Visiting Dorotéenstadt Cemetery in Berlin

People having their lunch break while resting their feet on the centuries-old dark stones. Alone or with company. Young students resting on a bench surrounded by graves. So Romantic. Nearby, a young lady is snitching a short note on a box set on Brecht's grave. A request for feedback, for inspiration?

And there is me, a little voyeur, camera in hand, for the first visit at Dorothéenstadt Cemetery Berlin, also called the Berlin's Père Lachaise.

Weirdly maybe,  I always considered cemeteries interesting places. In France, or Spain or Portugal,  in Central and Eastern Europe or the Middle East, I always searched for little stories beind the stones. It is not always about the famous people, but also about those unknown residents which might left some stories about their lives on the stones. 

I remember how me and my brother we discovered once in the old country a cemetery of pilots. On some of their graves part of their circumstances - flight accident for instance - was revealed - and we used to set up stories about their destiny.

For Berlin cemetery, you don't have to be that creative: most of the lives of the famous residents are told already in tomes.

The 17,000 sqm cemetery situated in the Mitte area - Chauséestrasse 126 - reunites in dead artists, writers, industralists - like Borsig, for instance - or court architects - like Schinckel, my favorite German's architect.

Compared to the notorious Père Lachaise, there are no orgiastic parties here. No desperate screams of the fans of Jim Morrison. Artists and intellectuals do have a high, often unapproachable status in Germany. You treat them with respect, quietly. Or you leave pebbles on the stones - or even a pen - like at Christa Wolf's grave. 

Besides the potential stories - most of them I never wrote - there is the tombal architecture which interests me when visiting a grave. What I've mostly seen here is a very simple one, without glamour and special style. Dorothéenstadt is usually considered an example of 18th-19th century tombal architecture but in my humble opinion someone really interested in good samples in this respect should go somewhere else. 

For instance, I've found more glamour and creative patterns in the Jewish cemetery of Weissensee. The emerging Jewish class wanted to copy the style of the successful gentiles and suceeded to pay for impressive works of tombal architecture. Completely against the average Jewish belief that in death,  all graves shall look the same, simple, without pictures or any significant identification mark.

You have to walk a lot until you find some interesting corners but they are worth the view. There is some information posted at the entrance - in German - and you might find other tourists - or curious locals as me - wandering near the graves. You can ask about famous people eventually.

Although not exactly impressed, it was a literary visit worth doing it once in a lifetime. At least I've learned something about the local tombal architecture, and even learned something about the easygoing way of munching a sandwich at the shadow of a famous person's grave.

I only have a big regret: why I haven't asked the girl with the note on Brecht's grave about her message. I am becoming too private sometimes...

Short Stories from the Days of Awe

Short stories do have such an ephemeral appearance. Such a collection does require a specific order of reading, you don't have to keep in mind a unique story line and characters. You can abandon it for a couple of days or even weeks or months and read it again without influence to the overall knowledge and understanding of the writing.

However, when reading a collection of short stories, I prefer to keep reading it. It goes faster sometimes and in this way I am able to follow patterns and ideas, the so-called red lines which are inevitably a trademark of any writer. 

Days of Awe by A.M.Homes are impossible to be read otherwise. A story delves into the other, the characters are developped from a story to another, in their full strangeness. They are dual - in both their gender orientation and their desires - at the limit, looking for different emotional experiences and obsessed with past - theirs, of the world, of their group. Some of them look like pictures in a therapy book. 

The most complex characters are the women: they might be dual in their sexual desires, They are struggling with their mothers, their past and their identities are often a construction made of multiple layers. The men are almost lost in their shadows.

The dialogues are for me the strongest literary part of the short stories. They reveal a lot about the inner lives and secrets of the characters, about their hidden desires and their past obsessions. They are vivid and spontaneous and a noteworthy part of the staged narrative. 

Although I am not reading so often short stories, this collection left traces into my literary desires and created the appetite for even more such experiments. I may have to continue with more short stories by A.M.Homes maybe.

Rating: 4 stars

Visiting Anna Seghers Memorial House in Berlin

In my primary school years, back in the old country, I used to visit a lot of memorial houses and I kept a certain nostalgy for this type of encounters ever since. Visiting the house of a writer means sometimes connecting the dots between the literary work and the personal milieu. However, once my critical thinking developped, my expectations were to experience besides the personal touch of a writer's life also eventually a critical perspective of his or her writings and decisions. This goes especially for those writers with a certain political implications, as it is the case of Anna Seghers. 

