Alexander Osang: „Die Leben der Elena Silber“

S. Fischer, 2019, 617 S.

Der Roman beschreibt die bewegte Lebensgeschichte von Elena Silber, im vorrevolutionären Russland geboren und kurz vor Ende des Sozialismus in der DDR gestorben, sowie die Versuche ihres Enkels Konstantin Stein, die ungelösten Fragen in ihrer und seiner Familiengeschichte aufzuklären. Elena Silber wird Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts geboren; ihr Vater, Anhänger der Sozialisten, wird 1905 von einem reaktionären Mob getötet. Damit beginnt eine Geschichte von Vertreibung, Flucht und Suche nach besseren Lebensmöglichkeiten. Elena heiratet einen deutschen Ingenieur und landet dadurch in NS-Deutschland; nach dem Krieg bleibt sie in Berlin hängen, wo sie 1982 stirbt. Ihr Enkel Konstantin, Anfang vierzig, geschieden, Filmemacher, wird von seiner dominanten Mutter (einer von Elenas fünf Töchtern) dazu bewegt, Elenas Lebensgeschichte zu erforschen, in dem es ungelöste Widersprüche gibt, besonders um das Verschwinden ihres Mannes nach Kriegsende. Laut Klappentext wurde der Roman von der Familiengeschichte seines Verfassers inspiriert.

Der Roman wird mit vielen Rückblenden mal aus der Sicht Elenas, mal aus der Sicht Konstantins erzählt. Abgesehen von den Rückblenden ist der Erzählstil geradlinig und gut lesbar. An vielen Stellen, besonders wenn aus der Sicht von Konstantin geschrieben, wird sie vom Dialog vorangetrieben. Die Stellen aus Elenas Sicht wirken oft distanziert, wie angelesen, und Elenas Persönlichkeit bleibt fern und verschwommen. Das trifft vor allem auf die Stellen zu, die ihr Leben in Russland beschreiben, während ihr Leben in Schlesien kurz vor und nach Kriegsende und die Jahre in Berlin lebendiger beschrieben ist, so, als wenn die größere geografische Nähe auch eine größere Nähe zur Person bewirkt. Konstantin dagegen und seine Welt gewinnen ein sehr viel klareres Profil; man merkt, dass der Verfasser die Welt, die er beschreibt – Konstantins Kindheit, die dominante Mutter, die Demenz des Vaters, die Beziehung zum Sohn aus der geschiedenen Ehe, die verschiedenen Ostberliner Milieus, in denen Konstantin sich bewegt – gut kennt.

Insgesamt ein gut lesbares Buch. Die russischen Elemente bieten eine gewisse Exotik, aber wirken oberflächlich auf jemanden, der eine gewisse Vertrautheit mit Russland mitbringt. Interessanter ist es als Teil eines großen Mosaiks, als ein weiterer Blick auf vertraute Fragen – was bedeutet Familie, wie gehen Menschen mit Beziehungen um, in welchen Formen suchen sie nach Nähe und Distanz, nach Liebe, Anerkennung, wo ist Heimat, was für Geschichten erzählen sie sich selbst und anderen. Dieser Roman ist ein weiteres Steinchen in diesem Mosaik, und dabei ein unterhaltsames, auch wenn nie wirklich aufgeklärt wird, was aus den verschwundenen Männern in der Familie der Silbers geworden ist.

Gecko

Gecko

Gecko is good.
Gecko eats insects.
Keeps the house clean.
Walks on the wall.
Sits on the ceiling,
Smacks and snacks.
Chirps like a bird,
Upside down.
Hides under the sink,
Feeds on junk.
Don't live on junk,
Stay good, stay useful.
Don't junk the bonds
That bind, that save us.
Now you're inside,
You'll end up outside,
Down from the wall,
Splat on the street,
Caught by the movement,
Unpredictable, unforeseen,
When what goes up
Comes crashing down,
Crushing,
Squishing.
Don't live your greed,
Stay good, stay humble,
Catch flies and gnats,
Catch bugs and roaches,
Live with us,
Not off us.
Gecko stay good.

