Book Review: Berlin by Bea Setton

 

´Berlin is an easy place to start anew, as everyone seems to have just arrived´.

As the weather was generous with us, Berliners, in the last days, I took a stroll today, all on my own, through the famous Kreuzberg. The people are hanging out alone or in couples, eating outdoors or walking their dogs, conversing in English loud and funnily. The bikes are moving fast, long lines of families on two rows, requesting their slice of the road. This is a part of Berlin, the one you can see all round the day, no matter what time or day of the week. And when the day is over, this Berlin relocates to the underground, dancing as it is no tomorrow until the break of the dawn.

I had the taste of this Berlin too, at least for a short while or once in a while. I may nostalgically think about those times. But this Berlin is so unauthentic as an ad for beauty surgery. It lures you, it may promise you a life as extraordinary as a mushroom-induced dream. 

That´s the promise Daphne the main character of Berlin by Bea Setton, a British-French young girl, with a side for lying about herself and almost everything, dreamed about as she arrived to Berlin. She wanted to learn German, eventually do some graduate studies, enjoy life. Her parents secured her a monthly payment for her basic needs. She is free as a bird and ready to have some fun. But things are getting on the wrong side of fun: there is an ex she met - actually she was aware he is here therefore her choice of an escape; she got a stalker; made few friends but will lose all of them soon; is running as crazy around the Hasenheidepark; ´someone´ threw a stone into her rented apartment no. 1, then to the rented apartment no.2. Until the end of the story, she is becoming more and more psychotic and ends up leaving Berlin with her things in a blue IKEA bag.

I have no idea why I insisted to finish this book. There is no actual story, unless this unfolding psychosis, and some well-placed hints about what is supposed to happen. The only part which is really intelligent is the classification of people one may find on dating sites, but such articles one can easily find at the ´Dating´ section of any respectable glossy magazine.

Shortly, Berlin by Bea Setton is a psychotic projection of a Berlin that haunts the dreams of Western people whose life is in a point of no return. Unless you got completely on the wrong side and you take your IKEA bag on your shoulder embarking on the first cheap flight back home.

Rating: 2 stars