ominous prominence in Germany. And indeed, one of the most interesting things about Manja, the primary reason I would recommend it to others, is that, like Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, this is a novel written in the midst of the events it describes. Gmeyner gives us no easy answers at the end of the novel because the future of Germany and Europe were still very much unclear in 1938, and looked very dark for people of Gmeyner's humanist, liberal bent.
So Manja is a relatively thoughtful, anthropologically interesting example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl genre, and one I'm glad I read. I have to say, though, that many of the aspects of this genre that reliably grate on me, are also present here. Gmeyner does attempt some depiction of Manja's inner life, but sheer numbers are against her: with four boys to depict and only one girl, Manja's subjectivity perhaps inevitably gets overshadowed by those of her male friends. She becomes an object, either for protection or rejection, especially once outside pressures are threatening her as a Jew. Indeed, once a certain key scene of victimization passes, we hear almost nothing from Manja herself before the end of the book, instead watching as the parents and male children react to what they believe happened to her. To some extent this could be read as a comment on how abuse and violation silence and alienate their victims, but for me it isn't totally effective. The narrative structure seems to reinforce the idea that Manja is more important as an idea than as a person—an idea totally supported by the final scenes.
I mean, don't get me wrong: I shed tears at the end of this book, just like I always cry at the end of Harold & Maude, just like I remember bawling after finishing Bridge to Terabithia as a kid. The MPDG formula is a compelling one: if it weren't, it would hardly be so enduring. There is something satisfying about watching the male recipient of the sacrificed Manic Pixie's joie de vivre walk away from that cliff or that hospital room, a sadder but a wiser, more hopeful man. And yet the formula is compelling at the expense of female subjectivity, of female complexity, of female maturity: an exchange I tire of making again and again and again.
Anna Gmeyner's 1938 novel Manja is a lesser-known example of the MPDG genre, and it really goes for broke. Rather than merely allowing its vibrant, imaginative young heroine to transform the emotional world of one mopey young man, it has her do it for four of them simultaneously: Karl, the son of Communist activists; Heini, child of educated leftists; Franz, son of a stupid, cruel thug who rises in the ranks of Nazi officialdom, and Harry, the half-Jewish child of a banker whose power is on the wane. The five children form the kind of predictably unpredictable band beloved of childhood fiction (the smart one! the cowardly one!), and yet I must say that Gmeyner pulls off their interactions with a certain amount of subtlety and interest. This interest dwells, not so much in the development of the individual characters, who are fairly transparent "types," but in their interactions and the ways in which the rise of Fascist power affects the group dynamic. In the interactions of Karl and Franz, for example, one can trace the similarities in the militarism of both boys' upbringing, despite their positions on different sides of the political spectrum. When the children play Indians, Harry is cast as the noble chieftan, husband of the princess, while Karl and Franz take the roles of her bloodthirsty kidnappers:
Then the robbers seized the cheiftan's sleeping wife and dragged her through the jungle to their camp. With war-like yells she was bound to the stake. She endured this without complaint, but waited for death with bowed head while the villains discussed cannibalism.
"I'll eat her legs," said Karli, noisily sharpening the knife on a stone.
"They're for me," replied Franz.
"She's got two," said his fellow-cannibal placatingly.
"What's left over will be pickled and put in the larder," persisted Franz the robber.
"Red Indian larders?" jeered Karl, forgetting his part.
"I like the little toes best." The cannibal conversation started up again.
"Me too," replied Karl.
"I'll eat both, though," shouted Franz. "They're sweet as sugar."
"One each," bellowed Karl, adding a sentiment rare among cannibals, "Equal Rights for All."
Besides the debate here between the Fascist idea that the few people worthy of goods in the first place should stockpile any leftovers, and the Communist notion that everyone should share equally, there is also an uncomfortable undercurrent in this discussion about sharing Manja's body. Predictably enough for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl narrative, it is Manja whose imagination and forceful personality holds the little group together—but the boys' gradual realization, as they begin to hit adolescence, that their society views girls as objects to be possessed by one male only, begins to undermine their solidarity. And Manja isn't just a girl: she's a poor Polish Jew, and she's growing up in a society that is tightening like a noose around people in all three of those categories. The boys around her are all torn between the desire to protect her against the threats of the outside world; the desire to maintain the status quo (the children make a heartbreakingly naive pledge that they will never allow their relationships to change); the desire to reject her as her friendship becomes a social liability; and the desire to triumph over the other boys and "win" her for his own.
These dynamics are honestly interesting, and I think Gmeyner does a good job with them. So too, she evokes with complexity certain of the children's parents—in particular, I was impressed with the character arc of Harry's father Max Hartung, an anti-semitic Jew who neglects his own son while fawning over the more Aryan-looking child fathered on his wife by one of Max's political rivals. Gmeyner often makes Hartung extremely unlikeable, yet never abandons the attempt to depict his thought processes with compassion. And I admit to seeing myself in the person of the intelligent, leftist but largely impotent-feeling Ernst Heidemann, father of Heini, who finds himself facing the horror of explaining to his son why their country is controlled by murderous bigots who reject the principles of equal human rights embraced by the Heidemann family.
Manja also asks some interesting questions about destiny and character-formation. It opens, unconventionally, with the scenes in which each of the five children are conceived. From this opening extends a preoccupation with the extent to which our origins dictate our fates: certainly an understandable question for an Austrian writing in 1938. Franz, for example, is growing up in a cruel household devoid of love, a reality reflected in his conception by rape. His parents are callous social climbers and bigots; does this necessarily mean Franz will be, as well? His struggle to break free of his father's cruelty, not to repeat it, is a difficult one: he sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails. Similarly, Manja is conceived under circumstances of unlikely but genuine human connection which is nevertheless unable to avert death: this seems an extremely accurate harbinger of her life to come. Dr. Heidemann, making the rounds of the maternity ward at night, "had a strange thought":
Supposing that their destinies had been packed away somewhere in the basket, like the red water bottles at their feet? And that one of them could be taken out and another put in its place. All had pink faces with sparse and mostly dark hair which would fall out later, and then more would grow, fair curls or smooth black hair. How much of what they were going to be was already in them? How much of what they would experience later was born with them?
