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Reuter in Eisenach
German
239 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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April 1, 2019I've heard it said that some physicists believe that there are a multitude of universes, each differing from this one perhaps at a single point at the Quantum level. It's easy to imagine reading a book like this that in some of those universes I am an editor, so strong is the feeling in me that I ought to have a red pen in my hand as I worked through it.
The central idea was to explore the life of Fritz Reuter's years in Eisenach through the letters of his doctor to another doctor who for unexplained reasons of his own is interested in hearing about Reuter (and here we hit the first problem). Interspersed are interludes in which the author in his present writes about the Reuter Museum in Eisenach, or a visit to a doctor specialising in alcohol dependency (which Reuter suffered from), even an encounter with a shirt stiffener of Reuter's and so on.
As a model this is ok. The attraction of the letter format is clear but the tone and motivation need to be convincing. The problem is that they aren't. Why would there be a correspondence between two people about a third that is strictly linear and doesn't flit backwards and forwards over the relationship? There was a further problem in Borchert telling us that the historical doctor Schwabe died before Reuter yet including a long diary section in which he visits Mecklenburg after Reuter's death. I liked the interspersed sections but they felt a little too loose since collectively they didn't trend in a fixed or certain direction.
The book was written in the closing years of the DDR and published by Hinstorff who had been Reuter's publisher in the nineteenth century. The references to Hinstorff are fine, by reading the text I suspected that the political requirements of the time rather than characterisation shaped the Doctor's opinion (and horror at Reuter's sudden patriotism) on the Franco-Prussian war.
Aside from that a gentle, easy read, surprisingly so seeing as it dealt with an alcoholic author far from his native land who wrote in an idiom that he couldn't speak or hear spoken around him.
The central idea was to explore the life of Fritz Reuter's years in Eisenach through the letters of his doctor to another doctor who for unexplained reasons of his own is interested in hearing about Reuter (and here we hit the first problem). Interspersed are interludes in which the author in his present writes about the Reuter Museum in Eisenach, or a visit to a doctor specialising in alcohol dependency (which Reuter suffered from), even an encounter with a shirt stiffener of Reuter's and so on.
As a model this is ok. The attraction of the letter format is clear but the tone and motivation need to be convincing. The problem is that they aren't. Why would there be a correspondence between two people about a third that is strictly linear and doesn't flit backwards and forwards over the relationship? There was a further problem in Borchert telling us that the historical doctor Schwabe died before Reuter yet including a long diary section in which he visits Mecklenburg after Reuter's death. I liked the interspersed sections but they felt a little too loose since collectively they didn't trend in a fixed or certain direction.
The book was written in the closing years of the DDR and published by Hinstorff who had been Reuter's publisher in the nineteenth century. The references to Hinstorff are fine, by reading the text I suspected that the political requirements of the time rather than characterisation shaped the Doctor's opinion (and horror at Reuter's sudden patriotism) on the Franco-Prussian war.
Aside from that a gentle, easy read, surprisingly so seeing as it dealt with an alcoholic author far from his native land who wrote in an idiom that he couldn't speak or hear spoken around him.
Displaying 1 of 1 review