In Germany for two weeks now, I dream in English at night and find myself walking the sunlit streets of New York, in a crowd of people of all races. In New York, the Germany of my youth often invades my dreams. It might be the melancholy landscape of the lower Rhine with its gray and rainy skies or Berlin’s Prussian architecture, its Häuser und Hinterhäuser, backhouses and backyards.
I’m never just in one place; I‘m constantly comparing. New Yorkers are nice to strangers. They engage them in conversation; they are polite; they show genuine interest. Germans rarely speak to strangers. It appears acceptable to be rude, or to sit next to one another on the bus or in a cafe without exchanging a word or a smile. I am always living in two places simultaneously, with two languages in my brain. My way of looking at the world gets me into trouble on both sides of the Atlantic.
When Germans attack the US for its position on Israel, the National Rifle Association, its use of military power and its lack of ecological awareness, I become a staunch supporter of the US and the Americans. I point out all that’s right and fair in the US: a leader in civil rights, more opportunities for immigrants and more diversity in the workplace and the academic world. In Germany, I long for the optimism, the straightforward friendliness of the American people.
When in New York, just as my peers in Germany, I complain about American ignorance and narrow-mindedness, the pro-life activists and the religious fanatics. I long for more Tiefgang, (depth), friends I can argue with without the risk of offending them or losing a friendship. I deplore gas guzzling SUV’s, especially the pompous Hummer. I complain that the US is technologically behind Europe. Why is it that when we’re too hot in winter, we open the window or turn on the AC? Why don't we have individual thermostats in our apartments like most of the developed world? Why do we Americans waste our precious resources?
I had hoped that this rift, which I so often perceive as insurmountable, would heal over time. But it has never left me. Maybe I need to embrace it like a permanent companion, without whom life would not be worth living. When I was younger, I enjoyed nothing more than this “in-between state.” At ten, in a bus filled with children from the Ruhr Valley traveling to a Bavarian summer camp to escape the pollution at home, all my troubles disappeared. I was happy as long as I was on the move; no longer at home and not yet at the final destination.
Recently I came across the work of André Aciman a writer and professor of literature at the City University of New York. Aciman was born in Egypt. His family were Jews of Turkish and Italian origin who settled in Alexandria in 1905. Aciman experienced double migration. He moved with his family to Italy at the age of fifteen and then to New York at nineteen. I found comfort in his book “False Papers, Essays on Exile and Memory” (2000). In his essay Pensione Eolo, he writes:
“The true site of nostalgia is therefore not a land, or two lands, but the loop and interminable traffic between these two lands. It is the traffic between places, and not the places themselves, that eventually become the home, the spiritual home, the capital.”
On the train to Berlin, I pass through my former home state. Nordrhein-Westphalia has turned into a snowy winter wonderland. I have left my mother and my hometown but have not yet arrived. Zwischen den Stühlen sitzen, having fallen off both stools and experiencing the world from the gap, being in the middle might just be my place of belonging. My capital.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Embracing Change
“New York is nothing like Paris; it is nothing like London; it is not Spokane multiplied by sixty, or Detroit multiplied by four. It is by all odds the loftiest of cities,” E.B. White wrote in 1949.
New York is the greatest city I've ever lived in. It is constantly changing, evolving. Neighborhoods are transformed at a fascinating speed, ethnic and racial groups replace one another, and places of worship house several different congregations in their lifetime.
In the past thirty years that I've lived here, the city has changed at an unbelievable pace. Thousands of new immigrants from all over the world have arrived and foreign-born New Yorkers now make up 36% of the population—an all-time high. New York benefits from these newcomers, their courage, energy, cultures, and cuisine.
The city has both gained and lost. Many of my favorite places are gone: the small off-Broadway theaters and art cinemas, the sing-along bars, Zito’s Bakery, Café Europa, and the Village Gate. Times Square has been cleaned up and Broadway Disneyfied. Our parks and waterfront have never looked better and the city has never been safer.
I have become the victim of ever-changing New York twice. In 1988, I had to leave TriBeCa when I didn't have the money to buy the loft I was living in. I lived in SoHo for the following five years and had to leave when the landlord sold the building. Losing my residences was traumatic. Looking back, I don't feel bitter. Had I not been forced to move, I would have never experienced living in the West Village or Harlem. I might not have moved on with my life.
Some of my friends in Berlin, as well as some New Yorkers, still live in the same apartments they first rented as college students. They will never move because their rents are so low. When I return to Berlin and visit my old stomping grounds (I lived there from 1975 to 1980), many of the same restaurants and clubs I knew then still exist. At the Slumberland, a late-night dive on Winterfeldplatz, I found a former roommate (a member of my Wohngemeinschaft) leaning against the bar as had been his habit thirty-five years ago.
Living in one room with my partner for eight years stifled my creativity. In the West Village, we paid less than $1300 a month rent, which many of our friends considered a steal. I did not feel so lucky. I was tired of not having my own desk, tired of not having any privacy, and most of all, I was tired of living like a college student. Growing up, growing older, is about change. Forced to move, we move out of our comfort zone. Moving to Harlem has been a blessing. Once I had my own desk, my love for writing returned. I discovered City College across from Saint Nicholas Park and ended up studying creative writing there. A few years later I left my work as a school social worker to become a full-time writer.
