I'v read this book not so long ago and I was stunned. It was like looking at painting being slowly painted in front of you. It's also one of those rare books you just HAVE to read more yhan once. I think it's one of the few rare wonderfull books I've read.

The successful day...as we will never find him. The question is: could we stand it?

This was a fantastic, albeit somewhat depressing, book. I agree with the other reviewers here. But I would add that the book is a moving exploration of man's ultimate and inherent isolation.

The editorial review here is pretty accurate, insofar as summations can ever do justice to a Handke novel, which rely little on plot or human characterization for their power. The novel really takes off when Handke puts his protagonist on the "steppes"--which turn out to be the plains of north-central Spain--and has him explore and experience himself in nature. Readers who liked "My Year in the No-Man's Bay" of "Weight of the World" will like this; here are long passages equally evocative and magical. Undoubtedly there are significances here that literati will find resonant, and perhaps metaphorical parallels that students of European politics will identify, but as an exploration into consciousness, into human interactions with nature and time and memory, this small novel delivers an experience that is very satisfying indeed.

I've not picked up a novel by Gunter Grass since I plowed through (and enjoyed) "Cat and Mouse", "The Tin Drum" and "Dog Years" a couple of decades ago. Prior to reading this novel, I was completely ignorant of the catastrophic sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustoff by a Russian submarine in the Baltic Sea in the last few months of the second world war. As presented by Gunter Grass, this incident was the result of many fateful events, each one of which may not have been deadly, but when combined resulted in a horrible tragedy.
I found this novel very difficult to read. Grass aptly titled the book "Crabwalk" because the story does not unfold in simple chronological order. Instead the story, as told in the first person by Paul Pokriefke, wanders back and forth over more than half a century. As I read the novel I was flipping back through the pages I'd already read trying to figure out who a particular character is, or to recall a given event. I had to get halfway through the novel before I could recall all of the main characters and events. My knowledge of German is fair, and I found it helpful in understanding location names and some of the peculiar sentences. A good atlas is helpful to have when reading this novel because a map of the region where most of the events in the novel take place is not included.
I'd recommend this book, but it does require some effort on the part of the reader. It's not a poolside read.

Crabwalk is the first great book I have read that was written in the 21st century.

Why Crabwalk? Here's a definition of "crab:" "to move sideways, diagonally, or obliquely, especially with short, abrupt bursts of speed." Crabwalk's structure is similar. Grass offers a clue in referring to "scuttling backward to move forward."

Paul Pokreife, a journeyman journalist, narrates several parallel tracks: his life, his mother's (Tulla), his son's (Konrad), his ex-wife's, the ship Wilhelm Gustloff, the Nazi Wilhelm Gustloff (and his monument and remains), Gustloff's assassin (David Frankfurter), the Soviet submarine commander who sunk the ship (Marinesko), and Konrad's online challenger (Wolfgang "David" Stremplin) and his parents. Sometimes Mr. Grass jumps sideways sharing several stories at that time. Other times he jumps forward or backward to a different time or story. . . and then goes sideways to other stories. It's like stream of consciousness narration except it's finished prose and dialogue. . . rather than thought fragments.

This structure establishes many connections between one person and another to show an interconnected fabric of German society and consciousness since 1933 in the context of a few events, a family and a few other characters. I felt like I had just absorbed the richness of War and Peace . . . except in a relatively short and simple book.

Crabwalk can be read at several levels of meaning. The most compelling story relates the terrible tragedy of the sinking of the German refugee ship, Wilhelm Gustoloff, in January 1945 on the frigid Baltic by a Soviet submarine. More than 1200 survived while most others (estimated between 6,600 and 10,600) died from explosions, equipment faults, rescue mistakes, freezing, drowning, or the icy waters. Of these, more than 4,000 were probably children. There were only 22 lifeboats on board, and only one was launched properly. You'll have to read Crabwalk to appreciate the tragedy, but it dwarfs the Titanic. Yet it's a little-known event. The Germans made no announcement then to help maintain civilian morale. The Soviets were embarrassed and hid the event. Post-war Germany has kept a code of silence around any German civilians suffering as a result of the war, seeming to reflect the national guilt for starting the war.

