Reviews

Flight of Ashes by Monika Maron

jkline's review

reflective

3.0

acciodawn's review against another edition

3.0

I had to sprint through this book because I was writing a paper on it and the deadline was fast-approaching (Mind you, this is the first full-blown novel I read in German). It's not the best way to read and appreciate a novel, but well, I think I still managed to appreciate it all the same. The history of East Germany is fascinating to me and this book offered illuminating insight into the censorship and oppression carried out by the government to maintain a pristine public image. What I thought was done most artfully was the dwindling of the first-person narrator and protagonist to a mere "Comrade" that has betrayed the Socialist Party. The erasure of her identity and personality reflected the censorship and silencing of citizens brilliantly. The imagery in this book was also quite striking, especially the "flight of ashes" raining on a city with clean windows and children wearing white stockings.
What I didn't like in this book is that I thought it dragged on quite unnecessarily at parts and for that reason it was at times difficult to get through (even when I had the pressure of finishing it within a deadline).