Harlem has changed a lot since I moved there in February 1999. In the 70s, Harlem became a blighted neighborhood devastated by drugs, crime and arson, “a penal colony of poverty, drained of population, services, and hope” (Adam Sternbergh, New York Magazine 12/11/09). Thirty percent of the population, most of the middle class, had left. The new Harlemites, like me, often moved into abandoned or rehabilitated buildings. We did not displace the existing population. With the influx of new middle-class residents and their money, drugstores, supermarkets and a variety of new businesses arrived in Harlem. Harlem residents benefit from this development. They lost too. African-Americans are no longer the majority in Greater Harlem, but Harlem is on its way to become a truly integrated neighborhood.
Many of my peers bemoan the loss of the “Old New York”; they miss the gritty streets, the wild sex clubs, the hustlers on the Christopher Street Piers, and raunchy Times Square. They wish themselves back to the seventies, where they believe everything was better. They complain that New York has become too expensive, that lawyers and stockbrokers have replaced poets and filmmakers.
But young people from small towns from across the US and from the world over still flock to New York. Unable to afford the East Village and Williamsburg, they move to Bedford-Stuyvesant or the South Bronx. They share a flat with several roommates; they struggle to make ends meet, but they would not be anywhere else for the world. No one said it as eloquently as E.B. White (Here is New York). His words still ring true today.
“And whether it is… a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer…”
New York is the greatest city I've ever lived in. It is constantly changing, evolving. Neighborhoods are transformed at a fascinating speed, ethnic and racial groups replace one another, and places of worship house several different congregations in their lifetime.
In the past thirty years that I've lived here, the city has changed at an unbelievable pace. Thousands of new immigrants from all over the world have arrived and foreign-born New Yorkers now make up 36% of the population—an all-time high. New York benefits from these newcomers, their courage, energy, cultures, and cuisine.
The city has both gained and lost. Many of my favorite places are gone: the small off-Broadway theaters and art cinemas, the sing-along bars, Zito’s Bakery, Café Europa, and the Village Gate. Times Square has been cleaned up and Broadway Disneyfied. Our parks and waterfront have never looked better and the city has never been safer.
I have become the victim of ever-changing New York twice. In 1988, I had to leave TriBeCa when I didn't have the money to buy the loft I was living in. I lived in SoHo for the following five years and had to leave when the landlord sold the building. Losing my residences was traumatic. Looking back, I don't feel bitter. Had I not been forced to move, I would have never experienced living in the West Village or Harlem. I might not have moved on with my life.
Some of my friends in Berlin, as well as some New Yorkers, still live in the same apartments they first rented as college students. They will never move because their rents are so low. When I return to Berlin and visit my old stomping grounds (I lived there from 1975 to 1980), many of the same restaurants and clubs I knew then still exist. At the Slumberland, a late-night dive on Winterfeldplatz, I found a former roommate (a member of my Wohngemeinschaft) leaning against the bar as had been his habit thirty-five years ago.
Living in one room with my partner for eight years stifled my creativity. In the West Village, we paid less than $1300 a month rent, which many of our friends considered a steal. I did not feel so lucky. I was tired of not having my own desk, tired of not having any privacy, and most of all, I was tired of living like a college student. Growing up, growing older, is about change. Forced to move, we move out of our comfort zone. Moving to Harlem has been a blessing. Once I had my own desk, my love for writing returned. I discovered City College across from Saint Nicholas Park and ended up studying creative writing there. A few years later I left my work as a school social worker to become a full-time writer.
Harlem has changed a lot since I moved there in February 1999. In the 70s, Harlem became a blighted neighborhood devastated by drugs, crime and arson, “a penal colony of poverty, drained of population, services, and hope” (Adam Sternbergh, New York Magazine 12/11/09). Thirty percent of the population, most of the middle class, had left. The new Harlemites, like me, often moved into abandoned or rehabilitated buildings. We did not displace the existing population. With the influx of new middle-class residents and their money, drugstores, supermarkets and a variety of new businesses arrived in Harlem. Harlem residents benefit from this development. They lost too. African-Americans are no longer the majority in Greater Harlem, but Harlem is on its way to become a truly integrated neighborhood.
Many of my peers bemoan the loss of the “Old New York”; they miss the gritty streets, the wild sex clubs, the hustlers on the Christopher Street Piers, and raunchy Times Square. They wish themselves back to the seventies, where they believe everything was better. They complain that New York has become too expensive, that lawyers and stockbrokers have replaced poets and filmmakers.
But young people from small towns from across the US and from the world over still flock to New York. Unable to afford the East Village and Williamsburg, they move to Bedford-Stuyvesant or the South Bronx. They share a flat with several roommates; they struggle to make ends meet, but they would not be anywhere else for the world. No one said it as eloquently as E.B. White (Here is New York). His words still ring true today.
“And whether it is… a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer…”
Monday, January 4, 2010
European Morosity
“Americans are so friendly. They talk to you, they smile at you,” Gaby said. It was her third day in New York. Like me she grew up in Moers, a small town on the lower Rhine. Geneva, Switzerland, is her adopted home. “Swiss people, like the Germans are not friendly to strangers. They always seem in a foul mood,” she added.
I’ve also noticed this difference between Europeans and Americans and still remember my astonishment upon my arrival in New York. White Americans physically resembled the Germans, but seemed a different species altogether. They did not walk with slumped shoulders; they did not drag their feet. They walked with a bounce in their step and held their heads high. They smiled at you. They were optimistic. I did not understand why they weren’t affected by history. Where was their Vergangenheitsbewältigung? How did they cope with the past? Why weren’t they burdened by guilt for what they had done to the Native Americans and the Blacks? Why weren’t they mourning their losses in the Vietnam War? Half of the world hated them, but they didn’t care. Unlike the Germans, they didn’t believe in guilt-ridden soul-searching.
Recently Dominique Moïsi’s book The Geopolitics of Emotion deepened my understanding of the differences between Americans and Europeans. Moïsi is the founder of the French Institute of International Affairs and a visiting professor at Harvard University. In his book, he examines the emotions that drive cultural differences and cause the divisions in the post-9/11 world. He shows how fear, humiliation, and hope are reshaping the world. For him both the U. S. and Europe are ruled by fears of the “other.” Both continents fear the loss of their national identity.
In contrast Muslims and Arabs are ruled by humiliation. They feel excluded from the economic benefits of globalization. Historical grievances and conflicts at home extend to the countries they emigrate to. This feeling of humiliation is evolving into a culture of hatred. In another part of the world China and India --with their economic might and focus on a prosperous future-- have created a culture of hope. Moïsi believes that “Chindia” will in the future come to dominate the world and that the U.S.A., with its huge debt and crumbling infrastructure, will no longer be a major player. According to Moïsi, Europe--stuck in the past and resembling a museum--won’t be able to move forward.
He sees more collective hope in the United States than in Europe and cites the election of Obama as an example. He observes that West Europeans experience more collective fear despite little real suffering. What my visitor from Geneva described as the foul mood of her fellow citizens, Moïsi calls the morosity of the continent.
His ideas are a thought-provoking and resonate with many of my own experiences. He is considered a leading authority on international affairs and I highly recommend his book:
Dominique Moïsi: The Geopolitics of Emotion, Doubleday
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52376-9 (0-385-52376-9)
I’ve also noticed this difference between Europeans and Americans and still remember my astonishment upon my arrival in New York. White Americans physically resembled the Germans, but seemed a different species altogether. They did not walk with slumped shoulders; they did not drag their feet. They walked with a bounce in their step and held their heads high. They smiled at you. They were optimistic. I did not understand why they weren’t affected by history. Where was their Vergangenheitsbewältigung? How did they cope with the past? Why weren’t they burdened by guilt for what they had done to the Native Americans and the Blacks? Why weren’t they mourning their losses in the Vietnam War? Half of the world hated them, but they didn’t care. Unlike the Germans, they didn’t believe in guilt-ridden soul-searching.
Recently Dominique Moïsi’s book The Geopolitics of Emotion deepened my understanding of the differences between Americans and Europeans. Moïsi is the founder of the French Institute of International Affairs and a visiting professor at Harvard University. In his book, he examines the emotions that drive cultural differences and cause the divisions in the post-9/11 world. He shows how fear, humiliation, and hope are reshaping the world. For him both the U. S. and Europe are ruled by fears of the “other.” Both continents fear the loss of their national identity.
In contrast Muslims and Arabs are ruled by humiliation. They feel excluded from the economic benefits of globalization. Historical grievances and conflicts at home extend to the countries they emigrate to. This feeling of humiliation is evolving into a culture of hatred. In another part of the world China and India --with their economic might and focus on a prosperous future-- have created a culture of hope. Moïsi believes that “Chindia” will in the future come to dominate the world and that the U.S.A., with its huge debt and crumbling infrastructure, will no longer be a major player. According to Moïsi, Europe--stuck in the past and resembling a museum--won’t be able to move forward.
He sees more collective hope in the United States than in Europe and cites the election of Obama as an example. He observes that West Europeans experience more collective fear despite little real suffering. What my visitor from Geneva described as the foul mood of her fellow citizens, Moïsi calls the morosity of the continent.
His ideas are a thought-provoking and resonate with many of my own experiences. He is considered a leading authority on international affairs and I highly recommend his book:
Dominique Moïsi: The Geopolitics of Emotion, Doubleday
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52376-9 (0-385-52376-9)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Generational Divide
New Yorkers are divided by class, race, and ethnicity. Teaching English Composition to a multiethnic and multiracial group of students, most of them foreign-born, I was struck by the sharp generational divide.