Pressing questions at a time when concepts of inborn racial purity or contamination were gaining ever more ominous prominence in Germany. And indeed, one of the most interesting things about Manja, the primary reason I would recommend it to others, is that, like Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, this is a novel written in the midst of the events it describes. Gmeyner gives us no easy answers at the end of the novel because the future of Germany and Europe were still very much unclear in 1938, and looked very dark for people of Gmeyner's humanist, liberal bent.
So Manja is a relatively thoughtful, anthropologically interesting example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl genre, and one I'm glad I read. I have to say, though, that many of the aspects of this genre that reliably grate on me, are also present here. Gmeyner does attempt some depiction of Manja's inner life, but sheer numbers are against her: with four boys to depict and only one girl, Manja's subjectivity perhaps inevitably gets overshadowed by those of her male friends. She becomes an object, either for protection or rejection, especially once outside pressures are threatening her as a Jew. Indeed, once a certain key scene of victimization passes, we hear almost nothing from Manja herself before the end of the book, instead watching as the parents and male children react to what they believe happened to her. To some extent this could be read as a comment on how abuse and violation silence and alienate their victims, but for me it isn't totally effective. The narrative structure seems to reinforce the idea that Manja is more important as an idea than as a person—an idea totally supported by the final scenes.
I mean, don't get me wrong: I shed tears at the end of this book, just like I always cry at the end of Harold & Maude, just like I remember bawling after finishing Bridge to Terabithia as a kid. The MPDG formula is a compelling one: if it weren't, it would hardly be so enduring. There is something satisfying about watching the male recipient of the sacrificed Manic Pixie's joie de vivre walk away from that cliff or that hospital room, a sadder but a wiser, more hopeful man. And yet the formula is compelling at the expense of female subjectivity, of female complexity, of female maturity: an exchange I tire of making again and again and again.
May 2, 2025
Manja was first published in 1938, so pre WW2, by the time she wrote it Anna Gmeyner had left Germany, but the story is written with first hand experiences of life in Germany in the 20's/30's, and the rise of the nazis.
It opens with five conception scenes, and five children born within days of each other; each representing different aspects of life in those times. Franz, whose dad rises to become a prominent figure in the Nazi party; Harry, the son of a businessman with Jewish roots; Heini, the son of a liberal doctor, and Karl, his father is a communist. Lastly, Manja, daughter of a Polish Jew. Manja is the one who brings all the children together; they all meet up regularly at 'the wall', their secret place.
This becomes an engaging read as we watch these children navigate the times they are living through, as their families rise or fall depending on their allegiances.
I think Manja a will be staying with me for a while.
It opens with five conception scenes, and five children born within days of each other; each representing different aspects of life in those times. Franz, whose dad rises to become a prominent figure in the Nazi party; Harry, the son of a businessman with Jewish roots; Heini, the son of a liberal doctor, and Karl, his father is a communist. Lastly, Manja, daughter of a Polish Jew. Manja is the one who brings all the children together; they all meet up regularly at 'the wall', their secret place.
This becomes an engaging read as we watch these children navigate the times they are living through, as their families rise or fall depending on their allegiances.
I think Manja a will be staying with me for a while.
June 24, 2025
Manja examines the rise of Nazism through five families and five children. Gmeyner wrote and published this book before the war, and her insight here compares to Day of No Return (Until That Day) by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor. Gmeyner is the mother of Eva Ibbotson, who wrote the forward.
Each of the children and their families come from a representative group: liberals, Nazis, communists, and so forth. Yet Gmeyner succeeds in making her characters seem real, not just representatives of ideas. They follow the consequences of their ideas, which impact others even more than it impacts themselves. While the content of the book frequently makes it unpleasant reading, Gmeyner is a capable writer and her narration is worth it on every page. This is a novel that needs multiple readings to trace the interconnectedness of characters and ideas. She effectively shows how hard life was in Germany in the 1920s, and the desperation that drove families like one in her novel to align so completely with the promises of a political party. Yet, her eye is on the daily life of people, not on national policy; she shows how they are both separate and intertwined.
I found the structure difficult, since we begin with the conceptions of five children, and follow them and their parents with different degrees of intimacy through the rest of the story. (There are too many characters whose names start with H. I counted--8 who are mentioned frequently, including 2 Hanses, and a couple mentioned infrequently.) Nearly 20 significant characters in a structure like this (swapping POVs every chapter) was a lot; fortunately the Persephone edition has a cast of characters. At least Dickens spends several chapters in a row with the same set of characters, not swapping every chapter!
Content warnings: the first five chapters are all conceptions of the children; two are non-consensual. I’d only count one of the five families as healthy in the long run. Gmeyner does not shy away from portraying Nazi violence toward communists, Jewish people, et c. Some cruel medical staff. Domestic violence. Attempted rape (of a child by a teenager). Assault. Suicide.
