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damjur's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
jenh87's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't continue with this book. Gave up on chapter 5. Not for me!
rfinn's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
clairabella_bookworm's review against another edition
1.0
I was really excited to read this, but it ended up just being so slow that it was putting me to sleep. I really struggled to get through it and I can't see what the hype was about with it. The way the story is told just makes it feel like it's never going to end. And some of it doesn't make sense. Katharina says she told Felicitias about hiding the Jew but then Dr Wagner says she died in child birth? Before Katharina would have seen her.
prosiaczekk's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
cami19's review
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
tasmanian_bibliophile's review
4.5
‘Who know what may happen yet?’
East Prussia, January 1945. The German forces are retreating as the Red Army moves towards Berlin. The von Globig estate, the Georgenhof, is small and declining. Eberhard von Globig, and officer in the German army is in Italy. Eberhard’s wife, Katharina is nominally in charge but most of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of Auntie. The von Globig son, twelve-year-old Peter, takes refuge in books. He has a persistent cough which has kept him out of the Hitler Youth. As the novel opens, life on the estate seems cushioned from the impact of war.
‘Can an individual make a difference?’
But as the Red Army advances, and more Germans flee the occupied territories, the Georgenhof receives visitors including a Nazi violinist, a painter, and a Jewish refugee. Life continues. The estate is supported by Vladimir, who is Polish, with household labour undertaken by Vera and Sonya, two Ukrainian women. Daily visits are made by from Dr Wagner who provides Peter with tuition. The von Globigs think of leaving, but what would they take? Surely it is better to wait… even though the Russians are almost at the nearby city of Mitkau.
In time Drygalski, the local Nazi representative, requires the von Globigs to take refugees into their home. Eventually the remnants of the family decide to leave, but Auntie and Peter leave without Katharina who has been imprisoned for helping a Jew.
And so the story continues, through chaos and cruelty, confusion and kindness. Dispossession, death, disaster. Who will live to tell the story?
‘Was everything all right now?’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
linzhere's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
An interesting and relevant book. With the use of repetition and descriptions of the mundane we join a family as they watch the unfolding of a.great.refugee crises in 1945 East Prussia. At first we see the family hosting a variety of visitors in their house. Over time the individual members of the family themselves become involved, in various ways, in the evacuation. Much to think about.
mkesten's review
5.0
I discovered Walter Kempowski’s 2006 gem “All for Nothing” (“Alles umsonst”) quite by accident, reading a column on the New York Times Sunday Book Review.
Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert called it the best book she had ever read. That seemed pretty high praise. As I was finishing the book I tweeted Kolbert and asked her what was it about the story that had so moved her.
She answered “I think it was the unvarnished grimness of it all, but also the way it did call attention to its grimness. I found it very affecting. Also, of course, it’s very well written (and translated).
Grim indeed. This story is about the collapse of East Prussian society in the winter of 1945 as it is clear Russian forces are only days away from over-running the region.
Most of the able-bodied men are away at the front. The characters are largely men, women, and children who for one reason or another have been excluded from service, including local Nazi functionaries intent on upholding the rule of (their) law in the disintegrating conditions.
For me there was a parallel between Kolbert’s own writings on environmental collapse and the societal collapse of the Nazi state. In this story, people are rushing presumably to safe zones oblivious to the tsunami about to overtake them.
The heroine of the story, Katharina von Globig, is swept up in a search of Jew-lovers and imprisoned for having harboured a Jew in her boudoir for a single evening.
As I read her interrogation I wanted to break into the story and say to her interrogators “Wait a minute: in a few short days you and all your cronies will be judged by the world as criminals in the highest degree having imprisoned, gassed, burned, and destroyed entire communities of innocent people. In the millions.”
Her husband is on the Italian front and about the same time puts a gun to his temple after finally accepting the inevitable has arrived.
Her young son Peter with the help of an aunt follows the tide of refugees through the streets of ancient towns and choked roads of people heading toward....what? A better life? Protection from the Russian hordes?
In reality, there is no escape.
I learned that this was among Kempowski’s last writings. He died of intestinal cancer in 2007 after having written more than 40 books and collected huge archives from the end of The Third Reich.
I was struck not only by the parallels with our own demonstrable environmental catastrophe but also by the parallels on the recent attacks on the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
On TV we watched polite society break down as rioters believing the US election had been stolen from Donald Trump and followers of a fictional hero Qanon sought to save freedom from itself.
As though a broad swath of American society was waking up to the pathology of a cult before its own eyes.
I found the opening pages of the story so evocative of the failed state: the black crows, the crumbling walls, the abandoned farm implements. Kempowski had that Chekovian gift of making such a huge canvas seem so close and suffocating.
This was such an apt read for the times.
Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert called it the best book she had ever read. That seemed pretty high praise. As I was finishing the book I tweeted Kolbert and asked her what was it about the story that had so moved her.
She answered “I think it was the unvarnished grimness of it all, but also the way it did call attention to its grimness. I found it very affecting. Also, of course, it’s very well written (and translated).
Grim indeed. This story is about the collapse of East Prussian society in the winter of 1945 as it is clear Russian forces are only days away from over-running the region.
Most of the able-bodied men are away at the front. The characters are largely men, women, and children who for one reason or another have been excluded from service, including local Nazi functionaries intent on upholding the rule of (their) law in the disintegrating conditions.
For me there was a parallel between Kolbert’s own writings on environmental collapse and the societal collapse of the Nazi state. In this story, people are rushing presumably to safe zones oblivious to the tsunami about to overtake them.
The heroine of the story, Katharina von Globig, is swept up in a search of Jew-lovers and imprisoned for having harboured a Jew in her boudoir for a single evening.
As I read her interrogation I wanted to break into the story and say to her interrogators “Wait a minute: in a few short days you and all your cronies will be judged by the world as criminals in the highest degree having imprisoned, gassed, burned, and destroyed entire communities of innocent people. In the millions.”
Her husband is on the Italian front and about the same time puts a gun to his temple after finally accepting the inevitable has arrived.
Her young son Peter with the help of an aunt follows the tide of refugees through the streets of ancient towns and choked roads of people heading toward....what? A better life? Protection from the Russian hordes?
In reality, there is no escape.
I learned that this was among Kempowski’s last writings. He died of intestinal cancer in 2007 after having written more than 40 books and collected huge archives from the end of The Third Reich.
I was struck not only by the parallels with our own demonstrable environmental catastrophe but also by the parallels on the recent attacks on the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
On TV we watched polite society break down as rioters believing the US election had been stolen from Donald Trump and followers of a fictional hero Qanon sought to save freedom from itself.
As though a broad swath of American society was waking up to the pathology of a cult before its own eyes.
I found the opening pages of the story so evocative of the failed state: the black crows, the crumbling walls, the abandoned farm implements. Kempowski had that Chekovian gift of making such a huge canvas seem so close and suffocating.
This was such an apt read for the times.