In class we examined ads for Amnesty International. One showed two African refugee girls, possibly child soldiers, holding machine guns. They were looking straight into the camera with solemn eyes. Below the photograph there was blue sky and the words “imagine” and “nothing to kill or die for.” I worried that my students might not know Amnesty International, John Lennon’s famous song or John Lennon. I wanted to play the song for them, but—technologically stuck in the last century— I owned the record, not the CD. I couldn’t figure out how to download the song to my computer or how to create an MP 3 file.
My students, 17 to 20 years old, knew nothing of Amnesty International and its mission, but they were touched by the photo and in favor of protecting the dignity and rights of all people. None of them had heard the John Lennon song before; three or four knew who John Lennon was. “That Beatle with the funny glasses,” one student said. “He lived near Central Park and was murdered by a deranged fan,” another said.
We discussed the role that images play in our lives. My students — mostly computer science and engineering majors — didn't mind being visually bombarded all the time. They didn’t think it was wrong that more Americans get their news from TV than from newspapers. They thought it was awesome that they could take a photo with their iPhone and instantly send it to their cousins in Ghana, the Philippines, or Korea. One boy made fun of his mother who still writes real letters to her sister in Colombia.
“Maybe your mother’s sister does not own a computer,” I said.
“My mother is forty-five,” José said. “Too old to figure out e-mail.”
I tried to defend his mother; I tried to make a case for handwriting. “A handwritten letter is so much more personal,” I said.
My students didn’t think so.
“Do you want to get a love letter or condolence letter by e-mail?” I asked. “Sure,” they said. “That’s the best way of sending anything.”
Declining book sales and folding newspapers worry me. “Will computer screens replace books as our dominant way of reading?” I asked.
“No one will read books any longer,” Pram said. “We’ll all have a Kindle or one of those devices.”
“It's better for the environment. Think of how many trees we save,” Nicola said.
“Books will become extinct like dinosaurs in no time,” Mamandou added.
I felt as if a soccer ball had hit my stomach. “How soon?” I asked.
“Ten years,” someone in the back of the room shouted.
“No way, I’ll give it six,” Mamandou said.
The class nodded in agreement. Ten years was too long of a time. It was so much more convenient to read on a computer screen. They didn't need libraries. They didn’t need books. They had the Internet! I was shocked and saddened. I love books. I love to touch them, smell them, turn their pages, and feel their weight in my hands. Opening a book for the first time is as exciting as falling for a new lover.
I left class and walked down the stairs of Shepard Hall with slumped shoulders. They are the future, I thought. Did that make me, at 55, a proud member of the international family of book lovers, an endangered species? I tried to picture the literary events and readings I attended recently. My students were wrong. People still loved literature! I thought about my favorite place in Manhattan, the Center for Fiction (formally the Mercantile Library) that holds the largest fiction collection in the entire United States. Every time I walk into the Midtown mansion, I am greeted by beautiful old wooden file cabinets. I love to pull out the handwritten index cards and hunt for a book. The place smells like a library.
I had met younger people, readers and writers there, didn't I?
I concentrated hard to re-create the last reading in my mind’s eye. A famous writer and not too many people in the audience. Half the chairs were empty. The average visitor, like me, was middle-aged and female.
What if my students are right?
In class we examined ads for Amnesty International. One showed two African refugee girls, possibly child soldiers, holding machine guns. They were looking straight into the camera with solemn eyes. Below the photograph there was blue sky and the words “imagine” and “nothing to kill or die for.” I worried that my students might not know Amnesty International, John Lennon’s famous song or John Lennon. I wanted to play the song for them, but—technologically stuck in the last century— I owned the record, not the CD. I couldn’t figure out how to download the song to my computer or how to create an MP 3 file.
My students, 17 to 20 years old, knew nothing of Amnesty International and its mission, but they were touched by the photo and in favor of protecting the dignity and rights of all people. None of them had heard the John Lennon song before; three or four knew who John Lennon was. “That Beatle with the funny glasses,” one student said. “He lived near Central Park and was murdered by a deranged fan,” another said.
We discussed the role that images play in our lives. My students — mostly computer science and engineering majors — didn't mind being visually bombarded all the time. They didn’t think it was wrong that more Americans get their news from TV than from newspapers. They thought it was awesome that they could take a photo with their iPhone and instantly send it to their cousins in Ghana, the Philippines, or Korea. One boy made fun of his mother who still writes real letters to her sister in Colombia.
“Maybe your mother’s sister does not own a computer,” I said.
“My mother is forty-five,” José said. “Too old to figure out e-mail.”
I tried to defend his mother; I tried to make a case for handwriting. “A handwritten letter is so much more personal,” I said.
My students didn’t think so.
“Do you want to get a love letter or condolence letter by e-mail?” I asked. “Sure,” they said. “That’s the best way of sending anything.”
Declining book sales and folding newspapers worry me. “Will computer screens replace books as our dominant way of reading?” I asked.
“No one will read books any longer,” Pram said. “We’ll all have a Kindle or one of those devices.”
“It's better for the environment. Think of how many trees we save,” Nicola said.
