Ingo Schulze

Info Schulze's novel Adam & Evelyn takes place primarily during a four month span in the summer and fall of 1989 when a tumultuous series of events in Eastern Europe culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Schulze's purpose in writing this novel might have been to present an event that had (and has) global ramifications from the perspective of ordinary people who were experiencing it while it happened, at ground level as it were. Adam and Evelyn live in East Berlin. Their lives are busy show more and they have little interest in politics. Adam is a tailor with only female clients, and one day in August Evelyn returns home to find Adam in a compromising situation with one of these clients. She leaves, meeting up with the people that she and Adam were intending to travel with to Hungary for a vacation. Adam follows. What ensues is a mad dash across several borders as Adam tries to convince Evelyn that their relationship is worth saving. External events rush forward, however, and eventually they are presented with a much more profound and startling dilemma: whether to return home at all or settle in the West and begin a new life. The novel is effective because it draws us into a story involving several people during a crucial turning point in history and shows us the issues they grapple with as they struggle to make decisions that will change their lives forever. It could have been more effective, however, if Schulze had given us characters we could truly care about. Both Adam and Evelyn have genuinely touching moments, but they can also be moody and petty. Again and again Schulze gives their bickering center stage, not seeming to realize that he's testing his reader's patience. Still, the novel is engaging more often than not and provides a Western reader with a window into a time and place that changed the world in which we live. show less

Das schmale Büchlein umfasst drei Erzählungen, die bereits getrennt voneinander vor mehreren Jahren erschienen sind. Für diese Ausgabe wurden sie überarbeitet oder umgeschrieben, ganz im Sinne der ersten Erzählung, Das Deutschlandgerät.
Hier schreibt der Ich-Erzähler einer Museumsdirektorin einen langen Brief in dem er darlegt, weshalb sich seine Arbeit, eine Beschreibung dieser schwarzen Maschine (wie er sie nennt) verzögert und was diese mit einem von ihm bewunderten Schriftsteller show more zu tun hat, der aus der DDR ausgebürgert wurde. Letztendlich kulminiert das Ganze in der Feststellung, dass nicht das Kunstwerk seiner jeweiligen Umgebung angepasst wird, sondern auch der Mensch und seine Haltung. Über 60 Seiten braucht es zu dieser Feststellung, die auch eine Kunstbeschreibung enthält (empfehlenswert: parallel Bilder und Videos aus youtube dazu anschauen) – wozu jedoch 30 Seiten sicherlich gereicht hätten.

Die zweite Erzählung befasst sich mit dem titel(bild)gebenden Tasso im Irrenhaus, einem Gemälde von Delacroix‘, das in Winterthur zu besichtigen ist. Hier korrespondiert der ‚Inhalt‘ des Gemäldes mit dem, was der Ich-Erzähler beim Betrachten des Bildes mit einem weiteren Museumsbesucher im Gespräch erfährt. Über die Beschreibung der damaligen Verhältnisse geht es kunstvoll über ehemalige Kolonien zu dem was die heutige Schweiz darstellt – mir war das etwas zu kunstvoll.

Abschließend steht der Maler Johannes Grützke im Mittelpunkt, der sich zum Zeitpunkt der Erzählung im Hospiz befindet. Er bittet den Ich-Erzähler, über ein Bild von ihm zu schreiben, der sich eher widerwillig darauf einlässt. Bei einem vereinbarten Termin findet er im Hospizzimmer des Malers eine illustre Gruppe von Personen vor, die jenem offenbar nahe stehen. Diese führen ein ’skurriles‘ Gespräch über Kunst, das mir irgendwann zu verworren war. 39 Seiten – 20 hätten mir locker gereicht.

Zwar war ich vom Inhalt der Geschichten nicht allzu begeistert, dafür umso mehr von der Sprache des Autoren. Wenn ich jetzt noch ein Buch mit einem ansprechenderen Inhalt von ihm lese, dann steht einer Lobeshymne sicherlich nichts im Wege show less

Oh I know they're considered opaque but that's what I like about them. There's something so ECE about this oblique approach, it makes me very homesick.

Ingo Schuzle's story of Adam and Evelyn leaving the Eastern Bloc for the West is an imagining of what might have happened when the biblical Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden.

Where would they go? What would they do? And how did they feel about it?

Evelyn comes home from quitting her waitress job to find Adam in the bathtub having sex with one of his tailoring customers. This is just one woman too far and Evelyn storms out of the house decided to go on vacation to Hungary with friends, and show more without Adam.

Adam, oblivious to why Eve is so angry, packs his car and follows her. As they all drive across borders to Hungary, political tensions are high as large groups of people gather at the borders hoping that the restrictions against travel to the west are beginning to fall.

Adam sneaks a woman he meets at a rest stop, Katja, across the border in the trunk of his car. Evelyn has an affair with her friend's cousin, Michael, which puzzles Adam who still doesn't understand that Evelyn thinks their time as a couple is over.

This book works best as the story of two young people trying to figure out what their lives should mean. One thinks things are great just as they are in the East and really doesn't see a reason to leave, yet does. Evelyn, on the other hand, is restless and believes she can have a better life in the West where she can go to university and study what she likes.

There is endless pointless bickering until the very end, which in some ways mirrors the endless pointless political bickering over borders and ideologies. At the end, the Berlin Wall comes down, and Adam and Evelyn set up life in the West. show less