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How German Is It
The question How German Is It underlies the conduct and actions of the characters in Walter Abish's novel, an icy panorama of contemporary Germany, in which the tradition of order and obedience, the patrimony of the saber and the castle on the Rhine, give way to the present, indiscriminate fascination with all things American. On his return from Paris to his home city of Würtenburg, Ulrich Hargenau, whose father was executed for his involvement in the 1944 plot against Hitler, is compelled to ask himself, "How German am l?"––as he compares his own recent attempt to save his life, and his wife Paula's, by testifying against fellow members of a terrorist group, with his father's selfless heroism. Through Ulrich––privileged, upper class––we confront the incongruities of the new democratic Germany, in particular the flourishing community of Brumholdstein, named after the country's greatest thinker, Brumhold, and built on the former site of a concentration camp. Paula's participation in the destruction of a police station; the State's cynical response to crush the terrorists; two attempts on Ulrich's life; the discovery in Brumholdstein of a mass grave of death camp inmates––all these, with subtle irony, are presented as pieces of a puzzle spelling out the turmoil of a society's endeavor to avoid the implications of its menacing heritage.
257 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 1980
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About the author
Walter Abish
24 books42 followersWalter Abish was an American author of experimental novels and short stories.
At a young age, his family fled from the Nazis, traveling first to Italy and Nice before settling in Shanghai from 1940 to 1949. In 1949, they moved to Israel, where Abish served in the army and developed an interest in writing. He moved to the United States in 1957 and became an American citizen in 1960. Since 1975, Abish has taught at several eastern universities and colleges. Abish received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1981 for his book How German Is It?. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.
Abish's work shows both imaginative and experimental elements. In Alphabetical Africa, for instance, the first chapter consists entirely of words beginning with the letter "A." In the second chapter, words beginning with "B" appear, and so on through the alphabet. In the Future Perfect is a collection of short stories where words are juxtaposed in unusual patterns.
At a young age, his family fled from the Nazis, traveling first to Italy and Nice before settling in Shanghai from 1940 to 1949. In 1949, they moved to Israel, where Abish served in the army and developed an interest in writing. He moved to the United States in 1957 and became an American citizen in 1960. Since 1975, Abish has taught at several eastern universities and colleges. Abish received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1981 for his book How German Is It?. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.
Abish's work shows both imaginative and experimental elements. In Alphabetical Africa, for instance, the first chapter consists entirely of words beginning with the letter "A." In the second chapter, words beginning with "B" appear, and so on through the alphabet. In the Future Perfect is a collection of short stories where words are juxtaposed in unusual patterns.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
February 24, 2024
Walter Abish may appear to be contemplatively distant and disinterestedly detached but actually he is murderously venomous.
Like an experienced and pitiless vivisector he dissects the respectable society of “The new democratic Germany, where people were no longer measured by class, upbringing, loyalties, but by their achievements as human beings,” and bares all its nerves and hidden tumours.
“Is the only time we’re not standing at attention when we are asleep?”
Pragmatism and hedonism, pretense and pose, spiritlessness and hypocrisy: it seems that living by double standard has become a norm. Fornication and adultery are the best entertainment. Culture is just a façade.
At the site of the former concentration camp the new fashionable and admirable town has been erected. History did never happen.
But an old abandoned railroad station still stands like a rotten tooth…
If you don’t like the past then pretend that there is no past.
…the mind is so created that it habitually sets up standards of perfection for everything: for marriage and for driving, for love affairs and for garden furniture, for table tennis and for gas ovens, for faces and for something as petty as the weather. And then, having established these standards, it sets up other standards of comparison, which serve, if nothing else, to confirm in the minds of most people that a great many things are less than perfect.
Like an experienced and pitiless vivisector he dissects the respectable society of “The new democratic Germany, where people were no longer measured by class, upbringing, loyalties, but by their achievements as human beings,” and bares all its nerves and hidden tumours.
“Is the only time we’re not standing at attention when we are asleep?”
Pragmatism and hedonism, pretense and pose, spiritlessness and hypocrisy: it seems that living by double standard has become a norm. Fornication and adultery are the best entertainment. Culture is just a façade.
now that odd-shaped building, the museum.
That’s different, said Franz, quick to jump to the defense of a Hargenau. After all, it’s a repository for culture. A warehouse, so to speak, of history.
At the site of the former concentration camp the new fashionable and admirable town has been erected. History did never happen.
But an old abandoned railroad station still stands like a rotten tooth…
Fifteen endlessly long trains traveling at a pretty fast pace, given the age of the rails and other safety factors, clippedy-clop, clippedy-clop, clippedy-clop, on their way to or coming from the railroad juncture. The only evidence of life on the passing trains was an occasional scarecrow face framed in the tiny cutout window of a freight car.
If you don’t like the past then pretend that there is no past.
June 1, 2016
It took me much longer than expected to finish this book. Not because it was dull or even particularly slow-moving. It was more due to the lifestyles of the characters and the meandering nature of the narrative. Abish writes here of the 'New Germany' and its generation that was born during or at the close of WWII. The plot focuses on the two sons of Ulrich von Hargenau, an anti-Nazi activist executed for his role in the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. Helmuth is a prosperous architect and Ulrich is a writer of popular autobiographical fiction. They have discarded the elitist von from their aristocratic last name, much to the disapproval of the residents of Brumholdstein—the chic, uber-modern community in which they live. Helmuth has designed many of the town's civic landmarks, regularly lunches with the mayor, and revels in the deference given him by his fellow citizens. Ulrich, recently returned from living abroad, is recovering from legal trouble surrounding his association with a group of artists/social activists known for terrorist acts, as well as nursing some tender emotions over a split with his wife, also a member of the group.
An ominous cloud hangs over much of the narrative, generating an expectation of something terrible about to occur, and there is enough mild intrigue to keep the plot afloat and the pages turning, but the clouds frequently part to reveal domestic scenes indicative of the free-wheeling, libertine 1970s lifestyle, as enjoyed by two wealthy, good-looking German brothers with plenty of spare time to burn. During these often soap-operatic jaunts, a sense of complacency settled over me, though not enough to fully squelch my nagging awareness of the bad thing possibly lurking around the corner. Throughout the book, staggered exposition on the Hargenau family also serves to distract from the sense of doom.
Nazi ghosts swirl around the characters, and it's clear that the members of this generation have mixed emotions about their country's recent past, representing a wide spectrum from vague sympathy to full condemnation. The book captures so well a snapshot of one community's struggle to progress in democratic style while still hampered by entrenched class issues and lingering fascist mindsets. It is chiefly a character-driven story, and it's through his skilled characterization that Abish is able to present such a layered portrait of post-war Germany. His postmodern flourishes serve to accentuate the newness and uncertainty of the moments in time he writes about, while also raising larger questions about humanity and the Holocaust.
June 21, 2016
Wie deutsch ist dieser Roman? Sehr Deutsch, Sir! A mesmeric peep into the postwar German psyche.
January 29, 2018
One of the best experimental-procedural novels, full stop. All the more amazing for Abish having never been to Germany (yet) so as to not color his titular question one way or another. Well? Vie Deutsch Ist Es?
There will be a quiz. Bring your Blue Books.
There will be a quiz. Bring your Blue Books.
