marissab's review against another edition
I would have preferred more essays about the author’s childhood in east Berlin and fewer about the author’s favourite plays and fairy tales.
Content Warnings
Minor: War and Death of parent
katie_killebrew's review against another edition
5.0
Jenny Erpenbeck is one of my favorite living authors. It was a pleasure to learn more about her and the way she observes the world.
“Not a Novel” contains so many worthwhile turns of phrase and entire paragraphs to underline, but this is the only one I came across when I actually had a pen in my hand:
“In happy moments of reading we become aware of something that corresponds to us. And even if we forget certain details over the years—a given story line or character—and even if we remember certain others; the most important things sink in deeper than our memories, we internalize them, take them into our bodies, and they stay there, blind and mute like our hearts, our kidneys, our bones, keeping us alive.” (p148-149)
“Not a Novel” contains so many worthwhile turns of phrase and entire paragraphs to underline, but this is the only one I came across when I actually had a pen in my hand:
“In happy moments of reading we become aware of something that corresponds to us. And even if we forget certain details over the years—a given story line or character—and even if we remember certain others; the most important things sink in deeper than our memories, we internalize them, take them into our bodies, and they stay there, blind and mute like our hearts, our kidneys, our bones, keeping us alive.” (p148-149)
bookalong's review against another edition
4.0
"If the language that you can speak isn't enough that's a very good reason to start writing. As paradoxical as it may be: The impossibility of expressing what happens to us in words is what pushes us towards writing. Whenever I have not been able to understand something, have not been able to capture it in words, that's when I've started writing."
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Thoughts~
An honest and amusing look into Erpenbeck's life and work. These essays are divided into three parts, Life, Literature and Music, and Society. Erpenbeck gives her coming of age in Berlin. How early on she was absorbed by music and theater. She talks of the fall of the Berlin wall when she was only twenty two, astutely examining her own country's grim past. And then through her journey to becoming a writer, sharing some of her favorite literary influences as well. This was an interesting read! My favorite parts were where she shares about her own writing thought process and of her childhood. If you haven't read her books before definitely check them out, she's a beautiful writer.
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Thank You to @pgcbooks for sending this my way, opinions are my own.
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For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
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Thoughts~
An honest and amusing look into Erpenbeck's life and work. These essays are divided into three parts, Life, Literature and Music, and Society. Erpenbeck gives her coming of age in Berlin. How early on she was absorbed by music and theater. She talks of the fall of the Berlin wall when she was only twenty two, astutely examining her own country's grim past. And then through her journey to becoming a writer, sharing some of her favorite literary influences as well. This was an interesting read! My favorite parts were where she shares about her own writing thought process and of her childhood. If you haven't read her books before definitely check them out, she's a beautiful writer.
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Thank You to @pgcbooks for sending this my way, opinions are my own.
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For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
sarahc3319's review against another edition
5.0
A Christmas present from the only friend who buys me books, and boy does she know how to choose them. I savored this book, allowing myself one essay or 15 pages a day to make it last. Her personal essays are my favorite, the tone she strikes and her matter-of-fact reporting that is anything but. If you haven't read her, you should, and this book or Go, Went, Gone are nice places to start.
gracer's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I have read only one book by Jenny Erpenbeck ("Go, Went, Gone") and it blew me away, uniting everything I love in literature. And that’s basically all I knew about Erpenbeck when I picked up this book. I did not know that she was trained as an opera director, or that she was raised in East Germany, etc. etc. etc. This was therefore highly informative, and I do love reading about writers and their experience and following their philosophical thoughts on the process and the art of writing, etc. But this was also fascinating just because her perspective is so unique. It’s interesting to read about someone who was raised in Communism, and who was 22 or so when the Berlin Wall fell, and studied opera directing, and so on. I don’t know much about theater or music and I love reading about how these art forms can intersect and interact with the one I *do* know a bit about.
I gave this three stars at first, thinking probably more like a 3.5, but that was faulty. My beef with this book is just that there’s a section in the middle with three 20+ page essays (really lectures), while the rest of the book is filled with mostly 2 page pieces, a couple stretching to 6 or 8 or maybe 10 pages. So I was cruising through the first section, and had been reading a short, reflective, pleasant essay before bed or such, and then when I hit the long sections it interrupted the whole relationship I was building with this as a book, or as a collection.
So my criticism is just a matter of collection and nothing to do with the work. I sort of wish the middle three had been separate, or left out, but that’s really neither here nor there, and I enjoyed reading those, too. Two of them focus on some of her earlier books ("The Old Child" and "The Book of Words"), so now obviously I have to go read those books. What a life.
I gave this three stars at first, thinking probably more like a 3.5, but that was faulty. My beef with this book is just that there’s a section in the middle with three 20+ page essays (really lectures), while the rest of the book is filled with mostly 2 page pieces, a couple stretching to 6 or 8 or maybe 10 pages. So I was cruising through the first section, and had been reading a short, reflective, pleasant essay before bed or such, and then when I hit the long sections it interrupted the whole relationship I was building with this as a book, or as a collection.
So my criticism is just a matter of collection and nothing to do with the work. I sort of wish the middle three had been separate, or left out, but that’s really neither here nor there, and I enjoyed reading those, too. Two of them focus on some of her earlier books ("The Old Child" and "The Book of Words"), so now obviously I have to go read those books. What a life.
beckyramone's review
4.0
In this book, which is part memoir, part essay collection, Jenny Erpenbeck explores what it means to grow up in a country that no longer exists. She uses literature, her own and others, to examine the world we live in. What does it mean to have memories of a place that only exists in history? Erpenbeck shines most when she's recounting childhood experiences growing up in East Berlin. And because it is an Erpenbeck book, the essays all tie into what borders and immigration is doing to society. Why do we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall but still believe in strict immigration laws? The fact is, is that we have decided some immigrants are good and others are bad, and Erpenbeck beautifully writes about how this is the exact wrong thing to do and how it has led to tragedy, over and over. I loved reading about what it was like for her to grow up in the GDR, She doesn't leave out the negative aspects while also leaving the reader with an understanding that her childhood was wonderful in many ways. Erpenbeck's style is concise while also being very witty and smart.
Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy for review!
Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy for review!
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