A review by katrindettmer
Das Narrenschiff by Christoph Hein

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I really wanted to love this novel as its themes are of utmost interest to me but I grew more and more frustrated with it. Christoph Hein sets out to narrate a panorama of the German Democratic Republic, from the end of World War II to the time of re-unification and introduces a relatively stable group of characters, which he follows chronologically throughout the decades on 750 pages. And while this project sounds so wonderful, Hein is unfortunately not up to the task. He is no Leo Tolstoy. He is no George Eliot. I found it impossible to care about characters that are merely sketched: Hein is not interested in psychology at all or he is not able to write it. While some characters like Kathinka or Benaja were fascinating creations that could have profoundly connected the reader to the stories, Hein maintains an almost uninterested gaze at them. Some characters like Johannes or Yvonne have the potentiality for a complexity connected to their biographies but Hein betrays this promise by not venturing into the psyche of his creations or instead comes up with narrative explanations that are superficial and bordering on the cliché, especially when it comes to the women in his story. He postulates the toxic relationship between mother Yvonne and daughter Kathinka but never delivers in narration, which is very disappointing. 

The first two thirds of his novel focus in depth on the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, thereby leaving the 1970s and 1980s for comparatively fewer chapters, and the writing itself also seems to lose some steam towards the end: while at the beginning some historical events like the 1953 uprising are dealt with in detail, historically important markers of the later decades like the expatriation of Wolf Biermann or the Chernobyl disaster are not mentioned at all; glasnost and perestroika are only hinted at. Even the events of the late 1980s, the growing civil reform movements, the Monday demonstrations as well as the opening of the Wall are written about briefly with a strange distance and without any emotionality. While there may be a critique of rising unemployment and consumerism and the accelerated destruction of East German economy after the opening of the border to West Germany, the developments regarding the Runde Tisch and Treuhand are not discussed. Instead, Hein finds a rather powerful final image suggesting a disconnection from the past of the GDR. This would have been a powerful question to explore: what happens when the people try to avoid dealing with past? Not only regarding the current political climate in Germany but also considering the beginning of the GDR and indeed the novel, especially as there is no substantial writing about the Shoah or the crimes committed during the Second World War. I find this completely mystifying and in fact irresponsible. One could say that this was the case of the GDR, not in fact dealing with the crimes and legacies of the National Socialist dictatorship - but Hein does not even venture to point this out as a problem or a shortcoming of the GDR's policy in dealing with the past. His character Johannes, a fervent Nazi who becomes a Communist, would have been an important case study of real interest but Hein does not seem interested in really looking at the fallout of his character's story or what this means for the legacy of the GDR. On the other hand, he hammers home several times why he named his novel The Ship of Fools but it remains merely a declaration, not something to offer the readers to consider. In fact, the novel offers nothing new in looking at the GDR or its people: much better and more complex stories and novels have already been written. Even the generational question is rather predictable and not nuanced at all, partly because the generation of the grandchildren is not really inquired into: the reader is merely informed about their names. Nor does the novel raise any new questions or offer fresh perspectives: it simply seems to be satisfied with diagnosing that the project of the GDR started with high idealism (which in itself I find debatable) in order to grow into an abomination, directed by people whom - interestingly enough - we never meet in the novel: they remain in the shadows while Hein’s characters bemoan that they are not listened to without any glimmer of self-critique (while the East-German practice of self-criticism is also only mentioned in passing without a focused inquiry). 

And finally, I am flabbergasted by some editing choices, which made me wonder numerous times whether there had been editing at all: there are so many repetitions and redundancies (e.g. characters having the same conversations twice without apparently remembering the earlier conversation, or the same points being made over and over again), errors in chronology (and with that a sometimes bizarre order of chapters), blatant contradictions from one chapter to the next (and not to create narrative complexity but again simply errors), and the occasional typos. 

I am quite frankly amazed that I read the entire novel but I wanted to be sure that these were not just some isolated instances. Hein spends 750 very long pages without going into any depth at all. Thus, I recommend to read War & Peace and Middlemarch instead and be taken seriously as a thinking and feeling reader.