September 11, 2024
Nagyon kedvelem ezeket a könyveket - ahol a nyugodt, mondhatni szürke felszín alatt szörnyek rejtőznek. Abish regénye mint szöveg, pontos, tárgyilagosan távolságtartó szerkezet, helyenként az útikönyvek semlegességét idézi, máshol meg indokolatlannak tűnő ideig mókol marginális mellékszálakkal. De végig érezzük, hogy ha ezt a semlegességet és körülményességet megpiszkáljuk, rejtett jelentéstartalmak bontakoznak ki - pont mint a regénybeli Brumhold esetében, ami szemre nett, dinamikusan fejlődő nyugatnémet városka, csak épp - bár igyekszünk ezzel nem szembenézni - konkrétan egy koncentrációs tábor maradványaira épült. Az egész könyv az ilyesfajta ellentétek feszültségéből építkezik. Itt van rögtön a főszereplő, Ulrich, a regényíró, aki hosszas távollét után tér haza. No most Ulrich legfőbb célkitűzése, hogy mindentől megfelelő távolságban maradjon, regényei is mintha csak azért íródnának, hogy legyen miből kihagyni a lényeget*. Az őt körülvevő személyek valóságos ellenpontjai: Helmuth, a bátyja építész, ilyen értelemben a lehető legkézzelfoghatóbb (és legpragmatikusabb) művészet művelője, az ember, aki (szó szerint) felépíti a jövő Németországát. Vagy itt van Paula, a feleség, aki meg alighanem terrorista, vagyis a testet öltött aktivizmus, aki szintén a jövő Németországát építené, persze csak miután felrobbantotta azt a Németországot, amit mások építenek. Csupa cselekvő személy, tervekkel, tettekkel, ideákkal. Csak Ulrich az, aki kimaradna ebből, aki tartaná a két lépés távolságot tőlük, az ő Németországuktól. De ha mindenkitől tartjuk a távolságot, nem kerülünk végül távol önmagunktól is?
Remek könyv a múltról, identitásainkról, a hazáról. Okos és sokrétű.
Ja, és zárszóként a végső kérdés (mert a végső kérdések izgalmasabbak, mint a végső válaszok):
"Felemelheti-e ma Németországban valaki a jobb kezét úgy, hogy meg ne rohanják egy minden álmot megsemmisítő álom emlékei?"
* Az utószó felteszi a kérdést: vajon véletlen-e, hogy Abish a "Tulajdonságok nélküli ember" főhősének nevét ragasztja saját kreatúrájára. Hát, nem.
Remek könyv a múltról, identitásainkról, a hazáról. Okos és sokrétű.
Ja, és zárszóként a végső kérdés (mert a végső kérdések izgalmasabbak, mint a végső válaszok):
"Felemelheti-e ma Németországban valaki a jobb kezét úgy, hogy meg ne rohanják egy minden álmot megsemmisítő álom emlékei?"
* Az utószó felteszi a kérdést: vajon véletlen-e, hogy Abish a "Tulajdonságok nélküli ember" főhősének nevét ragasztja saját kreatúrájára. Hát, nem.
March 1, 2022
How German Is It was a welcome surprise. It addresses the German culture and identity in the post WWII era, a subject about which I have been curious and have tried to learn, especially during a vacation to Germany in the fall of 2018. Published in 1980, this novel can only address these questions as of that point in time, and as I found out 38 years later the German people are still working out the answers to these questions, and still working on who they are. But 38 years after publication, How German Is It doesn't feel dated. The language is fresh, crisp. The issues brought to the front by the novel do not feel resolved, in fact they feel very relevant.
Where I struggled with the novel and wasn't completely satisfied was with the characters and the plot. Many of the characters are left partially developed. Perhaps this is intentional. Perhaps this is how some of the German citizens today feel. The plot never really happened. It went off in several different directions, all of which were interesting, but none of which was really seen through to the end, except one that felt too minimally developed. This was almost an incredible reading experience, but it was a very enjoyable one and very enlightening as well; it helped me look at the issues in new and different ways.
Where I struggled with the novel and wasn't completely satisfied was with the characters and the plot. Many of the characters are left partially developed. Perhaps this is intentional. Perhaps this is how some of the German citizens today feel. The plot never really happened. It went off in several different directions, all of which were interesting, but none of which was really seen through to the end, except one that felt too minimally developed. This was almost an incredible reading experience, but it was a very enjoyable one and very enlightening as well; it helped me look at the issues in new and different ways.
June 15, 2010
Fantastic book, and strange I’d never heard of it until recently. I guess that the limited audience for such a book equals limited air time. If you are not German (and even if you are) or don’t have a particular interest in Germany, this book could bore you. But I ate it up. I am the target audience!
From the perspective of the 70’s, which are grotesque enough, the author takes on Germany, its culture and society and its heavy history. The weight of the past, the haunting and shame and guilt. The book has a lot of punch. I was worried the end would fizzle out stupidly but it did not. It was surprising and strong.
Basically the theme is on p. 190: “Sooner or later, every German, young or old, male or female, will come across some description in a book, or newspaper, or magazine of those grim events …. “
And “those grim events” may be too much for the individual to carry. He’ll want to deny or forget or rewrite, or at least question them. When a collapsed sewer reveals a mass burial site folks are particular about doing the right thing. And yet there’s the wishful question “can anyone really rule out the possibility, remote as it may appear, that these people were not inmates of the camp but Germans killed in air raids, or killed by Americans, or killed by the inmates after they had been released, or killed by fanatic Germans…” and wouldn’t it be nice if for once the Germans were not the perpetrators but the victims and they didn’t have to go on committing this ghastly crime forever and ever? Ach, if only!
For all its seriousness the book is also very funny. I laughed through all the talk about the weather, and the German words used to describe it. The story takes place in “a glorious German summer,” the best one in 33 years! That’s the beginning of the book and the glorious summer is mentioned over and over. It’s meant to be ironic, and it is, and it’s funny.
Then there are the titles of the book the main character has written: “Now or Never,” “What Else?” and finally “Exactly,” which strikes me as particularly German and hilarious. (Genau!)
And then the family as a metaphor for heritage: “In the garden Erika, laughing wildly, was chasing Gisela. In comparison to her, Gisela was by far more agile, more inventive. He found his daughter’s laughter vaguely disturbing, as if it spelled out a possible future derangement. Erika, he called from the window. Erika, stop it immediately.” (p. 101)
Finally, every German will have to deal with being German, and living with that history. The protagonist, recently back from Paris, spends some time where he’s settled, and is asked if he’s beginning to feel at home: “More and more, he replied. And when he thought about it later, he concluded that it was true. He did feel more at home, but that did not mean that he liked it.” (p. 168)
It’s a sad fate. Here the house as nation stripped of everything it could be proud of, art, culture and ideals: “I grew up in a large house in the country. A house that after the war was gradually emptied of its contents, its furniture, its paintings, its silverware, its carpets, anything that was of value. People from all over came to see what we had to sell.” (P. 249)
From the perspective of the 70’s, which are grotesque enough, the author takes on Germany, its culture and society and its heavy history. The weight of the past, the haunting and shame and guilt. The book has a lot of punch. I was worried the end would fizzle out stupidly but it did not. It was surprising and strong.
Basically the theme is on p. 190: “Sooner or later, every German, young or old, male or female, will come across some description in a book, or newspaper, or magazine of those grim events …. “
And “those grim events” may be too much for the individual to carry. He’ll want to deny or forget or rewrite, or at least question them. When a collapsed sewer reveals a mass burial site folks are particular about doing the right thing. And yet there’s the wishful question “can anyone really rule out the possibility, remote as it may appear, that these people were not inmates of the camp but Germans killed in air raids, or killed by Americans, or killed by the inmates after they had been released, or killed by fanatic Germans…” and wouldn’t it be nice if for once the Germans were not the perpetrators but the victims and they didn’t have to go on committing this ghastly crime forever and ever? Ach, if only!
For all its seriousness the book is also very funny. I laughed through all the talk about the weather, and the German words used to describe it. The story takes place in “a glorious German summer,” the best one in 33 years! That’s the beginning of the book and the glorious summer is mentioned over and over. It’s meant to be ironic, and it is, and it’s funny.
Then there are the titles of the book the main character has written: “Now or Never,” “What Else?” and finally “Exactly,” which strikes me as particularly German and hilarious. (Genau!)
And then the family as a metaphor for heritage: “In the garden Erika, laughing wildly, was chasing Gisela. In comparison to her, Gisela was by far more agile, more inventive. He found his daughter’s laughter vaguely disturbing, as if it spelled out a possible future derangement. Erika, he called from the window. Erika, stop it immediately.” (p. 101)
Finally, every German will have to deal with being German, and living with that history. The protagonist, recently back from Paris, spends some time where he’s settled, and is asked if he’s beginning to feel at home: “More and more, he replied. And when he thought about it later, he concluded that it was true. He did feel more at home, but that did not mean that he liked it.” (p. 168)
It’s a sad fate. Here the house as nation stripped of everything it could be proud of, art, culture and ideals: “I grew up in a large house in the country. A house that after the war was gradually emptied of its contents, its furniture, its paintings, its silverware, its carpets, anything that was of value. People from all over came to see what we had to sell.” (P. 249)
March 24, 2025
Eccola la chicca che aspettavo dal catalogo di Cantoni Editore.
[88/100]
[88/100]
June 22, 2022
This novel had been sitting on my shelves for years, until Abish's recent death. After not getting into his Eclipse Fever several years ago, this was truly a revelation. Almost everything Abish does works: his raised-eyebrow third-person narrator who goes into an increasing number of characters’ heads, the sentences often clipped and sometimes on-running, all sorts of repetition and partial repetition, the cleverness, the interlinking affairs, the satire of the then “new” Germany, a decade before the newer reunified Germany, but no matter, it works. Even sometimes hitting the reader over the head with the ghosts of Nazism somehow works. Only close to the end does the novel become a bit tiresome, but still mostly brilliant. Highly recommended!
July 14, 2022
I bought this after drawing the author for a series of obituary portraits. I’m glad I did. It was a weird, funny and telling look at historical residue.
June 15, 2018
3.5/5 - a terrific last line.
August 19, 2011
How German is 'it' -- meaning: life, existence and/or Germanness itself? Well, from the book's POV plus my own epxerience after 3 years as a foreigner in Germany I'd say thay 'it' is very, very German indeed. And probably the irony and the power of the very essence of Germanness is that it can be both a fascinating and a terrifying thing.
Consider what I experienced about 2 months ago. I need to apply for a drivers' license because there is no recirpocity between Germany and my home US state, despite the fact that I have been driving for 25 years. I can take the written test in English but I also need to attend a compulsory First Aid class--which is only given in German! So in effect, through the law allows me to take the written driving test in my own language even if I know no German at all, the law also demands that I spend an entire day listening to First Aid info in German, even when the law knows (and accepts) that I don't understand German! Typical Teutonian comtradiction.
So I went to the First Aid class--8 hours straight in a tiny room with about 30 other people, mostly teens. Eight hours with only two 15 minutes breaks. The 'teacher' was this tall, slim, incredibly attractive--in a German sort of way--twentysomething guy whose intensity was both fascinati and grotesque. The guy gave his all to this First Aid stuff as if his life depended on it--which maybe it did since Germans have to do everything with intensity, no matter how banal. We got thousands of slides and so much information you'd think we were being trained as Medics! A d every ten mins he'd break off with exercises.
So, during one of these, which I could only half follow with my very weak German, I was supposed to show how I'd lW down a fainting person on the ground. I did so, and he stopped me because, he said in English, I'd forgotten to first tell 'someone' (who?) to run off and call the ambulance. I told him, im English, that I'd missed that part--due to my weak German. So one of the kids in the class offered to be the one I sent off to call the ambulance and assured me, 'you always have to tell someone to call the ambulance.' At which point I, with what I consider to be perfect logic, asked: 'OK, but what if I'm alone? What if I don't have someone send off for the ambulance? Do i then leave the fainting person there and do it myself, or do I take care of the fainting person first?'
They all looked very, very confused. Clearly, no one had thought of that! It just wasn't in the script, you see. 'There's always someone,' the kid insisted. And I replied,'Really? How could you know?'
The point is, you can't know. There are a million things that you don't know and simply cannot know but this state of affairs drive Germans CRAZY! They have this obsessive, compulsive, at times all-consuming need go control everything. It stems from theif infamous ANGST-- an all-pervasivd anguish and anxiety for and about life, of what cannot be controlled in life. In German, 'angst' actually means fear but, like with many other German words, it's travelled to all other languages.
Anyway--from 'how German is it.?' we could move to 'what is German?' and pretty much arrive at the same point.
Consider what I experienced about 2 months ago. I need to apply for a drivers' license because there is no recirpocity between Germany and my home US state, despite the fact that I have been driving for 25 years. I can take the written test in English but I also need to attend a compulsory First Aid class--which is only given in German! So in effect, through the law allows me to take the written driving test in my own language even if I know no German at all, the law also demands that I spend an entire day listening to First Aid info in German, even when the law knows (and accepts) that I don't understand German! Typical Teutonian comtradiction.
So I went to the First Aid class--8 hours straight in a tiny room with about 30 other people, mostly teens. Eight hours with only two 15 minutes breaks. The 'teacher' was this tall, slim, incredibly attractive--in a German sort of way--twentysomething guy whose intensity was both fascinati and grotesque. The guy gave his all to this First Aid stuff as if his life depended on it--which maybe it did since Germans have to do everything with intensity, no matter how banal. We got thousands of slides and so much information you'd think we were being trained as Medics! A d every ten mins he'd break off with exercises.
So, during one of these, which I could only half follow with my very weak German, I was supposed to show how I'd lW down a fainting person on the ground. I did so, and he stopped me because, he said in English, I'd forgotten to first tell 'someone' (who?) to run off and call the ambulance. I told him, im English, that I'd missed that part--due to my weak German. So one of the kids in the class offered to be the one I sent off to call the ambulance and assured me, 'you always have to tell someone to call the ambulance.' At which point I, with what I consider to be perfect logic, asked: 'OK, but what if I'm alone? What if I don't have someone send off for the ambulance? Do i then leave the fainting person there and do it myself, or do I take care of the fainting person first?'
They all looked very, very confused. Clearly, no one had thought of that! It just wasn't in the script, you see. 'There's always someone,' the kid insisted. And I replied,'Really? How could you know?'
The point is, you can't know. There are a million things that you don't know and simply cannot know but this state of affairs drive Germans CRAZY! They have this obsessive, compulsive, at times all-consuming need go control everything. It stems from theif infamous ANGST-- an all-pervasivd anguish and anxiety for and about life, of what cannot be controlled in life. In German, 'angst' actually means fear but, like with many other German words, it's travelled to all other languages.
Anyway--from 'how German is it.?' we could move to 'what is German?' and pretty much arrive at the same point.
May 20, 2021
This was the first winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award which is the only reason I read it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have attracted my attention. It was a decent read but, I have to admit, I wasn't completely enamored with it. It's written in a fairly dispassionate way as if from a distant observer with a slight touch of humor. It features as the main protagonist Ulrich Hargenau and his brother Helmuth whose father was killed by the Nazis for conspiring against Hitler. Ulrich is a successful writer who testified against a terrorist group that his estranged wife belonged to and so his life has been threatened. The main thrust of the book, however, seems to be about the changes that Germany is going through in becoming a more modern society and away from their traditional behavior as well as confronting their troubled past.
