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A review by robin_go
Adam und Evelyn by Ingo Schulze
3.0
Fundamentally it's a 'dysfunctional relationship' novel set against the backdrop of the fall of the iron curtain. I liked how the characters were *not* absolutely in the thick of the action. It would have been overly-convenient and twee to have them present at the Pan-European Picnic or taking bricks from the Berlin Wall. I ought to say it's a period and place in history that very much interests me anyway, so I found it a page-turner.
The female characters are very believably written and it's very well translated by John E. Woods.
However...and here's the "but".....it's more like a radio drama than a novel and that's very much it's downfall. It's told very much through dialogue at the expense of giving us much visual description of people or place. What does the Angyal's house look like? What does Pepi look like beyond a surface description? We don't fully get to know as there is little fleshing-out and there are no internal monologues to help us work out *why* characters are behaving the way they are, particularly when one of the lead's behaviour becomes, latterly, more puzzling.
Also it's often, frustratingly, hard to tell who is speaking, even when only two people are present. This dawns on you when you realize a character has the capacity of saying two sentences in a row, breaking a back-and-forth that you thought you had the measure of.
It starts out like a road-movie with the focus firmly on one of the two leads and you are pretty convinced that's going to be the viewpoint for the remainder. But then there is a scene in which the character that we have been faithfully following is not present (it's a jump-cut to a scene with just Evelyn and Michael in a bedroom I think) and this is very discombobulating.
I have a feeling that, with the introduction of a 'Gideon Bible' device, the author was trying to get us to see an allegory in it all, but I couldn't get a handle on what we were supposed to conclude from Genesis in relation to events and actions that have unfolded.
I *did* enjoy it, but it's not without it's frustrations.
The female characters are very believably written and it's very well translated by John E. Woods.
However...and here's the "but".....it's more like a radio drama than a novel and that's very much it's downfall. It's told very much through dialogue at the expense of giving us much visual description of people or place. What does the Angyal's house look like? What does Pepi look like beyond a surface description? We don't fully get to know as there is little fleshing-out and there are no internal monologues to help us work out *why* characters are behaving the way they are, particularly when one of the lead's behaviour becomes, latterly, more puzzling.
Also it's often, frustratingly, hard to tell who is speaking, even when only two people are present. This dawns on you when you realize a character has the capacity of saying two sentences in a row, breaking a back-and-forth that you thought you had the measure of.
It starts out like a road-movie with the focus firmly on one of the two leads and you are pretty convinced that's going to be the viewpoint for the remainder. But then
I have a feeling that, with the introduction of a 'Gideon Bible' device, the author was trying to get us to see an allegory in it all, but I couldn't get a handle on what we were supposed to conclude from Genesis in relation to events and actions that have unfolded.
I *did* enjoy it, but it's not without it's frustrations.