-----
"It was the first encounter with evil, pointless and eternal. This was not self defence nor was it to satisfy hunger. It was pleasure in evil, the most alienating, the most dreadful experience. Like a destructive storm it scattered the boy's thoughts. It was this evil which was at the root of war, the beginning of it all." (323)
"'It happens in so many fairy tales, that you come back, thinking you've been asleep for one night, and it was a hundred years. The same town, the same streets, but you're a stranger, you don't belong there. Where are all the people like us?' ... 'They're silent....Paralysed, shouted down by the others.'" (446)
"They won't thrash it out of you, no. But there are other things besides whips and boots stamping on you. There are thoughts in chains, truths that are gagged, justice that is perverted, all of which hurt no less." (460)
Each of the children and their families come from a representative group: liberals, Nazis, communists, and so forth. Yet Gmeyner succeeds in making her characters seem real, not just representatives of ideas. They follow the consequences of their ideas, which impact others even more than it impacts themselves. While the content of the book frequently makes it unpleasant reading, Gmeyner is a capable writer and her narration is worth it on every page. This is a novel that needs multiple readings to trace the interconnectedness of characters and ideas. She effectively shows how hard life was in Germany in the 1920s, and the desperation that drove families like one in her novel to align so completely with the promises of a political party. Yet, her eye is on the daily life of people, not on national policy; she shows how they are both separate and intertwined.
I found the structure difficult, since we begin with the conceptions of five children, and follow them and their parents with different degrees of intimacy through the rest of the story. (There are too many characters whose names start with H. I counted--8 who are mentioned frequently, including 2 Hanses, and a couple mentioned infrequently.) Nearly 20 significant characters in a structure like this (swapping POVs every chapter) was a lot; fortunately the Persephone edition has a cast of characters. At least Dickens spends several chapters in a row with the same set of characters, not swapping every chapter!
Content warnings: the first five chapters are all conceptions of the children; two are non-consensual. I’d only count one of the five families as healthy in the long run. Gmeyner does not shy away from portraying Nazi violence toward communists, Jewish people, et c. Some cruel medical staff. Domestic violence. Attempted rape (of a child by a teenager). Assault. Suicide.
-----
"It was the first encounter with evil, pointless and eternal. This was not self defence nor was it to satisfy hunger. It was pleasure in evil, the most alienating, the most dreadful experience. Like a destructive storm it scattered the boy's thoughts. It was this evil which was at the root of war, the beginning of it all." (323)
"'It happens in so many fairy tales, that you come back, thinking you've been asleep for one night, and it was a hundred years. The same town, the same streets, but you're a stranger, you don't belong there. Where are all the people like us?' ... 'They're silent....Paralysed, shouted down by the others.'" (446)
"They won't thrash it out of you, no. But there are other things besides whips and boots stamping on you. There are thoughts in chains, truths that are gagged, justice that is perverted, all of which hurt no less." (460)
December 10, 2015
Manja is the story of five children born in 1920, a girl (Manja) and four boys, and their families. It begins (shockingly for the time, I imagine) with five very different conception experiences, and follows the children as they become friends and grow up in Germany in the 1930s, ending with them aged 14 or 15 and the Nazis firmly in power.
Manja is from a Polish Jewish immigrant family and very poor; Harry is a quarter Jewish, and rich; Karl’s father is a communist; Heini’s father is a liberal doctor; Franz’s family starts out poor, but his father becomes a powerful Nazi leader in their district. We see, of course, the rise or fall of the parents as the balance of power switches, and the strain the children’s friendship undergoes as their loyalty to each other is stretched to life-threatening points.
It was published in 1938, before the war started, and the author had fled Germany in 1935, around the time the story ends. I hadn’t realised how bad things already were at that point.
Despite the heavy subject matter and the large cast of characters, I raced through this. The characterisation is so good, I had no trouble remembering who was who among the 5 children and total 12 parents and step-parents, plus siblings, neighbours, etc.
Manja is from a Polish Jewish immigrant family and very poor; Harry is a quarter Jewish, and rich; Karl’s father is a communist; Heini’s father is a liberal doctor; Franz’s family starts out poor, but his father becomes a powerful Nazi leader in their district. We see, of course, the rise or fall of the parents as the balance of power switches, and the strain the children’s friendship undergoes as their loyalty to each other is stretched to life-threatening points.
It was published in 1938, before the war started, and the author had fled Germany in 1935, around the time the story ends. I hadn’t realised how bad things already were at that point.
Despite the heavy subject matter and the large cast of characters, I raced through this. The characterisation is so good, I had no trouble remembering who was who among the 5 children and total 12 parents and step-parents, plus siblings, neighbours, etc.
October 2, 2020
'They lied to us; being good doesn't help; and I don't believe in heaven any more.'
Usually, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in her natural habitat enjoys the company of one sulky boy. You know, change the guy so the guy can change the world? Well, Manja transforms the emotional world of four sulky boys!
I wanted to love this. I really, really did. Written by an Austrian in exile; plumbing her own experiences of life under Nazism; a novel opening subversively with five conception scenes; a political exposé…
Ultimately, Manja is just a bit too… long. For all the sensitive descriptions of parenthood and childhood, the plot meanders until it becomes hazy. The characters themselves – whilst providing insight into the different facets of society; a Communist factory worker, a rich industrialist etc. – are relatively indistinguishable. The notable exception is, of course, Manja herself. She’s so much of a Mary Sue that, despite her compelling plight, I found her unpalatable.
Gmeyner’s prose is sharp and vivid - I only felt that the focus was misdirected. It’s the context that makes this one poignant; we’re all fascinated by how unquestioningly many Germans accommodated Nazism.
Usually, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in her natural habitat enjoys the company of one sulky boy. You know, change the guy so the guy can change the world? Well, Manja transforms the emotional world of four sulky boys!
