This is my first blog-post and it is about some of the books I read between year 7 and 11 in my German high school. These books aren’t in a particular order, I just wrote all of them down and took some notes to guide me along. I’ll give a brief summary and then my thoughts about the books.
Without further due, let’s get into the series!
Nr. 1 “Hexen in der Stadt-Ingeborg Engelhardt”
We read this book in seventh grade and immediately after reading (actually during reading as well) we asked ourselves how and why someone thought “Hell yeah, that’s a topic for 11 year olds” since the book is originally listed for grade 5 and 6.
The story takes place in a German town during the Thirty years war, the witch hunts are running wild and the church is all over the place. The story follows a family of four who live in this town, the father is a doctor, one daughter is read-headed and the other a sleep walker. And although the father is greatly needed in this time, the towns people are really suspicious of the family, and they have to flee the city.
First of all, the book was so dense, it was almost unbearable. Definitely not something for children and yet the book won the “Youth literature award” in Germany, so I guess it wasn’t too bad after all. I honestly don’t remember a lot from it, I know we watched a horrible movie about it and I also remember that the pacing(?) in the book was weird, because the first 80% or so took reaaaally long to read through and virtually nothing happened and then in the last 20% everything happened all at once and it was just too much.
Nr. 2 “Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee-Thomas Brussig”
The only (apparent) reason why we read this book was because we had our final class trip to Berlin in year 10.
The setting is the DDR, East-Berlin to be precise, somewhere around 1970ish. Our protagonist Micha lives in a street which was cut in half my the Berlin Wall and he, unfortunately enough, lives in East-Berlin. He frequent meets with his friends in a nearby park where they listen to West-Music and swoon about Miriam, the neighborhood beauty who is kinda a not-like-other-girls-girl.
All in all, the books is about searching happiness and thinking about how it is so very close and yet never being able to reach it.
It was comfortable to read and overall it was an okay novel. I don’t remember much about it, although I literally read it a year ago. The insight about east-Berlin was cool, and the author definitely implemented own experiences and as someone who grew up in post-split Westgermany it was rather informative and interesting. The quote on the back of the book was also pretty.
“Happy people have a bad memory and rich memoirs”
Nr. 3 “Frühlings Erwachen-Frank Wendekind”
Oh. My. God. This whole topic was such a BS and I hated every second of it.
The book takes place, once again, in a German Town in a time where there is no Sex-Ed, aka 1900th century, which is also the topic of the book; Sex-Ed gone wrong. Our first protagonist Wendla grows up in a home with a loving, strict mother and far, far away from everything unholy like sex. Our second protagonist, Melchior, is a really smart, really handsome boy who is the top of his class and who likes to read provocative literature which makes him think about masturbation. His best friend is also handsome but really stupid but the social pressure keeps him from dropping out of school- that and his strict, abusive father. Melchior and Wendla fall in love (he hits her with sticks after she metions that she has never been hurt before), have Sex(he rapes her) and after Wendla gets pregnant and dies after an attempted abortion via poisonous plants her aunt have her, Melchior is only mildly devastated. He turns sad, and kinda crazy, after his best friend commits suicide. He has a rendez-vous with the ghost and death itself, he is happy again? I dunno, the whole book was all over the place.
Worse than the book was the discussions we had in class afterwards. One time we had to argue whether it was in-fact rape or if it was just sex. Second discussion we had was about Wendla being a masochist.
The worst thing about the whole topic was the stupid ass movie adaptation.
You think Percy Jackson has it bad? Oh boy. Ohhh boy. The movie plays in the 2000s, graffiti, cool skater boys, rapper-wannabes and early 2000s fashion included. The names stayed tho, cause why not name the male protagonist Melchior in 2001. There are scenes where teenagers, TEENAGERS, go to a brothel. Ah, I forgot.
They are 13-14, book and movie alike.
10/10 would NOT recommend.
Nr. 4 “Der Besuch der alten Dame-Friedrich Dürrenmatt”
(No, not the horror movie)
Oh my goodness, I loved this book.
Picture this. A small town in a German province far away from any major cities with a single trail connection between Hambourg and Zurich, aka the whole length of Germany, where virtually nothing happens. One day, a former resident, comes for a visit. But not just anyone, Claire frikking Zachanassian comes for a visit.
And for blood, because this sixty-something, badass multi-billionaire who got her fortune by marrying a bunch of men who died coincidentally one after the other proposes to the town an offer.
One billion for the head of the man, Alfred the third, who expelled her out of the town after getting her pregnant and lying about it in court after she sued him.
They sent her away in the train, called her a hoe and laughed about her. She lived in a brother for a little while, her son died, and a horny, rich man decided to marry her because why not.
At first the towns people are disgusted by the offer, outraged by the immoral offer and they straight up deny it. “I’ll wait, Claire says”.
You see, the town is really, really poor. Not only because it is in a terrible location commercially wise, but also because Claire bought every factory in the town and brought them all to a stand still to slowly dry the city out. She planned this revenge.
And you see, the proposal of 500 million split between the inhabitants and 500 million for the industry of the city sounds great if you are on the brink of disaster and hunger and misery. But surely, with such an immoral offer, no one would want to commit a crime? Or would they.
