To set this up, you might want to read Part I and/or this write-up about the first of the four parts of the massive novel.

If you don’t feel like reading either of those, here’s what you need to know aboutĚý´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýbefore reading Damion’s responses:ĚýAnniversaries centers on Gesine Cresspahl, a young mother living in New York in 1967 with her daughter, Marie. Using a diary format, she recounts their life in NYC while also explaining the history of her family back in Eastern Germany in the build-up to World War II. The diary entries range from recaps of what was in theĚýNew York TimesĚýthat day to long stories to Marie about Germany to short anecdotes about their trips to Staten Island and the like.

I think that’s all you need to know. Probably. These questions are kind of in the weeds, but I think you’ll find them interesting—even if you haven’t read the book.

Chad W. Post: One thing that struck me in reading the first volume of the book was Marie’s age. She’s supposed to be 10, but does a lot of things—exploring the new subway lines on her own, doing a lot of shopping alone, very politically aware (which doesn’t seem too out of keeping with her age)—that don’t really seem age appropriate. (I barely trust my eleven-year-old to change his underwear on a daily basis.) Times were different, I suppose? Or, what occurred to me as I started reading this second part, was that Gesine is the one describing Marie’s action. And in both a conversation with Marie about Robert Papenbrock and one of the internal ones with Jacob, Gesine acknowledges either leaving out particular information or refashioning it for the story. So maybe this is Marie as being told to us by Gesine? And not Marie a very-realistic-depiction-of-a-10-year-old-in-1967? I don’t necessarily have a question about this, except that I wonder if the “believability” of Marie’s age struck you at all as you read/translated?

Damion Searls: Marie as a precocious child is one of the things that strike most readers of the novel. As a very eminent realist novelist commented to me over email (in private, so I won’t say who it is), precocious kid characters are really hard to pull off, in novels or movies, but when it works they’re amazing, and Johnson really nails it, in this writer’s opinion and in mine.

What Marie does is certainly different from children today, for instance in the great chapter where she explores the new NYC subway lines on her own, but I have to say that I was a child in New York not too long after her, in the 70s, and I took the subway by myself at age six or seven, for example, so I don’t think it’s that unrealistic.

Probably more interesting is what these aspects of Marie’s personality say about her character. I mean think about it: she has no father, minimal to no extended family, she moved to a new country speaking a foreign language at age 3—she has had NO ONE in the world except Gesine, and has obviously adapted accordingly. Naturally she’s going to be independent, with interesting things to say about intellectual topics, someone who pleases adults, and so on.

It’s smart of you to think about the fact that Gesine is shaping the presentation (the way she also, of course, shapes the child by being her mother!). There’s an incredible chapter you’ll get to soon where Gesine suddenly asks Marie: So, what do you think of my family? and Marie gives her take, and we suddenly realize that the whole third-person novel we’ve been getting about Germany is a first-person story after all, shaped by Gesine. As the book goes on, especially near the beginning of Part 3, there’s an increasingly clear story arc of Marie’s growing confidence and self-awareness: she is more and more able to challenge Gesine and is slowly getting closer to adolescent rebellions.

CWP: Another thing I’m obsessed with right now (and/or have been for ages) are various patterns in narrative structure. Anniversaries basically declares its cyclical structure in both title and diary structure. There’s also the parallel between the advent of World War II and the ongoing Vietnam War in a “history repeats itself” style. But what particular draws me to this book, so far, is how time is represented in the two-plus narrative styles. There’s: 1) the faster moving Germany sections in which years pass, and time elapses between visits to that storyline; 2) the daily occurrences reported in the New York Times and relayed in a factual, of-the-moment fashion; and 3) Gesine’s accounts of their days, which are in between the two in terms of narrative compression. What I’m more curious about—and in part because of your comment that this was initially intended to be a trilogy, which you can see in the three water scenes—is is there is another level of organization that a first-time reader might not pick up on. Like the three water scenes that open books I, II, and III, but not IV, or more subtle things about how frequently certain settings/situations/characters recur. A more simply way to ask all this: Are there other markers I should be noting as I read through this the first time?

DS: The swimming scenes are the most apparent markers—there are a few others I know about (e.g., one all-New York Times chapter per part), but I don’t think they’re very important to readers, or to me as a translator. I think that’s one of the strengths of the book, actually. Compared to, say, Dante, where every little piece fits together into this giant system, or Proust, which gets so much of the big picture into every little detail—practically any pair of adjectives describing any noun in the book is the whole polarity and structure of the Proustian universe in microcosm—Anniversaries is much looser. There is an openness to different kinds of material, new ways of telling the story, the book is actually very playful and moves more unpredictably.