February 24, 2020
"Wie deutsch ist es?" handelt von einem Schriftsteller -Sohn eines 20. Juli Attentäters -, der sich in den 70er Jahren am Rande einer RAF-artigen Gruppierung aufhält. Die einfach gestrickte Handlung spielt vorwiegend in einer auf dem Areal eines ehemaligen KZ neu errichteten Trabantenstadt, in der Niemand sich der Erinnerung stellen möchte. Die Trabantenstadt ist nach einem Heidegger-Wiedergänger benannt, dem viele nachstreben.
Walter Abish gelingt ein brillantes Panorama der 70er Jahre in Deutschland. Das ist umso bemerkenswerter, da der Autor nie in Deutschland war und diese Welt des Aufbaus und der Spießbürgerlichkeit, der kleinbürgerlichen Revolutionssucht besser einfängt, als all die Walsers und Bölls, die damals fleißig gelesen wurden. Typologisch und Qualitativ lässt sich dieser großartige - und zugleich unspektakuläre - Roman mit der 50er Jahre Trilogie von Wolfgang Koeppen vergleichen. Damit zählt "Wie deutsch ist es?" in meinen Augen zum Besten der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur (ohne streng genommen zur deutschen Literatur zu gehören).
Mir haben insgesamt die Heidegger-Persiflagen besonders gut gefallen, insbesondere als die Grundschullehrerin Anna den Kindern vom Wesen des Seins erzählt.
Für Pinzige: Abish als Ausländer gelingt es nicht, den föderalen Lokalkolorit in den Roman einfließen zu lassen. Die Handlung ist wohl irgendwo im Schwabenland angesiedelt und die regionale Differenz zu den anderen Regionen, in denen Teile spielen erkennt der Amerikaner nicht. Weiterhin fehlt ihm der richtige Soundtrack bei ihm legen in den 70er Jahren Yuppies Schubert Platten auf, die wohl eher die Rolling Stones aufgelegt hätten. Da sitzt er einem Cliché auf. Zudem begeht er den Fehler des typischen Amerikaners, es als selbstverständlich anzusehen, dass ein Schulbus gelb ist. Ansonsten passt das letzte Detail wie die Faust aufs Auge.
Walter Abish gelingt ein brillantes Panorama der 70er Jahre in Deutschland. Das ist umso bemerkenswerter, da der Autor nie in Deutschland war und diese Welt des Aufbaus und der Spießbürgerlichkeit, der kleinbürgerlichen Revolutionssucht besser einfängt, als all die Walsers und Bölls, die damals fleißig gelesen wurden. Typologisch und Qualitativ lässt sich dieser großartige - und zugleich unspektakuläre - Roman mit der 50er Jahre Trilogie von Wolfgang Koeppen vergleichen. Damit zählt "Wie deutsch ist es?" in meinen Augen zum Besten der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur (ohne streng genommen zur deutschen Literatur zu gehören).
Mir haben insgesamt die Heidegger-Persiflagen besonders gut gefallen, insbesondere als die Grundschullehrerin Anna den Kindern vom Wesen des Seins erzählt.
Für Pinzige: Abish als Ausländer gelingt es nicht, den föderalen Lokalkolorit in den Roman einfließen zu lassen. Die Handlung ist wohl irgendwo im Schwabenland angesiedelt und die regionale Differenz zu den anderen Regionen, in denen Teile spielen erkennt der Amerikaner nicht. Weiterhin fehlt ihm der richtige Soundtrack bei ihm legen in den 70er Jahren Yuppies Schubert Platten auf, die wohl eher die Rolling Stones aufgelegt hätten. Da sitzt er einem Cliché auf. Zudem begeht er den Fehler des typischen Amerikaners, es als selbstverständlich anzusehen, dass ein Schulbus gelb ist. Ansonsten passt das letzte Detail wie die Faust aufs Auge.
January 24, 2009
This is the kind of book you start reading, and you immediately get very excited about. So, you keep on plowing through the interesting and sad characters, and the interesting and sad data and information and history about Germans and Germany, and then, somewhere mid-way through or so, you go, "Oh, crap, I already read this book, and already thought these same exact things." The book is deja vu, the same thing every single time. Rather than coming back to a book you've read and loved once before and rediscovering why you loved it before and why you love it now, you completely forget about it and have the same experience the next time 'round. I think I must have read this book at least three times between 2005 and 2007 before I realized the loop I was in.
Now, I'm not saying don't read it. It's a compelling and entertaining and thoughtful take on the modern world, and the modern Germany, and asks a lot of questions about what the past is, and the present, and the future and all that. All I'm saying is, remember that you've read it so you don't get sucked into the vacuum that erases your memory of the thing.
Now, I'm not saying don't read it. It's a compelling and entertaining and thoughtful take on the modern world, and the modern Germany, and asks a lot of questions about what the past is, and the present, and the future and all that. All I'm saying is, remember that you've read it so you don't get sucked into the vacuum that erases your memory of the thing.
February 19, 2010
This is one of the more memorable novels I've read in the last five years.
There was one scene that blew me away: the protagonist visits his brother, who has another visitor, the mayor and his wife. While the brother and the mayor play tennis, it becomes clear (at least to me) that the brother and the mayor's wife are having an affair. Abish gets this across deftly, and with very few brushstrokes. And, until later in the book, we don't get confirmation of this, but when we do it's welcome and pleasing as a reading experience.
For me, as in much very good writing, there is an entire text that is never written, but is implied in this novel. It is one that has in it a great deal of anguish: for the German Jews, their identity was as much German as Jewish. And the author seems to argue with this novel that they shouldn't allow their German identity to be taken away from them by the fanatical actions of the Nazis. The question is "How German" was the holocaust? In the entire history of a culture, a culture in which Jews were a vital and important part, "How German" is one fifteen year period of time?
There was one scene that blew me away: the protagonist visits his brother, who has another visitor, the mayor and his wife. While the brother and the mayor play tennis, it becomes clear (at least to me) that the brother and the mayor's wife are having an affair. Abish gets this across deftly, and with very few brushstrokes. And, until later in the book, we don't get confirmation of this, but when we do it's welcome and pleasing as a reading experience.
For me, as in much very good writing, there is an entire text that is never written, but is implied in this novel. It is one that has in it a great deal of anguish: for the German Jews, their identity was as much German as Jewish. And the author seems to argue with this novel that they shouldn't allow their German identity to be taken away from them by the fanatical actions of the Nazis. The question is "How German" was the holocaust? In the entire history of a culture, a culture in which Jews were a vital and important part, "How German" is one fifteen year period of time?
July 28, 2012
Very, as it turns out.
July 2, 2024
This isn’t a book that’s gonna come out of any MFA program, but maybe that’s what makes it so great. As haunting, with the haunting lurking in the past and underneath the surface (think Hitler’s Germany still influencing 1970s Germans), a novel as I’ve ever read. Why this book isn’t better known is beyond me.
November 28, 2016
I am absolutely in love with this book and probably wouldn't have picked it up if I wasn't hi-jacking a friend's reading list for my own selfish gains (thanks Eric). Even after reading the back summary, trying to process the cover photo, and attempting to understand where Abish fit into literature (somewhere in the '70s Barthelme burn-all-the-rules-down-in-a-weird-humorous-way slice of things, I believe), I still may have taken my time starting this one.
