Reading 1001 discussion

Discussion thread for Jahrestage or Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl.

Place reviews here:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Looking forward to reading this a day at a time although the OCD side of me really feels we should start the same date as the book and not 1st January LOL

So I volunteered to take over for this one. I think it makes sense to divide the read into quarterly parts (it is a 4 part book). Last year the annual was 60 pts total...so I would guess 15 points for each section is probably reasonable here?

Here is some info to start off with:

ANNIVERSARIES, FROM A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF GESINE CRESSPAHL

Author bio (From New York Book Review):

Uwe Johnson (1934–1984) grew up in the small town of Anklam in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At the end of World War II, his father, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1940, disappeared into a Soviet camp; he was declared dead in 1948. Johnson and his mother remained in Communist East Germany until his mother left for the West in 1956, after which Johnson was barred from regular employment. In 1959, shortly before the publication of his first novel, Speculations About Jakob, in West Germany, he emigrated to West Berlin by streetcar, leaving the East behind for good. Other novels, The Third Book About Achim, An Absence, and Two Views, followed in quick succession. A member of the legendary Gruppe 47, Johnson lived from 1966 until 1968 with his wife and daughter in New York, compiling a high-school anthology of postwar German literature. On Tuesday, April 18, 1967, at 5:30 p.m., as he later recounted the story, he saw Gesine Cresspahl, a character from his earlier works, walking on the south side of Forty-Second Street from Fifth to Sixth Avenue alongside Bryant Park; he asked what she was doing in New York and eventually convinced her to let him write his next novel about a year in her life. Anniversaries was published in four installments—in 1970, 1971, 1973, and 1983—and was quickly recognized in Germany as one of the great novels of the century. In 1974, Johnson left Germany for the isolation of Sheerness-on-Sea, England, where he struggled through health and personal problems to finish his magnum opus. He died at age forty-nine, shortly after it was published.

Book summary (From New York Book Review) :

Published to great acclaim as a two-part boxed set in 2018, Anniversaries is now available as two individual volumes. It is August 1967, and Gesine Cresspahl, born in Germany the year that Hitler came to power, a survivor of war, of Soviet occupation, and of East German Communism, has been living with her ten-year-old daughter, Marie, in New York City for six years. Mother and daughter find themselves caught up in the countless stories of the world around them: stories of work and school and their neighborhood, with its shifting and varied cast of characters, as well as the stories that Gesine reads in The New York Times every day—about Che Guevara, racial violence, the war in Vietnam, and the US elections to come. Now, with Marie growing up, Gesine has decided to tell her daughter the story of her own childhood in a small north German town in the 1930s and ’40s. Amid memories of Germany’s criminal and disastrous past and the daily barrage of news from a world in disarray, Gesine, conscientious, self-scrutinizing, with a sharp sense of humor, struggles to describe what she has learned over the years and what she hopes to pass on to Marie. Marie, articulate, quizzical, with a perspective that is very much her own, has plenty of questions, too.

Uwe Johnson’s intimate portrait of a mother and daughter is also a panorama of past and present history and the world at large. Comparable in richness of invention and depth of feeling to Joyce’s Ulysses and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Anniversaries is one of the world’s great novels.

Pre-read Questions:

-How do you feel about starting this novel? Are you looking forward to it/why? Or do you have any trepidations about it? What are you expecting?

-This novel deals pretty heavily with the after war years in Germany, and late 60s in the US. What other books have you read (on or off the list) that have similar settings?


Part 1 Questions:

Part 1 (August 1967-December 1967)

1. The novel is formed from 367 short chapters- one for each day of the 1967-1968 leap year. How are you enjoying the format? And how does it contribute to the story?

2. What is your impression of Gessine herself so far? What information from part 1 helps inform her character?

3. Gessine reads a lot of newspaper articles- the details of which are littered all throughout the book. What is a news item from this part that stood out to you? What seems to be their greater purpose in being including in the text?

4. The narrative often shifts between past and present. One of the ‘past’ sections in this part explores the story of Gessine’s father and mother. What do we learn about her family?

5. There are little snippets throughout the book of little italicized addresses to Gessine (typically in the second person). What are these and what are they trying to say?

6. What do you make of Gessine’s daughter Marie and what their relationship is like at this point in the narrative. There is a section (on pg 46 of my version) that starts with “Marie says” and includes lines like “Mrs. Kellogg shaves”, “Negroes have different bodies than us too”, and “Fathers have such a starved look”. What do the things Marie says seem to say about her character, and the story itself? Does she seem like a believably written child?