And in any case, the structure changes and kind of falls apart in part 3, which turned into parts 3-4—the balance between the storylines shifts, which is why those months got so much longer.

CWP: Silly technical translation question: Did you refer to any of the actual NY Times articles when translating those bits?

DS: Absolutely, of course. Sometimes Johnson/Gesine is directly quoting Times articles (translating them into German), so I wasn’t going to try to reverse-engineer the English; more often, Gesine is filtering the Times, emphasizing or being sarcastic about various bits, and so I would refer to the English, decide where I thought Gesine was changing the article instead of just translating it, and then morph the English to match. Plus the language was just different then than it is now: the still-new term “teen-ager” was hyphenated; they referred to “Negro” issues, of course, including “racial disorders” instead of unrest or violence; Vietnamese place names were spelled differently; the whole tone was slightly different. Things brings in good sixties texture. I was sometimes sad to lose some of the nuance or humor in Johnson’s translations—for example, the informer explaining drug slang to the Times saying “Geschwindigkeit ist tödlich,” i.e., “Rapidity is deadly,” as Johnson’s very German translation for “Speed kills”: I think that’s funny and I tried to think of a way to keep it in without it being too obtrusive, but eventually I let it go.

CWP: There is so much violence permeating this book—the Times reports, the mafia section in book I (which was the weirdest bit to me), the wars—and yet there’s such a sense of calmness to this book. Part of that, I think, is due to the tight focus on the characters as characters, but there are other craft things that keep the violence as a sort of lurking backdrop rather than the sole focus. Not sure if you’d agree with me, or if I could properly articulate all those techniques (the pastoral depictions of Jerichow that accompany the changing social situation, Marie’s seeming invulnerability giving the reader a sense of security, the switch to more domestic interests like marriage after chapters of more upheaval), but I wondered if this informed your writing of the text. If there were particular words or phrasings that you avoided or tones you leaned into in order to maintain this tension.

DS: That’s a perceptive and sensitive way to put it—I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. I agree that Johnson’s lyricism and sensitivity to nature (sunsets, rivers, light and water) are crucial and beautiful counterpoints to the brutal history. Marie is certainly confident, but it’s hard for us as adults to have faith in her own sense of invulnerability, so that doesn’t feel safe and secure to me. I tend to think more about Gesine’s pretty strong defense mechanisms, her ways of trying to keep experience and history at least partly under control, so I don’t think of it as calm, exactly. The more outwardly cool she is, the more turmoil and horror she’s trying to keep at bay.

Johnson, a bit like Gesine, almost-suppresses a lot: he writes in a very slanting and sometimes cryptic German, where it’s not always obvious what’s going on and a tiny little nuance is all he gives the reader to figure it out with. This is like life, of course, where we have to interpret people from occasional encounters and glancing gestures.

In terms of the tone, that’s what I was thinking about most: compression, rapidity, little sharp details that open up into much wider meanings but don’t spell everything out. Which is hard as a translator, because I have to figure it out and then compress it down again—unpack everything and then “repack” it, you might say. My best example of this comes in Part 4—ask me about it then if you’re still interested!

Chad W. Post: How did you first come to Uwe Johnson’s work?Ěý

Damion Searls: He wrote a book in homage to his friend, the great Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann, after she died tragically young in 1973—I was and am a huge fan of hers so that was how I first discovered Johnson. Bachmann’s Letters to Felician and Johnson’s book about her, A Trip to Klagenfurt, would be the first two books I translated. But when I found out he had written a four-volume novel that takes place three blocks away from where I grew up in New York City, of course I had to read that.

CWP: This is a super mundane question, but given that I’m planning on spending the better portion of four months reading this book, I’m curious how long it took you to translate it all.

DS: I first read it—it took me about a year—some 25 years ago, which is halfway between now and the events of the story. I translated a couple of chapter/days back in the 90s, but the main part of the work was in 2013–18, during which I also wrote a book and translated a lot of other things. I usually say it took me 2 years to translate over the course of about 5 years, but that’s aside from the 20 years of lead time.

