´Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein´ is a quote from Uncle Vanya by Chekhov. It means ´Every thing in a person´ must be glorious´. This second novel by Sasha Marianna Salzmann currently theater writer at Gorki Theater in Berlin was shortlisted for the Deuscher Buchpreis 2021.
From the 1970s, to the Perestroika times and 2015 it brings into the forefront women born and raised in the then Soviet Union, their experiences and their life after living the country for moving to Germany, part of the policy of opening towards people of Jewish origin during the ruling of Chancellor Kohl. Until now, as far as I know, only Lena Gorelik approached this topic in her romans but the focus is mostly on being Jewish and Russian in Germany without extensively covering the previous elements of identity built up in Soviet Union/Russia.
The story in itself is the most important element of the novel. The narrative flows, the characters are following it by uniting their voices into the unique voices of the story. The two women friends and their children do bring together pieces of a puzzle whose shape is not necessarily regular or predictable. It is the flow of memory that dictates the story. As it is the story that matters, the characters are not always readable and one may need some extra details - which are missing - to properly understand them. But in the overall planning of the narrative, such detail seems to be less important.
Although I was interested in the story, I had more expectations in terms of connections between different events and complexity of the narrative. The author´ storytelling fails to fully reach its potential which is a pitty for the current story, but nevertheless made me curious to check Salzmann´s next novel, hopefully soon.
A special mention to the cover which, as many German covers I´ve had the chance to notice recently, is outstanding in terms of creative rendition of the narrative in just one image.
Rating: 3 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment