Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Living in Berlin in 1945 was a challenge. Rubble from bombed out buildings was everywhere - people tried to live in the remnants. Negotiating the roads was an obstacle course and transport severely restricted. Food was in limited supply and cigarettes were an important commodity. Frei, who lived in Berlin at that time, and may have crafted one of his characters, teenager Ben, after his own image, paints a vivid picture of how people struggled and survived after the war. Towards the end of 1945 people start to feel that life might be getting better - at least in the western parts of the city. The author's primary subject, though, is not the portrait of a city emerging from the ruins. His narrative concentrates on the hunt for a serial killer and the young women he stalks. The story centers on the American sector and the American administrative compound around "Uncle Tom's Hut", a well known Berlin underground train station. The victims, actual and potential, work in the US compound and have passes that allow them to move outside past the curfew. The same appears to apply to whoever the killer is. This situation forces the US officers reluctantly to work with the German detective, Ben's father, who is charged with the case. Interesting tensions between victor and defeated develop as a result.
Alternating with the chapters that describe the hunt for the mysterious killer are those that narrate the stories of the victims. These descriptions move the book beyond the usual thriller genre. Frei carefully chooses women from very different social strata and backgrounds. They range from an aristocrat to a village girl turned actress to a street kid from a poor housing estate to a young widow trying to protect her disabled child. The author explores their lives from early childhood through the Nazi period and the war to the period when they are stalked by the killer. This technique allows Frei to expand into the historical background, relating the whole spectrum of German attitudes toward the regime: the enthusiasts, the middle-of-the-roaders, the naïve and the odd critic. The locales shift with each character, it could be Berlin or Spain, or a concentration camp commandant's lavish home. Some background characters turn up in different scenarios adding linkages and depth to the individual stories. The women, while very distinct and well depicted, have some traits in common: they are all beautiful, blond and blue-eyed. Frei also bestows them with a rather easygoing life style open to intimate adventures, whether for material gains or not. This would seem to be somewhat surprising for the times, but the author clearly enjoys recounting details.
Frei's Berlin is not so much a thriller as a social portrait of a city in its historical context. While the hunt for the killer keeps the reader intrigued, the real attraction of the novel is in the life stories of the young women, their background and struggles through the most dramatic and devastating period in recent German history. Anthea Bell's translation is, as always, excellent. Readers of the German original have noticed a marked improvement in language and style in her translation. [Friederike Knabe]
Click Here to see more reviews about: Berlin: A Novel
0 comments:
Post a Comment