“Books will become extinct like dinosaurs in no time,” Mamandou added.
I felt as if a soccer ball had hit my stomach. “How soon?” I asked.
“Ten years,” someone in the back of the room shouted.
“No way, I’ll give it six,” Mamandou said.
The class nodded in agreement. Ten years was too long of a time. It was so much more convenient to read on a computer screen. They didn't need libraries. They didn’t need books. They had the Internet! I was shocked and saddened. I love books. I love to touch them, smell them, turn their pages, and feel their weight in my hands. Opening a book for the first time is as exciting as falling for a new lover.
I left class and walked down the stairs of Shepard Hall with slumped shoulders. They are the future, I thought. Did that make me, at 55, a proud member of the international family of book lovers, an endangered species? I tried to picture the literary events and readings I attended recently. My students were wrong. People still loved literature! I thought about my favorite place in Manhattan, the Center for Fiction (formally the Mercantile Library) that holds the largest fiction collection in the entire United States. Every time I walk into the Midtown mansion, I am greeted by beautiful old wooden file cabinets. I love to pull out the handwritten index cards and hunt for a book. The place smells like a library.
I had met younger people, readers and writers there, didn't I?
I concentrated hard to re-create the last reading in my mind’s eye. A famous writer and not too many people in the audience. Half the chairs were empty. The average visitor, like me, was middle-aged and female.
What if my students are right?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Ordeal of Being German
For most of my life being German felt like an ordeal, a full-time job. We dealt with our parents’ and grandparents’ guilt, the heavy load we had inherited. On American TV, my compatriots were Nazis, deranged psychiatrist, or Bavarians in Lederhosen. They were either barking orders or slapping their legs doing the Schuhplatter dance. That certainly didn't help me to feel any better about being German.
The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 was a life-changing event for me and for Germans no matter where they lived. The image of Nazi Germans was suddenly replaced by joyous Germans infecting the world with their good will and spirit. For the first time, I felt great being German and proud to belong to my nation. Overcome, I sat glued to the television with tears of joy streaming down my face. The next day everyone at work hugged me and congratulated me as if I had been responsible for bringing down the wall. Strangers invited me for a drink to celebrate the end of the Cold War. The parents of a Korean child in the school where I worked as a counselor brought me a flower. “We are happy and sad,” the father said. “We hope we are next,” his wife added.
After enthusiasm and celebration reality set in. Two million East Germans left their homes to seek their fortune elsewhere. In many parts of the former GDR, unemployment is in the double digits. East Germans earn 20% less than West Germans. The catch-up might take another twenty years. Germans are no longer surrounded by a cement wall but twenty years later a mental wall still exists. Many West Germans complain that their lives were better before reunification. Some East Germans feel nostalgic about their life in the GDR. The 1.3 trillion euro investment in the former East Germany—more than the entire Marshall plan for former West Germany—has not yielded the desired results.
With the exception of hosting the 2006 World Soccer Cup, Germans have not displayed joy and enthusiasm in large numbers. But now, at the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the wall, we allow ourselves to feel good once again. Here in New York, many events —readings, films and a dance performance —celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Columbia University hosted a conference “Freedom without Walls.” “Words without Borders” organized a reading and panel discussion at Idlewood Bookstore on November 10th to launch their new anthology The Wall in My Head. The book includes writers who witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain and those who grew up in its wake. [Milan Kundera, Peter Schneider, Ryszard Kapuściński, Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, Péter Esterházy, Andrzej Stasiuk, Muharem Bazdulj, Maxim Trudolubov, Dorota Masłowska, Uwe Tellkamp, Dan Sociu, David Zábranský, Christhard Läpple.]
At Idlewood, Polish writer Dorota Maslowska, German writer Kathrin Aehnlich and Romanian writer Dan Sociu read excerpts and spoke about how they witnessed the events at age six, twelve, and thirty-two. Eliot Borenstein, Chair of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, moderated.
Dan Sociu, a younger poet of the so-called “2000 Generation,” a movement Romanian literary critic called “Miserabilism”, brought down the house with his deadpan humor. Dorota Maslowska (Snow White and Russian Red) spoke about the difference of her generation to older, more established writers. “They want to write pretty literature; we want to rape literature,” she said. Kathrin Aehnlich read a hilarious segment from her latest book Everyone Dies, Even the Paddlefish in which teacher Aunt Edeltraud rules the children in an East German kindergarten with the iron fist of a prison warden.
Kathrin Aehnlich, a Leipzig native, was the only one old enough to not only have witnessed the fall of the wall but also to have actively participated in the Monday night demonstration that she believes prepared the fall of the wall.
The room was jam-packed. The audience asked a lot of questions. Most people stayed and engaged in lively conversation after the event. They polished off the hors d’oeuvres and drank the last drop of wine. The mood was festive. When the bookstore closed many were not ready to go home. I joined a group of German and American journalists and writers, a Dutch restaurant owner and a Canadian real estate agent at the Old Town Bar. There we continued our discussion over greasy bar food and Paulaner Beer.