CWP: What’s the full story behind the first version of ´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýin English? I know it was abridged, came out in a weird way with multiple translators, and has been out of print for quite some time. But why was it abridged? Were the cuts motivated by the publisher to try and reach a wider audience? Or by the author/translators?Ěý

DS: So in German the book was originally going to be a trilogy, which is why Parts 1 and 2 cover four months each. The first four months were published in 1970—fast! really soon after 1967–68!—and then the second four months came out in 1971—also fast!—and the last four months was announced for 1972. But then Johnson got stuck, putting off Part 3 until 1973 and eventually publishing only half of the last third then, as the current Part 3. Life crises and creative crises and health problems meant that Part 4, the last two months of Gesine’s year, wasn’t finished until 1983.

There are internal signs of the book’s tripartite structure still in there, for example every part begins with a swimming scene but Part 4, i.e. the second half of “Part 3,” doesn’t.

Johnson was forced to drastically abridge the book for the English translation, and did, which is why it’s sometimes said the abridgement was “with his blessing”; it wasn’t totally voluntary though. Leila Vennewitz translated the abridged first six months (abridged Part 1 + abridged first half of Part 2) and that came out in 1975; she went ahead with the next four months (half of abridged Part 2, all of abridged Part 3), then had to wait, and died before Johnson published Part 4 in 1983. They brought in Walter Arndt to translate the abridged Part 4, and that was included with the rest of Vennewitz’s work as the second half of the two-volume Anniversaries in English, published in 1987. By that time, Vennewitz’s first half was long since forgotten; I wonder if anyone made their way through the second half of the English.

Aside from the heavy cuts, which really change everything, Vennewitz’s translation is also flawed in other ways, though it’s not my place to go into that in detail. Arndt kind of phoned his part in, I have to say, though you can’t blame him. When I proposed translating the rest of Anniversaries and splicing it into the existing translation, Edwin Frank, the editor of NYRB, read the earlier one and said no, it doesn’t work, you need to do the whole thing.

CWP: Putting aside the issue of time, what are the other main challenges in translating a book of this magnitude? And how much did you rely on the earlier translation?

DS: I didn’t rely on it, but I certainly referred to it; Vennewitz also had the advantage of translating while Johnson was alive, so there is some correspondence between them about tricky translation problems in the book. I was glad to have his answers to her questions. The book is very canonical in German, so there are books and books of secondary literature on it too; there’s a giant line-by-line commentary, also available online, that gives all the references and everything like that.

That said, as I’ve , it’s the slowest, hardest book I’ve ever translated, not because of the references or because the novel is a difficult readerly experience, if anything because it ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t. It’s quick and sharp and fluid, but that means you have to be really on the ball as a translator and find ways to keep the narrative moving, so it doesn’t get sluggish and turgid. Ěý(We can maybe talk about some examples once you get farther into the book?) One of the really helpful edits I got from Edwin Frank was encouraging me to use a lot more contractions (“couldn’t” or “it’s” or “aren’t”), which translations from German often underuse because there aren’t contractions in German, so if you’re not really thinking about it, a two-word translation (“could not,” “it is”) is the easy way to go. And yet contractions really keep things moving in normal English—this paragraph has eight of them. Not using them is part of what can make translations from German feel heavy, or in a worst case sound robotic.

As for the length of the book, those difficulties were mostly logistical, about funding and carving out enough time to do it. NYRB could take on the project only once I’d gotten quite a lot of funding from elsewhere: a Guggenheim, the Cullman Center, a multiyear grant from the Goethe Institut.

CWP: It’s been a decade since I read any Uwe Johnson books, but in my memory, Speculations about JakobĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýTwo ViewsĚýare pretty . . . experimental, for lack of a better word. What struck me in startingĚý´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýwas that, from a simple reader’s perspective, it’s pretty easy to fall right into. I’m not sure if it’s because of the primary setting (NYC), the way theĚýNY TimesĚýbits grounds the time period, or the mostly straightforward switches between Gesine’s life in NYC and that of her parents, but, so far at least, this is far less “work” than I would’ve expected going in. Is there anything you’d say to readers out there who might be intimidated to start this? Any background info that’s particularly useful to approaching this book?