7. What are your thoughts on how the book discusses themes like the Vietnam war and racism in the US so far?

8. How are you enjoying the book so far? Are you looking forward to the next part? Why or why not?

I am so looking forward to this. Book, it is summer here, not quite the equivalent of August, but almost, so it seems a good time to start. I remember 1967 so vividly. It was my first year teaching, parttime, because I had 2 young children, and one class was social studies. I was shocked that some of my students professed not to care about the Arab-Israeli war! I have read the first chapter (it is New Year's Day) and I just want to keep reading. I think I won't be dropping everything to finish the annual read this year.

I hadn't heard of this book apart from seeing its title on the list. I'm excited to get started and looking forward to reading it over the year. Sometimes with a long group discussion I go too fast and get too far ahead to contribute to the discussion, but I think the daily format of this one should help. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive but it should be here very soon!

I've read some other books set in post-war Germany from the list - for example, two by Heinrich Böll. But this sounds very different.

I have had trepidations about starting any of the annual reads in the past few years. There is just something quite overwhelming about such long books and the possibility that I will either get lost in them or find them not at all engaging and yet feeling as if I should read them anyway.
However, I started reading Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl and my trepidation is gone. I intended to read through September and by the time I finished I had read through October. I have a very long TBR challenge book that I have to get to or otherwise I would have kept going.

I hadn't heard of this book before, so don't have many feelings about it prior to starting. The premise sounds interesting though and I'm happy it has been written in four parts, makes a long read a bit more managable.

January done 1 diary entry a day so in my edition I am on page 86 September 20 1967 Wednesday.

Enjoying the format I love the little snippets about what is happening in the world as it relates to NY and how other news is just kind of ignored.

I am enjoying the book so far, reading only a diary page per day and that has not brought me to where I think I should be % wise. It seems like I should be at 12 % but I am only at 5 %. I am about the same as Book though it seems like I am at page 100 something.

It's interesting to read what is happening, flashbacks to past history and the present experience of raising a daughter alone in NYC as an immigrant.

I gave up on the idea of reading one day per day when the two volumes of the NYRB edition arrived and I saw that the year is not equally divided. The daily entries must get longer in the later sections. So that's why you're not as far along in percentages as you might expect, Kristel.

I wish I had got the ebook because the books are huge and hard to read without spoiling, which I hate to do. I have to read it on a table.

But I'm enjoying it! I see three threads: the past family history, the present life of Gesine and Marie in New York, and the news of 1967 as reported in the New York Times.

Question 3. Gesine reads a lot of newspaper articles- the details of which are littered all throughout the book. What is a news item from this part that stood out to you? What seems to be their greater purpose in being including in the text?

- The news that stands out for me is the Vietnam war news. I was a child at the time and not in the USA, but I do remember the American involvement in the war ending in 1973. I didn't know that the protests began so much earlier. It's a surprise to discover that there was so much anti-war feeling in 1967 and yet it went on for another 6 years.

I have just finished part one which takes us to December 19th. I am enjoying the short chapter format but to be honest, I have not yet figured out exactly why the author is using it. I realize it is tracking the Gesine/Marie story line and the references to the New York times, but as there doesn't seem to be much plot unfolding in the Gesine/Marie track, perhaps it is just a way of reflecting the dramatic events of outside forces versus the smaller more intimate dramas of their life.

2. What is your impression of Gesine herself so far? What information from part 1 helps inform her character?
She is very intelligent, and committed to helping people get out of East Germany and very good at her job. She loved her father and still misses him. She seems to have had an odd relationship with her mother and she has an odd relationship with her child. The child often is the more powerful person in the room. We have not yet learned what happened to her husband but we know that other people trust her and even love her such as D.E.

3. Gesine reads a lot of newspaper articles- the details of which are littered all throughout the book. What is a news item from this part that stood out to you? What seems to be their greater purpose in being including in the text? The Vietnam war is the largest on-going news story and the dramatic events between the US government, the people of the US who do not support the war, and the Vietnamese people all reflect some of what Gesine experienced as a child growing up just before and during WWII and some of the complications that Cresspahl experienced in returning to Germany.

4. The narrative often shifts between past and present. One of the ‘past’ sections in this part explores the story of Gessine’s father and mother. What do we learn about her family? They were not a "typical" family as judged by other people in the town, nor were they typical as judged by this reader. The two adults did not know how to communicate with each other and they did not have the same approach to conflict or to what was happening in Germany at the time.

5. There are little snippets throughout the book of little italicized addresses to Gessine (typically in the second person). What are these and what are they trying to say? I was hoping someone else could enlighten me on these...many of them are sing songs and they are usually addressed to Gesine but sometimes Cresspahl - they sound like Marie sometimes, maybe Gesine's husband and sometimes just people that Cresspahl may have spoken to. In other words, they are not consistently one person. They are little snippets of dialogues and quips that may have been overheard and through them we do get another door to see into our characters.