What I found was a calmly sinister, subtly ironic tone lurking beneath the novel's narrative. And much like the sinkhole that opens up beneath Brumholdstein, the toxic vibes (terrorism, rampant infidelity and other types of popular upper class play, an infinite level of post-war emotion for Germany to deal with—if ever) deftly erode from within. The prose is brilliant—at times fluid and long-reaching, but mostly abiding by a stark, matter-of-factness that is delivered in short, standalone paragraphs throughout the novel's entirety. And it's somehow very funny.
But what I think might be the real topic at hand here is not Germany, but America. How German is It? No idea, since this all feels like a late '70s American suburban existence transposed into a Germany only a few decades into democratic structure (and still very much trying to figure it out). I also read somewhere that Abish hadn't even been to Germany when he wrote this, though his Austrian descent probably helped. But it's also late 2016 and facts on the internet don't exist anymore.
Overall, I'm just left with the astonished feeling that Abish totally out-White Noise'd DeLillo five years in advance.
What I found was a calmly sinister, subtly ironic tone lurking beneath the novel's narrative. And much like the sinkhole that opens up beneath Brumholdstein, the toxic vibes (terrorism, rampant infidelity and other types of popular upper class play, an infinite level of post-war emotion for Germany to deal with—if ever) deftly erode from within. The prose is brilliant—at times fluid and long-reaching, but mostly abiding by a stark, matter-of-factness that is delivered in short, standalone paragraphs throughout the novel's entirety. And it's somehow very funny.
But what I think might be the real topic at hand here is not Germany, but America. How German is It? No idea, since this all feels like a late '70s American suburban existence transposed into a Germany only a few decades into democratic structure (and still very much trying to figure it out). I also read somewhere that Abish hadn't even been to Germany when he wrote this, though his Austrian descent probably helped. But it's also late 2016 and facts on the internet don't exist anymore.
Overall, I'm just left with the astonished feeling that Abish totally out-White Noise'd DeLillo five years in advance.
April 22, 2013
A young Walter Abish and his parents fled Austria in the late 1930s and after the better part of two decades first in Shanghai, then Israel, he came to America, finally beginning to publish English fiction and poetry in his early 40s.
This is probably his most famous novel, set in Germany in the 70s where the Nazi past sits uneasily and the left-wing terrorist present has grabbed center stage. The former is illustrated by a town renamed after a contemporary philosopher where the past is literally covered up by concrete (a sewer pipe collapse revels a mass grave from a former prison camp) and figuratively (all library card catalog entries for the town's prior name redirect to the new one and nothing else).
Abish is plainly a bit uneasy with the concept of some sort of essential German-ness and the central character is a writer with all the uncertainty of perspective that can bring and, as is revealed, an identity crisis of his own. The other salient plot element is his former (unwitting?) engagement with a Baader-Meinhof-styled terrorist group via his ex-wife.
For all the turbulent subject matter, the writing is witty and moves quickly and the cast of characters well-differentiated and memorable.
This is probably his most famous novel, set in Germany in the 70s where the Nazi past sits uneasily and the left-wing terrorist present has grabbed center stage. The former is illustrated by a town renamed after a contemporary philosopher where the past is literally covered up by concrete (a sewer pipe collapse revels a mass grave from a former prison camp) and figuratively (all library card catalog entries for the town's prior name redirect to the new one and nothing else).
Abish is plainly a bit uneasy with the concept of some sort of essential German-ness and the central character is a writer with all the uncertainty of perspective that can bring and, as is revealed, an identity crisis of his own. The other salient plot element is his former (unwitting?) engagement with a Baader-Meinhof-styled terrorist group via his ex-wife.
For all the turbulent subject matter, the writing is witty and moves quickly and the cast of characters well-differentiated and memorable.
October 27, 2008
Literary trickster, Walter Abish, was a late bloomer. His first novel, Duel Site (1970), did not appear until Abish was turning forty. His second novel, Alphabetical Africa (1974), cemented his reputation. Each chapter of that book played pseudo-alliterative rules: the first chapter began with each word beginning with the letter a, the second would add the letter b, the third c and so on, until chapter 27 when a letter was taken away until chapter 52. A brief flurry of publishing through the 1970s was followed with relative silence through to the present day. So far Abish has only published three novels, three collections of short stories, one book of poetry and one autobiography.
How German Is It is perhaps his most celebrated novel, and certainly his most complex. It is a novel that probes Germany’s recent past through the brothers Ulrich and Helmuth Hargenau, whose father defected against Hitler in the last days of the Second World War and was killed by firing squad. As the title infers, Abish is interested in the question of how uniquely German the Holocaust was, and how its people could have committed such an act. But this is not a novel wholly interested in Germany’s past – it is interested in its present, with the rise of a terrorist group, whose activities mirror the Red Army Faction.
As in Abish’s former works, How German Is It is enamoured with verbal tomfoolery, of which the cumulative effect is to constantly wrong-foot the reader, making us as wary of modern German as both Abish and his characters seem to be. Ulrich Hargenau, the novels ‘hero’, is a successful writer, estranged from his wife, Paula, a female terrorist, whom he saved from prison by testifying against the other members of her group. Ulrich, returned to Brumholdstein (named after Ernst Brumhold, a Heidegger-type philosopher), begins to suffer occasional death threats and attempts are made on his life. His brother, Helmuth, a successful architect who designed the police station in Brumholdstein (only to see it blown up by the terrorist group operating in the area), begins to suffer from similar concerns. The Hargenau’s – a very Americanised family – represent modern Germany, in a very old German town. Brumholdstein was the site of a notorious gas chamber and concentration camp, now buried beneath the modern facade.
About half way through this novel teacher Anna Heller is discussing with her primary school students the concept of familiarity. What is familiar? What qualities is it that makes something familiar? This is a question Abish’s novel returns to frequently, with the word ‘familiar’ a recurring motif. In the end it seems that nothing is what it seems and that the familiar can pave over deep secrets – just as the paving stones outside the familiar bakery conceal a mass grave – and just as the familiarity of marriage can hide seething resentments.
“Sunday: This is the introduction to the German Sontag. This is an introduction to the German tranquillity and decorum. People out for a stroll, affably greeting their neighbours. Guten Morgen. Guten Tag. Schönes Wetter, nicht wahr? Ja, hervorragend. A day of pleasant exchanges. A day of picnics, leisurely meals, newspapers on the sofa. Franz sitting in their small garden, reading his Sunday paper, his back to the noisy neighbours next door, his back to the familiar scene of the neighbours playing cards, his back deliberately turned to their Sunday.” (P.156-157)
Only those who have embraced knowledge of Germany’s past and reached some form of reconciliation with it – as Franz the waiter, who is building a scale model of the concentration camp has – can see the hypocrisy under the surface of the familiar. Their only reaction is to turn their back on it. Only the present will not let them.
Ulrich, the subject of death threats, is shot in the arm, but has the mayor of Brumholdstein tell him to “forget it.” The mayor also panics that there will be bad publicity for his town when news of the bodies breaks, and wishes he could simply forget they were there. Towards the end of the novel Ulrich is witness to the terrorists biggest act to date – the blowing up of a bridge (the second bridge blowing in the Penguin Classics so far, and I’m only eight books in!) that connects the mainland with the island town of Gänzlich (or the two faces of Germany, the modern mainland and the remote islands that still cling to a past, wary of strangers, united against them. This act forces Ulrich to face up to his responsibility and to himself, and leads to the devastatingly satirical end.