DS: I really think Anniversaries feels much more contemporary and vivid and relatable than the other big masterpieces, Ulysses and Proust and The Man without Qualities and even Tolstoy. You’re right, Johnson’s earlier books are more difficult, arguably unnecessarily difficult. You’re not wrong to be put off from them, especially in the existing translations. Anniversaries, on the other hand, is a joy. There are several reasons for this: Johnson was more mature when he wrote it; the story is, as you say, firmly grounded in the great character of Gesine and her daughter and the concrete situation of NYC and each date; and I do think it helps that the book is translated better than his earlier novels, keeping it more quick and alive.

The book is about someone living in the sixties and living with the legacy of the past, so there’s a lot of historical information in the book, but Johnson’s a great writer and a storyteller so he always gives the reader whatever they need. I think reviewers have sometimes made the book sound like a giant, daunting piece of grad-school homework—and maybe the publication as a big black box set of two big volumes makes it look intimidating—but it really ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t. People like the book! It’s a story, with incredibly beautiful writing! It’s the same length as the Ferrante series, which was also published in four volumes, and no one complains that that’s too long (never mind Game of Thrones!). Also, the chapters of Anniversaries tend to be short, three or four pages long (there are just a lot of them); each new chapter bounces the different storylines off each other in a new way, so it’s more of a page-turner than you might expect. You’re reading about Germany and eager to get back to New York, then reading about New York and can’t wait to hear what’s happening to Gesine’s parents in Germany, and Johnson keeps it going for all those hundreds of pages.

(Quick sidenote: It’s quite likely that the three volumes of Fresán’s trilogy—The Invented Part,ĚýThe Dreamed Part, and The Remembered Part—will weigh slightly more. Obviously this is now a contest. Forget covers, we should judge books by the ounce! GIVE ME FOUR POUNDS OF PYNCHON AND A HALF POUND OF LISPECTOR, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.)

But seriously, this publication is aĚýliterary eventĚýfor that small group of readers (10,000?) who get excited by the idea ofĚýliterary eventsĚýthat are unabashedly ambitious in an Old European sort of way. This sort of publishing project doesn’t happen that often anymore. Sure, there have been retranslations of Russian classics over the past decade (War and PeaceĚýis the first that comes to mind), but those books are already °ě˛Ô´Ç·É˛ÔĚýby the general public (in contrast to the “reading public” or the “literary public”) and have a built-in network of support. YouĚýłó˛ą±ą±đĚýto review the “definitive”ĚýDon Quixote, and given that the book is already taught in universities across the country, there’s a natural landing place for a significant number of copies. If nothing else, critics and scholars will buy the new edition to compare against the existing ones—which will remain available, and will still have their loyal defenders who prefer an early translation for one set of reasons or a simple case of familiarity and nostalgia.

That’s not really the case here, though. Most people »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’łŮĚýknow of Uwe Johnson. Granted, he was published by major presses . . . back in the 1970s. The abridged version ofĚý´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýhas been out of print for more years than my students have walked the earth. (Significantly more?) And, as Edwin Frank mentioned during our discussion, there’s not a whole lot of critical materials out there on Johnson or this book.

And yet, the publication of these two volumes (in a very attractive slipcase set, which, with the forthcoming publication of AgustĂ­n Fernández Mallo’s Nocilla Trilogy, seems to be “all the rage”) is anĚýevent. Again, not for everyone, or at least not in the way that a new Harry Potter book was an EVENT, but definitely anĚýevent.Ěý

From theĚýĚýpiece on its publication:

“This is recognized in Germany as a book of major importance,” [Edwin Frank] said. “It is regularly compared to some of the most famous German novels of the century: Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. They would also compare them—as Uwe Johnson wanted to be compared, and consciously invited the comparison—to Proust and Joyce.”

That made the full translation of the book imperative in Frank’s eyes. “It’s a book that should exist in its entirety,” he said. “You don’t want to have just one volume of Proust. It seemed important to make it available that way. Not least because the bigness of it, and the range and scope of it, is what makes it such a pleasure.”

The only comparable publishing event of recent times that comes to mind is Dalkey Archive’s release ofĚýĚýby Arno Schmidt. This too was hailed as a masterpiece, praised by the literati (or Twitterati?) upon release, clocks in at over 1400 pages, and has been read in its entirety by not that many people. (And also appears to be out-of-print? That’s unfortunate. The book came out less than three years ago! Although it is impressive that it sold its entire—if press releases are to be believed—2,500 print run. That’s probably more copies than the German edition has ever sold.)

