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3.5 stars
Christa Wolf is one of the most interesting figures I’ve encountered. Her brilliant books and gifts as a writer and artist aside, her way of looking at life—her constant self-examination in effort to understand oneself, even under immense pressures, is fascinating. To look back at the past, at the self that you once were, and still are, to use the knowledge and experience acquired from that period to assess and learn more about yourself, beyond the guilt and regret one might feel, sounds like a fine way of living.
This non-fiction book from her, comprising a journal entry, book reviews, an art show review, speeches, letters, interviews, and essays came after the dissolution of the GDR, also known formerly as East Germany. A nation that sprung from socialist hopes after the end of the second world war and the horrors of Nazism were revealed, and later with the souring of the utopian dream that led to the collapse of the state after its citizens lost hope in the regime. So, in a way this book is a historical document recording the events leading to the collapse of the nation and its aftermath, interweaving Christa Wolf’s own conflicts, some of those being inner conflicts, as a writer and intellectual from East Germany, and the political happenings in Germany in the early 90s.
After the GDR collapses and Germany unifies it emerges that the Stasi, the East German secret police, had conducted surveillance and maintained files on millions of its civilians (incredible how many nations do this today to little outrage, how we’ve been made to think it normal, and so reading the well placed outrage of the Stasi’s operations in this context was fascinating knowing how much individual rights that ought to protect against surveillance have eroded over the years) and building a sinister system where a big portion of its population worked as informants against each other. Christa Wolf learns what she’d known for years: that for three decades she had been under constant surveillance. She decides to finally publish a short story about it that she’d written years prior but couldn’t publish while the GDR existed as it was, and is met with accusations of cowardice and complicity. She is said to have been the “state poet” who took pride in her status and was silent about the GDR government’s wrongs. Of course part of the reason for the attack was Christa Wolf’s early caution during the unification, and the belief that a dissolved GDR could still be worked so that the people’s vision could still be realised, and criticism of Federal Germany’s mistakes in the process of integration. Also, the fact that the accusations were false, that Christa Wolf’s criticisms of certain GDR conduct had been clearly documented, and the consequences she faced including censorship, and, as it later emerged, she became viewed as an enemy of the state. Despite all these attacks, Christa Wolf aims to find out how things came to be as they were in the GDR. And so a good portion of this book consists of Wolf trying to explain “things as they were”, and was quite frantic.
What makes this situation even more interesting is that in a total of 6 meetings, 3 of which Christa Wolf stated that she didn’t know the information she gave was being given to a Stasi agent who had actually been a family friend, from 1959 to 1962, Christa Wolf was an informant for the Stasi under the codename “Margarete”. Although she didn’t provide damaging information, and was thought to be unforthcoming with what she gave. A period which Christa Wolf claimed she suppressed, but was effectively weaponized to discredit her integrity and work and self further after the unification. Strangely enough it is after these revelations that Christa Wolf achieves a level of lucidity that misses prior in the book. She remarks in an interview shortly after her files as a collaborator are made public: “That I no longer have to hide this business, which of course has troubled me, this file; that I can now talk openly with everyone about it.”
The one part that made for an uncomfortable read was when Wolf uses a racial slur, not to denigrate, but in order to show the growing racism and xenophobia in Germany during that period. A blind spot that isn’t wholly unique to her: Lessing, Rhys, and other well meaning white writers had the same issue. Perhaps reading more Black writers and their thoughts on the subject could have remedied this drawback, and this criticism of Wolf, or the other writers, isn’t necessarily condemnation. Especially as a writer and individual whose main purpose was to learn and understand herself and others.
A very intriguing part of this book was that some material from here later becomes Christa Wolf’s final book City of Angels, which also deals with the writer coming to terms with her past, particularly the suppressed Stasi meetings. Fascinating because although I did know that Wolf’s fiction drew from her life, I didn’t know the extent. Watching the film “Time Loops: In Conversation With Christa Wolf” while reading this enriched the experience, and I’d recommend it to anyone who can access it (it’s on Kanopy, probably on other platforms too).
