Last Trolley from Beethovenstraat

by Grete Weil, John Barrett (Translator)

"Riveting, extraordinary..."― Kirkus This haunting novel of memory, guilt, and cultural identity is by one of Germany's most respected modern novelists. The story revolves around Andreas, a poet, who lives with his wealthy bride, Susanne, in postwar Germany. But although surrounded by the trappings of success, Andreas is haunted by the memory of Susanne's younger brother, Daniel, whom he had sheltered in Amsterdam, but who was eventually killed by the Gestapo. The war over, Andreas rebuilds his life in the "new" Germany, trying to recapture Daniel through marriage to his sister. But he is unable to forget Daniel, and must return to Holland to confront his memories of the past.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, German Literature, Holocaust, World Literature, Literature

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Grete Weil was born in Munich in 1906, the daughter of a Jewish lawyer. When the Nazis came to power, she emigrated to Holland with her husband, the playwright and director Edgar Weil. In 1941, Edgar was arrested; he later died in a concentration camp. Grete went into hiding, and it was then that she began to write, first theater pieces, then fiction. After the war, she returned to Germany, and eventually settled near her native Munich, where she lived from 1947 until her death, at age 93, in 1996. She was the author of five novels, a memoir, and several collections of short fiction. The German original of Aftershocks was first published in Zurich in 1992.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Let’s just begin with the simplest statement: Grete Weil’s Last Trolley from Beethovenstraat is just really good. Readers of the novella form need to take note of this tightly written, 160 page booklet. Naturally there are not enough bells and whistles to get me jumping up and down, but what it does it does with economy. The language is perhaps ‘taut’, the opposite of the balloon, containing nary a simile, likely no metaphors, but just the right thing. The plot weaves together the two temporal positions of our protagonist (a poet) -- his time of revisiting in order to reconstruct his past in German occupied Amsterdam and his time in Amsterdam doing his damnedest to be one of the Good Germans -- in a most concise manner and without unnecessary temporal markers (clearly my favorite aspect, this structuring). And, given the conventionality of this novella, one must mention its characters which are drawn, again with the economy of a short-form, with sharp distinction.

Which all sounds like ticking off a number of boxes. But isn’t that required when speaking of a ‘craft’? Weil has that craft. Perhaps she doesn’t perform the kind of exploding of craft which her fellow-holocaust writer Raymond Federman does ; but can every individual pursuing a craft seek to explode the parameters of that craft? And speaking of Federman and holocaust writings ; why are folks like Federman and Weil BURIED? And why exactly have I found myself reading so many holocaust/WWII novels? -- Europe Central, Omega Minor, Beethovenstraat, Federman’s One Novel..... And more sit on my shelf, all without having any particular interest in that particular About.





Upon stumbling upon this beautifully sculpted verba mundi for one usofa dollar, I said ::
_____________________
So I don't know who Grete Weil is. But she's German. And this unread book was found at a Goodwill, English published by David R Godine who has published Gass, Theroux, etc back in the day and still puts out attractive volumes.

[Hermien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goed geschreven en heel interessant, vooral als je de achtergrond van de schrijfster kent en rekening houdt met wanneer het geschreven is. Een aantal van de dingen die beschreven worden heeft ze zelf meegemaakt.

[Kaltmamsell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein kleiner, kompakter Roman, der mich überraschte. Während Weil in Der Weg zur Grenze eine Frau in den Mittelpunkt gestellt hatte, die im 3. Reich als Jüdin aus Deutschland fliehen musste (geschrieben vor Ende des Kriegs und bevor die tatsächlichen Grauen bekannt waren), steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Romans von 1963 ein deutscher Nicht-Jude, Nicht-Verfolgter: Andreas, ein Schriftsteller. Die Geschichte erzählt auf zwei Zeitebenen. Sie beginnt in Nachkriegs-München, wo er mit seiner reichen Frau wohnt, einer Holocaust-Überlebenden ("das Vermögen ihrer vergasten Eltern war enorm und sie die einzige Erbin" - dieser Satz setzt ziemlich am Anfang eine zynische Note, die immer wieder erklingt). Andreas soll wieder schreiben, aber er kann nicht mehr.

Die zweite Zeitebende führt zu dem Moment, in dem Andreas und diese Frau ein Paar werden: In Amsterdam, wohin Andreas im Krieg als Korrespondent einer Münchner Zeitung geschickt wurde - und wo er Nacht für Nacht miterlebt, wie Hunderte Juden per Tram nach Osten deportiert werden. Er schließt sich zaghaft dem lokalen Widerstand an. Die Erzählstimme bleibt konsequent bei Andreas und seiner Zerbrochenheit in der Gegenwart: Zerbrochen an dem, was er als Zeuge erlebte, und zerbrochen am Hadern, wie viel er davon hätte verhindern können - das las sich für mich in unserer "Nie wieder ist jetzt"-Gegenwart sehr aktuell.

Mir war sehr bewusst, dass der Roman auch ein Zeitzeugnis ist: Grete Weil lebte selbst in Amsterdam im Exil und engagierte sich im Widerstand, diese Alltagsdetails sind wahrscheinlich authentisch.

Es wechseln sich romantisch gefühlige und reflektierte Innensichten ab mit dokumentarischen Nebenbemerkungen, u.a. darüber, dass selbst die jüdische Exilgemeinschaft in Amsterdam erst nach dem Krieg das Ausmaß der Vernichtung in den KZ begriff, vorher zum Teil eisern an der Propaganda vom "Arbeitslager" festhielt. Die Figuren des Romans sind vielfältig und vielschichtig, die Sympathien sind keineswegs nach Opfer-Täter verteilt. Ein Stück wichtige Nachkriegsliteratur.

[Daniel Winnick · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is short, but not as short as I would have liked.

I began reading with high hopes—at least with the expectation that I would be able to see the Holocaust from the perspective of a German émigré who lived during that time.

Unfortunately—and maybe it is unfair to judge this 1963 novella by reference to non-fiction and fiction written in the ensuing six decades during which there was time both for academic research and for soul-searching—Grete Weil has nothing new to say with this book.

Even more unfortunately—and it’s impossible for me to say how much fault lies with the translator, a former cardiologist—the book also is rife with maudlin, unnecessary purple prose, inconsistent characterization (at one point, the protagonist inexplicably finds himself on a therapist’s couch and starts babbling about the state of the wallpaper—which is utterly irreconcilable with everything we’ve known of his personality up to that point), unpleasant side-characters whose unpleasantness in better hands might have been played for comic effect but which instead simply challenges the reader’s patience…

The persistent theme of the book is that the atrocities of the Holocaust were too unspeakable to be written about effectively, and more broadly, were too horrible to be remembered and atoned-for by the German people. I hope that changed with the generations; if Weil’s frustration was shared by others in German society in the 1960s, then perhaps this book serves as a (massively flawed) historical artifact.

But, as literature—even at a scant 160 pages—it is not worth one’s time.

[Godine Publisher & Black Sparrow Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Riveting, extraordinary, valuable, unusual."
- Kirkus Reviews

[Gian Alpuche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Explores the emotion toll that is associated the with feeling of not having done enough.