A review by rinku
Jugend ohne Gott by Ödön von Horváth

challenging dark reflective tense fast-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? Yes

3.0

A few years ago, I listened to an audiobook version of Youth without God, and this is my first re-read since then. To be honest, I had better memories of this novel, but the message is relevant more than ever and was especially brave for the time it was published. Like always, I struggle a bit with writing reviews for classical books, but I tried my best. 

The main character of this novel is the nameless teacher who’s sure that the youth aka the class that he’s teaching is corrupted. His more liberal world view clashes with the authoritarian way the students should be taught so that they’re ready to go to war when the country wants them to (by the way, when von Horváth wrote about the World War, it made me realize that he never experienced the Second World War and hence will never know about it which left me with a weird feeling). I really liked this anti-war and anti-authoritarian message, and there are other interesting motifs in this novel, like the one about the fish, but I was honestly too tired to interpret them more lmao. 

There’s not much to say about the plot itself, but I forgot most of it and fully believed that
the teacher would be wrongly accused of the murder which made me a bit nervous, but this didn’t happen. Instead, he realizes that the youth is not as bad as he thinks which was such a nice moment. The ending itself was okay, I guess, even though I find it a bit unsatisfying that T killed himself since I would’ve loved to see a confrontation with him and the teacher
. 

What I can say positively about this novel is that it’s quick to read since the language is not too complicated. Some passages had a stream of consciousness vibe to them which I really enjoyed. Of course, this book is almost hundred years old and very different values were considered normal back then, but the bad depiction of women still annoyed me, and the fact that the teacher apparently falls in love with an underage girl, I think, and that he watches her and one of his students having sex which was just disgusting. 

But we also need to talk about the elephant in the room: the extensive use of the N-word. As a white person, it’s obviously not my place to talk about this, so I leave it with this: I definitely think that the word could be exchanged with a less offensive one and the messaging would still be as strong. Some will complain that this is censoring, but I don’t think that basic respect is censoring – but like I’ve said, it’s not my place to discuss this topic. 

So, I’m left with an ambivalent opinion of Youth without God. Its messaging is great but the rest not so much. The teacher isn’t a likable character (I think he’s not supposed to, but still), and some of it aged very poorly, to put it nicely. 
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