Umbrella [Import] [Hardcover]

FERDINAND MOUNT (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD; First Edition edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0434002003
• ISBN-13: 978-0434002009
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,417,267 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

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.