I grew up with the full collection of her works in French, and read some of them in my teen years. Most probably, would love to read them in German, now that I am relatively well managing this language. Also, I am a grown up today, with a complex critical thinking system and a new read will definitely shape a different perception on her works and the mentality it reflects.

Anna-Seghers Museum, under the administration of Akademie der Künste, in Berlin is situated on the street bearing the name of the writer, 5 minutes of walk from the Adlershof S-Bahn station. A couple of blocks away lived the Bulgarian communist Georgy Dimitrov. She lived at this address from 1955 until 1983, after she decided to settle in the communist Germany - GDR. During the war Seghers moved to Paris and after Mexico, where she made friendship with other communist believers like the painter Diego Rivera, together with her communist Hungarian husband Laszlo Radvanyi. At the end of the war, she lived shortly in an apartment in a wing of Adlon Hotel which was not affected by bombings.

Seghers was born Netty Reiling in a middle-class Jewish family in Mainz. (Seghers was apparently the name of a Dutch painter she become familiar with, probably through his father art business). During her exile, she wrote many of her important works, including The Seventh Cross, about the escape from a concentration camp, which was turned into a Hollywood movie. Once settled in the communist part of Germany, she was awarded several prizes and was a co-founder of the Academiy of Arts and the World Peace Council.

One of the most important reasons I love to visit memorial houses is for having a look at the libraries. What were the sources of inspiration? What were the authors preferred? Anna Seghers' library includes around 10,000 titles as diverse as the Pesah Hagaddah, Boris Polevoi (which I had the chance to read as a teen too) or Stalin's works in Russian. Originally, she was a sinologist (haven't spotted any book in Mandarin though), and I am not sure if she was fluent in Russian. 

The house - whose interior cannot be photographed - includes the original furniture, including the Remington typewriter she bought from Mexico, where she wrote her books and articles. 

However, what I was really missing from this memorial house, was a complex critical perspective. The visitor who is not very familiar with her works will leave with the impression that she was probably a perfect followers of the German communists. What was her opinion on the freedom restrictions in the GDR? About the incidents that other writers like Stefan Heym, who was a literary friend, went through with the local system. It is a complete painful silence that makes me feel that very often, memorial houses are just a place to have a check of the famous people's libraries.

'We Were Strangers Once'...

In a world which seems - again - more and more dominated by hate and lack of consideration for immigrants, it's good to be reminded that, at least in some countries - like America -  'We were strangers once'. A frequent mention of the Jewish exodus, this sentence invites for understanding and opening towards the 'stranger' because he or she, as we once, are fighting hard with social, linguistic and economic barriers which are hard to figure out. 

We Were Strangers Once by Betsy Carter follows the footsteps of a group of German Jews lucky enough to escape Germany to America. The new life means that they have to give up their old prestigious jobs and social positions for a menial salary but with the promise of a life in freedom and dignity. Egon, the heir of a famous group of scientists, an oftalmologist himself, in Frankfurt is becoming the 'Cheese Man' selling cheese in a supermarket. Meyer, his journalist friend, will give up for a while his writing ambitions for doing street advertising. Their language skills are limited, therefore they end up in the regular company of each other's.

But once life starts to settle down, their lives are becoming more and more complex and so are the challenges. New people are entering the small German circle, like the Irish-born Catrina, Egon's new girlfriend, with whom he connected through their reciprocal love for animals. 

Betsy Carter created a beautiful story with so many unique characters, so realistic that you might even figure them out in flesh. The story is developing in a complex way and has elegant turns, but do not expect anything dramatic or unexpected. It flows like life, in a very easy, down-to-earth still unexpected way. 

The connection with the historical reality is also well done, which creates the authenticity ambiance, so important for a historical novel. 

I am very happy to discover this writer and would be want to read more from her. This creates such a genuine intellectual ambiance that it's hard to escape and this effect is a real gift for a writer therefore I would be very curious to know more about her writings.

Rating: 5 stars

The Broken Lives of a Mad and Furious City

Stations Estate, North London. A summer of unrest when Selvon, Ardan and Yusuf are trying to figure out how to pass their time, in a city which turns to be mad and furious.

London has so many faces and its people are so different. Brought here from all over the world, but still one, part of a oneness which sometimes has no pity against its residents. 

Written in a multitude of voices, In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne is a book about fellowships, broken destinies and people who are condemned to repeat the lives of their parents with no chance in sight.

It is not a sad book. The stories, written at the first person, taking the reader in dialapidates spots and hopeless city corners, are realistically told. This is how life is there. And will always be. Young men in bad futures they are. 

The alternate stories create a special tempo of the story, which you slowly enter. Sometimes, for the non-English speaker, it might be a bit difficult to cope with the idiom, but using this way of talking creates a certain intimacy and genuine originality to the story. 

