Midsummer Night [Paperback]

Uwe Timm (Author), Peter Tegel (Translator)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Paperbook | Publication Date: February 2000

If this, Uwe Timm's enchanting new novel, were a cautionary tale, the tag line would go something like this: Should you plan to be in Berlin on Midsummer Night, the time of the summer solstice -- Johannesnacht in German -- Watch Out!

The narrator of Timm's story is a writer who simply can't get started on his next book. So he accepts a commission to write an article about potatoes. He has some interest in the subject because of an uncle who could, remarkably, from taste alone, differentiate one species of potato from another. Since it turns out that one of the authorities on the subject worked in East Berlin, our hero takes off to do some research. The Washington Post has lauded Uwe Timm's ability to make a place -- in this case the new Berlin -- "more real for you than the place you grew up. Timm is essentially an anthropologist of this primitive computer age, an archaeologist of newly constructed places." Rushing between the East and West sectors of the now-united city, the narrator becomes involved in a series of madcap adventures: odd, sometimes threatening encounters with all sorts of people, and strange entanglements. Being the master storyteller that he is, Uwe Timm spins a fascinating tale here, one filled with surprise, magic, comedy, and hope.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

An extraordinary story-teller.

Review

Something of Ishiguro's gentle tragedy of transience combined with the just-magic realism of Swift, the bite of Waugh, the frank sexual comedy of Woody Allen, the intellectual range of Kundera and the total sensual recall of Joyce...presented as an irresistible, deceptively light narrative by a fine storyteller. -- Prospect

This surprise of a novel combines the essence of wacky adventure, comic situation, and sharp storytelling. -- Maine Courier-Gazette, Marilis Hornidge

[W]hat most defines Uwe Timm's prose is his artistry and mastery of telling a story. -- Southern Humanities Review, Gregory H. Wolf, Spring 2000

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811214206
• ISBN-13: 978-0811214209
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,442,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Ramble through the enigma of re-united Berlin, April 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Midsummer Night (Paperback)

Timm's novel provides a wonderful romp through the physical and psychological space that is/was newly re-united Berlin. The action takes place at the exact time the Bulgarian artist Christo wrapped the Reichstag building.

Timm's protagonist, a journalist and essayist from Munich, comes to Berlin looking for help on an article on the humble German potato. He is soon hot on the trail of East Germany's leading potato expert, who (unfortunately) is now dead. Our hero traverses the city in search of the deceased scholar's research, largely forgotten and shelved away, like so much of the cultural detritus that is East Germany's cultural and intellectual heritage. The reader will delight in his madcap adventures as the West German discovers how nonsenical, if not absurd, life in eastern Berlin can be.

The novel's central plot may be weak, but it largely serves as a device for enabling the essayist to criss-cross city, experiencing the chaos and fragmentation of post-reunification Berlin. Anyone who has spent time in Berlin should read this novel. It's well worth it. For others, it may be just a bit confusing without knowing something of the city's physical and cultural geography.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Potatoes, May 12, 2005

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Midsummer Night (Paperback)

It's about a writer researching for an article about potatoes. That makes it one of those books where saying what it's about doesn't make it sound very appealing. He goes to Berlin to meet with a prominent ex-East German ("Ossie") potato expert but finds he is dead, tries to get access to his important research on potato flavors, and is "helped" by some questionable characters, who mostly turn out ot be very far from helpful, especially the Ossies, who are, apparently, a breed apart. He is a kind-hearted sensitive man with a vein of cynicism that is not enough to prevent him from being victimized in a series of misadventures that are half comic and half tragic. The translator, Peter Tegel, does a wonderful and unobtrusive job that even makes the translated jokes quite funny.
As potato-centered books go it's more entertaining than the last one I read (Cormac O'Grada's "Black '47"). There are no graphs or tables.

1.0 out of 5 stars Um, a book about researching potatoes?, October 24, 2011

By 

TenDeuChen - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Midsummer Night (Paperback)

I made it about 80 pages into this book. I could not continue. And I'm an avid reader. It's about a journalist researching potatoes. It's horribly boring. None of the scenes are really funny or anything. It was assigned for class, I couldn't even finish the novel and "faked" the written work for the class. Terrible, terrible book.