Uwe Tellkamp: The Tower

[adaorardor]

Anyone read it? Any impressions? (I don't speak German so suppose I must wait for a translation.) Any recommendations of who the current major writers in German are (apart from obvious classics like Grass, Handke, etc)?

From signandsight.com:
Uwe Tellkamp's thousand page novel "Der Turm. Geschichte aus einem versunkenen Land" (The tower. Tales from a lost land) has hit reviewers like a bombshell. Tellkamp, himself born in Dresden, describes a small elite of doctors, litterati, musicians and directors of state enterprises who lived a sealed-off, cramped but comfortable existence in an old neighbourhood high above Dresden in 1982, seven years before the break-up of the GDR. Anyone who was there will not fail to recognise others, Sabine Franke writes. But Tellkamp's novel "is not about uncovering facts, but about making history experiencable and plausible through literature. Tellkamp looks at history and myth from both inside and out, at a time when history itself is becoming a mythologized. This is a book for insiders, for those who remember, who were there themselves. But at the same time it is a book for posterity and parallel worlds, for those who come after and for whom this moment in history can only be contemplated from the outside. Tellkamp has enriched German literature with a wealth of experience, free of bitterness and resentment. This was a story well worth telling, not least because otherwise it may well once more have slipped by unnoticed."

Der Turm - Suhrkamp Insel

[Mirabell]

Any recommendations of who the current major writers in German are (apart from obvious classics like Grass, Handke, etc)?

May I direct you to both this thread : http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/...iterature.html

as well as to the reviews and subthread gathered here

World Literature Forum - Threads Tagged with german literature


As for the Tellkamp. Well. I will definitely read it but reading portions of the predecessor T. seems like a poet not a novelist, he seems to lack the necessary gifts for writing prose, so it might be quite a slog, albeit one peppered w/ delights, to finish "Der Turm".

[adaorardor]

Interesting review of The Tower by complete-review...
Der Turm - Uwe Tellkamp

[Eric]

I am just about read a one-page review from yesterday's Dutch daily of the recent Dutch translation of this novel. So I don't yet know whether the reviewer liked the book or not.

I also read, just now, the following comments, from Brit Katy Derbyshire's love german books website:

Twice a year, Germany's translators' centre in Straelen plays host to a German writer and his or her translators, meeting up to collaborate on their translations. This time around, it's the 2008 German Book Prize winner Uwe Tellkamp, with translators into Bulgarian, Danish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Czech and Hungarian.

Can you spot the missing language? Yes, we can assume there is no English-language publisher daring enough to translate the "German Booker-winner". Called "a monumental panorama of the declining East Germany" and "the great pre-89 novel", it won't be available to English readers. Could this be anything to do with the fact that it's over 900 pages long?

Interestingly enough, this confirms a bit of a trend. So far, the English-speaking world has only picked up the German Book Prize winners written by women. Perhaps we're scared of German (and Austrian) men? Perhaps the judges could kindly take this into account this time around, providing a nice unthreatening lady winner to woo British and American publishers.

How bloody embarrassing! The Brits & Yanks do it again, shutting themselves out of European events (then having the cheek to wax Eurosceptic!). Everyone in the rest of Europe is talking about the fall of the Wall. Even the BBC, to be fair. But this omission is certainly symbolic of my compatriots.

If I buy the book, I'll buy it in Dutch, so I get the nuances that I'd probably miss in the German original. That's what translations are for.

To answer Katy's point, I don't think that 900 pages puts everyone off nowadays. There are plenty of cult books out there of that length. I find such a length off-putting, but this is such an important subject that I might make an exception.

[Mirabell]

I saw it in paperback last week and walked right by it.
not sure I'll ever read it. I read bits and pieces here and there and it's prfoundly disinteresting to me. I'd write a review about it and I don't like to write negative reviews, much less read a long book in order to do it. to be honest, it's a tad ridiculous to say there's no "English-language publisher daring enough". Daring has little to do with it. Long books are translated all the time. Long, boring, uninteresting books though...I can see why someone would hesitate.

[adaorardor]

I saw it in paperback last week and walked right by it.
not sure I'll ever read it. I read bits and pieces here and there and it's prfoundly disinteresting to me. I'd write a review about it and I don't like to write negative reviews, much less read a long book in order to do it. to be honest, it's a tad ridiculous to say there's no "English-language publisher daring enough". Daring has little to do with it. Long books are translated all the time. Long, boring, uninteresting books though...I can see why someone would hesitate.

Does this have to do with the fact that Tellkamp sounds like he's trying to be like Thomas Mann, and you dislike Mann?

[Eric]

In case you're interested (and even if you're not) the Dutch reviewer said the book was a masterpiece - if you'd managed to stick to first fifty pages. He suggested that the book started with a long, even, section about a family party (?), but then began to vary and become really interesting.

I can't understand Mirabell's general disdain for the subject matter, given the fact he spent some of his life in Karl-Marx-Stadt Chemnitz, and given the momentous events of twenty years ago today (9th November 1989).

I agree that any 800-odd-page book looks off-putting (including the much-hyped spate of postmodernist masterpieces), but as Shigekuni is usually so long in his reviews, I do hope that Shigekuni writes a more revealing analysis of what it is that might make his old pal Mirabell think the book to be uninteresting. Because Mirabell is keeping his cards close to his chest.

Unlike Mirabell, I rather like the works of the half-Brazilian bisexual chappie who hailed from the bourgeoisie of Hansestadt L?beck. But then I'm British.

[Stefan Tobler]

I can't understand Mirabell's general disdain for the subject matter, given the fact he spent some of his life in Karl-Marx-Stadt Chemnitz, and given the momentous events of twenty years ago today (9th November 1989).

