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A review by kclark
After Midnight by Irmgard Keun
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Holy moly! This book was so good and really indicative of why I love German literature in the first place. There is so much packed into this little book, and it is a wonder to me that it is not more widely read and regarded. The prose is direct and simple, but full of thematic meaning. It seems like a book that would be fairly easy to teach and really relevant to a lot of issues today.
The book follows 19-year-old Sanna as she narrates two nights of her life: one following Hitler's August 3, 1930 speech in Frankfurt and the night immediately after at a party thrown for a member of her social circle, Dr. Breslauer, a Jew who is fleeing Germany. Sanna, a young woman who leads a life of relative privilege, sees would like to live a carefree life, separate from politics, but the culture of the Third Reich, and the culture of her progressive social circle. Throughout her struggle to accept her world as is is laced with memories and connections to people that show she is uncomfortable in the new Germany in which she finds herself.
The novel beautifully shows that complacency is a choice under a brutal, oppressive regime. And yet Sanna is not a character without flaws. We see how she is ready to accept her station in life and cast away her moral misgivings about the world around her. Ultimately her decisions at the end of this book leave you wondering if she made her choices as a rejection of Nazi Germany, or if she is seeking an uncomplicated form of privilege.
There is SO much to unpack here that I really don't have time to in a goodreads review.
The book follows 19-year-old Sanna as she narrates two nights of her life: one following Hitler's August 3, 1930 speech in Frankfurt and the night immediately after at a party thrown for a member of her social circle, Dr. Breslauer, a Jew who is fleeing Germany. Sanna, a young woman who leads a life of relative privilege, sees would like to live a carefree life, separate from politics, but the culture of the Third Reich, and the culture of her progressive social circle. Throughout her struggle to accept her world as is is laced with memories and connections to people that show she is uncomfortable in the new Germany in which she finds herself.
The novel beautifully shows that complacency is a choice under a brutal, oppressive regime. And yet Sanna is not a character without flaws. We see how she is ready to accept her station in life and cast away her moral misgivings about the world around her. Ultimately her decisions at the end of this book leave you wondering if she made her choices as a rejection of Nazi Germany, or if she is seeking an uncomplicated form of privilege.
There is SO much to unpack here that I really don't have time to in a goodreads review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism