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Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
1 review
will_foster's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
By far the best book I've read this year. I loved it from beginning to end. This seems like an odd thing to say for a book that explores some very human and sad stories, but it really was excellent.
When I was growing up, I had this idea that the Stasi were some buffoon-ish group, not as brutal as the NKVD or Cheka, and in some ways I was right; in others, so very wrong. I was aware the Stasi knew everything about almost everyone, following you and writing reports of almost everything you did, but I did not fully appreciate the depths they would go. Ruining lives, marriages and careers, all because you weren't moulded into the perfect 'socialist man' (I love that section, it made so much sense suddenly how the GDR could come to be and exist). They 'grey' men all did what they did because people wouldn't conform and the effects are still felt in many people today.
On the other hand, they were also buffoon-ish. They acted like overly serious school bullies but, as one person showed, you could shut the door in their face as long as you made the mandatory appointment at some point in the day. The stasi man would just wait for hours until you reappeared some point later in the day.
This book drew me in so much. Funder's prose and journeys and encounters are so captivating, insightful, harrowing and beautiful that it's difficult to write something coherent without wanting to talk about everything we hear about.
I think ultimately, Stasiland is a masterpiece of providing the human face behind the GDR. I felt sorry for the people whose lives were affected by the regime and have to live with the consequences. I also felt sorry for the former GDR and Stasi men whose way of life just vanished over a short time and now view the world bitterly, or as though they're stuck in a way of life hostile and incompatible with them. You feel for all in East Germany and in a book under 300 pages long, that's an absolute triumph.
The final section is an excellent conclusion that I simply couldn't ignore To know that the memorabilia, artefacts, very way of life of the GDR was so quickly put behind museum glass screamed of the federal republic's wish to forget this episode of history. An embarrassing failed state of communism, best to leave it to history. By doing so, so quickly after the regime fell, made it feel as though it was distant history, but people affected, maybe still to this day, exist. The effects of the GDR for them will maybe never go away. You can't just put their life behind glass, implying it's all over now and can be forgotten about. It will never heal that way. Hopefully, now after decades of reunification, efforts have been to heal and comfort the people affected who needed it.
When I was growing up, I had this idea that the Stasi were some buffoon-ish group, not as brutal as the NKVD or Cheka, and in some ways I was right; in others, so very wrong. I was aware the Stasi knew everything about almost everyone, following you and writing reports of almost everything you did, but I did not fully appreciate the depths they would go. Ruining lives, marriages and careers, all because you weren't moulded into the perfect 'socialist man' (I love that section, it made so much sense suddenly how the GDR could come to be and exist). They 'grey' men all did what they did because people wouldn't conform and the effects are still felt in many people today.
On the other hand, they were also buffoon-ish. They acted like overly serious school bullies but, as one person showed, you could shut the door in their face as long as you made the mandatory appointment at some point in the day. The stasi man would just wait for hours until you reappeared some point later in the day.
This book drew me in so much. Funder's prose and journeys and encounters are so captivating, insightful, harrowing and beautiful that it's difficult to write something coherent without wanting to talk about everything we hear about.
I think ultimately, Stasiland is a masterpiece of providing the human face behind the GDR. I felt sorry for the people whose lives were affected by the regime and have to live with the consequences. I also felt sorry for the former GDR and Stasi men whose way of life just vanished over a short time and now view the world bitterly, or as though they're stuck in a way of life hostile and incompatible with them. You feel for all in East Germany and in a book under 300 pages long, that's an absolute triumph.
The final section is an excellent conclusion that I simply couldn't ignore
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Rape
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