A review by marc129
Not a Novel: A Memoir in Pieces by Jenny Erpenbeck

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

For some time now, Jenny Erpenbeck (° 1967) is one of the better German writers. Her novels are not always easy to read, but they are always worth it. This is a non-fiction book, with a collection of lectures she gave on various themes. To begin with, the struggle with her East German past: like no other, Erpenbeck puts into words how traumatic the sudden disappearance of the GDR was, as if part of her own identity was cut off, and how derogatory the attitude of many Westerners still is about that past. She links this, as in her beautiful novel Go, Went, Gone, to how disruptive the life of illegal refugees in today's Germany must be. And she immediately opens that up to how life can fundamentally change for each of us from one moment to the next, and how that affects our own identity: “We know that transformations lie before us, we know that transformations lie behind us, and we know, according to scientific findings, that the present belongs to us for precisely 3 seconds before it plunges down the throat of the past. That means that every 3 seconds, we produce ourselves again as strangers. What should I say, then, when I’m asked to say who I am?” 

The most clever contributions in this book are about language, literature, and especially the act of writing. In very thoughtful, slowly digging circular movements, Erpenbeck exposes what a phenomenally given language is, and how literature both creates reality and exposes the unfathomability of that reality: “Literature tells us that what we know is never the whole truth, but literature also tells us that the whole truth is waiting for us, if only we could read. And with that, it begins to teach us to read, even if that lesson requires more time to learn than we have in our own lifetimes. It also teaches us — and here I include myself as a writer — that the truth never ends where we want it to end.” For Erpenbeck, the pinnacle of literature can be found on stage, where an inimitable play takes place between actions, words and silences, which can only be compared to music: “And so in silence, in every silence that is not dead and empty, but rather filled to the brim with what is truly essential, literature and music meet. Both literature and music are closely connected to this silence, in their essence they are nothing but interpretations of this silence, at least insofar as they aim to arrive at something like truth. And both music and literature — which creates sounds in our minds, even when we are reading silently — have the privilege that they can take those things that cannot or will not be spoken of directly, and make them audible in other ways.” This book is chock full of reflections and contemplations that testify to a very alert, empathic mind. Highly recommended.