Norbert Wolf "Malerei Verstehen"

This is a re-posting of my Goodreads Review. The review is in German - I assume most pepople interested in a German introduction to painting are more likely to read German than English.
Это - краткая рецензия немецкой  книги - введения в живопись. Так как я предполагаю, что человек, заинтересованный читать такую книгу, знает немецкий язык, данная рецензия - на немецком. 
Das Buch ist eine Einführung in die Malerei, nach Sachgebieten geordnet (Farben, Farbe contra Zeichnung, Prozess des Malens, Gliederung der Bildfläche, Malerei und Raum, Bildgattungen, Malerei und Gesellschaft, Malerei zwischen Illustration und Abstraktion). Leider werden viele Themen nur sehr kurz angerissen (z. B. Farben, Maltechniken) - der Autor zählt ein paar Schlagworte auf, ohne zu erklären, was sie bedeuten. Es enthält auch zu wenig Illustrationen -  so wird eine Wandmalerei von Matisse über zwei Seiten hinweg diskutiert, aber es gibt keine Abbildung im Buch.
Teilweise sind zwar Illustrationen vorhanden, so werden z. B. die Fresken Giottos in der Arenakapelle in der Gesamtansicht gezeigt (Abbildung Nr. 15), so dass sehr schön die Einordnung der Fresken in den Raum zu erkennen ist. Aber Wolf diskutiert auf S. 89 auch die Komposition eines Ausschnitts aus dem Fresko, der auf der Abbildung nicht erkennbar ist.
Manche Themen, wie "Malerei und Gesellschaft", leiden weniger darunter. Aber um den Anspruch des Buchs zu erfüllen (Klappentext: "Ob Kunstkritik, Vernissage oder Museumsbesuch: Mit 'Malerei Verstehen' ist man immer gut vorbereitet"), wären detailliertere Erläuterungen und mehr anschauliche Illustrationen notwendig gewesen.

Chocolate museum / Schokoladenmuseum / Музей шоколада

On Friday I went to the Chocolate Museum in Cologne with my ladies.  Very nicely located on the Rhine, near the customs port, it informs about the production of chocolate, from the cocoa tree to the packaged chocolate, and about the history of cocoa and chocolate cultivation, production, and consumption, from its Mesoamerican beginnings to modern times. As befits a chocolate museum, it also has a café (with a view on the Rhine) serving hot chocolate and sweets, as well as the usual hot drinks and, during noontime, a small, but tasty, selection of hot dishes; it also has a shop selling chocolates and sweets. We spent about 3 hours there, including lunch at the café. As I'm the kind of person who looks at every exhibit and reads all the informatory signs, I was about 2/3 through the exhibition when my ladies finished, so I didn't see the exhibition on the 3rd floor, which, as my daughter told me, was about chocolate producers and brands.
It's a well-done exhibition, and has some nice attractions, like a hothouse with tropical plants, working machines producing chocolate that feed a chocolate fountain where you can taste said chocolate, a stand where you can design and buy your own chocolate bar, puzzles and games dispersed through the exhibition. We spent 80 € on that outing - 25 € for a family ticket, 40 € for food and drinks for three at the café, and 15 € for chocolates. I can recommend it as a place to spend an educational and fun afternoon, both for families as well as for adults.
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Am letzten Freitag war ich mit meinen Damen im Schokoladenmuseum. Interessante Ausstellung und ein nettes Café mit Blick auf den Rhein und gutem Essen. Ich kann's empfehlen.
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В пятницу мы с семьей посетили Музей шоколада в Кёльне. Там экспонаты объясняют происхождение и производство шоколада и историю распространения и употребления этого продукта. Имеются, конечно, и кафе (с видом на Рейн и вкусной едой) и магазин шоколада. Интересное место, стоящее посещения.   

Skyfall

Again it took me a long time to catch up - here, it's with Daniel Craig as 007. I best like the way Sean Connery defined the role, and Pierce Brosnan came closest to that image of James Bond. So, when I first read about the "new, gritty" James Bond that appeared in "Casino Royale", I didn't like it a bit, and subsequently didn't watch any of the Craig Bond movies.
I guess I have to thank Adele for singing the title song - it really is a little gem, and it has stuck in my ear. It even made me want to watch the film, and finally I did. I was pleasantly surprised. "Skyfall" has the mixture of lots of action and a dose of humour that make a good Bond movie. Craig doesn't have Connery's roguish or Brosnan's boyish charm, but his quiet, deadpan manner is not a bad substitute. While Connery ambled through his adventures like they were an interesting, amusing game, and Brosnan seemed to be able to draw on an internal innocence that made any damages to the soul temporary, Craig doesn't let you forget for a minute that his business is an unpleasant one that leaves the soul scarred. Not that he's moaning or complaining, but his stoic poise betrays that there is suffering that the stoicity needs to mask.
I liked the humorous touches - Bond swaying to the rhythm of the original Bond theme, Moneypenny, the "circle of life" remark... I also liked the ambiguity of the ending - after all, the result of Bond's actions in the grand finale were the same two deaths that Silver had wanted (not counting the collateral henchmen damage), only they happened on Bond's and M's terms, not on Silver's. It's a difference that matters. But it's a far cry from earlier Bonds saving the world.
Still, if that's the new grittiness, it's OK with me. Now the other Craig 007 films are firmly on my viewing list.

