DER TURM by Uwe Tellkamp

When I was in Germany my girlfriend Annette gave me this book as a farewell gift and she mentioned that it was presently the rave in Germany. It takes place in Dresden, formerly East Germany, in the 1980s before the Wall came down. The time set is the last ten years of the German Democratic Republic. And as Annette told me many people who had lived through that period confirmed that this what exactly how it was in East Germany.  The style, heavy at first sight, reminded me somehow of Thomas Mann; the story moves from one episode to the next in quick jumps, back and force, erratically it seems.

DER TURM (tower), situated in a formerly very good part of Dresden, is where most of the characters of the story live— now not a very impressive dwelling anymore.  It’s gray and old and tightly inhabitated by  many various characters. The main character is Christian, still in school, at the beginning of the story. He wants to study medicine like his father and he is quite serious about it. The party favors a worker’s class but  the group of people living in the "Turm" (tower) do not exactly fit this line. There is Christian’s uncle, an editor for a publishing house. Everybody is keenly aware that the polical allegiance to the party and nation is essential and must be upheld.  

Christian lives with his family in the TURM. Living conditions are crowded and at times new people are assigned to move in. The story starts with his father Richard’s 50^th birthday and the attending group of intellectuals seems fairly comfortable; they even enjoy a few privileges. Doctors are held in considerable esteem. The uncle, Meno, is part of the local literary establishment and his meetings and conversations give a frank overview of the difficulties that exist with censorship. But discussions about this are always very open and then limits are set.  But you feel the heavy weight and demands of the official party line.  In addition, there is a good glimpse at the truly privileged — an entirely different world!

Ordinary living styles and period details are described, like standing in lines at shops endlessly for each individual item and then buying whatever you can get your hands on. A long queue forms somewhere and is immediately joined simply because one never knows,  and it might be something that is hardly available.  It is all very tedious and lots of time is spent also on the smallest pieces of bureaucracy. It seems laughable when you are sent to the end of the line again and again because you had filled out a form not quite correctly, or forgot to mention something/anything! This is the way it is, and nobody complains much about it!

Christian himself is a very self-conscious, acne suffering teenager with incredible ambition and drive. He buries himself in books; his dream is to achieve fame and adulation. With all his ambitions though Christian runs into trouble many times with his outbursts; he is found with a Nazi book and there are many other grave "missteps." Only “good behavior” will guarantee an university spot to study medicine He decides however for some reason to sign up for military service which is completely opposite to his intellectual make up. He barely scrapes by and his future is hanging in the air and finally ruined. The system does not tolerate a lot. He completely loses all his idealism and it is heartbreaking to see him get lost and losing his focus. I had the distinct feeling that the author Uwe Tellkamp identified himself with Christian. Or maybe he writes about himself? 

A wonderful epic or, even better, a historical documentary close to a thousand pages and it is sometimes towards the end tedious to follow. There are many characters involved and the story goes back and force — in a confusing way. The drab limitations of East Germany and the grayness took me back to the first time when I visited East Berlin through Check Point Charlie: it looked shockingly colorless, the smell of coal burning stoves was hanging in the streets, the lack of flowers was obvious,  the stores were boring and the quiet streets lacked energy. The story ends when in 1989 the Berlin Wall comes down.