For Abish, How German Is It is a novel that questions the very identity of a nation in transition, trying to face up to its troubled past. As Abish writes of the naming of the town:
“Without access to the intricacy, the nuances, the shades of meaning in our language, the visitor’s ability to understand and appreciate the complexities of our customs or the manifestations of our creative impulse will be severely limited…. In adopting the name of Brumhold we have also, in all seriousness, embraced his lifelong claim to the questions: What is being? What is thinking?” (P.170)
The answers Abish finds to these questions are not always satisfactory, if only because Abish himself was uncertain of them. In 2004 he published Double Vision: A Self Portrait which speaks of his time in Germany following the publication of How German Is It. He asks himself, “At what stage in the reconstruction of Germany, at what point in this tremendous effort will the turbulent past fade, enabling the visitor to Germany to once again view the society with that credulous gaze of a nineteenth-century traveller?”[1] If Abish, with the novelists gaze, cannot reconcile the two faces of twentieth century Germany, what hope has the country of rebuilding the familiar? More recent novelists have turned their attention to this question with equally unsure conclusions: Christa Wolf with Das Bleibt (1990) Rachel Seiffert in The Dark Room (2001), or Bernhard Schlink with The Reader (1995). But then questions of how to comprehend the atrocities of the Third Reich will trouble novelists for eternity. To this conundrum Abish adds much with his cinematic prose, prefigured by the quote from Jean-Luc Godard that opens his book: “What is really at stake is one’s image of oneself.” The very image of a nation is at the heart of this work.
How German Is It is perhaps his most celebrated novel, and certainly his most complex. It is a novel that probes Germany’s recent past through the brothers Ulrich and Helmuth Hargenau, whose father defected against Hitler in the last days of the Second World War and was killed by firing squad. As the title infers, Abish is interested in the question of how uniquely German the Holocaust was, and how its people could have committed such an act. But this is not a novel wholly interested in Germany’s past – it is interested in its present, with the rise of a terrorist group, whose activities mirror the Red Army Faction.
As in Abish’s former works, How German Is It is enamoured with verbal tomfoolery, of which the cumulative effect is to constantly wrong-foot the reader, making us as wary of modern German as both Abish and his characters seem to be. Ulrich Hargenau, the novels ‘hero’, is a successful writer, estranged from his wife, Paula, a female terrorist, whom he saved from prison by testifying against the other members of her group. Ulrich, returned to Brumholdstein (named after Ernst Brumhold, a Heidegger-type philosopher), begins to suffer occasional death threats and attempts are made on his life. His brother, Helmuth, a successful architect who designed the police station in Brumholdstein (only to see it blown up by the terrorist group operating in the area), begins to suffer from similar concerns. The Hargenau’s – a very Americanised family – represent modern Germany, in a very old German town. Brumholdstein was the site of a notorious gas chamber and concentration camp, now buried beneath the modern facade.
About half way through this novel teacher Anna Heller is discussing with her primary school students the concept of familiarity. What is familiar? What qualities is it that makes something familiar? This is a question Abish’s novel returns to frequently, with the word ‘familiar’ a recurring motif. In the end it seems that nothing is what it seems and that the familiar can pave over deep secrets – just as the paving stones outside the familiar bakery conceal a mass grave – and just as the familiarity of marriage can hide seething resentments.
“Sunday: This is the introduction to the German Sontag. This is an introduction to the German tranquillity and decorum. People out for a stroll, affably greeting their neighbours. Guten Morgen. Guten Tag. Schönes Wetter, nicht wahr? Ja, hervorragend. A day of pleasant exchanges. A day of picnics, leisurely meals, newspapers on the sofa. Franz sitting in their small garden, reading his Sunday paper, his back to the noisy neighbours next door, his back to the familiar scene of the neighbours playing cards, his back deliberately turned to their Sunday.” (P.156-157)
Only those who have embraced knowledge of Germany’s past and reached some form of reconciliation with it – as Franz the waiter, who is building a scale model of the concentration camp has – can see the hypocrisy under the surface of the familiar. Their only reaction is to turn their back on it. Only the present will not let them.
Ulrich, the subject of death threats, is shot in the arm, but has the mayor of Brumholdstein tell him to “forget it.” The mayor also panics that there will be bad publicity for his town when news of the bodies breaks, and wishes he could simply forget they were there. Towards the end of the novel Ulrich is witness to the terrorists biggest act to date – the blowing up of a bridge (the second bridge blowing in the Penguin Classics so far, and I’m only eight books in!) that connects the mainland with the island town of Gänzlich (or the two faces of Germany, the modern mainland and the remote islands that still cling to a past, wary of strangers, united against them. This act forces Ulrich to face up to his responsibility and to himself, and leads to the devastatingly satirical end.
For Abish, How German Is It is a novel that questions the very identity of a nation in transition, trying to face up to its troubled past. As Abish writes of the naming of the town:
“Without access to the intricacy, the nuances, the shades of meaning in our language, the visitor’s ability to understand and appreciate the complexities of our customs or the manifestations of our creative impulse will be severely limited…. In adopting the name of Brumhold we have also, in all seriousness, embraced his lifelong claim to the questions: What is being? What is thinking?” (P.170)
The answers Abish finds to these questions are not always satisfactory, if only because Abish himself was uncertain of them. In 2004 he published Double Vision: A Self Portrait which speaks of his time in Germany following the publication of How German Is It. He asks himself, “At what stage in the reconstruction of Germany, at what point in this tremendous effort will the turbulent past fade, enabling the visitor to Germany to once again view the society with that credulous gaze of a nineteenth-century traveller?”[1] If Abish, with the novelists gaze, cannot reconcile the two faces of twentieth century Germany, what hope has the country of rebuilding the familiar? More recent novelists have turned their attention to this question with equally unsure conclusions: Christa Wolf with Das Bleibt (1990) Rachel Seiffert in The Dark Room (2001), or Bernhard Schlink with The Reader (1995). But then questions of how to comprehend the atrocities of the Third Reich will trouble novelists for eternity. To this conundrum Abish adds much with his cinematic prose, prefigured by the quote from Jean-Luc Godard that opens his book: “What is really at stake is one’s image of oneself.” The very image of a nation is at the heart of this work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2021
I think you might have to have a pre-existing interest in postwar Germany to really get into this, but for me this thing really hits a lot of pleasure centers.
Abish pulls on a lot of good threads, including stand-ins for who I'd imagine is the Red Army Faction and Heidegger. The postwar era was a weird one in Germany, where they somehow had to reconcile the urge to re-invent a culture to remove the Nazi parts as well as the all-too-usual German urge to celebrate their contributions to what they routinely see as the highest achievements of culture--Goethe, Schiller, Hesse, Heine, and so on and so on. Abish handles this very well, carefully needling points of friction in the process. Not only that, but he tackles this subject on more than just an aesthetic front, bringing in the interplay between the classes found in Daemling and Brumholdstein. And though he might not emphasize it, he also specifically hints at the coming Turkish migration to Germany.
My main criticism is that Abish brought in too many characters, I think with the idea that each new one was a vehicle to address certain topics, but it never felt satisfying as it needed to be. For example, a lot of space could be saved by simply cutting Egon and Gisela (the second character named Gisela), who I didn't find compelling at all. Due to the character-loading, this thing had a major slump in the back half until we reached about page 200, and never really paid off for doing so.
I think this book was at its best with Franz, and any other time the subject of work is brought up, like where the Vin's father comes to paint her house. Another example is the bus driver, which are the scenes where I think that Abish is at his best, weaving together the private thoughts of both the bus driver and Franz along with the text of their conversation.
I'd highly recommend this one to all my Germanphiles. If you are not that, simply read T. Singer or Novel 11 Book 18 by Dag Solstad.
