Audiobook11 hours
In Times of Fading Light
Written by Eugen Ruge
Narrated by Simon Vance
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
An enthrallingly expansive family saga set against the backdrop of the collapse of East German communism, from a major new international voice.
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Reviews for In Times of Fading Light
Rating: 3.80821902739726 out of 5 stars
4/5
146 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very impressive, extremely well written family saga set against the background of the collapse of the communist system in East Germany. There are some superb set-piece scenes, and very clever use of descriptive writing to convey the mood of particular moments in time and layers of society. You can see why one critic (quoted, of course, in the back cover blurb) rather gushingly called it the "DDR-Buddenbrooks" — a comparison that Ruge was obviously angling for by the way he structured the book as a series of widely-spaced vignettes of family events whilst letting the big history happen offstage.But of course it isn't a Buddenbrooks. I was disappointed with the book as a whole and felt that it didn't live up to the technical quality of the writing. The problem seems to be that Ruge doesn't have anything very challenging to tell us. His argument is that the system in the DDR was rotten to the core, based on hypocrisy, toadyism and fear, and doomed to fail. I don't think anyone is going to challenge that: he has hindsight on his side, after all. It might have been interesting if he had made some effort to show us how the idealism and optimism fell away (in the same way that Mann shows us the subsequent generations of the Buddenbrooks family failing to live up to the impossibly high standards set by their parents and grandparents), but Ruge doesn't seem to be able to acknowledge that there ever was anything good in communism. Whether or not that's a valid historical proposition, it doesn't make for a very interesting narrative progression. At the end of the book, we are exactly where we were at the beginning (except that we have now understood that capitalism has some pretty serious flaws too, in case we didn't realise that...).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Die Familiengeschichte beginnt in Mexiko, wo die Kommunisten Charlotte und Wilhelm im Exil sind und von wo aus sie 1952 in die DDR zurückkehren. Charlottes Söhne kommen 1941 in stalinistische Lagerhaft. Kurt überlebt und heiratet eine russische Frau, mit der er 1956 in die DDR zieht. Ihr gemeinsamer Sohn Alexander verlässt später die DDR und geht in den Westen. Als schwer krebskranker Mann lässt er 2001 seinen dementen Vater allein und reist mit dessen Ersparnissen nach Mexiko, wo er versucht, irgendwelche Anknüpfungspunkte für seine Unrast zu finden. Das ist gleich die erste Szene im Buch.Sein Sohn Markus wiederum hat gegen Ende des Buches nur noch losen Bezug zur Familie und deren Geschichte.Das Buch ist geschickt montiert. Gelungen werden Erlebnisse aus immer wieder anderen Perspektiven geschildert (etwa Wilhelms neunzigster Geburtstag, eine Schlüsselszene, die durch die sechsmalige Wiederholung und unterschiedliche Blickwinkel interessant und durchaus auch witzig ist). Das Buch zeigt verschiedene Positionen zum Kommunismus, die in ihrer Begeisterung und ihrer Teilhabe abnehmen - wie der Titel sagt. Die DDR und ihr System werden anhand dieser Familie dargestellt.Dennoch gefiel mir das Buch nicht uneingeschränkt. Die Personen sind alle durch die Bank unsympathisch, die Familien dysfunktional, die Männer frauenfeindlich. Klar soll da alles etwas symbolisieren und repräsentieren. Doch ich dachte mir beim Lesen mehrfach, dass ich recht ungern über diese Personen lese.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read Anna Funder's book, "Stasiland", a year or two back and rather expected this to be of the same informative, but rather depressing, order (not to imply anything about Anna Funder's excellence as a writer). But here we have a book in which East Germany is merely the context for a journey of discovery through four generations of a family. Brilliantly plotted and so well translated, we move forward and backward in time to view family events through different character's minds. The Table of Contents is useful for keeping track. Of course, East Germany in the latter part of the 20th centre is no "mere" context. It shaped all who lived within it, as do all cultures. Therein lies the opportunity to reflect on one's own present cultural context. How am I shaped by it?