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Btb Bei Goldmann (1996), Paperback
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Der Autor erzählt von Kindheit und Jugend seiner Eltern, von ihren Familien und Lebensumständen und ihrem Zusammenfinden im ausgehenden wilhelminischen Kaiserreich bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges.
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LibraryThing member thorold
The first part of Kempowski’s Deutsche Chronik (but the fifth in publication order), covering the period from about 1898 to 1918, the childhood of his parents Karl (in Rostock) and Grethe (in Hamburg) and their experiences in the First World War.
Kempowski uses his characteristic collage
There’s a lot about the apparently universal and unquestioned belief in German greatness, German mission, and the Kaiser. Some of that is probably hindsight— Kempowski was writing from the point of view of someone who had lived through the consequences of post-1918 German arrogance — but it’s also not so different from what you might read about British or French jingoism in the early 20th century. It’s also fascinating to read about how little people like Karl and Grethe knew about the poor people who lived around them. Karl is quite genuinely puzzled the first time he sees a hunger march, and Grethe is shocked when she leaves her suburban cocoon for the first time to work in an inner-city kindergarten.
Kempowski uses his characteristic collage
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technique, mixing together his third person narrative with passages of what seems to be oral history from people who remember the Kempowski and De Bonsac families, to create a composite picture of bourgeois life in Wilhelmite North Germany, a kind of less-ponderous follow-up to the world of Buddenbrooks. Lübeck is between Hamburg and Rostock, after all. There’s a lot about the apparently universal and unquestioned belief in German greatness, German mission, and the Kaiser. Some of that is probably hindsight— Kempowski was writing from the point of view of someone who had lived through the consequences of post-1918 German arrogance — but it’s also not so different from what you might read about British or French jingoism in the early 20th century. It’s also fascinating to read about how little people like Karl and Grethe knew about the poor people who lived around them. Karl is quite genuinely puzzled the first time he sees a hunger march, and Grethe is shocked when she leaves her suburban cocoon for the first time to work in an inner-city kindergarten.
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