Paul's being born the night of the sinking, aboard a rescue ship, links him to the Nazi past (through the anniversaries of the Nazi rise to power and Gustloff's death), the consequences of the sinking on the survivors, and the sinking's effect on the next generation of Germans. This connection is the bridge to other ways to read the book.

At another level, it's a story of a dysfunctional family: A woman who wasn't sure who the father is of her only son; a son estranged from his mother by her disappointment in him and his rejection of her values; a fatherless son becoming a poor father and failed husband; and a grandson reaching out to a grandmother for the emotional support his father fails to give him.

At a third level, Crabwalk is about the experience of the German nation since January 1933 when the Nazis took over. We go through the economic recovery years as Tulla's parents take a cruise to the Norwegian fjords aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. Tulla grows up during the war and has a miscarriage while being a streetcar conductor. She becomes pregnant with Paul, and after the rescue are settled in East Germany where she becomes a carpenter and a devoted Stalinist. Paul escapes to the West as a teenager, and the two becomes estranged. Tulla also admires the old Nazis after East Germany falls and tries to fascinate her grandson with the ship's history. She succeeds through giving him a computer, and Konrad runs a Web site about the ship and the man it's named for. At the same time, you find out how Gustloff becomes a Nazi martyr after he's assassinated by a Jewish medical student in Davos. Ironically, Frankfurter's health improves by being in prison. He's released after World War II by the Swiss and heads to Palestine.

At a fourth level, this is a story about how our lives are influenced by our environment (our family, our nation, our history and our ways of perceiving).

At a fifth level, Crabwalk teaches us to think about the consequences of when and where we're born. If Paul had been born a few hours later, he would have spent his whole life in the western sectors of Germany rather than starting in the east. He believes his whole life would have been different . . . and it probably would have.

At a sixth level, Crabwalk explains that history repeats itself through the influences of the earlier generations on another. There are many deliberate ironies in the book as one character acts out variations on what an earlier character did (especially the way Konrad mimics David Frankfurter).

Ultimately, the book is about guilt. Who's guilt is it? And for what? What's to be done to atone? "History, or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet." "We flush and flush, but the [content]. . . keeps rising." In particular, should Germans deny their own suffering in World War II as a means to expiate guilt, or will that denial lead to new guilty actions?

The book profoundly expanded my understanding of the German experience. As a young man in Munich on business, I found my sleep troubled and interrupted by dreams and memories of Nazi marchers on the street outside, death camps in the countryside and murderous attacks on fellow Germans. Some taxi drivers who were old enough to have been in the Wehrmacht looked at me with obvious hate. Clients my age were very punctiliously correct anti-Nazis (we even visited events criticizing the Nazi past together). On the streets, young skinheads passed wearing swastikas. Crabwalk helped me to understand what was happening then and now.

This book describes the history of a ship and its influence on the history of a family. The ship is the Wilhelm Gustloff that was named after a Nazi who was killed in Davos, Switzerland in 1936. After its use as a cruise ship for the Nazi Kraft durch Freude movement, a floating hospital and a training ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed to the bottom of the sea on 30 January 1945 with on board between 6000 and 10000 (nobody knows the exact number) German refugees. On board is also the very pregnant Tulla Prokriefke, who goes into labour when the ship goes down. In the end her son Paul is born on board of a rescue boat.

Paul is divorced, mediocre journalist, who has, to say it mildly, a difficult relationship with his mother. One day he finds a site on the Internet that describes the ship that determined his life (his mother cannot talk about anything else). He finds that the site, with neonazi characteristics, is made by his son Konnie. And then the story goes almost inevitably to its dramatic conclusion.

The book is called Crabwalk because the story of the ship and the family are not told in chronological order, but by walking sideways. Still, the story goes forward, just like a crab walks. This is also because Paul tells the story of the Wilhelm Gustloff working with the information that he finds on the internetsite of his son.

This is a brilliantly written book, because one never gets lost between or within story lines despite the large number of considerable time leaps. Also, this book describes a little known ship tragedy (more than 5 times the numbers of death as the Titanic!) and gives an insight into the distorted minds of German neonazi's. An excellent read.

It is often said in both literature and music that large scale works need a small number of simple themes.
In despite of Grass' immense abilities, this book showed me that even one of our greatest living writers can get lost in a swamp of his own making.