Kitchens by the Dozen

When I was a boy, "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Belles on their Toes" (In German: "Im Dutzend billiger" und "Aus Kindern werden Leute") were among my favourite books. I liked these memoirs of living in a large, "rationally organised" family, which to me, at that age, seemed to be extremely funny and attractive at the same time. I was vaguely aware that the Gilbreths were supposed to be real people, not inventions of a fiction author's imagination, but somehow I'd never expected for information about them to show up in the real world. So it was a pleasant surprise to find this article in Slate about Lilian Gilbreth's contribution to modern home kitchen organisation. It's a bit like finding out that, say, Sindbad was a really existing merchant adventurer who plied the seas at the times of Harun Al-Rashid.

Measuring Billy Joel

The first time I came across an article dismissing Billy Joel I was just surprised. Now it happened again, and I must say I'm still surprised. I know that Billy Joel has pretensions to be more than a pop singer and I also find his attempts to be a socially critical chronicler of his age a bit ridiculous ("We didn't start the fire", anyone?), but does this really make him the "Worst Pop Singer Ever"? There are certainly much, much worse pop singers out there. Well, maybe I'm just angry because I really like "Piano Man" and "Always a Woman". But who cares whether "Always a Woman" echoes Dylan? We definitely could need more singers copying themes (and schemes) from Bob.

Die Vermessenheit der Vermessung (A note on Kehlmann "Measuring the World")

Ein weiteres Weihnachtsgeschenk war Daniel Kehlmanns "Die Vermessung der Welt". Es gibt dazu genug im Internet (z. B. diese Besprechung und dieses Interview), also nur eine kurze Bemerkung - das Buch lässt sich gut lesen und ist intelligent geschrieben, aber es ist mit Vorsicht zu geniessen, da es historisch falsche Behauptungen enthält und die Hauptprotagonisten - Gauß und Alexander v. Humboldt - zu Karikaturen verzerrt.

If you come across Daniel Kehlmann's "Measuring the world" (I got it as a Christmas present), enjoy reading it, but if you're interested in Gauss or Humboldt, better read a biography - the characters are distorted to illustrate points about life, knowledge, and Germanness Kehlmann wants to make, and for that reason he also takes liberties with the facts.

Having read "The Reader"

I put the book on my Christmas wish list, and Santa acted accordingly. So now I know I was wrong as well - the real reason why Michael isn't able to build lasting relationships with women is simply that he cannot get over Hanna, even after he finds out what she has done. In the book, he not only doesn't turn down one-night stands, he even marries and has a daughter, but the marriage ends in divorce for the simple reason that his wife cannot compete with his memories of Hanna, a problem shared by all the girl friends he has afterwards. There is guilt and agonising, as well as phases of total emotional numbness, after Michael discovers Hanna's past, but the book is never as simple as "I can't have any woman any more because I slept with a Nazi". I cannot tell whether the film or its reviewer are guilty of this over-simplification, but it doesn't do justice to the book. In any case, I recommend reading it.

Guilt & Trust

I normally don't talk about books or films I haven't read. But I came across this review of the film version of "The Reader", and I really was puzzled by the reviewer's seeming lack of understanding:

Maybe I'm lacking in moral complexity (or maybe this is a uniquely German story that translates poorly to an American context), but The Reader's central problem (which seems reducible to "I shagged a Nazi") strikes me as a bogus one.
If Michael can say, truthfully, that he knew nothing about his lover's past, doesn't that effectively absolve him of guilt? A lifetime of Fiennes-ian brooding seems a steep price to pay for one summer of unwitting fascistic congress. And even if Michael can't help but feel haunted by his fling, shouldn't others (like the Holocaust survivor he confronts near the end of the film, played by Lena Olin) let him off the hook? Why on earth should a horny teenage boy have to abstain from sex with a willing blond goddess on the off chance she might be SS?

Just by reading the review, it is clear that we're not talking about a one-night stand, but about a relationship enduring a summer long that was deep and meaningful for Michael, even if perhaps not for Hanna. Without having read the book or seen the film, I would assume that Michael's problem is not so much guilt, but disappointment and loss of trust, especially in his own feelings - how could he fall in love with a woman who did such unspeakable deeds? How can he be sure that the next woman he falls in love with, or he simply is attracted to, doesn't hide a hideous character behind a beautiful face?
Even if Michael's reaction, to reject all deeper relationships with women, may still seem exaggerated, I think it's much easier to understand as based on loss of trust and confidence in his own ability to correctly assess other people's character, than as based on guilt by association. It's a feeling probably known to many people who, after the excesses of the 20th century, had to find out that a loved person had perpetrated crimes against humanity in the past.

Blasts from the 80s

Zwei Erinnerungen an die 80er in zwei Tagen - ist das ein Signal, dass ich alt werde?