What makes these two publicationsĚýevents? Similar to last week’s post about an International Hall of Fame for Writers, there are no clear cut rules or criteria. But the fact that these two publications run so counter to contemporary trends (a penchant for novellas that are short, dark, and scary), yet are accompanied by a respectable amount of anticipation and excitement makes these projects fall into a slightly different category than your run-of-the-mill new-title-from-respected-international-author. (Not to throw shade, but this is the difference between NYRB/Dalkey Archive and HarperVia. That, and the fact that the quotes Edwin Frank gives to the press actually make sense.)

Which makes it really hard to figure out how toĚýdiscuss these books. What does a valuable review ofĚý´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýlook like?

Thankfully—or thanks to Sara Kramer and Nick During?—there have been several. The (which, given the role it plays in the novel seems like a natural shoe-in for a solid assessment),Ěý,Ěý,Ěý,Ěý, theĚý (where it received a grade of “A: Staggering”), etc.

All this is a long build-up to talking about “imposter syndrome,” something that quite a few of my friends have brought up lately. That feeling that their work—be it fiction, translations, blog posts, poems, scholarly articles—are lacking. That they’re a fraud on some basic level and are hustling and working some of that sleight-of-hand so that no one notices. Living in this age of anxiety and Twitter takedowns, it’s not terribly surprising; it is dispiriting to see so many talented people doubt themselves.

There’s a lot that could be unpacked about this—what success in 2019 looks like, where validation comes from in an age where everything is connectedĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýinstantaneous, how to trust your voice—but the reason it’s on my mind tonight is because of Christian Lorenzen’s article on book reviewing, “.”

I’m not going to rehash the whole article here (I really encourage you to read it in full to see the scope and construction of his ideas and arguments, and, if you’re curious, listen to the new Three Percent Podcast in which Tom and I share our opinions), but it has made me very aware of my own self-doubts, especially in terms of writing about books.

How should one review a literary event? Or should that be: How should one “review” aĚýliterary event? Or:ĚýliteraryĚý“event”?

This reminds me of a comment on a recent episode about what would make a scouting report of a superstar valuable? They were talking about a scout’s report on Peak Ken Griffey, Jr., who, for non-baseball readers, was a LEGEND. A true Hall of Famer, an unquestionably great player who the Reds eventually got from Seattle for players you definitely don’t care about. Anyway. Anyway! The point: A scout was assigned to write about “The Kid” and advise the front office of the Reds whether or not they should trade for him. Again, this is PEAK GRIFFEY. What could a scout possible say that the general manager doesn’t already know? “Saw Junior play. Really fucking good. Can hit and field. And throw. One of the best players in the game. Good at the baseball.” Is that valuable?

So what are book reviews—or blog posts, or whatever—supposed to sayĚýabout a book that history has more or less already weighed in on, that, even if it’s notĚýpersonallyĚýto your taste, is admirable and good?Ěý“ReadĚýAnniversaries. It’s fucking long. Real interesting though. Kind of compares the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany with the Vietnam War. An epic, unique book that would be impossible to replicate. If we had 25 of these books on our list, we would be a singular press.”

Are reviews just blurbs with a lot of extra words?

Paraphrasing Lorentzen, are reviews supposed to shift copies (a.k.a., serve as a mouthpiece for the publisher’s marketing plans), or engage critically with the text in a way that might illustrate flaws but also tends to have a more ambivalent relationship with the text, or should we abandon this mode entirely in favor of “coverage” that’s more easily digestible and much easier to heart and/or share? Or something else?

I try not to reflect on what this website has become all that often. Clearly, times have changed since we started this in 2007 with the intent of “covering international literature.” We’ve tried to be journalistic (I know! sounds insane now), we’ve been very opinionated, we’ve tried to focus on books on hype on publishers on the shareholders in the translation community . . . and maybe the site has always suffered from imposter syndrome?

So how can I possibly write aboutĚý´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýover the course of four posts? In a way that’s not stupid, not boring, and doesn’t repeat the same old clichĂ©d observations? What value can this sort of readerly meditation have in book culture circa 2019? (I’m 160% going against theĚýBuzzFeedĚýbelief that you should never put time into things that won’t get a lot of “shares.” But whatever. It’s my time. And if I wasn’t wrestling with existential ideas about what matters and what doesn’t ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýwhy are book reviews anyway then I’d be watching Temple play Belmont. Literally. Given that, I »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’łŮĚýthinkĚýthis is a waste of my time?)