Hot on the heels of his highly engaging "My Century", in which he gave an overview of 20th century German history in 100 short stories, Grass decided to write a novel focusing on the German reunification and to place it in the context of about 150 years of national history. To provide the link between present and past the protagonist Theo Wuttke, a soon to be 70 year old filing clerk, has an alter ego Fonty, who happens to be the reincarnation of late 19th century writer Theodore Fontane. So far, so good. Based on the first 50 pages of this book I had expected that Grass had chosen Wuttke/Fonty as a symbol of the German nation as he did with Oskar in the Tin Drum. Alas, while the book ends with Fonty's liberation, the next 700 pages (I read the original German version) contain one great scene, a number of good nuggets, but too little of a book one has come to expect of Grass.

As a counterbalance to Wuttke's often fond reminiscences of the former Eastern Germany he is still in daily contact with his former designated Stasi spy Hoftaller, who knows every detail of Fonty's political and maritally infidel past and seems to require Wuttke to retain his own identity. Add to the mix the disgruntled Mrs. Wuttke, the soon the be married Ms. Wuttke, her capitalist husband, the French illegitimate grandchild and many an obscure reference to the works of Fontane and things get worse. Topple it of with continuous time traveling of Fonty between Wuttke and Fontane and the reader ends up in quicksand. Moreover, the text is at least 30% too long and often gets lost in tens of pages of superfluous diversions.

In Germany this book caused quite a stir due to its view of the "West taking over the East". I had the opportunity to walk the streets of East Berlin three months before the wall came down. While Grass makes some valid points about Western Patronization, anyone having first person experience with the former Eastern Germany will just respond with a highly appropriate "so what".

Finally a note on the translation. While Grass is notorious for his long and complicated sentences he has outdone himself here. On top of that there are endless pages of stream of conscious conversations. The translator has done an admirable job in untangling, predigesting and finally translating. As such, the translation is definitely more easily readable than the original. Yet, a lot of the rhythm and flavor which defines Grass gets lost.

In all a virtuoso, yet unfocused effort. While the wedding banquet scene is on par with Gunter's best and intimate knowledge of Fontane's works may lead to greater appreciation of this text, I did not feel appropriately rewarded for the effort that reading it took.

The way to get the most out of this novel is to be both well-versed in German literature (especially the work of Fontana), as well as to be knowledgeable about the history of Germany, and of Berlin in particluar. For me, to read this book was to embark on a rigourous journey of two extremes:
On the one hand, I did not understand and thus could not appreciate the no doubt rich literary commentaries and allusions that surrounded Fontana; I am simply not conversant with his writing. All I could do in those parts of the novel was read what was written, and wish that I had read Effi Briest, etc. first.
On the other hand, I was at times mesmerized by the depth and breadth of Grass's probing and questioning of historical issues pertaining to Germany and Berlin. By my having spent the equivalent of almost a year in Germany, including time in Berlin in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I was able to grasp Grass's commentary on the transformation of Germany and Berlin into one country and city, respectively, from their previously divided conditions. Grass makes all sorts of subtle and clever references to certain streets, neighbourhoods and buildings ("the hall of tears") in Berlin, as well as to various historical incidents and figures (e.g. the "Goatee": Walter Ulbricht), referring to them by their locally-known idioms or nicknames; this rich aspect of the novel, which, gratifyingly, made me feel very close to the author and to the story, will likely be lost on readers without a firm grounding in 20th century German history. The historical commentary is usually highly concentrated, at times hypnotic in its relentlessness and directness; I often found myself mentally exhausted from having to concentrate as much as I needed to, to follow the threads of discussion and inquiry. Invariably, though, I wanted to do nothing more than keep reading, so compelling is Grass's writing style.
I did not want the book to end; I did not want to say goodbye to Wuttke|Fonty. I was sad that the exhilarating experience of reading this novel was over. I felt a certain wistfulness toward Germany, its people and its turbulent history. One can tell that Grass both loves his country, and is most wary of its history and circumstances.
One needs to invest a lot of emotional and intellectual energy to get through this novel, but so long as the reader is conversant with German literature, German history, or, ideally, both, it is well worth the effort.

Here we are, another masterpiece from one of Germany's greatest contemporary novelists.

