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Loading... Helden wie wir (original 1995; edition 2006)by Thomas Brussig
Work InformationHeroes Like Us by Thomas Brussig (1995)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Die deutsche Geschichte muss umgeschrieben werden: Klaus Uhltzscht war es, der die Berliner Mauer zum Einsturz gebracht hat! Dabei ist Klaus eigentlich ein Versager par exellence. Als Sohn eines Stasi-Spitzels und einer Hygieneinspektorin wächst er zwischen Jogginghosen und Dr. Schnabels Aufklärungsbuch auf, bleibt im Sportunterricht auf ewig ein Flachschwimmer. Auch sein großer Traum, als Topagent bei der Stasi zu arbeiten, erfüllt sich leider nicht. Dafür aber wird er, der inzwischen eine Perversionskartei erfunden hat, zum persönlichen Blutspender Erich Honeckers. Jetzt, da auch noch die Mauer durch - man höre und staune - seinen Penis fiel, packt Klaus aus und erzählt von seinem ruhmreichen Leben. Keiner hat bislang frecher und unverkrampfter den kleinbürgerlichen Mief des Ostens gelüftet als Brussig. Ein Lesevergnügen allererster Ordnung! Brussig makes us look again at the fall of the Berlin Wall and see it as the chaotic farce it really was, by showing us the last months of the DDR through the eyes of his appalling anti-hero, trainee Stasi officer Klaus Uhltzscht, a young man who is unable to write more than three sentences without mentioning his penis. There are some clever and occasionally very funny insights into the dreary ordinariness of what was wrong with the East German state: Brussig wants to establish that the state's terrorisation of its own citizens would not have been possible without widespread passive acceptance and active collaboration by ordinary people in what the system was doing. And that Christa Wolf could easily be confused with an Olympic figure-skating coach. But I found the insistent, Martin-Amis-like, blokey bad taste very wearing after a few chapters, and was rather relieved to get to the end... no reviews | add a review
Provocative and hilarious, "Heroes Like Us" was the first novel to comment on the downfall of East Germany by an author who had grown up with the Berlin Wall. Klaus Uhltzscht, born in 1968 in East Germany, grows up across the street from the Ministry of State Security, and he is inspired early on to do his share to win the Cold War. Naturally he joins the Secret Police, but his glorious career as an international agent never materializes. Instead, he spends countless hours keeping his fellow citizens under close surveillance -- never quite sure what he is looking for. Frustrated on all counts, Klaus' s life is changed only when a strange accident in the fall of 1989 dramatically alters the size of his penis. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)833.92Literature German literature and literatures of related languages German fiction Modern period (1900-) 1990-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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