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A toxic German fairytale
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
REALITY DENIED: Concert in the foyer of the Palast der Republik, Jugendtanz, 1976
[Jurgen Sindermann/Bundesarchive/CC]
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SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
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The Granddaughter
Bernhard Schlink, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20
SCHLINK’s novel, The Reader, was made into an acclaimed film, starring Kate Winslet. In that novel, he dealt with Germany’s Nazi legacy. In this novel, he takes the legacy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as his subject.
Schlink concocts a story to illustrate the mainstream narrative of Germany having lived through two dictatorships and of a continuous timeline of development between Nazism and the GDR. It is little wonder that his novels have garnered approbation in the mainstream press.
Like virtually all books written about life in the GDR by (West-) German authors, this one is replete with the usual tropes. The author is also one of those who was parachuted into a leading position in East Germany after unification — or “annexation” as many former GDR citizens call it — becoming a professor of law at Berlin’s Humboldt university.
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