This work, which first appeared in Germany in 1995, is Grass's treatment of Germany's reunification. Among the novel's central themes is this: that through successive periods of history some things never change. They may be harder to spot, they may have a different name, they may be lurking in a cellar where no one wishes to find them, but they are there all the same. Grass here uses the medium of the novel to assert that the celebrations of 1989-1990 ignored the dark side of the German national identity.

He accomplishes this by invoking minutiae from throughout German history, all of which is related through the novel's two central characters: Wuttke, who believes himself to be the nineteenth-century writer Theodore Fontane; and Hoftaller, a former East German police agent who is Wuttke's "shadow". What emerges is a fascinating montage where elements from both past and present intermingle, which is what Grass wants us to believe anyway: that what is "past" isn't really in the past at all.

A variety of symbols reinforce this message. Much of the novel takes place in a quintessentially symbolic building in central Berlin: a building which originally housed the Third Reich's Aviation Ministry, then East Germany's "House of Ministries," and now (although not mentioned in the novel) the Federal Ministry of Finance. Within this building one finds the "Paternoster," an old elevator system which Wuttke attempts to save from being replaced by modern high speed elevators, and which carries a symbolic import of its own: it represents the rise and fall of various people within the building, the memory or in the novel the "Archives" of Germany.

At more than 650 pages this is a formidable undertaking but in the end well worth the effort. A reader not terrible familiar with German history or literature may find many of the references terribly confusing or elusive. But here is Grass at his finest--his wit, his insight, his courage to poke fun at everything the Germans have considered sacred: from the former chancellor and "hero" of reunification Helmut Kohl to contemporary author Christa Wolf.

This is a fascinating story of a German aristocrat, Libussa and her family, who had to survive the Russian invasion of Pomerania Her family had owned an estate but were struggling to survive after 1945. Libussa was a courageous young woman who had her first baby while fleeing the Russians. She was able to rescue her father from a Russian prison camp.This points out the cruelty of war, but also shows that this family met kind people, both Russian and Polish, on the "enemy" side. The story points out the drastic change in lifestyle.The Krockow family had lived in a manor and enjoyed wealth, and devoted servants. It...shows the horrors of war for civilians, especially women. Many German women were [taken] by Russian soldiers. The author incorporates excerpts from other books into the story.

Libussa von Krockow is an inspiration to everyone who reads her story. It is a gripping tale of incredible courage and smarts, of great hope and love, in the face of unfathomable hardship and danger, at the hands of the cruelest specimens of mankind,in Germany, during the latter part of World War II. Many Germans were dispossessed and forced to leave their homes at that time, with only the clothes on their backs, for points unknown. Such was the fate of the Von Krockows, Libussa and her family. The father wanted to put an end to all of their lives, but Libussa felt the baby kicking inside of her and beseeched her father to let them live. He gave in to her pleas and abandoned his plans of shooting himself and the other family members. So begins Libussa's long and bitter but brilliant struggle to lead them collectively to a new world and a new beginning.
Spurred on by the love for her unborn child, she refuses time and again to let fear paralize her. She fights unrelentingly, agains all odds for her own survival and, at first, for that of of the new life inside of her. After giving birth to a healthy daughter, she fights on with the same undaunted ferocity of spirit, to find a better life for both of them, and she succeeds brilliantly.
Libussa von Krockow gives all of us hope that we can overcome the most horrendous hardships and difficulties and go on to a better tomorrow.

I read this in German, so I can't speak for the translation. I'm also not a native German speaker, so I can't really say how the style is in German. But I will say that this is a really moving book. It's probably better to read it in German, because translations can be funny.

This is a semi-autobiographical novel. The narrator is an unnamed elderly writer who is part Jewish, and survived the Holocaust by working for the Judenrat, the organization of Jews who were responsible for keeping order in the ghetto and making lists of people to be deported to concentration camps. The narrator worked there to save her mother, but she feels incredibly guilty. She also feels guilty because both of her husbands died, one in the concentration camp at Mauthausen, and the other not too long ago.

The narrator identifies with Antigone, a mythic Greek figure. Antigone's brother Polyneikes died attacking her home, and she broke the law to bury him, even though she knew she would be discovered and killed. The narrator wishes she had been strong, like Antigone, and taken action again the Third Reich.