6. What do you make of Gessine’s daughter Marie and what their relationship is like at this point in the narrative. There is a section (on pg 46 of my version) that starts with “Marie says” and includes lines like “Mrs. Kellogg shaves”, “Negroes have different bodies than us too”, and “Fathers have such a starved look”. What do the things Marie says seem to say about her character, and the story itself? Does she seem like a believably written child?
I don't think that Marie is a very believable realistic child but she is a very wonderful character that I am bought into whole heartedly. She has picked up some judgements from peers or others around her that do not reflect her mother's values but one can also see her changing over the 4 months that I have read.

7. What are your thoughts on how the book discusses themes like the Vietnam war and racism in the US so far? I am still very much appreciating the book and how it is presenting different aspects of two different historical moments through some simple lives. The story of Gesine and Marie, even with the addition of Karsch and D.E. has slowed down and I am not at all sure if there is a plot there to follow. It may be the book is about character in challenging historical times (are all times challenging?) and not about plot at all....we will see


8. How are you enjoying the book so far? Are you looking forward to the next part? Why or why not?
I am enjoying it and looking forward to further reading....

So far I have kept up with my one entry per day. That seems to be working for me as I’ve now got two months done but am only at 12 percent.

I am also doing the 1 entry a day and find it works well for me a little information each day rather the same way as news reports unfold.

Interesting now seeing news parallels in the book it's Vietnam in real life it's Ukraine.

Enjoyed the London sections as I have friends in Richmond and Twickenham so I could identify with the area and the local news paper for the area.

In response to Marie as a child. She is quite precocious but I think a child in her circumstances would be more adult like. She is basically an only child and mother’s companion, immigrated, and other situations which would affect her development. I do like her.

Could the little snippets be stream of conscious? Different thoughts and memories that pop in to her thoughts from a variety of sources?

Why did this German author choose to place his character in the US and write so much about England and the US? Is this a result of Germany after the war being a difficult setting for readers?

Kristel wrote: "Why did this German author choose to place his character in the US and write so much about England and the US? Is this a result of Germany after the war being a difficult setting for readers? "

Not sure about England, but with the US setting, it seems he was writing about the place he actually lived in at the time: "From 1966 to 1968, he worked in New York City as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace & World, and lived with his wife and their daughter in an apartment at 243 Riverside Drive (Manhattan)." (Wikipedia)

Perhaps later, when we reach the late 1940s/50s in Gesine's life, we will find more about postwar East Germany...?

I am intrigued by the lack of information on Marie's father and hope that will come up later too!

Amanda wrote: "So I volunteered to take over for this one. I think it makes sense to divide the read into quarterly parts (it is a 4 part book). Last year the annual was 60 pts total...so I would guess 15 points for each section is probably reasonable here?"

I've finished part 1. Should I claim 15 points now on my points thread, or wait for 60 at the end?

Rosemary wrote: "Amanda wrote: "So I volunteered to take over for this one. I think it makes sense to divide the read into quarterly parts (it is a 4 part book). Last year the annual was 60 pts total...so I would g..."

The mods decided to do it differently than what I originally suggested, so the actual breakdown from the 2022 points page is this:

Annual: take 1 pt for each discussion entry you make while reading the annual book. Take 5 pts for each month you complete which would be a total of 60 pts for completing the annual read. For the two that have read this, yes you can substitute a past annual read if you read, discuss and review.

Hope that helps!

Hmmm... confused now, as the 5 per month plus discussion points adds up to more than 60... but I will ask on the other thread. Thank you!

-How do you feel about starting this novel? Are you looking forward to it/why? Or do you have any trepidations about it? What are you expecting? I generally don't do well with year long reads that are in book format but the diary structure seems to be working for me.

-This novel deals pretty heavily with the after war years in Germany, and late 60s in the US. What other books have you read (on or off the list) that have similar settings?
I think the after war years were hard for authors in Germany according to the introduction in my book The Hothouse. Wolfgang Koeppen did not do well writing during this time period.
I think The Reader was written about this time period but I don't think it was written during that time period. Clockwork Orange was written in 1960. But Burgess is not German.

I wanted to comment that in this book which covers multiple time periods and generations. Uwe Johnson wrote himself into the story.

I have just hit the section where Uwe Johnson has first appeared I enjoyed seeing him in his own work.

