Here we are on week eleven. 1967 is quickly coming to a close, but let’s enjoy the last couple of months!
As usual, thanks to everyone who comments! Please keep going, however it works best for you!
Here is the post for any and all discussions about passages from October 30 – November 5, 1967.
For the main page of this read-along, please go here.
November 1st – an intriguing entry describing Marie’s guilt at having abandoned her party where she was going to invite her black friend.
I think I like the entries that involve Marie the most.
I enjoyed the Nov. 1 entry and all of the descriptions of a past NYC Halloween. I agree that I am intrigued and interested the most in Marie’s story development.
I loved the entry on October 25th with the tape recorder conversation about Francine and how Marie drops the news in a sly way to avoid getting Gesine’s full reaction, and now it’s been a week and no one has changed minds.
This is the longest novel I’ve completed (despite everything I have volume 6 of Proust to peruse) and I delighted in each and every page of it. Johnson recounts to the account of German settler Gesine Cresspahl each day in turn from August 1967 through August 1968. It’s anything but a journal. Or maybe, Johnson fills every section with a blend from three unique topics or story lines.
Am I correct in thinking that the Nov 3 entry was the first where Johnson actually depicted and named the character Uwe Johnson?
Yes, I think you are correct, Sam. I was a little confused with that entry. I think I just don’t understand all the references and perhaps the author made some assumptions about his readers, i.e. what they know.
Yes Uwe Johnson appeared in October 28th (did he before?) but we only know that is who ‘Comrade Writer’ is on Nov 3rd
I’d noticed that ‘Comrade Writer’ tag, too, and it recurs in later sections (I’ve now finished the whole novel). I too found this reference about the Jewish American Congress in a hotel obscure. I mean, yes, it’s all about the aftermath of what the Nazis did, and how some of them remained in power – in plain sight – long after the end of the war – Nov 3 entry begins with the caustic comment that the Chancellor of W Germany, ‘formerly a member and public official of the Nazis, has named as his government’s new spokesman a former member and public official of the Nazis.’ Yet the Oct. 31 section opens with the story of two former SS officers being imprisoned for their crimes at a concentration camp. The disparity here is pretty clear. But I still find the omission of narrative means I feel I miss much of the significance of what’s going on – just get the big picture, in a way. And I find that kind of frustrating. Don’t think it’s through lack of trying, or of concentration. Same with the girl described in yesterday’s entry, Nov. 5. She’s not called Marjorie, and seems about to die. Who is she? And why does the city of NY appear to apologise to Gesine at the end of that entry for any harm or suffering it’s caused her? In what way was this ‘a mistake’? Is this just personification? Am I missing something, just reading inadequately?
Later on in the novel Gesine & Marie go for a walk and say “Maybe we were looking for Marjorie (if Mrs Cresspehl, the city of New York has ever done you harm or made you suffer….)” so there seems to be a connection between Marjorie and the city’s apology – but what I am unsure.