Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Über Menschen

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Über Menschen by Juli Zeh

3 reviews

_inge's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

So glad I finally got around to reading this. It’s absurdistic yet weirdly realistic (and modern) at the same time, which is right up my alley. And I managed to shape my thoughts on combatting racism a bit more.

I’ve seen people criticising this book by saying Gothe gets away with too much and Dora doesn’t do anything to stop him. Whenever he rants about ‘foreigners needing to stay in their own country’ Dora tries expressing her disapproval, but you can tell she doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. Which is exactly the point of this entire book. It confronts us with our behaviour when faced with racism. Our neighbour might be an actual Nazi who’s done horrible things, we might feel sickened by racist murders happening today, but we still don’t dare to speak up. One passage in this book describes being ‘stunned by racism’. When someone says something racist, we tend to fall into silence. We come up with excuses for not speaking up; maybe there’s no use telling a racist that they’re being racist, surely a left-wing person couldn’t convince them to be less racist? But when we don’t say anything, we wish in hindsight that we would’ve told them off. We feel as if we’ve failed. Eventually, we just avoid racists altogether, as to not risk having an awkward conversation with this person, or feeling worse about ourselves again. I found this passage so relevant and so relatable. Is it the right way to act? Absolutely not. But I think most people act exactly this way. Juli Zeh was able to put this into words perfectly.

The central message in this book is that we’re all human. A neo-Nazi, Covid-conspiracy theorist or left-wing person… at the end of the day, we aren’t just defined by these things alone. Making nazis more human did make me uncomfortable, but I do get the need to do this. If we really get to know people who we fundamentally disagree with, by going into conversations without judgement but instead with empathy and humanity, we might learn more about them and ourselves. If Gothe hadn’t met Dora, I think he genuinely would’ve done worse things. He’s obviously an awful person, which this book acknowledges constantly. But because he’s left alone he becomes even worse. I therefore don’t agree with people saying the book overall is too ‘feel-good’; I just think it’s a call for empathy and humanity, but without sacrificing your own beliefs.

This book is a brilliant exploration on how we deal with racists/nazis. It’s not always pretty or right, but it is realistic. If Dora had acted morally just at every turn, I wouldn’t have been encouraged to think about my own actions and the book as a whole wouldn’t have felt this realistic. Unfortunately, we often don’t know what to do when confronted with racism. I think literature is there to confront us with this.

Content Warnings

neaaen's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-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

Content Warnings

avera's review against another edition

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challenging emotional lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Ich weiß nicht, was ich davon nun halten soll.
Ich habe das Gefühl, Juli Zeh hat das Buch nur geschrieben, um der Protagonistin ihre eigenen Ansichten, getarnt als „…, denkt Dora.“, in den Mund zu legen und sie somit zu legitimieren und zu vermenschlichen. Aber Dora ist mir nicht sympathisch geworden.
Klimaaktivisten werden als fanatisch und dumm dargestellt, viele Aspekte erschienen mir dabei weit hergeholt und übertrieben („sie fliegen Greta hinterher…“). Dabei ist Klimaschutz sehr wichtig und die wenigsten Menschen, die das so sehen, bezeichnen sich als perfekt - kleine Schritte führen auch ans Ziel.
Gleichzeitig wird ein Nazi verherrlicht. Kein einziges Mal macht die Protagonistin bei rassistischen Aussagen den Mund auf, sondern denkt sich nur bedingt ihren Teil. Und letztendlich wird sie seine Freundin, denn „er ist ja auch nur ein Mensch“ und „nicht alles ist schwarz und weiß“? Was will das vermitteln?
Dora ist „not like other girls/people“ und damit leider genau wie die anderen.

Der Schreibstil hat mir gut gefallen, umso trauriger, dass Juli Zeh ihr Talent für ein solches Buch nutzt. Corpus Delicti hat mir sehr gut gefallen.

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