Tag: Peter Schneider

6 Degrees of Separation

Six Degrees of Separation: From ‘Postcards from the Edge’ to ‘Night Boat to Tangier’

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It’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time to participate in Six Degrees of Separation (check out Kate’s blog to find out the “rules” and how to participate).

This month the starting book is a bestselling work of autobiographical fiction…

‘Postcards from the Edge’ by Carrie Fisher (1987)

I read this one back in the day, having been a bit of a Fisher fan (the only doll I ever owned as a girl was a Princess Leia doll, that’s how much of a fan I was — LOL). I can’t honestly remember much about the book, other than it was a tale about a woman recovering from a drug overdose and was written with a wicked sense of humour. My link is a bit tenuous, but the title reminds me of…

‘Alone in Berlin’ by Hans Fallada (1947)

This big, baggy German novel is about a pair of Nazi resisters who risk their lives by dropping postcards all over Berlin as a form of silent protest during the Second World War. The postcards, which have anti-Hitler messages scrawled upon them, are left in public buildings across the city. Another story set in Berlin is…

‘The Wall Jumper’ by Peter Schneider (1982)

This novel, which reads like reportage, is about life in the divided city before the wall came down and what risks people took to cross from one side to the other. Walls of a different kind feature in…

‘The Tortilla Curtain’ by T.C. Boyle (1997)

Set in California, this is about the illegal citizens who cross the border and live in abject poverty, while the middle-class US citizens with a fortress mentality lock themselves away in gated communities, almost too afraid to live. Another book about illegal immigrants is…

‘The Death of Murat Idrissi’ by Tommy Wieringa (2019)

Two Dutch women holidaying in Morocco agree to smuggle a man across the border into Europe with devastating consequences in this compelling novella. Another novella set in Morocco is…

‘Whitefly’ by Abdelilah Hamdouchi (2016)

In this Arabic crime story a detective investigates the death of three young men, washed up on a local beach, who are thought to be illegal immigrants who have fallen overboard en route to Spain. This brings to mind…

‘Night Boat to Tangier’ by Kevin Barry (2019)

In this brilliant black comedy, two underworld criminals from Ireland are at the Spanish port of Algeciras waiting for someone to get off the night boat from Tangier. As they sit there, passing the time, they recall the ups and downs they have weathered over the years as drug dealers with operations in Cork and Spain. It’s menacing but it’s also very funny.

So that’s this month’s #6Degrees: from a black comedy about drug addiction to a black comedy about drug dealers via tales about walls, both real and metaphorical, and illegal immigration.

Have you read any of these books? 

Please note, you can see all my other Six Degrees of Separation contributions here.

Six degrees of separation

Six Degrees of Separation: From ‘Stasiland’ to ‘The Other Side of You’

kimbofo

Six degrees of separation logo for memeIt’s been more than nine months since I participated in Six Degrees of Separation. That’s mainly because the months roll by so quickly that I forget to prepare anything! But now that I am working from home and am cooped up indoors all the time (thanks to the coronavirus lockdown) I need distractions – and this is a good one!

Six Degrees of Separation is a book-themed meme hosted by Kate from booksaremyfavouriteand best (read more about it on her blog here). Every month Kate chooses a particular book as a starting point. The idea is then to create a chain by linking to six other books using common themes.

Here’s this month’s #6Degrees. As ever, click the book titles to read my review of that book in full.

The starting point is:

‘Stasiland’ by Anna Funder (2003)
I haven’t read this non-fiction book about life under the Stasi, even though it has been sitting in my TBR for about a decade. I even brought it with me from London when I repatriated last year as I had planned to read it for #20booksofsummer. Alas, I never got around to it. Another book that is about life behind the Berlin Wall is…

‘The Wall Jumper’ by Peter Schneider (1982)
This classic German novel provides a fascinating glimpse of Berlin life before the wall came down. It follows the lives of a handful of East Berliners who move to the West and is narrated by someone who regularly crosses the border to visit family and friends. It’s fiction but feels very much like reportage. Another novel that feels like reportage is…

‘The Emperor of Lies’ by Steve Sem-Sandberg (2012)
A densely written and meticulously detailed novel, it is based on the factual story of Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski, a 63-year-old Jewish businessman, who was the leader of the Jewish ghetto in Łódź during the Second World War. Rumkowski was a mysterious figure with murky morals: many believed he was a Nazi pawn content to do as the Germans wanted in order to save his own skin and fulfil his quest for power during the Holocaust. Another Holocaust novel is…