The book has the merit of revealing worlds and personal stories that you are rarely intimate with. It's cruel, disturbing and unusual, but it has so much authenticity and the power to create stories within the stories. 

It is a recommended book especially if you are interested in radicalism, minority representation and personal stories. The multi-awarded debut novel of Guy Gunaratne promises a unique literary voice that will have a lot to say, especially in 'our mad and furious city'. 

Rating: 4 stars

A Bookish ChickLit for My Heart

A chicklit should not be cheesy, easy, stereotypical and necessarily ending up happily. If you have a story to tell, keep doing it and I will appreciate it if it is really worth reading it. 

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is one of the best books included un this category I've read in a while. Yes, I have a weakness for such books because life is real, and romance is real and relationships are also part of the everyday life. The fact that some are not ending up well, is just another story, but at least you need to keep hoping.

A bookish lovely creature, working in a small bookstore in LA, Nina has a penchant for very well organised daily schedule - and I really love this as I am, myself, one of those people too - grew up independently with a single photographer mother most of the time away on work assignments and without knowing her father. Suddenly though, she will be contacted by a lawyer representing his dead father, that apparently knew about her but was convinced by her mother to leave them alone. From a lonely life, she is entering the intricated life of a very big family that she needs to cope with. 

And then, there is a handsome, non-bookish boy that she likes, not sure sure that she can fit him into her complicated life. She has anxiety attacks, and is about to give up more than once.

Nina Hill is so real, with her love of life, curiosity and attractive way of approaching reality as a curious bookish person. She's a good person, a millenial in her very early 30s trying to cope with the daily complexities. I really love her as much as I love her agenda mindset. Especially her way to ask directly very complex and complicated questions. 

The writing is very good too. The dialogues are vivid and full of turns that a bookish person will very much appreciate. The characters are complex and with personalities that you might easily find in real life too. The story has turns that make it worth reading in a one sitting - as I did myself.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is a book that will make you enjoy a late summer day, regardless what genre you prefer.

Rating: 4 stars

Book Review: The Hiding Place by C.J.Tudor

At first, I am not sure what to write about this book. I am conflicted because during the reading, I had at least two different feelings, none of it strong enough to become predominant: 1. It is an awesome construction of a book, that keeps you alert until the very end and leaves you haunted, still looking for answers. 2. It is such a déjà-vu in the style of Stephen King that it really doesn't matter too much what happened in the story, because it looks like a set-up for the sake of answering the usual King-canon.

Still, not sure which of these opinions are really relevant for the final evaluation of the book. Still, it might be a third one - at least - that I haven't identified yet which changes completely the literary perspective.

C.J.Tudor's debut novel, The Chalk Man was a revelation though, and I was very excited to start reading her newest book, The Hiding Place - titled in the UK as The Taking of Annie Thorne. 

The opening is a description of a horrible crime site, a slow-down overview which outlines every single detail which sums up the horrible encounter. This punctilious focus on the smallest visual and audible information is the red line of the book, which creates impressive effects and builts up the overall suspense. You have to be careful to not miss any information if you hope to understand the plot.

An English teacher with a passion for gambling, Joe Thorne returns to his hometown, Arnhill, a dead former mining town. He is back because he was asked to, because strange events that took place during his teen years seem to come back. During those years his sister, Annie disappeared and when she returned she was changed for the good and shortly after she died in a car accident. 25 years after, he is keen to go deep into the labyrinth of secrets surrounding those times. 

The book is populated with morally ambigous characters and bizarre children, some of them ending up as creepy adults. The characters are not lovable, not necessarily the kind of people you love to hate. Most of them are just haunted, like Arnhill, the town where they live whose geography and topography plays an important role in creating the suspense. 

There is so much to be told by mining towns - former or still operating. People are harsh, used with going to work in a place that might be their grave. The minig places are often surrounded by a hallow of mysterious stories and urban legends with a high percentage of creepiness. Children growing up in such places are completely uninterested in learning as they assume that sooner or later they will follow the path of their parents. Families often made up of a semi-alcoholic father and a stay-at-home bored and sometimes depressed mom. 

The story is told mostly at the first person and until the very end, it remains ambiguous about every detail. After all, memory is betraying and willingly, we might want to hide some details in order to obliterate the truth. 

Personally, I am still undecided about the book and for a while, I leave it like this. Probably until I will read the third book by C.J.Tudor which I've heard is already done, The Other People. Because, definitely, she's a writer I would love to read more and more from.

Rating: 3.5 stars