I wanted to love this. I really, really did. Written by an Austrian in exile; plumbing her own experiences of life under Nazism; a novel opening subversively with five conception scenes; a political exposé…
Ultimately, Manja is just a bit too… long. For all the sensitive descriptions of parenthood and childhood, the plot meanders until it becomes hazy. The characters themselves – whilst providing insight into the different facets of society; a Communist factory worker, a rich industrialist etc. – are relatively indistinguishable. The notable exception is, of course, Manja herself. She’s so much of a Mary Sue that, despite her compelling plight, I found her unpalatable.
Gmeyner’s prose is sharp and vivid - I only felt that the focus was misdirected. It’s the context that makes this one poignant; we’re all fascinated by how unquestioningly many Germans accommodated Nazism.
November 14, 2016
4,5 stars. My review: https://theblankgarden.wordpress.com/...
July 30, 2017
Indringend en indrukwekkend mooi geschreven roman.
October 2, 2018
Eigenlijk is het heel triest wat er allemaal gebeurt maar ik vond dit zo'n prachtig boek. In essentie is het een eeuwenoud verhaal over hoe kinderen in hun eigen naïviteit zo'n mooie vriendschappen kunnen uitbouwen. Maar hoe die vriendschappen keer op keer verdwijnen samen met de kinderlijke onschuld, het ouder worden, en in dit geval vooral de onheilspellende opkomst van het nazisme.
June 9, 2012
Anna Gmeyner the author of Manja began writing her novel in 1938 while living among a community of European exiles in Belsize Park in London. She had come as a refugee to London in 1935. According to Eva Ibbotson, Anna Gmeyner’s daughter, in her preface to the 2003 Persephone edition Manja was inspired by a one paragraph newspaper report about the fate of a twelve year old girl in a German town.
The novel with its somewhat controversial beginning was well received at the time it first appeared written under a pseudonym. However I think that reading it now – knowing what we do about what happened in Europe in the years after Anna Gmeyner was writing lends it a greater poignancy.
“….Her story is one of heart-breaking poignancy; and although it is individualised with a truly imaginative vitality, we are convinced that her fate is only too typical of what is happening to hundreds of children in these outrageous times” ( 22nd September 1939 Manchester Guardian)
The novel takes place in a German town between the years of 1920 and 1933. In 1920 Germany was a broken country – struggling to recover from the four years of World War I. Manja is a novel about five children, Manja a young Jewish girl from Poland, and the four boys who are her friends. The novel opens with the stories of the conceptions of each of these five children. The families from which these boys come each represent the different political strands that existed in Germany at this time. One is a son of an idealist doctor, one the son of a Nazi, another of a Marxist, while the fourth is the son of a rich industrialist who believes his money may protect him from his part Jewish heritage. It is Manja who unites these boys – and this story is in part the story of their parents and of Germany in the years that lead to the raise of Nazism – but it is also the story of this friendship set against a terrifying backdrop. Manja shows the boys the constellation of Cassiopeia – five stars – which becomes the symbol of the friendship between the children. It is inevitable that their friendship is tested – that the evil that surrounds them at the end of 1933 intrudes – and the reader fears for Manja.
Somehow though, the story is never depressing, gently brutal perhaps – and very powerful. The children meet each Wednesday and Saturday – at the wall – which is all that remains of a house that once stood above a river. In the waste ground of these ruins the children are, for a time, able to enjoy the innocence of childhood. They are growing up however, and the times are changing. I hesitate to say too much that could result in spoilers as I know there are other Persephone readers out there who may be intending to read this one soon. Gmeyner captures the changing times, the fear and hate that pitches neighbour against neighbour with what feels like bone chilling authenticity. Suffice to say I will continue to think about Manja and her fate for a long time.
The novel with its somewhat controversial beginning was well received at the time it first appeared written under a pseudonym. However I think that reading it now – knowing what we do about what happened in Europe in the years after Anna Gmeyner was writing lends it a greater poignancy.
“….Her story is one of heart-breaking poignancy; and although it is individualised with a truly imaginative vitality, we are convinced that her fate is only too typical of what is happening to hundreds of children in these outrageous times” ( 22nd September 1939 Manchester Guardian)
The novel takes place in a German town between the years of 1920 and 1933. In 1920 Germany was a broken country – struggling to recover from the four years of World War I. Manja is a novel about five children, Manja a young Jewish girl from Poland, and the four boys who are her friends. The novel opens with the stories of the conceptions of each of these five children. The families from which these boys come each represent the different political strands that existed in Germany at this time. One is a son of an idealist doctor, one the son of a Nazi, another of a Marxist, while the fourth is the son of a rich industrialist who believes his money may protect him from his part Jewish heritage. It is Manja who unites these boys – and this story is in part the story of their parents and of Germany in the years that lead to the raise of Nazism – but it is also the story of this friendship set against a terrifying backdrop. Manja shows the boys the constellation of Cassiopeia – five stars – which becomes the symbol of the friendship between the children. It is inevitable that their friendship is tested – that the evil that surrounds them at the end of 1933 intrudes – and the reader fears for Manja.
Somehow though, the story is never depressing, gently brutal perhaps – and very powerful. The children meet each Wednesday and Saturday – at the wall – which is all that remains of a house that once stood above a river. In the waste ground of these ruins the children are, for a time, able to enjoy the innocence of childhood. They are growing up however, and the times are changing. I hesitate to say too much that could result in spoilers as I know there are other Persephone readers out there who may be intending to read this one soon. Gmeyner captures the changing times, the fear and hate that pitches neighbour against neighbour with what feels like bone chilling authenticity. Suffice to say I will continue to think about Manja and her fate for a long time.
June 10, 2012
The book begins on the night of May 25, 1920 and shows five very different conception scenes that lead to five very different children growing up in the Weimar Republic. The last part of the book is set in 1933, with the beginning of the Third Reich.
To some extent, the children and their parents are all character types, but Gmeyner adds depth and compassion to her portrayals, ensuring that the book is in no danger of becoming a tract. For me, the importance of Manja lies in the fact that it was written in the late 1930s. Similar to Irmgard Keun's After Midnight, Gmeyner has this tone of prescience - of here's how awful it is right now, and it's only going to get much, much worse.
The idea behind the luck of the draw with birth (where you're born and who you're born to) also rings throughout this book. I couldn't help thinking of my grandmother, born at almost the exact same time as Manja and her friends, but born in the U.S., decades after her relatives had left Europe.
Eva Ibbotson, the author's daughter, wrote the preface. Quite a life Gmeyner had.
To some extent, the children and their parents are all character types, but Gmeyner adds depth and compassion to her portrayals, ensuring that the book is in no danger of becoming a tract. For me, the importance of Manja lies in the fact that it was written in the late 1930s. Similar to Irmgard Keun's After Midnight, Gmeyner has this tone of prescience - of here's how awful it is right now, and it's only going to get much, much worse.
The idea behind the luck of the draw with birth (where you're born and who you're born to) also rings throughout this book. I couldn't help thinking of my grandmother, born at almost the exact same time as Manja and her friends, but born in the U.S., decades after her relatives had left Europe.
Eva Ibbotson, the author's daughter, wrote the preface. Quite a life Gmeyner had.
March 11, 2018
Het is natuurlijk niet een boek waar je echt vrolijk van wordt, maar wel aangrijpend en vooral fascinerend omdat het in 1938 voor het eerst verscheen. Ik moet nu even iets lezen met een happy ending.
July 19, 2016
" 'Weißt du wie alles ist? [...] Es kommt in vielen Märchen vor, man kommt zurück, denkt, man hat eine Nacht geschlafen, und es waren hundert Jahre. Dieselbe Stadt, dieselben Straßen, aber man ist fremd, man gehört nicht dazu. Wo sind alle Menschen wie wir?' "
5 Sterne
Was für ein großartiges Buch! Es spielt in Berlin 1920 - 1934 und selten hat mir ein Roman so ein eindrückliches Bild der Zeit, der Gesellschaft, der Menschen in den Jahren vor dem 2. Weltkrieg vermitteln können. Eine Geschichte, deren lebendige Figuren und fulminante Sprache bis ins Mark treffen und die noch lange in mir nachhallen wird.
5 Sterne
Was für ein großartiges Buch! Es spielt in Berlin 1920 - 1934 und selten hat mir ein Roman so ein eindrückliches Bild der Zeit, der Gesellschaft, der Menschen in den Jahren vor dem 2. Weltkrieg vermitteln können. Eine Geschichte, deren lebendige Figuren und fulminante Sprache bis ins Mark treffen und die noch lange in mir nachhallen wird.
July 27, 2015
It was difficulty to settle upon a rating - five for the story, but three for the way the writer told it. Too often the reader is left struggling to fill in the missing details of a scene - often critical details. The sketchiness of the descriptive passages captured the emotionally charged subject, but failed to keep the reader in the loop. Many times I had to reread passages, or refer to the timeline set forth at the end of the introduction. (Now I know why the editors included the timeline and geneaology.)
Read
December 19, 2016A very impressive book about the time before WWII and the atmosphere in Nazi Germany at that time. One of the best books I ever read. I cited from it during the negotiations in Macedonia, just to explain politicians how dangerous the developments in their own country are and why this was problematic. Anna Gmeyner (Jewish refugee before WWII) describes extremely well the climate of fear and how the whole society is coming more and more into the grip of fascism. A must!
August 21, 2024
Tja was soll ich sagen…bin zwar bei über der Hälfte, aber ich hab einfach so keine Lust auf das Buch, dass ich es jetzt abgebrochen habe. Selbst nach 250 Seiten, weiß icb nicht welche Eltern zu welchem Kind gehören, welcher Ideologie sie jetzt folgen und wie ihr Stand ist. Der Schreibstil ist sehr altertümlich, was das lesen total erschwert. Erinnert mich an einen Roman aus dem Deutschunterricht, durch den man sich gekämpft hat. Bin aber nicht mehr in der Schule, deshalb hab ich den Kampf mit Freude beendet :))
Ein zwei Gute takes waren aber definitiv dabei und an sich auch spannende Einblicke - besonders erschreckend wie sehr die Weimarer Republik sich auf heute übertragen lässt.
Ein Zitat von einem Chefarzt kurz nachdem ein jüdischer Kollege von Nazis (Patienten) und Pflegerin (Hitlerverehrerin) im Krankenhaus schikaniert wurde, hat mich sehr getroffen:
„Und jetzt, langsam, von allen Seiten schleicht sich‘s wieder ein, man hört plötzlich von überall die Stimmen, die eine Zeit geschwiegen haben, grausige eingefrorene Trompeten gespenstische Melodien blasen.“
Ein zwei Gute takes waren aber definitiv dabei und an sich auch spannende Einblicke - besonders erschreckend wie sehr die Weimarer Republik sich auf heute übertragen lässt.
Ein Zitat von einem Chefarzt kurz nachdem ein jüdischer Kollege von Nazis (Patienten) und Pflegerin (Hitlerverehrerin) im Krankenhaus schikaniert wurde, hat mich sehr getroffen:
„Und jetzt, langsam, von allen Seiten schleicht sich‘s wieder ein, man hört plötzlich von überall die Stimmen, die eine Zeit geschwiegen haben, grausige eingefrorene Trompeten gespenstische Melodien blasen.“
April 7, 2020
DNF at 168 pages. I find myself doing anything but reading this book. Mainly I’m not up for a dark story about 1930s Germany. I’m a bit disappointed the story is described as the story of five children, but by page 168, the children are all still infants. The first 100 pages was about how each child was conceived. I was a bit interested in seeing the attractiveness of the Nazis to some angry, starving Germans, which isn’t something I could understand at all before. But I’m not interested in this enough to continue this long book.