It is the end of March and I have just read through to the beginning of March in the book. I am still enjoying this read and the funny thing is I am still perplexed and confused about the "italics" - who is speaking, or who is remembering and I still occasionally get lost when Marie and Gesine are discussing Gesine's history as their dialogue tends to be cryptic. However, I am finding this part of the interest and the charm. Meanwhile, the war in Viet Nam is brought to life in all its brutal and depressing horror while the rise of the Nazi's in Germany is kept to a very personal accounting. Great read.

I too, find it a bit confusing and there is the jumping back and forth in time but I really like looking back at the late 60s when I was in my high school years. Things i may not have paid as much attention to at the time and somethings that I did. I am still sticking to one entry per day. So I think I might be at 18%.

I am reading by the month, and the months must get longer because I am over half way through the year but only about 40% of the way through the book.

I am in November, you must have steamed ahead to get to the current month.

I took this from a review in the NYT, not sure if it explains the italics tho. "Gesine refers to herself as “I,” then “she,” then sometimes even “we.” Her accounts of “her” day are given over to news reports, sometimes in full (she is obsessed with The New York Times, and the paper inspires in her all the passion, pleading, scorn and occasional disappointment of a love affair). Or she channels the past of her ancestors — or her ancestors intrude into the narrative to taunt or praise or beg for her forgiveness. Other times, the diary follows Marie, a worldly 10-year-old flâneur, “cool as a gherkin,” who combs the Bowery looking for adventure."

Also from the same article; "America was a rumor. I came to verify the rumor,” Johnson told The Times in a 1966 article about his own move to New York, to the same address he gave Gesine: 243 Riverside Drive, Apt. 204. (He and his narrator also share elements of the same family history, of Nazi relatives and abandonment)."

Thank you Kristel, all good information.

I don't get the italics either. They seem to be different voices at different times. I started wondering if it was Gesine talking to someone in her imagination, but then I came to one where it was very clearly Heinrich and Lisbeth Cresspahl talking to each other - they used each other's names.

I'm in January and finding it an enjoyable read, although I'm glad to be reading it slowly. Picking it up a couple of times a week stops me getting impatient with the pace.

1. The novel is formed from 367 short chapters- one for each day of the 1967-1968 leap year. How are you enjoying the format? And how does it contribute to the story?

The perfect format for a busy person who can only read a few pages at a time! But I have been trying to understand the deeper motivations for this choice of format (some hints of an answer will appear further into the story). It certainly gives a certain rhythm and helps when the story has to go back and forth between present and past.

2. What is your impression of Gesine herself so far? What information from part 1 helps inform her character?

In part 1, the story sets Gesine in the present and starts glimpsing into the past, not only hers, but going back to her ancesters. We know at this stage that she emigrated to New York in 1961 with her young daughter; we don't know yet why. She works in a bank (which is not the Chemical Bank, as the story says), doing mostly translation work. The vice-president of the bank is taking an interest in her work, but also because of her background.

3. Gesine reads a lot of newspaper articles- the details of which are littered all throughout the book. What is a news item from this part that stood out to you? What seems to be their greater purpose in being including in the text?

I can't recall any specific one. Quoting from the New York Times provides a stronger "witness" atmosphere to the whole story, as presenting facts and/or a version that is close to the truth of a story. The NYT has even been personified as a reliable aunt.

4. The narrative often shifts between past and present. One of the ‘past’ sections in this part explores the story of Gessine’s father and mother. What do we learn about her family?

Cresspahl (and I still don't remember his first name) is from the same region as his wife, Lisbeth, but has spent significant time in England. He is a bit of a mystery in the first part (spoiler: you will get to know him a lot more in the second and third part). Lisbeth comes the Papenbrock family, a well-to-do family in a small town in the Mecklenberg region of Germany. All is not so well with them though: the eldest son has disappeared, most likely in South America; the second son has SA/SS proclivities and is involved in a relationship that elder Papenbrock does not approve of; her youngest sister Hilde is also involved with less-than-recommendable match who has become involved in an insurance fraud to cover up for an accident. Lisbeth follows in her mother's footsteps, who has strong religious inclinations.

5. There are little snippets throughout the book of little italicized addresses to Gessine (typically in the second person). What are these and what are they trying to say?

I think they are internalized dialogues between Gesine and people from the past, presumably already dead. Sometimes it is quite easy to deduce who they are from the context or the focus of the preceding paragraphs; at other times, some guess work is required (and hard to verify).

6. What do you make of Gessine’s daughter Marie and what their relationship is like at this point in the narrative. There is a section (on pg 46 of my version) that starts with “Marie says” and includes lines like “Mrs. Kellogg shaves”, “Negroes have different bodies than us too”, and “Fathers have such a starved look”. What do the things Marie says seem to say about her character, and the story itself? Does she seem like a believably written child?

