Roads to Berlin: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and the History of Germany by Cees Nooteboom

Abstract

Chad Sweeney Wolf’s Milk: The Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney Forklift Books The mythical sage Juan Sweeney dances back and forth in time and language in Wolf’s Milk, an inventive poetic fantasy that playfully explores serious themes with a curiosity both delicate and bold. These poems, presented in Spanish and English, draw the reader in for a second look and extended contemplation. C. K. Stead Risk MacLehose Press Accepting a prestigious job as a bank lawyer, Sam Nola moves from his native New Zealand to London, where he encounters a grown daughter he didn’t know existed. C. K. Stead deftly follows the international dialogue of politics and intrigue in the upheaval after 9/11 through the evocative narrative of Risk. Nota Bene typewriters?” and observing warily that “so many vital elements in the life story of the Diamond Sutra— printing, libraries, reading, even the use of paper—are undergoing profound change.” Although this copy of the Diamond Sutra admonishes us that all is impermanent, the longevity of its influence and even its physical endurance warn us against too quickly putting aside the past and moving on. Morgan and Walters , whose research obliged them to consult most of the means by which human thought and its expression have been preserved through history, would doubtless second this caution. Carolyn Bliss University of Utah Cees Nooteboom. Roads to Berlin: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and the History of Germany. Laura Watkinson, tr. Simone Sassen, photographer. London. MacLehose Press. 2012. isbn 9780857050267 Because of his long experience with the city and his outsider perspective on Germany, Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom is able to offer us some trenchant insights into the history of the formerly divided cities, divided countries, and the new united one. Nooteboom made his first visit to Berlin in 1963 and was there for that propitious moment in 1989 “when everything changed,” as nicely depicted in his novel All Souls’ Day (see WLT, Spring 2002, 206). Of the earlier years, Nooteboom recalls the eerie feeling of leaving West Berlin on a highway at a time when he was not allowed to leave Berlin under any circumstances: one was, after all, driving out of a cage that housed a few million free people. In the surrounding countryside, everything smelled different and looked “browner” (the result of the coal that was used to power everything). Following the demise of the Wall, Nooteboom listens to discussions regarding unification: those who advocated immediate unification were accused of “D-Mark nationalism ,” while those who favored a more gradual process were labeled “constitutional patriots.” As he rightly observes, this was an idle, “intellectual ” debate because people’s real concern was whether there would be jobs or not. He is equally right that a drawn-out discussion would only have exacerbated whatever dissonances and conflicts there were, and we might still be discussing it all today. Of all of Berlin’s “history lessons ,” the one Nooteboom found most “effective and affecting” is Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish museum, which depicts “the present absence” “like a heart attack turned to stone.” Having been to the museum myself, I can say that the experience of it could hardly be better stated. But there’s a lighter side, too, to the new, open city: now the “lonely Trabants” can at least “dream of hot Mercedes.” What has so fascinated him about this city, he explains in a little autobiographical note, is that in Berlin “on an infinitely larger scale, and with horrifying consequences for the fates of so many people, somehow the same has happened [to Berlin] as happened to me.” Born in 1933, he grew up during the war when the Germans attacked his country, when his father died in a British bombing raid, and during its aftermath, which may– june 2013 • 77 reviews resulted in massive evacuations and downright starvation. He and Berlin do not lack for history, and as far as the city is concerned, even with all that’s been destroyed or forgotten, he is right that, if anything, an excess of history remains today. Ulf Zimmermann Kennesaw State University Araceli Tinajero. Kokoro, una mexicana en Japón. Madrid. Editorial Verbum. 2012. isbn 9788479627119 Kokoro...