Settlement: A Novel [Hardcover]

Christoph Hein (Author), Philip Boehm (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2008

In “one of the most important German novels of recent years,”* a man, a town, and a country wrestle with fifty years of displacement and political upheaval

Provincial Guldenberg is still reeling from World War II when a flood of German refugees arrives from the east, Bernhard Haber’s family among them. Life is hard enough—Bernhard’s father has lost an arm and his carpenter’s income. But added to this injury comes an accumulation of insults, as the upright town turns hostile toward the newcomers. After a string of mysterious losses—from the killing of the boy’s dog to the unexplained death of his father—Bernhard is set on extracting revenge.

Rich with psychological insight, Christoph Hein’s acclaimed novel tells Bernhard’s story across nearly fifty years, chronicling his remarkable rise from victimized outsider to Guldenberg’s most prominent burgher. What began as a geographic dislocation evolves into a personal quest: the thirst for vengeance yields to the deeper need for a home and settling down proves more important than settling grudges. As the socialist state gives way to reunification and the capitalism of the 1990s, Hein’s masterful, multivoiced narration charts the transformation not just of one man but of an entire nation struggling to leave history behind and claim a home.

—*The Times Literary Supplement (London)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starting off as a refugee in Guldenberg, Germany, was tough enough, but for Bernhard Haber, whose family—led by his one-armed carpenter father—fled Breslau after the 1945 Soviet invasion, things never got easier. From his first days in school, tossed into a class with students a year younger than he, when Bernhard makes quick business of exacting revenge upon a bully, to later injustices like the arson of his father's workshop, the murder of his dog and his father, Bernhard can't get a fair shake. Not one to gripe, he sticks it out. Through stints as a goon for a farmers' collective, a smuggler, a carpenter and town powerbroker, Bernhard remains a steady, if mysterious, character as his story is told by five acquaintances. Hein, a former president of PEN Germany, has a history of politically themed writing, and this novel does his legacy proud with its smart prose and keen social commentary. Seeing the postwar German landscape through the eyes of smalltown dwellers whose greatest moments involve their wooden bridge being used for a briefly rerouted autobahn, a reader can soak up the refugee experience. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

When a central character is continually kept at an arm’s length, can you ever really understand him? In Settlement, the answer is no, but the result is less frustrating than it sounds. The rags-to-riches life story of Bernhard Haber, a refugee living in a small East German town following World War II, is told in five segments, each narrated by someone who knew him: a school chum, his first girlfriend, a fellow rabble-rouser, a former lover, and a merchant colleague. As a child, Haber is tormented by townspeople who consider refugees filthy and lazy, and this cements his obsession with revenge in the form of power and wealth. The chillingly single-minded Haber remains fairly one-dimensional, but the side characters are fleshed with excruciating accuracy and detail. A true home, Hein seems to be saying, cannot be fashioned without suffering and blood, and the digressions facilitated by Hein’s structural gamble together weave a wholly realistic cross section of a community coming to terms with the rebirth of a country—and learning how to bear the contractions of such a painful delivery. Capably translated from the German. --Daniel Kraus

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First American Edition edition (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805077685
• ISBN-13: 978-0805077681
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,941,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Guldenbergers, native vs. refugee, in postwar East Germany, January 12, 2009

By 

K. M. "literary devotee" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Settlement: A Novel (Hardcover)

When World War II ended, ten-year-old Bernhard Haber and his family came to the small east German town of Guldenberg as refugees. They were part of the German population expelled from their homes when lower Silesia and other lands were transferred to Poland as "recovered" territories. As a schoolmate of Bernhard's recounts, the hard-headed Haber boy told their teacher that he was from Breslau. Herr Voigt demanded a politically correct revision from Bernhard: "[Y]ou come from Wroclaw in the Polish People's Republic. Understand?" After a long, tense standoff, Bernhard acknowledged, "I come from Wroclaw." He then blurted defiantly, "But I was born in Breslau."

Thomas Nicolas, the schoolmate, recollects the hard life of "Pollack" Bernhard. His father lost a hand in the war, severely impairing his ability to ply his trade as a carpenter. Still with Bernhard's help, his modest woodworking shop sustained the family -- until someone burned it down and yet another new beginning had to be made. Bernhard's beloved dog was killed too. Bernhard's reaction was to vow revenge and become harder and even more withdrawn.

Besides Thomas, four other Guldenbergers relate how their lives intersected with that of Bernhard. There is the girlfriend who watched Bernhard get involved with local Party politics in order to strike back at a wealthy farmer, the young man who got jobs from Bernhard smuggling people to the West, Bernhard's seductive sister-in-law who tells the tale of the hot-air balloon ride, and the lumber mill owner with whom Bernhard forms a prosperous business alliance after the fall of the Wall.

Christopher Hein doesn't allow the reader to know Bernhard firsthand. We must rely on these very different and generally not particularly sympathetic outside views of him. This creates a curious and unsettled remoteness. Furthermore, although Bernhard as subject ties SETTLEMENT together, he tends to take a back seat in some of the reminisces as the narrators tells stories about themselves and East Germany as it evolved after the war. For instance, Peter Koller is more wrapped up in his own girlfriend's betrayal and in his rebuilt Adler "limousine." Peter gets to know Bernhard only tangentially and as someone who could conceivably (but not provenly) have betrayed him too.

One is not sure when Bernhard releases his grudges, including one about his father's death, or exactly how he does. Perhaps time, maturity, and investment in the community lessen them. But throughout the novel. one wonders exactly how far Bernhard goes to further his youthful agenda of payback. He and his role in the lives before us are largely inscrutable.

He remains in the shadows, a taciturn person irrevocably shaped by being a refugee, but a man who ultimately prospers despite setback and sorrow. In this he is arguably a symbol of his defeated country which carried its burden and agony largely in silence, but advanced and flourished again in the postwar world.

SETTLEMENT (which of course evokes meanings for a place settled, becoming a permanent resident, and an act of payment) is sometimes too preoccupied with the non-Bernhardian aspects of the narrators' lives to effectively hold attention, but the novel is an unusual and enlightening examination of many of the historical actualities of postwar East Germany such as refugee integration, communist collectivization and property confiscation, postwar values, and the economic changes after reunification. Spend some time with the fictional Guldenbergers to gain some insights into Germany. 3.7 stars.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Friend's Memories, March 3, 2009

By 

Troy Townsend Jr. (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Settlement: A Novel (Hardcover)

My best friend who's German was born in Selesia but moved to Berlin during
WWII. His father, whom he never knew, was killed on the Russian Front.
I bought the book for him as a gift. Later, I asked him now he liked it.
He replied, "It was good and bad because it also brought up the bad
memories." It is a well written book.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not quite what was promised, January 20, 2009

By 

B. Kalama "island girl" (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Settlement: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was a bit surprised when the book arrived that it was not quite what I expected. It was not hardbound as promised and had a stamp on the front cover "advance reader's edition - not for sale". There were also quite a few grammatical erros and typos.