Because, now that I look at it, Alfred really did something horrible… maybe, just maybe I can allow myself to stack up some dept.
And Alfred grew more and more paranoid. Begging Claire to stop this, apologizing on his knees, crying and sleeping with one open eye at all times.
We discussed in our class what we would do. We didn’t really came to a conclusion since we had nothing to compare, not one of us was ever asked to make such a decision. “It depends” was our final answer.
They do kill him in the end. It doesn’t end happy, Claire isn’t happy, but she does give the towns people their money. I really enjoyed reading this book. The female “antagonist” was refreshingly bad-ass and the moral despair was entertaining to read.
We learn that Claire is rich and powerful, but that she lost so much innocence, so much energy to enjoy her life in such young years that, as a reader, you cannot not sympathize with her.
Nr. 5 “Das Versprechen-Friedrich Dürrenmatt”
Hands down the best book I’ve read in school.
This book is originally a critique by Dürrenmatt about the emerging detective novel genre where everything always works out.
The setting is in a Swiss town, 1950ish, and in the beginning the reader takes on the role of an author who meets a certain Dr. H who works for the police. They become friends and take a ride through the mountains. Upon taking a stop at a gas station, Dr. H introduces us to a seemingly old, smoking, alcohol-reeking man and a scruffy looking girl. The narrator is confused, asks who these people are, and back in the car, we learn that this is the former detective, no-one-escapes-me, super-brain Matthäi.
From that point on the narrator switches and we are now in a third person narrator perspective.
Matthäi is introduced again, this happening in the past, as a hard-working, clean, structured man who doesn’t smoke, drink or disobeys rules. No one really likes him in the office, but they value that he just so good at his job. But because he is so unapproachable, they want to sent him away to Jordan.
The week he was planning to travel there, a young girl is raped and then brutally murdered in a small town nearby. And because he is Mister Superbrain, he goes there to help investigate.
The other officers at the crime scene are (understandably) uncomfortable, they don’t want to talk to the family, or the people there in general. So Matthäi talks to everyone. He is a very calm, collected, cold man. So he meets with the family, tells them what happened to their daughter and is utterly, completely shocked when the mother just blankly stares in his face, and asks him to promise her to find the murderer of her daughter. He is shocked by the lack of emotion in this moment and sees himself in this cold visage of the mother. He promises her, just to get away from her as fast as possible, and drives back to be office.
I don’t want to spoil too much because this book is just so good, but oh my god
I’m in general a sucker for drastic changes in character or demeanor (hence why I liked The Visit so much as well) but his book takes everything to another level. They “plottwist” is so incredibly frustrating and nerve wraking to read, the perspective changes provide so much more depth.
And for the first time I finally read a really intricate, morally gray character.
Nr. 6 “Nathan der Weise-G. E. Lessing”
This book was kinda eh. If I had so summarize it as fast as possible it would probably be “Religion and accidental incest”. It is about the three world religions and stereotypes between them, about genocide and also about stigmatization. It ends on a nice note, tho.
The only really remarkable passage of this book is the so-called “Ringparabel” in which Nathan answers to the question which religion is the real, big OG of them all. It is pretty nice and the symbolism is really fitting as well. The beginning of the book is incredibly boring but it does get better in the end. All in all not a total waste of time and money but nothing I would read again.
Nr. 7 “Die Leiden des jungen Werther- Goethe”
(The sorrows of young Werther)
Ah yes, no German class without Goethe. This book is written in a way that lets the reader really seep into Werthers emotion because it is written as a letter-novel. Werther is a young, nature-loving guy who (in the beginning of the book) is just really happy, go-lucky and over all nice. Then he meets Lotte, a young, pretty, smart and book-loving woman who is empathic to all those around her. He falls in love with her, despite knowing that she is literally engaged and about to marry. She knows he loves her, her fiance know he loves her and literally everyone knows he loves her and they are ok with it? I dunno. Werther has a severe Seasonal-affective-Disorder. He kinda makes it through the first winter after meeting Lotte but never really recovers, even during summer. In the second winter, he can’t take it anymore and he commits suicide.
I liked the book (not only because I can identify with the SAD). In the end we learn that Lotte isn’t as good as we originally think she is; She is actually really possessive of Werther and although she wants him to be happy, she doesn’t think anyone is good enough for him and thus he should just stay close to her. She enjoys the attention given by her husband, who is actually really nice and whom she does love, and by Werther who is utterly and completely obsessed with her.
Opinions on this book split 50/50 with my friends. Some of them think like me and they see the heart break and the desire to move on but ultimately, the way attraction is so so strong. Some other friends, more specifically my Help-with-Maths-Go-to-Guy hated this book with a burning passion. I can see why. The imagery is sometimes a tad too far-fetched and the wording is, in true Goethe-Fashion really hard to read and the sentences are kinda messed up as well.
But in the end it is still the book which opened the way for Goethe to be one of the greatest writers in Europe and I can see why.
Oh wow. This concludes all the books I read thus far. There will be definitely more to come next year and maybe I’ll do another post like this once I read some more.
I hope you enjoyed to read my thoughts and maybe felt inspired to look into one of these as well!
