Ferdinand von SchirachReviews

Regen. Eine Liebeserklärung is a pretentious and disappointing book. The book consists of two parts: an essay of about 50 pages followed by an interview between Ferdinand von Schirach, the author, and Sven Michaelsen.

The essay starts with a series of interesting observations about writers and the way to see the world differently, but gradually an undercurrent of apparent anger and impatience takes over, and towards the end it isn't clear what the essay is about. The interview is permeated with the same anger, haughtiness, and even sarcasm. The author seems to suggest that he has not written many books, and has had a long break from writing. His obsession with himself, and his past seems to be a great source of frustration. The books mainly seems an exercise in ""navel staring". In fact, the interviewer asks him if he (the writer) knows of anything more interesting than himself.

In some ways this book does not seem to be a serious publication at all. Rather, it seems to be a teaser, to lure people to the theatre to see the author perform in a show or lecture series (the flyer doesn't say). The book was published in the first half of 2023, with "exclusive" theatre appearances starting from October 2023 till April 2024.

An intricate and intriguing novel that explores expression and creation by an artist who sees the world somewhat differently from most people. From his early childhood, where his parents were somewhat remote, Sebastian has always had an alternative view of his surroundings and he pursues this when he takes up the profession of photography, Schirach draws you into his world as Sebastián’s reputation slowly grows. But then unexpectedly he is accused of murder. At this point, the German legal system comes to the fore and the difference in the way that it operates from Britain, makes for a fascinating drama as Sebastian attempts to manipulate his defence and trial and to make it into a piece of performance art, perhaps reaching the pinnacle of his achievements.

German lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach gives us a rather gentle mystery story in The Girl Who Wasn't There. Indeed, the book is more than half over before the crime gets a mention, so it reads more like a character study of its central character, photographer Sebastian von Eschburg. Sebastian is the scion of a wealthy but loveless family, and his father committed suicide when he was still a child. He is highly idiosyncratic, uncomfortable around people, and obsessed with colour, Goya and truth. When he has an epiphany on completion of one his works, he seems to go off the rails. The story jumps a few years, and suddenly he is charged with the murder of a missing girl.

Sebastian engages gun lawyer Biegler for his defence but Biegler is nonplussed about his client's detachment and unwillingness to be straight with him. Ultimately he unravels what is going on.

von Schirach's writing style is very matter-of-fact, like journalism, which was very effective in Crime where he was recounting real-life cases. I'm not sure that it works so well here, and the book feels a bit perfunctory. As a crime novel I don't think it works, because far more emphasis is given to the lead-up and character background and not enough to the actual crime and its aftermath. The account of the investigation is not all that engaging either, and doesn't deliver any big shocks, just a gradual unfolding of what happened. It's quite bucolic in some ways. I had hoped for better after enjoying Crime so much.

Un libro di racconti legal, di un autore che onestamente non conoscevo, uno più bello dell'altro. Una piacevole scoperta, ottimo davvero.

The murder of respected German businessman Hans Meyer seems to be an open-and-shut case: the killer confessed to it. However, his motive remains a mystery. It takes his young defence counsel to bring the whole story to light --- a sad story from World War Two.
This is a short intense legal procedural novel with a poignant ending. The legal procedure is the German system which may be unfamiliar to readers used to the common law jurisdictions. Despite that it is a thought-provoking piece about morality and justification in times of war.

A hugely powerful and well-written story. This is historically interesting, and a surprising case.

Essays aus dem Spiegel, 1-2 lesenswert

Roman nach wahren Begebenheiten, crude

spannend, wenige Passagen etwas grausig, manche ergreifend

spannend, wenige Passagen etwas grausig

Was ist Wahrheit? Was ist Wirklichkeit? Wie wurden wir, wer wir sind?

Ferdinand von Schirach beschreibt in seinem neuen Buch "Strafe" zwölf Schicksale. Wie schon in den beiden Bänden "Verbrechen" und "Schuld" zeigt er, wie schwer es ist, einem Menschen gerecht zu werden und wie voreilig unsere Begriffe von "gut" und "böse" oft sind.

Ferdinand von Schirach verurteilt nie. In ruhiger, distanzierter Gelassenheit und zugleich voller Empathie erzählt er von Einsamkeit und Fremdheit, von dem Streben nach Glück und dem Scheitern. Seine Geschichten sind Erzählungen über uns selbst.