My advice: have a beer, some mozzarella sticks, or if you prefer a piece of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. Indulge in being German. Bask in the fact that the fall of the wall was one of the few positive developments in recent world history. Be shameless. Who knows when we'll find such a good reason to party again?
The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 was a life-changing event for me and for Germans no matter where they lived. The image of Nazi Germans was suddenly replaced by joyous Germans infecting the world with their good will and spirit. For the first time, I felt great being German and proud to belong to my nation. Overcome, I sat glued to the television with tears of joy streaming down my face. The next day everyone at work hugged me and congratulated me as if I had been responsible for bringing down the wall. Strangers invited me for a drink to celebrate the end of the Cold War. The parents of a Korean child in the school where I worked as a counselor brought me a flower. “We are happy and sad,” the father said. “We hope we are next,” his wife added.
After enthusiasm and celebration reality set in. Two million East Germans left their homes to seek their fortune elsewhere. In many parts of the former GDR, unemployment is in the double digits. East Germans earn 20% less than West Germans. The catch-up might take another twenty years. Germans are no longer surrounded by a cement wall but twenty years later a mental wall still exists. Many West Germans complain that their lives were better before reunification. Some East Germans feel nostalgic about their life in the GDR. The 1.3 trillion euro investment in the former East Germany—more than the entire Marshall plan for former West Germany—has not yielded the desired results.
With the exception of hosting the 2006 World Soccer Cup, Germans have not displayed joy and enthusiasm in large numbers. But now, at the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the wall, we allow ourselves to feel good once again. Here in New York, many events —readings, films and a dance performance —celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Columbia University hosted a conference “Freedom without Walls.” “Words without Borders” organized a reading and panel discussion at Idlewood Bookstore on November 10th to launch their new anthology The Wall in My Head. The book includes writers who witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain and those who grew up in its wake. [Milan Kundera, Peter Schneider, Ryszard Kapuściński, Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, Péter Esterházy, Andrzej Stasiuk, Muharem Bazdulj, Maxim Trudolubov, Dorota Masłowska, Uwe Tellkamp, Dan Sociu, David Zábranský, Christhard Läpple.]
At Idlewood, Polish writer Dorota Maslowska, German writer Kathrin Aehnlich and Romanian writer Dan Sociu read excerpts and spoke about how they witnessed the events at age six, twelve, and thirty-two. Eliot Borenstein, Chair of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, moderated.
Dan Sociu, a younger poet of the so-called “2000 Generation,” a movement Romanian literary critic called “Miserabilism”, brought down the house with his deadpan humor. Dorota Maslowska (Snow White and Russian Red) spoke about the difference of her generation to older, more established writers. “They want to write pretty literature; we want to rape literature,” she said. Kathrin Aehnlich read a hilarious segment from her latest book Everyone Dies, Even the Paddlefish in which teacher Aunt Edeltraud rules the children in an East German kindergarten with the iron fist of a prison warden.
Kathrin Aehnlich, a Leipzig native, was the only one old enough to not only have witnessed the fall of the wall but also to have actively participated in the Monday night demonstration that she believes prepared the fall of the wall.
The room was jam-packed. The audience asked a lot of questions. Most people stayed and engaged in lively conversation after the event. They polished off the hors d’oeuvres and drank the last drop of wine. The mood was festive. When the bookstore closed many were not ready to go home. I joined a group of German and American journalists and writers, a Dutch restaurant owner and a Canadian real estate agent at the Old Town Bar. There we continued our discussion over greasy bar food and Paulaner Beer.
My advice: have a beer, some mozzarella sticks, or if you prefer a piece of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. Indulge in being German. Bask in the fact that the fall of the wall was one of the few positive developments in recent world history. Be shameless. Who knows when we'll find such a good reason to party again?
Friday, October 30, 2009
An Evening with Yuri Andrukhovych
I had other plans for the evening, but when I heard that Yuri Andrukhovych was in town I changed my mind immediately. I had read his literary essays “Disorientation and Locality” and “My Europe” (co-published with the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk) in the German translation and often found myself laughing out loud while reading. I had read his novel, Twelve Rings, which many consider his best work in the German translation. A few years ago Barbara Epler, editor-in-chief of New Directions, asked me to read the book, write a report and make a recommendation if his work might do well in the American market. Despite my enthusiasm and praise, New Directions decided against translation and publication. Yuri Andrukhovych’s work has been published in Poland, Germany, Canada, the United States, Hungary, Finland, Russia, Serbia, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Bulgaria. Unfortunately, he remains largely unknown to the American reader.
Cosponsored by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University and the Kennan Institute this event was not advertised anywhere. Nevertheless the room on the top floor of the International Studies building with the spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline was packed mostly with native Ukrainian speakers.
Yuri Andrukhovych had forgotten his reading glasses. So he read little and told stories instead, thereby revealing his unique sense of humor and remarkable talent as a raconteur. He spoke about the origins of his poem “Werwolf Sutra.” In 1986 he had a grant to stay in an East German artist residency. In the surrounding forests of Wiepersdorf he found the ruins of a former Soviet army town with its barracks, firing ranges, and outhouses covered with graffiti.