Abish pulls on a lot of good threads, including stand-ins for who I'd imagine is the Red Army Faction and Heidegger. The postwar era was a weird one in Germany, where they somehow had to reconcile the urge to re-invent a culture to remove the Nazi parts as well as the all-too-usual German urge to celebrate their contributions to what they routinely see as the highest achievements of culture--Goethe, Schiller, Hesse, Heine, and so on and so on. Abish handles this very well, carefully needling points of friction in the process. Not only that, but he tackles this subject on more than just an aesthetic front, bringing in the interplay between the classes found in Daemling and Brumholdstein. And though he might not emphasize it, he also specifically hints at the coming Turkish migration to Germany.
My main criticism is that Abish brought in too many characters, I think with the idea that each new one was a vehicle to address certain topics, but it never felt satisfying as it needed to be. For example, a lot of space could be saved by simply cutting Egon and Gisela (the second character named Gisela), who I didn't find compelling at all. Due to the character-loading, this thing had a major slump in the back half until we reached about page 200, and never really paid off for doing so.
I think this book was at its best with Franz, and any other time the subject of work is brought up, like where the Vin's father comes to paint her house. Another example is the bus driver, which are the scenes where I think that Abish is at his best, weaving together the private thoughts of both the bus driver and Franz along with the text of their conversation.
I'd highly recommend this one to all my Germanphiles. If you are not that, simply read T. Singer or Novel 11 Book 18 by Dag Solstad.
September 27, 2009
Ah! Experimental fiction! Modernism!... or post-modernism? Whatever!
I love Germany - I love the culture, I love most of the literature, I love the language and the history. But throw those things together into an experimental hodge-podge? Apparently not so much.
Ulrich is the son of a high-ranking military officer who had been executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. And from there the plot and sub-plot becomes so multi-layered I wanted to hurt someone.
This isn't a bad book, but one to be read instead of reviewed. Float my boat, this one did not.
I love Germany - I love the culture, I love most of the literature, I love the language and the history. But throw those things together into an experimental hodge-podge? Apparently not so much.
Ulrich is the son of a high-ranking military officer who had been executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. And from there the plot and sub-plot becomes so multi-layered I wanted to hurt someone.
This isn't a bad book, but one to be read instead of reviewed. Float my boat, this one did not.
March 18, 2017
Just happened to read this at the precise point in which to maximize its enjoyment. I've studied just enough deutsch to get the German asides, and having recently moved to Berlin I laughed out loud in agreement with Abish's insights i.e., the German inclination to combine what is essentially perfection with what is menacing. Also, I read this in the final vomitous days of Trump's bid for the US presidency, in a state of global apocalyptic hysteria.
October 25, 2016
Changed my ideas about fiction.
January 20, 2025
Reading How German Is It, let alone reading Walter Abish (1931 – 2022) for the first time, thoroughly astonished me. The cutting interrogative style and, frankly, the sheer balls Abish as a foreigner displays by directing Germans in the awareness of their own history shocks me just as much as the shockingly little discussion around his literary career. He's a writer for writers and fans of theory, and after reading his little-known-but-somehow-best-known novel, I cannot believe the lack of attention Abish's work receives even today.
Focusing more on the novel and less on my candid bewilderment, How German Is It investigates the amounts of pride and shame the average German should have in the postwar era. 'Should,' of course, being the word at which to raise an eyebrow. Abish ruthlessly answers the titular question by the novel's end, but whether he --a Jewish Austrian and, later, an American-- can legitimately dictate how Germans should feel about their own past invites criticism and debate. He almost issues a challenge to his readers by attempting to answer the question at all. While I as an American can only point to this uncomfortable topic, I can imagine that most people will see it as a cause for concern and, by extension, baited curiosity.
Of course, anyone who knows this piece of Abish's biography will take the bait.
How German Is It challenges its readers to approach it as something to study; its philosophy delivers the novel to its academic circles and, unfortunately, hardly beyond them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading How German Is It not only as a launching pad for thesis ideas but also as a good story. Ulrich Hargenau, of course wrestling with his identity, sifts through the distant and recent pasts that his many acquaintances desperately --deathly desperately-- try to efface. As all these characters intermingle in one sprawling detective story, Ulrich learns that the only thing he can trust is the utter German-ness that motivates the nightmarish subplots of life after the war.
The short chapters and gripping plot turn an otherwise inaccessible philosophical investigation into one that welcomes readers with its literary premise. What gets readers to stay is how Abish illuminates his investigation in a literary and innovative way. Here we learn what How German Is It really is: a novel of guilt, and Abish delights in directing his power at different ethnic and national groups. Without getting too much in the weeds of theory, what would otherwise be deeply uncomfortable for readers --especially for Americans and Germans-- becomes an awe-striking experience that leaves your mouth agape even when Abish points the finger at you. He guilt-trips so well that, for as much as you hate him for doing so, you must remind yourself when Abish grinds his axe against your people.
Removing myself from Abish's prowess, I see how problematic it is to glorify a technique whose purpose is to play the blame game. I can only imagine how a German reader would feel upon realizing how the whole setting rests atop a mass grave of Holocaust victims, let alone feel about Abish's ultimate answer to the novel's titular question. But at the end of the day, isn't he doing exactly what postmodern literature strives to do, which is make change via making us uncomfortable? At the end of the day, I don't know how to feel about How German Is It other than the joy I feel in discovering an expertly-written work of literary fiction. Nevertheless, I feel extremely guilty about writing a favorable review of a work that both easily and intentionally offends diverse peoples. The fact that I cannot pinpoint my own reaction leaves me to believe that Abish's work achieves what it sets out to do: unsettle, instigate, challenge, and provoke.
I wish more than anything that others read How German Is It and share their feelings and insights. With Abish's modest reputation, I feel that finding any support or friendly disagreement will be difficult. In a world where hate can be spread instantaneously online, I hope that anyone who responds to this post has or will soon read the book and evaluate it for themselves.
Focusing more on the novel and less on my candid bewilderment, How German Is It investigates the amounts of pride and shame the average German should have in the postwar era. 'Should,' of course, being the word at which to raise an eyebrow. Abish ruthlessly answers the titular question by the novel's end, but whether he --a Jewish Austrian and, later, an American-- can legitimately dictate how Germans should feel about their own past invites criticism and debate. He almost issues a challenge to his readers by attempting to answer the question at all. While I as an American can only point to this uncomfortable topic, I can imagine that most people will see it as a cause for concern and, by extension, baited curiosity.
Of course, anyone who knows this piece of Abish's biography will take the bait.
How German Is It challenges its readers to approach it as something to study; its philosophy delivers the novel to its academic circles and, unfortunately, hardly beyond them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading How German Is It not only as a launching pad for thesis ideas but also as a good story. Ulrich Hargenau, of course wrestling with his identity, sifts through the distant and recent pasts that his many acquaintances desperately --deathly desperately-- try to efface. As all these characters intermingle in one sprawling detective story, Ulrich learns that the only thing he can trust is the utter German-ness that motivates the nightmarish subplots of life after the war.
The short chapters and gripping plot turn an otherwise inaccessible philosophical investigation into one that welcomes readers with its literary premise. What gets readers to stay is how Abish illuminates his investigation in a literary and innovative way. Here we learn what How German Is It really is: a novel of guilt, and Abish delights in directing his power at different ethnic and national groups. Without getting too much in the weeds of theory, what would otherwise be deeply uncomfortable for readers --especially for Americans and Germans-- becomes an awe-striking experience that leaves your mouth agape even when Abish points the finger at you. He guilt-trips so well that, for as much as you hate him for doing so, you must remind yourself when Abish grinds his axe against your people.