Wow. Really quirky stories.

An interesting book that gave me nightmares. We meet Fabrizio Collini, who kills Meyer in cold blood. This seems an easy case but there is clearly going to be more to this. A young attorney Caspar Leinen takes on the defence of Collini and the story unfolds. Caspar Leinen has a personal involvement with Meyer but he seeks justice. There is a lot of detail about the killing of Meyer and other atrocities so this isn't a book for everyone.

A short, but interesting, crime novel that makes comment on the German legal system.

Fabrizio Collini enters a hotel room in downtown Munich and commits a foul act namely the brutal murder of well known and respected industrialist Hans Meyer. Why should an elderly man with no previous record of assault select at random a victim and deal with in the most horrendous way. Young, newly qualified, attorney Caspar Leinen is assigned the case and he must attempt the impossible defend a man who seemingly has no defence as he happily admits to implementing the murder. This is a short read instantly grabbing the reader's attention with crisp, precise prose and a most unexpected yet perfectly executed conclusion. To say much more would spoil the delights that wait the intuitive reader as we try to unravel the legislation pertaining to a seemingly random crime. Highly recommended

Why this review now? Because last week I received from the Goethe Institut in Turin an announce that "Terror" will be on stage in Turin later this month.

I actually had the book standing on my reading list on my bookshelf since I bought and previewed it in Frankfurt in November 2017.

I found the story intriguing.

I will try to avoid spoilers extending beyond what you can read on the "blurb" on the book cover.

The story is simple, and obviously inspired by 9/11 and other events around Europe were planes were either almost shot down, or crashed into a building on purpose (Milan).

The title tells it all "Terror".

The moral conundrum is: what would you do if you had to choose between an airplane with 164 passengers, and a stadium with 70,000 people?

There are obviously a couple of holes in this question (I will discuss them in the "SPOILERS" section at the bottom of this review).

But what attracted me, as I had in the past read the 9/11 report and previously books on other life-and-death decisions in complex environments (from nuclear accidents, to NTSB reviews of accidents), is the perception on the issues.

If you are from a business or technical or political background, often you end up "sanitizing" your own perceptions of the side-effects.

I still cringe when I hear in business people that never were in the tight spot having to make decisions that weren't reversable talking of "collateral damage".

Before continuing with my review, I would like to add here a couple of references:
1. leadership under pressure https://www.librarything.com/work/9603330/book/133520940
2. the pathology of leadership https://www.librarything.com/work/7484821/book/40302140
3. the 9/11 report https://www.librarything.com/work/39409/book/79486561
4. Outbreak (the movie) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114069/

Now, the book presents various viewpoints: from observers that were within the chain of command, to relatives of those onboard.

As well as the usual interaction.

The main reason why I waited until now to read it is... the extent of my German vocabulary does not cover enough legal and military words, so I had expected that would be boring to read a book with a dictionary.

Wrong.

After the first few pages checking words, the argument itself, and the "tempo" were fast enough to turn this script into a page turner: started yesterday, completed today, just using spare time.

As I wrote above, I will postpone my criticism of a couple of points to the end, as that amounts to "spoilers".

The more interesting element of the book is the interaction of the various viewpoint, with the legal perspective being the "common sense perception".

The complexity of chain of command, the "one man decision" that triggers the book (as it starts at the beginning of the trial), and risk perception in our complex society during a "war on terror" is sometimes just hinted- probably, if it had been a novel instead of a script, many of the threads that are opened during the short exchanges would have been developed into full chapters.

That would, anyway, have altered the "tempo", so all those "question marks" are left to the reader (or the audience) as "think about it" homework.

Hence, the 3.5 stars for this book: not just for its content, but for its value as a "catalyst", a reminder that options first have to be assessed from various perspectives, then selected, not the other way around.

A "principle", to paraphrase closing pages of the script, applicable not just for life-and-death decisions, but also more mundane choices.

And now, the SPOILERS section

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The two obvious questions were:
1. why didn't they evacuate the stadium, as an half-German half-Italian friend immediately asked when I outlined the book?
2. why didn't the pilot state that the question wasn't to choose between 164 and 70,000, but between 164 and 70,000+164

Within the book itself, the first question is answered in the simplest way: a failure in chain of command in a complex environment, but reporting that, in effect, after 9/11, security procedures were updated to ensure an evacuation in a fraction of the time between the notification that an airplane was under the control of terrorists, and the estimated time of arrival at the stadium.