He recounted the background story of his novels Recreations (CIUS Press, 1998), Perverzion (Northwestern University Press, 2005) and The Moscoviad (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2008) and read selected excerpts.
He touched on the problems of translation. “Werwolf Sutra,” for example, had not been translated into English from the Ukrainian original but from the Polish translation. Of the four prestigious international literary awards he won; three were awarded to him in Germany, the other in Poland. Asked why he was so well received in Germany, Yuri Andrukhovych pointed out that Germany stood out in Europe for its knowledge about Ukrainian literature. Highly professional translators are available to translate from Ukrainian into the German language. He noted that Germany historically had always looked East and to the Russians, idealizing a quality they thought they lacked. I thought about my love for Slavic literature and Slavic people (I married a Ukrainian!), my travels to Eastern Europe (my favorite destination) and the first friend I made in New York, Polina from Moscow. When she introduced me to her Russian friends I found them so much more passionate than the Germans. When the Russians were sad, they were desperate; when they were happy, they were ecstatic. In Germany wearing your heart on your sleeve was frowned upon.
At 9:00 PM the organizers of the event urged the audience to leave, but the majority remained. Most mingled, shared their reactions to the reading and lined up to have books signed, to take photos, and to question Yuri Andrukhovych. All the available books were sold immediately.
“It is more important to live than to write,” Andrukhovych stated at one point during the evening and the crowd seemed to take his word for it. It was a great event featuring an inspiring writer. It was a privilege to have met the author of this distinctive literature.
Before coming to New York Yuri Andrukhovych appeared at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. A video of that forum can be accessed at
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=550298
He is scheduled to go to Cleveland next. If you get a chance to hear and see him in person, by all means take it.
Cosponsored by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University and the Kennan Institute this event was not advertised anywhere. Nevertheless the room on the top floor of the International Studies building with the spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline was packed mostly with native Ukrainian speakers.
Yuri Andrukhovych had forgotten his reading glasses. So he read little and told stories instead, thereby revealing his unique sense of humor and remarkable talent as a raconteur. He spoke about the origins of his poem “Werwolf Sutra.” In 1986 he had a grant to stay in an East German artist residency. In the surrounding forests of Wiepersdorf he found the ruins of a former Soviet army town with its barracks, firing ranges, and outhouses covered with graffiti.
He recounted the background story of his novels Recreations (CIUS Press, 1998), Perverzion (Northwestern University Press, 2005) and The Moscoviad (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2008) and read selected excerpts.
He touched on the problems of translation. “Werwolf Sutra,” for example, had not been translated into English from the Ukrainian original but from the Polish translation. Of the four prestigious international literary awards he won; three were awarded to him in Germany, the other in Poland. Asked why he was so well received in Germany, Yuri Andrukhovych pointed out that Germany stood out in Europe for its knowledge about Ukrainian literature. Highly professional translators are available to translate from Ukrainian into the German language. He noted that Germany historically had always looked East and to the Russians, idealizing a quality they thought they lacked. I thought about my love for Slavic literature and Slavic people (I married a Ukrainian!), my travels to Eastern Europe (my favorite destination) and the first friend I made in New York, Polina from Moscow. When she introduced me to her Russian friends I found them so much more passionate than the Germans. When the Russians were sad, they were desperate; when they were happy, they were ecstatic. In Germany wearing your heart on your sleeve was frowned upon.
At 9:00 PM the organizers of the event urged the audience to leave, but the majority remained. Most mingled, shared their reactions to the reading and lined up to have books signed, to take photos, and to question Yuri Andrukhovych. All the available books were sold immediately.
“It is more important to live than to write,” Andrukhovych stated at one point during the evening and the crowd seemed to take his word for it. It was a great event featuring an inspiring writer. It was a privilege to have met the author of this distinctive literature.
Before coming to New York Yuri Andrukhovych appeared at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. A video of that forum can be accessed at
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=550298
He is scheduled to go to Cleveland next. If you get a chance to hear and see him in person, by all means take it.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The European Book Club
I am a voracious reader. I read everywhere: on the couch, in the bath tub, in bed, on park benches, airplanes, busses, and in the subway. Reading, I shut out the world and immerse myself in the world the author has created for me. Reading is my solitary pleasure. The bond is between the writer and me. I have never allowed anyone in to share my pleasure. It felt as if I’d be letting the world in to watch me making love.
For that reason, I have never participated in a book club. The last time I discussed literature in a large group was more than 30 years ago in high school, more specifically my German Gymnasium. Back then, only one interpretation of a work of fiction was allowed, that of the teacher’s. I sat in class knowing that the teacher was wrong, that there was more than one way of looking at the text, that all interpretations had value. Writers are open-minded; they present the lives and motivations of even the most despicable characters and often do so without judgment. So it was with great trepidation that I attended my first book club meeting.