December 17, 2020
I found the book moving and frustrating in equal measure.
The novel is set in an unnamed city. In the main body of the narrative there are no dates, no specific references to actual historical events. This gives the account of the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s an almost dreamlike quality. A story many of us think we know, becomes new - and newly disturbing.
This isn't a narrative about Good and Evil. Those characters who are essentially virtuous find it almost impossible to act in a way that will stop the spread of prejudice. Those who are prejudiced and who do harm are seen as fallible, weak and flawed - not as monsters.
The book is a sort of patchwork - telling the story of five interlinked families - and many of its individual pieces are rendered with vivid intensity.
Perhaps oddly, given that the writer is a woman, I felt the novel was at its strongest when showing the difficulties and complexities of male friendshipm in a society where honesty becomes ever more risky.
The female characters seem to be much more stereotyical. Or perhaps archetypal. Manja the heroine seems to represent Hope and Freedom or possibly The Human Spirit. So the ending of the story - it's not a happy one - represents - Hope Extinguished. Which is fitting enough given that the novel ends at the point where National Socialism meant that friendships based around the acceptance of difference became impossible.
The novel has been unjustly overlooked - perhaps because we are too often persuaded that that fictions about politics must be in a socialist-realist mode. Narratives must concern themselves with powerful men and they should be written d by male authors.
I bought this novel because I'd been asking myself what it might feel like to grow up in Weimar Germany. 'Manja' gave me a variety of answers.
The novel is set in an unnamed city. In the main body of the narrative there are no dates, no specific references to actual historical events. This gives the account of the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s an almost dreamlike quality. A story many of us think we know, becomes new - and newly disturbing.
This isn't a narrative about Good and Evil. Those characters who are essentially virtuous find it almost impossible to act in a way that will stop the spread of prejudice. Those who are prejudiced and who do harm are seen as fallible, weak and flawed - not as monsters.
The book is a sort of patchwork - telling the story of five interlinked families - and many of its individual pieces are rendered with vivid intensity.
Perhaps oddly, given that the writer is a woman, I felt the novel was at its strongest when showing the difficulties and complexities of male friendshipm in a society where honesty becomes ever more risky.
The female characters seem to be much more stereotyical. Or perhaps archetypal. Manja the heroine seems to represent Hope and Freedom or possibly The Human Spirit. So the ending of the story - it's not a happy one - represents - Hope Extinguished. Which is fitting enough given that the novel ends at the point where National Socialism meant that friendships based around the acceptance of difference became impossible.
The novel has been unjustly overlooked - perhaps because we are too often persuaded that that fictions about politics must be in a socialist-realist mode. Narratives must concern themselves with powerful men and they should be written d by male authors.
I bought this novel because I'd been asking myself what it might feel like to grow up in Weimar Germany. 'Manja' gave me a variety of answers.
April 10, 2012
Ich muss gestehen, ich hatte leichte Zweifel als ich mit diesem umfangreichen Hörbuch begann. 873 Minuten - und das zu einem solch ernsten Thema. Ist das auszuhalten? Nein, zumindest nicht immer. Doch dies hängt nicht mit der Länge der Lesung oder des Inhalts an sich zusammen, sondern mit der unbeschreiblich eindringlichen Sprache Anna Gmeyners, die kongenial von Iris Berben umgesetzt wurde. Immer wieder musste ich innehalten, um das Gehörte erst einmal zu verdauen.
Fünf Kinderschicksale in der Zeit von 1920 bis 1934 werden geschildert, jedes so individuell wie Menschen nun mal sind. Manja, das 'Ergebnis' einer spontanen Liebesnacht, voller Lebendigkeit und Liebe dem Leben gegenüber, lebt in einer verarmten jüdischen Einwandererfamilie. Und dann die vier Jungen, deren Familien einen Querschnitt durch die gesamte Gesellschaft bilden: die politisch engagierte Arbeiterschaft, das großbürgerliche, reiche Judentum, die liberalen konfessionslosen Intellektuellen und die faschistischen Kleinbürger. Gemein ist ihnen, dass sie Manja lieben, egal wer aus welcher Familie kommt. Es ist eine schöne, wenn auch von Geldsorgen geprägte Kindheit die da erzählt wird. Doch das Unheil des III. Reiches rückt näher und macht auch vor der Freundschaft dieser Fünf nicht halt. Denn Manja und Harry, einer der vier Jungs, sind nicht rasserein...
Gmeyners Sprache ist voller Poesie und doch so genau, dass man das Schrecken und Grauen dieser Zeit förmlich mit den Händen greifen kann. Iris Berben setzt dies in einer fantastischen Art und Weise um. Rauh und hart klingt ihre Stimme, wenn der faschistische Familienvater seinen Sohn zusammenbrüllt, weich und sanft wenn Manja sich um ihre schwache Mutter kümmert. Einfach brilliant!
Fünf Kinderschicksale in der Zeit von 1920 bis 1934 werden geschildert, jedes so individuell wie Menschen nun mal sind. Manja, das 'Ergebnis' einer spontanen Liebesnacht, voller Lebendigkeit und Liebe dem Leben gegenüber, lebt in einer verarmten jüdischen Einwandererfamilie. Und dann die vier Jungen, deren Familien einen Querschnitt durch die gesamte Gesellschaft bilden: die politisch engagierte Arbeiterschaft, das großbürgerliche, reiche Judentum, die liberalen konfessionslosen Intellektuellen und die faschistischen Kleinbürger. Gemein ist ihnen, dass sie Manja lieben, egal wer aus welcher Familie kommt. Es ist eine schöne, wenn auch von Geldsorgen geprägte Kindheit die da erzählt wird. Doch das Unheil des III. Reiches rückt näher und macht auch vor der Freundschaft dieser Fünf nicht halt. Denn Manja und Harry, einer der vier Jungs, sind nicht rasserein...