All of that was supposed to be a one-paragraph introduction to my core idea: Pros vs. Cons.

´ˇ˛Ô˛Ôľ±±ą±đ°ů˛ő˛ą°ůľ±±đ˛őĚýisn’t for everyone. No book is for everyone. If you think a book is for everyone, I guarantee you that book is bad and isn’t for me. But given that I’m not about to spit out some kind of crazy contrarian take about how this book sucks, let’s at least have a little fun setting up some sort of dialectic so that people who were already going to give it a chance know what they’re getting into, and those who aren’t ever going to embark on an 1800-page journey through 1967-68 get a taste of what they’re missing. Maybe that’s what a book review can do. Not in the traditional format—smart contextualizing intro that proves the reviewer’s literary chops, synopsis of the book itself followed by quick analysis of major themes, bit of hand-wringing over potential pitfalls in the narrative or style or structure, followed by a gentile conclusion making sure we all remain literary buddies (again, paraphrasing Lorentzen, although I also feel like I’m paraphrasing myself with this)—but in a way that reflects the game Gesine plays with her daughter, Marie, when they’re recounting their earliest years.

The Novel Is Extraordinarily Long

Undeniable! Most books are like 70,000 words long. This thing has to be like 600,000. Or more. That’s a lot of words! If you’re the sort of person who is into logging your completed books on Goodreads and fulfilling your annual “challenge” of reading XX titles, this might jack your metrics.

If you’re someone more interested in living within a given world for a very long time (people who love theĚýGoT? who must have some sort of self-identifying nickname, like “The GOTs” or “The Throners”? The Winter Elves?) and checking in with your favorite characters day after day, well then, this book is for you.

PUSH. Zero points awarded.

The Book Is Historical in Two Ways

As mentioned above, the book is set in America in 1967, during the Vietnam War, as the “flower power” is transforming, in the midst of great social unrest (race riots throughout the “Long Hot Summer of 1967”), at a point when America (and/or The World) could become very free and progressive or very capitalist in ways tinged with fascism.

That is the “now” of Gesine Cresspahl’s daily diary, which isĚýAnniversaries.

As mentioned above, the book is set in mid-1930s Germany, when Gesine’s father moves back to Jerichow to live with her and her mother and her mother’s relatives (one of whom is a straight-up Nazi) during Hitler’s rise to power.

This is the story that Gesine is telling to her ten-year-old daughter. And recounting in her daily diary. (Is “daily diary” redundant?)

One point awarded FOR the book. A historical novel working in two timeframes, while clocking itself as a sort of proto-blog is definitely an appealing aspect of the novel.

The New York Times Stuff Is Fascinating

Also mentioned this on the podcast, but most of the daily entries in the novel open with what was reported in theĚýNew York TimesĚýon that particular day. These usually take the form of: information about the Vietnam War, including the number of deaths; an account of civil unrest and/or a violent crime; some other random bit of information, such as a typo (GĂĽnther Glass instead of GĂĽnter Grass), or a general reflection of Gesine’s on theĚýNew York TimesĚýas if it were a stately old lady expressing her take on the world as a whole.

This is fun! I wasn’t alive in 1967, and it’s interesting to read about the coverage of Madison Square Garden being built. I wasn’t born too many years after 1967 (uuuugggghhhh) and this helps me feel more connected to the flow of history. (I remember having a similar experience while reading them by Joyce Carol Oates.)

The most surprising moments in volume 1? That theĚýNY TimesĚýran a series of articles from Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Stalina, in which she more or less defended her dad, while living in America. I had no idea this had been a thing, and the reactions to her being given this platform—with pretty minor rebukes—sound rather contemporary.

I wonder how some of the tragedies of 1967 strike other readers of the book. Personally, I’ve been of two opinions: 1) violence has always been a core part of this country, and b) why are things so much worse now.

POINT FOR. I can’t see how these bits don’t appeal to readers. 2-0.

There Is a Mafia Section That’s Out of This World

I think I might have fallen asleep, or read some pages after thatĚýsecondĚýwhiskey, when it came to the part about Karsch. Specifically, I can’t remember how this journalist/academic (or public intellectual? those existed in the 60s, right?) got hooked up with Gesine. But the two-three sections in which ten-year-old Marie answers a call from some mafia dudes who have kidnapped Karsch and want $2,000 (1967 dollars) to release him are WILD. They get the money. They drive from one shady location to another, following clues, eventually finding him tied up in the back of an abandoned shop . . . this is like an episode ofĚýThe SopranosĚýin the middle of a Henry James novel. It’s insane, and kind of not believable? Unless 1967 academic (again, “academic?”) writers were like intrepid 2019 podcasters, willing to put themselves in crazy danger for a juicy story. (See: , which I have very mixed feelings about, having loved the last episode but then finding out that the host is the same Neil Strauss who wrote The Game, which GROSS.)

