en-US Tue, 22 Apr 2025 09:10:12 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9339138733 Tue, 22 Apr 2025 09:10:12 -0700 /review/show/7509562319 Boria is currently reading Who Were The Untouchables? And How They Became Untouchables? by B.R. Ambedkar
]]> ReadStatus9223132980 Sun, 23 Mar 2025 15:32:55 -0700 /review/show/7428796213 Boria is currently reading The Revolutionary Self: Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual, 1770-1800 by Lynn Hunt
]]> ReadStatus9191346987 Sat, 15 Mar 2025 19:00:34 -0700 /review/show/7406596685 Boria is currently reading The Usual Path to Publication: 27 stories about 27 ways in by Shannon Page
]]> ReadStatus9166699935 Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:48:07 -0700 /review/show/7389470836 Boria is currently reading Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard by Joan E. Strassmann
]]> ReadStatus9151887240 Wed, 05 Mar 2025 18:10:36 -0800 /review/show/7379189037 Boria is currently reading The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
]]> Review7077683786 Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:25:40 -0800 /review/show/7077683786 Boria gave 4 stars to Star 111 (Kindle Edition) by Lutz Seiler
Vergangenheitsbewältigung or “mastering the past� has been the major theme of post-World War II German literature in both East and West. It is a confessional mode of writing in which the protagonist acknowledges some participation in Nazism ̶ or, if he or she is younger, participation of parents - in order to move forward. Essentially, this is a call for unrelenting honesty, but, like other literary approaches, it can become formulaic and mechanical. It can even take the form of making false confessions to conceal what one really did. The major advocate of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the East was Christa Wolf, who was concealing her early work for the Stasi, the East German secret police. The major advocate in the West was Günter Grass, who hid his membership in Himmler’s Waffen SS.

In his novel Star III, Lutz Seiler practices a very different kind of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Like many German writers, he tells a lot through flashbacks, but now the unacknowledged events have just about nothing to do with the Nazi period. It is the story of an aspiring poet named Carl, set just before the end of East Germany, when the government was collapsing. There was no recognized central authority, and the Stasi was going rogue. Laws were only sporadically enforced, in ways that opened vast possibilities for social experimentation.

Carl’s parents, Walter and Inge, abruptly abandon their rural home when the border with West Germany opens briefly. They leave Carl in charge of their domain, but he goes to East Berlin, where he leads a chaotic life in the counter-culture. He supports himself for a time as an unregistered cab driver, hooks up with a girl he had secretly adored in high school, and participates in an anarchist project of taking over abandoned buildings.

In the German story we are accustomed to, the reticence of the parents about their past would be due to participation in Nazi Crimes. In this story, much the opposite is true. The parents were heroes, not for their politics but for their devotion to culture. His mother, Inge, was a splendid dancer. His father, Walter, was an accordion player, who had, or might have had, an opportunity to play rock n� roll with Bill Haley and the Comets. Their dreams were cut short by the separation of the two Germanys. In their mid-fifties when the border reopened, they moved to West Germany and then Los Angeles to essentially take up where they left off.

The parents are spectacularly successful, but Carl is not so fortunate. As the chaos in East Berlin spirals out of control, he is briefly drawn into a criminal underworld. He loses his girl, sees his commune disintegrate, and witnesses the mental and physical destruction of many companions. As the novel ends, he looks back sadly but wistfully at all that has transpired. He realizes that his love of poetry does not confer on him a special status. But the reader can hope that his newly acquired wisdom will lead to a better future.

Karl’s parents are, in my opinion, idealized almost to the point of absurdity, and so is the era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Star III is not an exquisitely crafted novel. The early chapters, especially, are a series of loosely connected vignettes, and there is not much of a plot. The novel documents a largely forgotten era, and so, in part because it appears not to be extensively edited, it may be of special interest to historians. Several passages are poetic and insightful. I hesitated a bit on whether to rate it with a three or a four, but, since authenticity is more important than technical polish, I opted for the latter. ]]> Review7365724261 Sat, 01 Mar 2025 10:16:20 -0800 /review/show/7365724261 Boria gave 3 stars to Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History from Cave Art to Conservation (Kindle Edition) by Tim Birkhead
A memoir, not a history

This book is more a memoir of the author’s life as an ornithologist than a history. It is informative and engagingly written, but, apart from the broad subject of ornithology, has no unifying theme.
]]> ReadStatus8999797158 Thu, 30 Jan 2025 04:56:28 -0800 /review/show/7272254727 Boria is currently reading Franz Kafkas Glauben und Lehre: Kafka und Tolstoi. Eine Studie by Max Brod
]]> Review7258303349 Sun, 26 Jan 2025 06:12:05 -0800 /review/show/7258303349 Boria gave 5 stars to Another Country (Kindle Edition) by James Baldwin
]]> ReadStatus8892829856 Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:28:13 -0800 /review/show/7186754647 Boria finished reading Wings of the Gods: Birds in the World's Religions by Peter (Petra) Gardella
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