A review by admorobo
The New Sorrows of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf

2.0

I rarely review books, but I felt an explanation was necessary for my rating of "The New Sorrows of Young W." by Ulrich Plenzdorf. Overall, I felt the montage structure, coupled with the first-person narrative detracted from what could have been a much stronger work. Plenzdorf takes the Bildungsroman style to an extreme, and the work suffers accordingly: Characters are never developed, places and settings never described, events occur without any sort of meaningful arc or trajectory. When this genre works, it's because its narrators are compelling and offer something of themselves to the reader. By contrast, Edgar's consistent aloofness and conversational use of slang was more of a distraction and added nothing of substance to the story in the way that similar books have. I felt as though the execution of the novel never lived up to its intent.