In both cases, with or without evacuation, the terrorist(s) would have had probably no information on the evacuation, and would have anyway dropped the plane into the building- or into another building at the last minute, if informed by their spotters on the ground (as you would have expected).

In the past, hijacking an airplane was a sick way to attract the media to whatever "cause" the terrorists were promoting, since 9/11 it is plain and simple lowering of the perception of security provided by democracies, as proved by other actions on the ground since then.

Therefore, both questions, if answered within the script, would have just added pages but not altered the moral dilemma: who gives right to dispose of the lives of others, what the State Procurator at one point describes as "Ist es nicht so, dass Sie mit Ihrer Entscheidung eine gottgleiche Stellung einnehmen?"- a God-like attitude?

There is another theme within the book, that unfortunately takes only few pages, and is outlined within the "duet" between the Prosecutor and the Defendant: another peculiarity of our society and the "war on terror" is the meaning and assessment of risk- and if risk is something that we embedded willingly into our lives since 9/11.½

Is a great book, is a fast read because is short but the cases are very interesting. I really like the narration and how he shows each of the cases sometimes with a bit of humor sometimes with a clear dry detail. The cases show us the different persons and allow us to understand the good and the bad in the people he defends, sometimes these lines seems blurry and show us that not anything is as it seems. I know that he also have two novels and I hope he continue publish more books with his cases they are really interesting. The book can be a bit longer and contain more cases. a 150 pages book is too short for all we can learn from this.

An unsettling (in a good way) and ultimately thought-provoking collection.

Kurzbeschreibung:

Ferdinand von Schirach hat es in seinem Beruf alltäglich mit Menschen zu tun, die Extremes getan oder erlebt haben. Das Ungeheuerliche ist bei ihm der Normalfall. Er vertritt Unschuldige, die mit dem Gesetz in Konflikt geraten, ebenso wie Schwerstkriminelle. Deren Geschichten erzählt er – lakonisch wie ein Raymond Carver und gerade deswegen mit unfassbarer Wucht.

Autor:

Ferdinand von Schirach, geboren 1964, arbeitet als Strafverteidiger und Schriftsteller in Berlin. Seine Storybände »Verbrechen« und »Schuld« wurden, genau wie sein erster Roman »Der Fall Collini«, zu internationalen Bestsellern. In mehr als dreißig Ländern erschienen Übersetzungen. Schirach wurde mit dem Kleist-Preis und anderen - auch internationalen - Literaturpreisen ausgezeichnet. Zuletzt veröffentlichte er im September 2013 seinen Roman »Tabu«. In seinen Essays und Reden äußert er sich regelmäßig zu großen gesellschaftspolitischen Themen.

Meine Meinung:

Bei Verbrechen handelt es sich um ein Buch das insgesamt 11 Kurzgeschichten enthält. Jede handelt davon das jemand mit dem Gesetz in Berührung kam und zumeist einen Strafverteidiger brauchte. Diese Fälle wurden von Ferdinand von Schirach vertreten. Er erzählt uns mit Verbrechen über 11 Fälle und deren Ausgang. Die erste Geschichte handelt von einem Mann, der sich mittlerweile in Ruhestand befindet, und mit jungen Jahren seine Ehe mit den Worten bis das der Tod uns scheidet besiegelte. Jetzt in seinem Ruhestand, beging er eine grausame Tat. Interessant war zu lesen wie der Fall ausging. Kurz darauf erinnerte ich mich auch, diesen Fall auch einmal im Fernsehen gesehen zu haben.

Lustig fand ich die Geschichte mit den 9 Brüdern und wie einer der Brüder versuchte, seinen Bruder damit vorm Gericht zu retten. Die Verwirrung des Richters und der Staatsanwaltschaft war richtig heraus zu lesen. Ich fand diesen Fall irgendwie recht amüsant.

In einem weiteren Fall wurde sogar ganz zum Schluss Geld gesammelt, damit der Angeklagte zurück in seine Wahlheimat reisen konnte. Da fragte ich mich ob es wirklich so etwas gibt.