Gmeyners Sprache ist voller Poesie und doch so genau, dass man das Schrecken und Grauen dieser Zeit förmlich mit den Händen greifen kann. Iris Berben setzt dies in einer fantastischen Art und Weise um. Rauh und hart klingt ihre Stimme, wenn der faschistische Familienvater seinen Sohn zusammenbrüllt, weich und sanft wenn Manja sich um ihre schwache Mutter kümmert. Einfach brilliant!
September 4, 2013
5 Kinder, gezeugt im Frühjahr 1920, werden Freunde, trotz der sehr unterschiedlichen Elternhäuser aus der sie stammen. 1933 wird es fast unmöglich, diese Freundschaft aufrecht zu erhalten.
Geschrieben im Exil, vielleicht ein klitzekleins bisschen zuviel Stereotypisierung, vor allem der Eltern, insbesondere der Väter Meißner (bösartiger arbeitsloser Kleinbürger der mit den Nazis groß rauskommt) und Hartung (neureicher Jude). Trotzdem eine sehr gelungene Darstellung der wachsenden Beklemmung, die der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus mit sich bringt. Identifikationsfigur für den Leser ist besonders der liberale Arzt Heidmann, der hilflos mit ansehen muss, wie Anstand und Gerechtigkeit an Wert verlieren.
Geschrieben im Exil, vielleicht ein klitzekleins bisschen zuviel Stereotypisierung, vor allem der Eltern, insbesondere der Väter Meißner (bösartiger arbeitsloser Kleinbürger der mit den Nazis groß rauskommt) und Hartung (neureicher Jude). Trotzdem eine sehr gelungene Darstellung der wachsenden Beklemmung, die der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus mit sich bringt. Identifikationsfigur für den Leser ist besonders der liberale Arzt Heidmann, der hilflos mit ansehen muss, wie Anstand und Gerechtigkeit an Wert verlieren.
February 18, 2023
Citaat : Elk moment groeit als een plant uit de donkere aarde van wat geweest is, wordt er onzichtbaar en ongrijpbaar door gevormd en bepaald, het groeit met verborgen en vertakte wortels in het verleden.
Review : Anne Gmeyner, geboren in 1902, komt uit een intellectueel, joods en liberaal gezin en was een boegbeeld van de zogenaamde ‘exil-literatuur’. De schrijfster, opgejaagd door de nazi’s, ontvlucht Berlijn midden jaren dertig: eerst naar Parijs, later naar Engeland. Daar schrijft ze ‘Manja’ het verhaal van vijf kinderen uit Berlijn: vier jongens en een meisje, allen verwekt in het voorjaar van 1920, die een bijzondere vriendschap sluiten. Ze zijn afkomstig uit zeer uiteenlopende gezinnen: burgerlijk nationaalsocialistisch, humanistisch, communistisch, Joods en bourgeois. Manja is de bindende factor van hun vriendschap maar naarmate ze ouder worden en de politieke omgeving steeds onrustiger wordt, raken ze steeds meer onder de invloed van hun ouders’ opvattingen en afkomst.
Het verhaal begint met het slot wat op dat moment nog niets van het verhaal verraadt maar wel intrigeert. verscheen het boek . De roman, die In Duitsland in voor het eerst in 1984 verscheen volgt de kinderen die elkaar dagelijks ontmoeten op een verlaten ruïneterrein. De vier jongens en Manja moeten dit paradijs voortdurend verdedigen tegen het geweld van 'Klasse' en 'Rasse', van domheid en nijd. Manja neemt het voortouw en slaagt erin de vriendengroep bij elkaar te houden. Tot hun vriendschap in 1933 zwaar op de proef gesteld wordt, omdat Manja en Harry opeens niet meer 'raszuiver' zijn. Twee van de jongens worden door hun ouders gedwongen bij de Hitlerjugend te gaan, de vader van een ander wordt als gevaarlijke communist bestempeld en is op een dag plotseling verdwenen. Door de problemen van hun ouders - die zich wel of niet bij Hitler moeten aansluiten -, worden de kinderen ook gedwongen een keuze te maken. Het verhaal dat Gmeyer vertelt is gitzwart. Duitsland hangt, vernederd na WOI, in de touwen. De economisch zware jaren twintig lopen naadloos over in de donkere jaren dertig en wanneer de nazi’s de macht definitief overnemen is het hek helemaal van de dam.
Langzaam verandert de toon in het boek en de donkere ongemakkelijke sfeer sluipt beetje bij beetje het boek in. Naarmate het verhaal vordert, wordt de sfeer beklemmender en dreigender. De kinderen, eerst nog naïef, later meer bewust van wat er gebeurt, ondergaan vooral. Wanneer één van de jongens, Franz de oudere nazi-jongen Martin in de groep introduceert zet dit het mechanisme in gang dat zal leiden tot de uiteindelijke ondergang van Manja. Het boek behandelt vlijmscherp het omgaan met radicaal veranderende omstandigheden en welke impact dat heeft op vriendschap, de maatschappij, het leven.
