Continuing to work my way through what’s already on my bookshelves, I jump 140 years closer to the present with a collection of short stories by Christa Wolf. But she was writing in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so again this comes from a culture that feels a long way away from where I am now.
I was struck by the sheer variety displayed in this collection. From the long, disorientating dream sequence of Unter den Linden to the satirical whimsy of The New Life and Opinions of a Tomcat, Wolf’s stories switch between genres and voices with confidence and panache. A Little Outing to H. reminded me very much of what Jasper Fforde would do later with the Thursday Next series. My favourite was probably the gentle slice-of-life June Afternoon, but I suspect that I will also remember Exchanging Glances, a teenager’s view of the end of the Second World War, and the claustrophobic, justified paranoia of the title story, for a long time.
But I have a feeling that there’s a lot going on under the surface, that I missed a lot in this first reading, and will need to revisit this book.
I’m counting this for Germany in the #EU27project, and it’s the twelfth book of the year/in the TBR20.
Kathleen Jowitt 