632. Jahrestage

Jahrestage
Uwe Johnson
1970-83

Around 1700 pages

Well, this was a tricky little number to track down. The English translation is split into two volumes, which were in different library branches. I thought something more exciting would happen when I united the two volumes. I should at least be entitled to a music theme playing. 

We get 367 chapters: one for each day of the year from 1967 to 1968, which just happened to be a leap year to make this whole thing even longer, and one for the prelude. This is an odd choice of structure because Johnson isn't very concerned with the linearity of time, and jumps all over the place. We mostly get the life story of Gesine Cresspahl, who grew up during the rise of Nazism in Germany. Gesine is an avid reader of the news, so we are often treated to clippings involving rape and murder. Did I mention I hated this?

Just an exhausting work, and painstaking to get through. I get what Johnson was going for, but it's a real chore to wade through, even without the upsetting descriptions of violence. I'm not surprised that this fell into obscurity; Johnson has the same lack of charisma as Wyndham Lewis.

Luckily, you're unlikely to cross path with this beast in the wild, but if you do, back away slowly and don't make eye contact.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

The original English translation was missing about 30% of the text. 

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