‘Sophie’s Choice’ by William Styron (1979)
Set in Brooklyn immediately after the Second World War, this 635-page novel follows a trio of characters living in a boarding house, one of whom is an Auschwitz survivor. This imminently readable but problematic (for me) novel follows what happens to Sophie Zawistowska, a Polish Catholic, after the war — and it isn’t always pretty. Another novel that looks at what happens to an Auschwitz survivor after the war is…

‘This Place Holds No Fear’ by Monika Held (2015)
This extraordinarily beautiful novel looks at the marriage between a German translator and a man 10 years her senior who survived Auschwitz where he had been sent in 1942 because he was a Communist. This is an unusual Holocaust novel because it explores what happens to the survivors afterward — how do they get on with their lives after such unfathomable horror and trauma? Another book about trauma is…

‘Trauma’ by Patrick McGrath (2009)
A Manhattan-based psychiatrist who is still coming to terms with the break-up of his marriage seven years earlier is the star of this short novel. Even though he treats patients who have gone through traumatic events, he seems largely unable to confront his own demons. Another book starring a psychiatrist is…

‘The Other Side of You’ by Salley Vicker (2007)
The relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient, a woman who has attempted suicide, is the focus of this compelling novel. It looks at how trust grows between them over time and shows that even those people who we think are stable and normal are often nursing hidden pain. The moral of the story is that we never really know the people we are closest to and shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

So that’s this month’s #6Degrees: from an award-winning non-fiction book about life behind the Iron Curtain to a story about the delicate relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient. They all explore dark subjects but are done with care and sensitivity. Have you read any of these books? 

Author, Book review, Books in translation, Fiction, Germany, literary fiction, Penguin Modern Classics, Peter Schneider, Publisher, Setting

‘The Wall Jumper’ by Peter Schneider

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The-wall-jumper

Fiction – paperback; Penguin Modern Classics; 139 pages; 2005. Translated from the German by Leigh Hafrey.

One of the seminal events in my life was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I was 20 years old at the time, but I can still remember watching the live coverage on TV from my living room in Australia with a mixture of joy, fascination and unbridled optimism for the future.

Peter Schneider’s classic German novel, The Wall Jumper, which was penned in 1982, provides a fascinating glimpse of Berlin life before the wall came down.

Life in a divided city

The book follows the lives of a handful of East Berliners who move to the West: Robert, who misses the rigid predictability of his previous life; Pommerer, who spends his time trying to outwit the system; Lena, a woman infected by suspicion and paranoia; and the unnamed narrator, who spends quite a lot of time crossing the border to visit family and friends.

The best time to cross the border at Heirich Heine Strasse is between twelve and two in the afternoon. The checkpoint is almost empty: just one other traveler, with a shepherd dog on a leash, waits under the loudspeaker for his number to be called. I could simply drive up to the shed from which a border official will soon emerge to hand me my numbered ticket. But I know the consequences of crossing the white line unasked: the officer, even if he is there and ready, will wave me back and make me wait until he gives me a sign. I can’t follow impulse: I have to wait for his beckoning hand, and I can’t afford to miss it. The message in this ritual is clear and seems deliberate: I am entering a state where even things that will happen anyway require authorisation.

Much of the book revolves around the narrator collecting stories of people “jumping the wall”, which are told anecdotal style in this plot-free narrative. Many of these anecdotes show the ingenious (and sometimes hilarious) lengths people will go to, the risks they will take, to outwit the system and cross the border — and the absurdity of having to risks their lives to jump through such hoops.

The author’s overall message seems to be that even with the wall removed, there would still be divisions between east and west, because it is difficult for people to ignore the way they are raised and the political values to which their society subscribes. Or, as the narrator puts it:

Pommerer and I can dissociate ourselves from our states as much as we like, but we can’t speak to each other without having our states speak for us. If I insist on majorities as instinctively as Pommerer distrusts them, it is because we have been equally receptive sons of the system that has brought us up.

Such ingrained attitudes become apparent when both of them witness a violent protest in the street one day: the narrator thinks the protest is purely an act of spontaneity; Pommerer believes it is a set-up by police designed to give them reason to prevent a real protest at a later date.

Heavy read

The Wall Jumper’s short length might suggest it’s a quick read, but it is actually quite heavy going, seeing as it explores many big issues — freedom, repression, the line between the state and the self, propaganda and politics, capitalism and communism, to name but a few — and does so in a dry, authoritative style, occasionally lightened by humour.  Indeed, I had to double-check this wasn’t a non-fiction book when I began it, because it feels like reportage or long-form journalism.

But as a slice of fictionalised history it does an important job of showing how people lived their lives in the shadow of the Cold War’s most tangible symbol.