Removing myself from Abish's prowess, I see how problematic it is to glorify a technique whose purpose is to play the blame game. I can only imagine how a German reader would feel upon realizing how the whole setting rests atop a mass grave of Holocaust victims, let alone feel about Abish's ultimate answer to the novel's titular question. But at the end of the day, isn't he doing exactly what postmodern literature strives to do, which is make change via making us uncomfortable? At the end of the day, I don't know how to feel about How German Is It other than the joy I feel in discovering an expertly-written work of literary fiction. Nevertheless, I feel extremely guilty about writing a favorable review of a work that both easily and intentionally offends diverse peoples. The fact that I cannot pinpoint my own reaction leaves me to believe that Abish's work achieves what it sets out to do: unsettle, instigate, challenge, and provoke.
I wish more than anything that others read How German Is It and share their feelings and insights. With Abish's modest reputation, I feel that finding any support or friendly disagreement will be difficult. In a world where hate can be spread instantaneously online, I hope that anyone who responds to this post has or will soon read the book and evaluate it for themselves.
November 4, 2019
Sparse, rigid, ironic depiction of prosperous post-war Germany. There are a handful of perspective characters, I guess that Ulrich Hargenau, the itinerant novelist, is the main one. He is guilty of having turned in his wife's Baader-Meinhof-style friends to the cops. Now he is in the sequence of having affairs in order to generate material for his book. His brother is Helmuth Hargenau, a renowned architect with a dissolving marriage. There is the matter of their (?) father who was executed during the Stauffenberg plot; they are ambiguous towards his legacy. In fact most of the novel is about the ambiguity with which a wealthy modern Germany views its Nazi past. Much of the action takes place in the designed modern community of Brumholdstein, named after Brumhold, an aged existential philosopher patterned after Heidegger, complete with ties to the Nazis. The charming rich town is built on a mass grave from a concentration camp; also everything is constantly being painted over. There's a ton of overt class conflict; most of it is unseen by the fanatical leftist terrorist groups, just bubbling up within families and between masters and servants. The dialogue and exposition is heavily ironic, interspersed with italicized rhetorical questions.
There are a lot of unresolved questions by the end. Ulrich's paternity. My favorite element is the coloring book that arrives at Ulrich's house with a drawing of the book's cover illustration; it's also among the unscrupulous Rita's candid photos; it also resembles a guy who shoots Ulrich. How it's all these things is a mystery I haven't resolved yet. A very strange book; worth it if you want to rip apart the shiny bourgeois exterior of late-70's West Germany.
There are a lot of unresolved questions by the end. Ulrich's paternity. My favorite element is the coloring book that arrives at Ulrich's house with a drawing of the book's cover illustration; it's also among the unscrupulous Rita's candid photos; it also resembles a guy who shoots Ulrich. How it's all these things is a mystery I haven't resolved yet. A very strange book; worth it if you want to rip apart the shiny bourgeois exterior of late-70's West Germany.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 2, 2020
Muy linda novelita posmoderna de los '80, lamentablemente muy dejada de lado. Abish es austriaco pero su familia se rajó a EE.UU. en los '40. Como tantos otros escritores de su generación (Heller, Vonnegut, Pynchon, Gass), la 2da guerra es un punto de quiebre. Lo que tiene de interesante o novedoso es que la acción transcurre en Alemania Occidental en los años '80. En todo momento se cuestiona el 'progreso', la 'vuelta' al mercado mundial exitosa que vive el país en aquel momento. Su condición de 'posmoderna' se hace evidente en las manías y temas que saltan a las pocas páginas: abundan los conspiradores y los atentados y la paranoia (el personaje principal cree ser el hijo de un ex-jerarca nazi que fue ejecutado por traicionar al régimen y él mismo luego delata al grupo terrorista al que perteneció en los '70); sus personajes son fotógrafos, arquitectos, escritores, políticos, es decir, hay una reflexión constante sobre las posibilidades estético-polítcas contemporáneas; otro de sus personajes hace una réplica con fósforos de un campo de concentración- el problema del nazismo, de la memoria de un pueblo y de la culpa son exploradas de manera similar pero más próxima que en White Noise de DeLillo. Otro aspecto interesante: las múltiples vías narrativas que se abren, quedan por lo general truncas, a medio terminar. Se rezuma una estaticidad carveriana en las relaciones: los matrimonios, las amistades, tautológicamente son lo que son. En fin, Abish deja una buena primera impresión. Escribió relativamente poco, pero tiene otra novela que se llama Alphabetical Africa y es un estricto experimento literario, a la mejor manera oullipeana.
December 9, 2018
Reading this for the second time. Remembered loving it the first time, but this time I felt less of a connection to it. The idea of the modern German identity is an interesting one to me. All of Germany must live with World War II hanging over their heads. How does one cope with the fact that your ancestors were Nazis?
The Hargenaus were an important family, until their father turned against the Nazi's and was executed for plotting against Hitler. Now, he is looked upon as a hero as Germany has shifted its identity to turn against its Nazi past. His two sons, Helmuth, a somewhat uptight architect and Ulrich, a novelist with a past involvement with a terrorist group, must reconcile with this legacy. Abish uses an interesting narrative tool of switching between multiple points of view and internal monologues. Not only the two brothers, but also their old butler and some of the women in their lives narrate. The overall question seems to be, how can we move forward without accepting our past? I do appreciate the stylistic chances Abish took, but reading it this time I feel like I wanted it to be more of a narrative with more of a conclusion.
The Hargenaus were an important family, until their father turned against the Nazi's and was executed for plotting against Hitler. Now, he is looked upon as a hero as Germany has shifted its identity to turn against its Nazi past. His two sons, Helmuth, a somewhat uptight architect and Ulrich, a novelist with a past involvement with a terrorist group, must reconcile with this legacy. Abish uses an interesting narrative tool of switching between multiple points of view and internal monologues. Not only the two brothers, but also their old butler and some of the women in their lives narrate. The overall question seems to be, how can we move forward without accepting our past? I do appreciate the stylistic chances Abish took, but reading it this time I feel like I wanted it to be more of a narrative with more of a conclusion.
March 31, 2025
It is an inquiring and sleek book that pulls the drop cloth off the mystery just enough for you to think you know the answers. The style is eerily colloquial and, at the same time, cosmically sufficient to think it might be God—yet, with cuts of obscurity just so you're not entirely convinced (then, what happens if God really isn't omniscient? it certainly could explain the Holocaust.)
The book kind of oxbows through Germany's postwar history: arcing into the dusty Nazi past that echoes over the narrative from the bottom of the well—the well that everyone ignores but knows is there—and spreads into a modern Germany, a Bundesrepublik! that is tangled up building itself up with some glassy and glutinous modernity on top of all the baroque and gothic and Wagner and Goethe and Drurer and Holbein the Younger and Schiller and Brahms. Germany has to build on top of that! Oh yes, and on top of mass graves. And the Rote Armee Fraktion is blowing up shit too.
The book kind of oxbows through Germany's postwar history: arcing into the dusty Nazi past that echoes over the narrative from the bottom of the well—the well that everyone ignores but knows is there—and spreads into a modern Germany, a Bundesrepublik! that is tangled up building itself up with some glassy and glutinous modernity on top of all the baroque and gothic and Wagner and Goethe and Drurer and Holbein the Younger and Schiller and Brahms. Germany has to build on top of that! Oh yes, and on top of mass graves. And the Rote Armee Fraktion is blowing up shit too.
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