Verbrechen bereitete mir angenehme Lesestunden. Da die Geschichten nicht allzu lang waren, konnte man immer eine so zwischendurch weg lesen und schon war das Buch auch beendet. Die Fälle waren interessant geschrieben und auch einfach zu lesen. Keine großen Abschweifungen sondern direkt meist auf den Punkt gebracht. Die Sätze waren nicht zu sehr in die Länge gezogen.

Wieviel Wahrheit hier nun wirklich drin steckt, ist nicht ganz klar. Ich denke allerdings das die Geschichten um die Straftaten eine Mischung aus Realität und Fiktion sind.

This author generally writes short stories, and I wondered if in this case he had been persuaded to pad one out which, if printed in a big enough typeface, could be fat enough to be priced as a novel. Certainly the autopsy scene seemed to be taking place in real time, but taught me a thing or two, and my ageing eyes appreciated the big, big print, but if I'd paid £7.99 instead of picking it up second hand, I might have felt a bit short changed.

The story concerns a murder case, in which a young lawyer is facing an uphill task defending his client who apparently shot a man in cold blood in a hotel room, and then popped downstairs and told reception what had happened before waiting for the police to show up. Whilst it was never quite clear to me - even once the plot had been played out - why Collini took so long to explain his actions, the story is entirely readable, clear and concise with the requisite twists and turns, and informative as to specific areas of German law. It's too short to get lost in, but you emerge with food for thought.

Sebastian is an acclaimed artist whose disturbing photographic installations are feted around the world. His childhood was dysfunctional, a father who committed suicide and a mother who was distant. Sebastian was sent to boarding school and developed his own internal life to cope. At the height of his fame Sebastian is arrested and accused of murder, he confesses (possibly after waterboarding) but there is no body, then it is revealed that the victim is his own half-sister. Beigler, a famous defence lawyer, is left to put the pieces together.

This is short and completely mesmerising book. The first half is taken up by Sebastian's childhood and the events that shaped him. These are recounted in a dispassionate way, as though through a haze. There is then a huge leap to the present and the interrogation of Sebastian for an alleged murder. The evidence seems overwhelming but there is no body. The final denouement is clever and, given the subject matter, was no great surprise. I loved 'The Collini Case' which was a cold novel, this is completely different with light and shade and ambiguity.

Wie auch schon seine Kurzgeschichten, ein "Page-turner".

Irgendwann wird es einem das Guten zuviel, zumal wenn man sich gerade in einem Kriminalroman aufhält wo das Gute stets das Schlechte ist, das Elend, die Trogödie, die schiere Depression…

Apropos ausblenden. Würde man all das, was gute deutsche Kriminalromane des Jahres 2013 ausmachte, ganz einfach ignorieren , stünde er tatsächliche da: der Krimi. Ein Mord, ein(e) Ermittler(in), Verdächtige, falsche Alibis, viel Kombination, ein wenig Aktion, Rätsel, Rätsel, Rätsel, … und am Ende alles klar und alles gut. Keine “Literatur”. Keine Abgründe. Keine Wirklichkeit. Keine enttäutschten Erwartungen? Dafür ein paar Stunden harmlosester Unterhaltung? Wiederspruch? Warum denn?? Ordnung! Aber eigentlich…bin ich noch froh, dass ich auch 2013 wieder einmal nicht wissen, was Krimi ist, was nicht, was er darf und was keinesfalls. lol.

Vom Anfang bis zum Ende des Buches dieses Romans stand ich unter Schock. Grausamkeit auf jeder Seite. Oftmals an die Grenzen des Erträglichen konnte ich dennoch das Buch kaum aus der Hand legen. Selten habe ich so viel Mitleid mit einem Angeklagten empfunden. Doch wie lange kann ein Mensch rechtliche Ungerechtigkeit ertragen und das auch noch immer im Namen des Volkes. Ist es nicht vom menschlichen Standpunkt her nachvollziehbar, dass sich Opfer – und als solches muss Collini gesehen werden – irgendwann zum Täter wandeln, wenn ihnen der Justizapparat Gerechtigkeit und Sühne verwehrt?

Erzählweise machen das Buch Der Fall Collini" zu einem des besten Bücher 2013.

Auch das Weiterdenken nach dem Buch ist garantiert und in unserer Gesellschaft durchaus vonnöten."

An unsettling (in a good way) and ultimately thought-provoking collection.

An entertaining lawyer novel about a client with a secret past. I read it in its English translation.