NEGATIVE ONE TO THE FOR. These sections are entertaining and wild and strange and cool, but I don’t necessarily get them? And they feel out of place. 1-0.

How Old Is Marie, Again?

Marie is 10. Ten years old. Do you know a ten-year-old? I do! I have a fifteen-year-old daughter (kill me) and an eleven-year-old son. How smart were kids in 1967? How independent? Pretty fucking? OK. Sure.

Marie rides the subway by herself all day when the three subway lines are integrated. She goes and gets groceries on a regular basis. She openly protests the Vietnam War in her private religious school. (More believable to me than anything else about her character, but then again, I’m raising non-binary anarchists.) Everyone in the neighborhood knows her and interacts with her like she’s an adult . . .

And yet, NYC isĚýdangerousĚýin 1967. Including the Upper West Side (they live on 96th).

Did Uwe Johnson have kids? Are NYC kids super advanced? Are my kids dummies? No ten-year-old I know acts/talks like this. None of them are this responsible and independent ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýuntended. Maybe that’s a sign of the times? Maybe it’s just weird and hard to process.

ONE POINT AGAINST. 1-1.

A Sense of Place Is Worth a Thousand Paintings

The best aspect of this book is its atmosphere.

And again the machines contentedly gulping subway token after subway token on behalf of the Transit Authority, down throats grinding with pleasure that the riders set chewing inside the three-armed turnstiles up to five times per minute, maybe six times a minute, that would be some sixteen hundred an hour in the four lanes, that’s too many, and yet there are more than that. And again the heavy rumbling noise, audible through all the sways and jolts and braking processes, which betrays the excessive weight of the payload and reflects it in the base of the skull as a feeling of almost dangerous pleasure.

POINT FOR. 2-1

Uwe Johnson Is a Character

It’s always fun when the author shows up in his/her own work, right? Mostly? Sometimes?

In Anniversaries, Uwe Johnson—who did live in NYC for a while—is giving a presentation about Germany to a Jewish organization, and doesn’t come off particularly well. He’s sympathetic, while acknowledging the recent election of a Nazi to West Germany’s government. It’s a humbling moment in the book (Johnson did grow up in East Germany, escaped when his writing career took off, lived in NYC, died in England), and a meta one.

The German who actually was there acted as if he understood not only English but the mood that had been prepared for him in the audience. He looked up at the cheerful, carefree speaker introducing him to the Jews. He was curious. From the room, the expression on his upturned face looked humorless and severe. Yet the jokes had been meant to be laughed at. Invited to the podium, the writer Uwe Johnson did not, say, leave the event at once (with thanks for the introduction) but instead began his talk in all seriousness, admittedly not with the late Middle Ages but still with the year 1945 and the subsequent development of two German states. He failed, however, to pull off the New England cadences he seemed to be trying to adopt for the occasion, and lapsed back into the wrong vowels, the wrong stresses, the not even British accent his school had let him get away with.

PUSH. Some people like that, others don’t. 2-1.

What Is the Novel’s Engine?

I can’t entirely put my finger on what makes this a page-turner (of sorts), but here are my best ideas:

1. We have no idea how Gesine’s husband died or why she emigrated to America;
2. We want to see how Gesine’s family—especially her father—pushed back against the rise of the Nazis. And how did that history all play out?

Speaking in the theoretical and general, I’m usually bored by family sagas. But something about this is compelling . . . I want to know what happens, and I want to sort through the various forms Johnson employs—first-person diaries, three-person recountings between Gesine and Marie, transcriptions of records, detailed accounts of things Gesine couldn’t possibly have been privy to, interior conversations with the dead, newspaper stories—to see how this all fits together. Is it a three-act play, or a four-season performance? What is the point of it all? Why exactly do I look forward to reading this book that I can’t get any of my friends to read?

This is where I am at the end of volume one. I’ll be back next month with some more thoughts. Imposter thoughts, most likely, but thoughts nonetheless.