Fifty percent of all the books in translation published worldwide are translated from English, but only six percent are translated into English. This amounts to 400 foreign fiction books (of which approximately seven are German) per year translated into American English. The European Book Club was launched one year ago by the librarians of the Austrian, Czech, French, German, Italian, and Spanish Cultural Institutes in New York City to expose more Americans to the wonderful literature of their homelands. From the beginning, it was a huge success. The Polish, Romanian, and Norwegian libraries have subsequently joined.
I was prepared. Reading Katherina Hacker’s The Have-Nots had not been a pleasurable solitary experience. In fact, I had to force myself to get through the story of well-to-do thirty-somethings, who like the rest of Germany, seemed to suffer from low-level chronic depression. I had a hard time following the multitude of characters and the simultaneous stories lines. I didn't care for the 9/11 reference, the wealthy protagonists, their pain, angst, and ambiguity. I wondered why Hacker had won the 2006 German Book Prize.
At the Goethe Institute’s new downtown location, twelve women and one man sat in a circle. Unsure how to act, I sat back to observe. Many participants found the novel difficult to read. Some had not finished the book. The group explored the motivation of the characters. The protagonists were one-dimensional and lacking in empathy. Had that been the writer's intention? We discussed the different prose style of American and German writers: great storytelling, entertaining literature as opposed to literature as Bildungsauftrag that made the reader work hard.
In no time I felt totally at ease and plunged into the discussion. We jumped around quite a bit, touched on the role of Holocaust in post World War II German consciousness, German guilt, and Herta Müller winning The Nobel Prize. Should we read her next? We discussed modernism in literature, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce. Maybe Katherina Hacker tried to do something similar? We all agreed that she didn't have the skill of those writers. We shared personal experiences about 9/11, living in Berlin, Poland, in Ceausescu's Romania, and as a Jewish American in 70s Germany.
I was impressed how polite and inclusive the group was. No one cut each other off. We pointed to the weak portions of the book with kindness. I sat there thinking what if I was to discuss this book with my friends in Germany? Would we have trashed the book, used much stronger language? Would we have been so kind?
After the official end of the book club, most stayed and continued the conversation over wine and pâté crackers. A diverse group of people had been brought together by their love for European literature. I was glad I had been part of it. This had been an extremely enjoyable evening. “When is the next meeting?” I asked before walking out the door. “Count me in.”
For that reason, I have never participated in a book club. The last time I discussed literature in a large group was more than 30 years ago in high school, more specifically my German Gymnasium. Back then, only one interpretation of a work of fiction was allowed, that of the teacher’s. I sat in class knowing that the teacher was wrong, that there was more than one way of looking at the text, that all interpretations had value. Writers are open-minded; they present the lives and motivations of even the most despicable characters and often do so without judgment. So it was with great trepidation that I attended my first book club meeting.
Fifty percent of all the books in translation published worldwide are translated from English, but only six percent are translated into English. This amounts to 400 foreign fiction books (of which approximately seven are German) per year translated into American English. The European Book Club was launched one year ago by the librarians of the Austrian, Czech, French, German, Italian, and Spanish Cultural Institutes in New York City to expose more Americans to the wonderful literature of their homelands. From the beginning, it was a huge success. The Polish, Romanian, and Norwegian libraries have subsequently joined.
I was prepared. Reading Katherina Hacker’s The Have-Nots had not been a pleasurable solitary experience. In fact, I had to force myself to get through the story of well-to-do thirty-somethings, who like the rest of Germany, seemed to suffer from low-level chronic depression. I had a hard time following the multitude of characters and the simultaneous stories lines. I didn't care for the 9/11 reference, the wealthy protagonists, their pain, angst, and ambiguity. I wondered why Hacker had won the 2006 German Book Prize.
At the Goethe Institute’s new downtown location, twelve women and one man sat in a circle. Unsure how to act, I sat back to observe. Many participants found the novel difficult to read. Some had not finished the book. The group explored the motivation of the characters. The protagonists were one-dimensional and lacking in empathy. Had that been the writer's intention? We discussed the different prose style of American and German writers: great storytelling, entertaining literature as opposed to literature as Bildungsauftrag that made the reader work hard.
In no time I felt totally at ease and plunged into the discussion. We jumped around quite a bit, touched on the role of Holocaust in post World War II German consciousness, German guilt, and Herta Müller winning The Nobel Prize. Should we read her next? We discussed modernism in literature, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce. Maybe Katherina Hacker tried to do something similar? We all agreed that she didn't have the skill of those writers. We shared personal experiences about 9/11, living in Berlin, Poland, in Ceausescu's Romania, and as a Jewish American in 70s Germany.
I was impressed how polite and inclusive the group was. No one cut each other off. We pointed to the weak portions of the book with kindness. I sat there thinking what if I was to discuss this book with my friends in Germany? Would we have trashed the book, used much stronger language? Would we have been so kind?
After the official end of the book club, most stayed and continued the conversation over wine and pâté crackers. A diverse group of people had been brought together by their love for European literature. I was glad I had been part of it. This had been an extremely enjoyable evening. “When is the next meeting?” I asked before walking out the door. “Count me in.”
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