Customer Reviews

New Lives

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Besides the title and author, the front cover of this volume provides two pieces of information of real importance. They are `A novel' and `"Ingo Schulze is a master story teller" - Günter Grass'. Without affirmation that this is indeed a novel, i.e. a fiction, backed by the imprimatur of no less a master of the art than Günter Grass, even the most careful reader of the Foreword, Editorial Note and opening pages would be likely to fall for the artifice that this is a genuine collection of letters written over a six month period by a now-missing East German playwright cum start-up newspaper entrepreneur, Enrico Türmer.

The six month period chosen is of great significance; it opens in January 1990, two months after the Berlin Wall was breached. Through Türmer keeping one set of correspondents up to date on developments as they happen, and filling-in the background of his life so far to a prospective girlfriend, we acquire a comprehensive picture of what it was like to be an East German citizen during the crucial period when comatose political leadership was challenged and eventually overcome by a rebellious people. For those caught up in events, both before and after the Wall fell, life was chaotic. Schulze gives Türmer a private life that mirrors the public chaos. That seems realistic, and was perhaps inevitable for those who, like Türmer, sought to gain personal advantage from the changed situation, a situation in which they were really only feeling their way around. At the same time as grabbing all he could for himself and those close to him, Türmer retained idealistic ambitions regarding free speech and democracy, initially at least. That too rings true as a representation of the able, ambitious generation unleashed by the revolution.

Türmer had pretensions as a writer of short stories, longer fiction and poetry. Dr Zhivago style, we are given samples in a 95 page appendix to the main text. The stories paint detail into the outlines of the East German experience of childhood and youth provided by the letters, also of the fantasies, grounded in those experiences, of a young person such as Türmer.

This is an important book, definitely worthy of five stars. Be warned, though, that at three times the length of many contemporary novels it is not a quick read.