Review : Anne Gmeyner, geboren in 1902, komt uit een intellectueel, joods en liberaal gezin en was een boegbeeld van de zogenaamde ‘exil-literatuur’. De schrijfster, opgejaagd door de nazi’s, ontvlucht Berlijn midden jaren dertig: eerst naar Parijs, later naar Engeland. Daar schrijft ze ‘Manja’ het verhaal van vijf kinderen uit Berlijn: vier jongens en een meisje, allen verwekt in het voorjaar van 1920, die een bijzondere vriendschap sluiten. Ze zijn afkomstig uit zeer uiteenlopende gezinnen: burgerlijk nationaalsocialistisch, humanistisch, communistisch, Joods en bourgeois. Manja is de bindende factor van hun vriendschap maar naarmate ze ouder worden en de politieke omgeving steeds onrustiger wordt, raken ze steeds meer onder de invloed van hun ouders’ opvattingen en afkomst.
Het verhaal begint met het slot wat op dat moment nog niets van het verhaal verraadt maar wel intrigeert. verscheen het boek . De roman, die In Duitsland in voor het eerst in 1984 verscheen volgt de kinderen die elkaar dagelijks ontmoeten op een verlaten ruïneterrein. De vier jongens en Manja moeten dit paradijs voortdurend verdedigen tegen het geweld van 'Klasse' en 'Rasse', van domheid en nijd. Manja neemt het voortouw en slaagt erin de vriendengroep bij elkaar te houden. Tot hun vriendschap in 1933 zwaar op de proef gesteld wordt, omdat Manja en Harry opeens niet meer 'raszuiver' zijn. Twee van de jongens worden door hun ouders gedwongen bij de Hitlerjugend te gaan, de vader van een ander wordt als gevaarlijke communist bestempeld en is op een dag plotseling verdwenen. Door de problemen van hun ouders - die zich wel of niet bij Hitler moeten aansluiten -, worden de kinderen ook gedwongen een keuze te maken. Het verhaal dat Gmeyer vertelt is gitzwart. Duitsland hangt, vernederd na WOI, in de touwen. De economisch zware jaren twintig lopen naadloos over in de donkere jaren dertig en wanneer de nazi’s de macht definitief overnemen is het hek helemaal van de dam.
Langzaam verandert de toon in het boek en de donkere ongemakkelijke sfeer sluipt beetje bij beetje het boek in. Naarmate het verhaal vordert, wordt de sfeer beklemmender en dreigender. De kinderen, eerst nog naïef, later meer bewust van wat er gebeurt, ondergaan vooral. Wanneer één van de jongens, Franz de oudere nazi-jongen Martin in de groep introduceert zet dit het mechanisme in gang dat zal leiden tot de uiteindelijke ondergang van Manja. Het boek behandelt vlijmscherp het omgaan met radicaal veranderende omstandigheden en welke impact dat heeft op vriendschap, de maatschappij, het leven.
June 17, 2018
There is a lot going on in this novel about 5 children whom we meet from birth to teenage years: nature versus nurture, the world of children v the world of adults, the situation in Germany as the Nazis gain power and how this affects 5 very different families and, in particular, the children from those families. It is a really interesting read - some of it very good indeed, some of the description rather overwrought in my opinion, however that may just be a change in fashion.
The eponymous Manja becomes something of a cipher and I would be interested to hear what other readers felt about what happens to her at the end of the novel.
The eponymous Manja becomes something of a cipher and I would be interested to hear what other readers felt about what happens to her at the end of the novel.
July 17, 2020
Prachtige roman, opgevat als theaterstuk, die via de vriendschap tussen 5 kinderen het Duitsland in het interbellum schetst... een beschadigde maatschappij, nog herstellende van WO I, die afglijdt naar radicalisering, hokjesdenken en racisme. De hoop die het nazisme geeft aan een deel van de bevolking, de groeiende vertwijfeling en onmacht over hun verdrukking bij andersdenkenden en Joden, het teloorgaan van de democratische en eerlijke rechtsstaat. Iedereen wordt meegesleept. Het is bij wijlen ontstellend hoe herkenbaar bepaalde situaties vandaag de dag zijn. Geen vrolijk boek, maar prachtig en poëtisch geschreven.
September 11, 2022
This is a very powerful book, and I wish it was more widely read and known. I feel like this should be read and annotated in classrooms. It follows five different families whose lives are intertwined throughout the book. It is set in the interwar period showing how the climate became ripe for the development of the Nazi party as well as the influence that the first world war had on the second. It shows how the poison belief systems of adults can pollute children, and also how a beacon of joy can help them to overcome it.
September 9, 2022
Aangrijpend, in soms wat te poëtische bewoordingen verteld verhaal over vijf kinderen en hun belangrijkste verwanten tijdens de opkomst van het nazisme. Gezinssituaties, achtergronden en onderlinge betrekkingen vertonen een grote diversiteit. Om de vele personages uit elkaar te kunnen houden heb ik op een gegeven moment daar maar een simpel overzicht van gemaakt, waarop ik tijdens verdere lezing van het boek meerdere keren heb teruggegrepen.
May 30, 2023
Exile literature is not a classic kick-off-the-summer-reading choice, but since when am I so easily swayed by social norms or the need to escape another work-heavy season of singledom? I'm free to choose with little consequence either way. The adults and children in the novel much less so, as they struggle through the rise of fascism and consequences determining life or death. A book is hardly that critical to survival - but isn't the insight worth the investment?
Ideas set free.
Ideas set free.
June 9, 2023
“A wet leaf brushed against his cheek, and he remembered the man he had seen that morning, who kept on sweeping the pavement in front of his house although it was immediately covered again by falling leaves; and it seemed to him that he was exactly like that foolish man, sweeping an autumnal street which in spite of all his efforts was at once covered in leaves again.”
March 23, 2017
Very well written. Bur clearly a book of the period. You are thrown into the life of the different characters. Which makes the nook very dramatic. As an outsider, living 80 years after the events, you presume what is going to happen. There is no way out. The inevitable must happen.
December 27, 2019
Lost classic
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