Christa Wolf is one of the most interesting figures I’ve encountered. Her brilliant books and gifts as a writer and artist aside, her way of looking at life—her constant self-examination in effort to understand oneself, even under immense pressures, is fascinating. To look back at the past, at the self that you once were, and still are, to use the knowledge and experience acquired from that period to assess and learn more about yourself, beyond the guilt and regret one might feel, sounds like a fine way of living.
This non-fiction book from her, comprising a journal entry, book reviews, an art show review, speeches, letters, interviews, and essays came after the dissolution of the GDR, also known formerly as East Germany. A nation that sprung from socialist hopes after the end of the second world war and the horrors of Nazism were revealed, and later with the souring of the utopian dream that led to the collapse of the state after its citizens lost hope in the regime. So, in a way this book is a historical document recording the events leading to the collapse of the nation and its aftermath, interweaving Christa Wolf’s own conflicts, some of those being inner conflicts, as a writer and intellectual from East Germany, and the political happenings in Germany in the early 90s.
After the GDR collapses and Germany unifies it emerges that the Stasi, the East German secret police, had conducted surveillance and maintained files on millions of its civilians (incredible how many nations do this today to little outrage, how we’ve been made to think it normal, and so reading the well placed outrage of the Stasi’s operations in this context was fascinating knowing how much individual rights that ought to protect against surveillance have eroded over the years) and building a sinister system where a big portion of its population worked as informants against each other. Christa Wolf learns what she’d known for years: that for three decades she had been under constant surveillance. She decides to finally publish a short story about it that she’d written years prior but couldn’t publish while the GDR existed as it was, and is met with accusations of cowardice and complicity. She is said to have been the “state poet” who took pride in her status and was silent about the GDR government’s wrongs. Of course part of the reason for the attack was Christa Wolf’s early caution during the unification, and the belief that a dissolved GDR could still be worked so that the people’s vision could still be realised, and criticism of Federal Germany’s mistakes in the process of integration. Also, the fact that the accusations were false, that Christa Wolf’s criticisms of certain GDR conduct had been clearly documented, and the consequences she faced including censorship, and, as it later emerged, she became viewed as an enemy of the state. Despite all these attacks, Christa Wolf aims to find out how things came to be as they were in the GDR. And so a good portion of this book consists of Wolf trying to explain “things as they were”, and was quite frantic.
What makes this situation even more interesting is that in a total of 6 meetings, 3 of which Christa Wolf stated that she didn’t know the information she gave was being given to a Stasi agent who had actually been a family friend, from 1959 to 1962, Christa Wolf was an informant for the Stasi under the codename “Margarete”. Although she didn’t provide damaging information, and was thought to be unforthcoming with what she gave. A period which Christa Wolf claimed she suppressed, but was effectively weaponized to discredit her integrity and work and self further after the unification. Strangely enough it is after these revelations that Christa Wolf achieves a level of lucidity that misses prior in the book. She remarks in an interview shortly after her files as a collaborator are made public: “That I no longer have to hide this business, which of course has troubled me, this file; that I can now talk openly with everyone about it.”
The one part that made for an uncomfortable read was when Wolf uses a racial slur, not to denigrate, but in order to show the growing racism and xenophobia in Germany during that period. A blind spot that isn’t wholly unique to her: Lessing, Rhys, and other well meaning white writers had the same issue. Perhaps reading more Black writers and their thoughts on the subject could have remedied this drawback, and this criticism of Wolf, or the other writers, isn’t necessarily condemnation. Especially as a writer and individual whose main purpose was to learn and understand herself and others.
A very intriguing part of this book was that some material from here later becomes Christa Wolf’s final book City of Angels, which also deals with the writer coming to terms with her past, particularly the suppressed Stasi meetings. Fascinating because although I did know that Wolf’s fiction drew from her life, I didn’t know the extent. Watching the film “Time Loops: In Conversation With Christa Wolf” while reading this enriched the experience, and I’d recommend it to anyone who can access it (it’s on Kanopy, probably on other platforms too).
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