She is very precocious and quite clever for a 10-year old; the strong bond that she has with her mother, who is constantly learning one thing or the other, is probably reflected in her character. These types of 10-year old kids are rare, but they do exist, I have witnessed some.

7. What are your thoughts on how the book discusses themes like the Vietnam war and racism in the US so far?

You get the feeling that it is anti-Vietnam war mostly, especially through Marie's eyes. The racism reflects pretty much what it was like in that period. With respect to Marie and Gesine, I don't think you can say that they are racist, it is probably more that they are afraid of the unknown (e.g. Marie and Francine; some of the walks they do in the neighborhood), but open to discover about it.

8. How are you enjoying the book so far? Are you looking forward to the next part? Why or why not?

Being already in the third part, I am still quite looking forward to progressing towards the end. However (spoiler), the sections get longer, especially when they focused on the past. I'm still on 4 stars at this stage.

I believe that the passages in italics are Gesine's thoughts, sometimes just reflecting on the situation, sometimes imagining conversations that may or may not have happened. They are so enigmatic, though, I am not entirely sure.

Pip wrote: "I believe that the passages in italics are Gesine's thoughts, sometimes just reflecting on the situation, sometimes imagining conversations that may or may not have happened. They are so enigmatic,..."
That makes sense because I think 'italics' have been used by others for thoughts. So is she thinking while she writes in the diary?

April reading finished I make it that we are up to December 18th 1967.

If I am remembering the early part of the month correctly we have a bizzare section with a kidnapping that "the child" solves. We have more updates from Vietnam, a game about past actions, the naming of streets in Austria and the usual rambling thoughts.

While I am enjoying the format I am not sure it is that conducive to reading as I find I get my dates confused and also not a lot actually happens in a whole months worth of reading maybe that is the point it is just looking at a typical year and what happens on a daily basis.

REMEMBER THE NEEDIEST

I have finally finished Part One!
1. I particularly enjoy the commentary on what is newsworthy in the New York Times. Gesine reads it diligently, but she is becoming more critical of what it chooses to print, and where it is in the paper. She is scornful when Gunter Grass is misprinted as Gunther Glass and she comments on the Glass family being characters belonging to J.D.Salinger. In 1967 I read TIME diligently, trying to get my head around U.S. politics. Without Google it took me a few years to find out what GOP stood for - and then I didn't believe it! I was slow to realise just how right wing that magazine was, and it was not until the 2000's that I discovered the International Herald Tribune. Now I have a similar attitude to Gesine in reading the New York times everyday - but I read it online and read several other newspapers as well. The comparison that Book makes with the Ukraine war is apt, especially comparing it to Germany in the thirties. People then could not quite believe what was happening either.
2. We know that she was devoted to her father as a small child, her abilities as a translator are appreciated by the CEO of the bank where she works and she has been targeted to work with Czechoslovakia, so she is learning Czech. Her relationship with her mother seems not to have been as close as hers with her own daughter.
3. The newspaper articles tell us what preoccupations people had in 1967, and remind me of what was happening in the Vietnam war (when I lived in Hong Kong we would joke - never holiday in Vietnam with an American there is too much baggage!) I was aware of the war but I don't think we had the same barrage of television footage in New Zealand as Americans saw. I was much more focussed at the time on the conflict in the Middle East. What struck me was not one item, but many which reinforced how violent New York society was at the time.
4. We know that Gesine's father persistently courted her mother, took her to London, where she was unhappy, but when she returned to Germany to give birth to Gesine he reluctantly followed despite having established a successful business in Richmond. He was appalled by the rise of Nazism and the persecution of Jewish families, but despite trying to keep a low profile needed to join the trade union in order to get any work. Gesine's mother, Lisbeth, is depressed, becomes very religious, and seems remote from her husband and child.
8. I am very much enjoying reading this tome, but it does require careful attention, so although it is acceptable to read just one entry at a time, it suits me better to set aside a chunk of time and read at least a week's worth at one go. There are parts that I simply don't understand, such as the kidnapping episode, but I hope that all will be revealed eventually!

So I finally got to the end of part one, this isn't a difficult book to read but once I put it down I have nothing pulling me back to it, so it's easy to forget about for weeks on end. I'm finding it interesting, I much prefer the story surrounding Gesine and Marie than I do the glimpses into her past. I quite like the diary entry style with the snippets from the New York Times, I especially liked the newspaper being described as an old Aunty. To me, the story does appear rather sporadic, although it is written as one day following another, each day's story or focus does not seem to follow any sort of pattern or path that I can see. But I'm happy to move on to the next part to see what that brings.