Hi,
Perhaps that is one reason why Mirabell is a little wary, Eric? We are a little suspicious of someone telling 'our' story, maybe? (Sorry, Mirabell, not wanting to put words in your mouth!)

I thought I'd chip in, as I've translated a shorter piece by Uwe Tellkamp, The Sleep in the Clocks / Der Schlaf in den Uhren, that you can read on the Text and the City website, and now an art essay on Neo Rauch by him. He's not afraid of writing in his own way, which I'm thankful for as a reader, although it can be a pain to translate!

[lenz]

Hi,
Perhaps that is one reason why Mirabell is a little wary, Eric? We are a little suspicious of someone telling 'our' story, maybe? (Sorry, Mirabell, not wanting to put words in your mouth!)

I thought I'd chip in, as I've translated a shorter piece by Uwe Tellkamp, The Sleep in the Clocks / Der Schlaf in den Uhren, that you can read on the Text and the City website, and now an art essay on Neo Rauch by him. He's not afraid of writing in his own way, which I'm thankful for as a reader, although it can be a pain to translate!

Thanks for The Sleep in the Clocks/ Der Schlaf in den Uhren, Stefan Tobler. I think this kind of "stream of consciousness" writing is necessary sometimes (as in Joyce's Ulysses) to convey a feeling of being overwhelmed by the necessity of describing a place and time when a "realistic" description seems insufficient. I find the only way to read such poetic prose is to "go with the flow" without worrying about unfamiliar references. Your translation seems very close to the original, although I must admit my German reading does not flow as easily as English. In that sense, I found the piece interesting but unsatisfying because too unemotional - until the end, where the sadness and sense of loss is felt. I would like it to have been longer perhaps (I suppose that's a compliment). What I really wanted was for it to become a novel - the subject seem so intriguing.

[LizzySiddal]

For a moment i.e reading thread title I thought someone had translated it into English. Sadly not - though I do understand why British publishers are shying away from it. It's nearly impossible to get an English novel of this length published nowadays, never mind one that needs translating first!

[Eric]

Well, Brits, when is it going to appear in English? If any of you are in touch with the great, the good, and the ?lite in the British book world, do sidle around a few publishers at the next cocktail drinkies opportunity and ask some blunt questions about translations.

The Dutch had a double-page review-interview about "The Tower" the other day, whilst the introverted Brits haven't got there yet - 'cos they're too busy selling mass-market bestsellers from Sweden and elsewhere.

Trouw, yesterday, i.e. on a Monday and not in the Saturday book section:

Een Heimat van papier - Trouw

I'm not a fan of fat novels, as I suspect self-indulgence on the part of the author. But this one might be the exception that proves the rule. And unless led by the hand by German publishers eager to sell the rights, the Brits appear to have no initiative to discover anything for themselves.

[Eric]

I saw this book in a Swedish bookshop yesterday in Swedish translation. Anyone read it apart from Mirabell? Impressions?

[Eric]

I saw a review in Upsala Nya Tidning yesterday, which means that this book is now on the radar among Swedish reviewers and intellectuals (often doubling up as the same).

The reviewer, Bo-Ingvar Kollberg, says that the books is somewhat hard to get into at first on account of its experimental narration, but that it gives an interesting picture of life in the GDR. His starts his review by describing a passage where GDR readers smuggled stolen copies of Western literature out of the Leipzig Book Fair during the Cold War, so as to get an idea what was being published in the West. The GDR prevent the normal import of West German and other books. What a crazy and repressive country the GDR was! Though I'm sure there are still people today who will tie themselves up in knots trying to justify the unjustifiable.

I hope to see more thorough Swedish reviews, now that this book is available to Swedish readers (and those in Finland, Norway and Denmark that choose to read Swedish).

The appearance of this book in Sweden is especially interesting as there is still a list of some 50 Swedes who were informers to the Stasi, but which the Swedish government refuses to release. The ordinary Swedish reader now at least has a chance to see what life was like in that paradise the GDR.

[Eric]

By the way, the Swedish translator of the Uwe Tellkamp book is the respected Aimée Delblanc, who teaches literary translation at Södertörns Högskola (university) just outside Stockholm and has translated Hammesfahr, Deitmer, Schlink, Jelinek and Wallraff into Swedish. She must in some way be related to the late Sven Delblanc, one of Sweden's leading twentieth century novelists.

[Mirabell]

the books is somewhat hard to get into at first on account of its experimental narration

?? There is nothing whatsoever experimental about its narration. It changes narrators, but clearly, markedly, and is written in the most conventional prose imaginable.

[Eric]

Mirabell, I did, of course, check Shigekuni's website, hoping for enlightenment as to what that guru thinks. But alas, the search engine didn't give me anything. Was there a technical hitch, or does Shigekuni regard the book as such rubbish that he didn't review it?

[Mirabell]

Mirabell, I did, of course, check Shigekuni's website, hoping for enlightenment as to what that guru thinks. But alas, the search engine didn't give me anything. Was there a technical hitch, or does Shigekuni regard the book as such rubbish that he didn't review it?

I have written very few reviews, as you might have seen. Long books stand a worse chance of being reviewed. Tough luck.

[Eric]

But Shigekuni's reviews compensate for the brevity of the book reviewed by their expansiveness.

[Eric]

I'm still tempted to buy this book (in translation). Has anyone here read it?

[Eric]

I've bought "Der Turm" in German, and can borrow the Swedish translation from the library any time I wish. But I haven't got time to read it now. So I repeat my question: has anyone else here read it, in German or translation? If I start on it, I want to know that it's not going to get turgid. Because it is a big book. But the subject, the GDR and what it was like living there, does interest me.