This is a very internal book; very little happens, but the narrator thinks a lot, and we hear her thoughts. Sometimes that can be a little confusing, but it helps show her fellings of guilt. Her basic struggle is to make peace with what she did and didn't do during the war, and to realize that her situation wasn't really like Antigone's. Unlike Antigone, she had no good choices. Near the end, she includes a German soldier's account of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Petrikau, which is very moving, and difficult to read in one sitting. This helps bring home the horror of the war and the Third Reich, and show that most people didn't know how to react.

This is a very moving book. Its message doesn't apply only to Holocaust survivors. It applies to anyone who lived through a horrible experience, and wishes she or he did more to prevent it.

There are no words to praise a work as singularly stunning as Weil's. Within the first few pages, she immediately establishes such a strong rapport with the reader that the descriptions of Mauthausen and Holland during World War II leave the reader more than a little scarred.

A tedious, ponderous, barely readable bore of a book - typical of the the continuing "cut and paste" historical method employed by the other current darlings of fast-food history publishing (Kearns-Goodwin and Burns). Hardly "definitive" - dull juxtaposition of historical documentation with carbon-copy editorializing. The bottom line - Goebbels was a deeply evil, disturbed individual who took his family - Germany - and Europe into the depths of the abyss -----> The only thing "definitive" is yet another author repeating the same message. "Cliche" is a better adjective.
Kudos also to "Kirkus Reviews" for their highly professional review describing how "the author captures post WW-II Germany, and how this desperate country--in which no kind of ability, industry, or talent was a guarantee against poverty--nurtured Goebbels's search for a savior who could galvanize the stricken Volk .." Hmmm , how Goebbles was the product of "Post WW-II Germany" huh --- Wow history real experts there.

This is not a light and fluffy biography. Reuth has put an amazing amount of scholastic work into reconstructing the life of Goebbels. Be warned, however, that the book is slow-going, and often tedious.

Settle in and concentrate on this slow hard look at Goebbels. If you are into detail on National Socialist interparty politics, this is the book. This guy was pure evil. He is the only figure surrounding Hitler that can actually eclipse the Fuhrer's ugliness.

Austrian novelist, playwright and screenwriter Peter Handke is someone who seeks to alienate his work from the artificiality of life; in doing so his work, itself, becomes rather alienating.

Handke first gained attention in 1966 when he denounced Günter Grass and Heinrich Boll for, as he saw it, compromising the novel by making it a vehicle for social criticism. Like many French writers, Handke believed that novelists should register conscious experiences only, and then render them as austerely as possible.

Handke is a novelist who never creates a character. Instead, he folds his characters into his prose. He never constructs a real plot. Instead, he chronicles the very plotlessness (and pointlessness) of life. Handke finally decided that writers had their own personal stories to tell rather than telling those of the characters they made up. His novel, The Afternoon of a Writer told the story of, the afternoon of a writer. No more, no less.

My Year in the No-Man's Bay is the sequel to The Afternoon of a Writer. Although many readers may find this novel's content to be less-than-stimulating, I don't think anyone could say its structure is less-than-breathtaking.

The protagonist is a fifty-five year old writer who attempts to recall a year long artistic and spiritual metamorphosis. This writer is poetically named Gregor Keuschnig, and is known only as Gregor K. (Those who are at all familiar with Handke will immediately recognize this as a jab at Kafka, one of Handke's least favorite authors.) Gregor, who is obviously Handke's alter-ego, has grown disenchanted with both city life and country life and has moved to the suburbs of Paris instead. The city and the countryside, says Gregor, have been much overused as the setting in more traditional novels.

Throughout the book, Gregor uses the French word, banlieue, for suburb. But banlieue could also mean "place of the outlaws," and, as such, it represents for Gregor, a chance to mine new linguistic and narrative terrain; a sort of "no-man's bay," a nameless body of water. (Apparently American writers who are notorious for setting their novels in the suburbs, John Updike, in particular, have escaped Handke's notice.)

Gregor first writes at length about the difficulties and problems all writers face, bringing us right up to the year of his metamorphosis in the suburbs which is what he really wants to describe in the first place. He has a very difficult time doing so, however, as he gets bogged down time and again in what he calls "prehistories."

The novel's last section, The Day, is a section in which Gregor collapses all time together. His year of metamorphosis, we come to realize, could be the year he is writing about or the year he is writing in or the year in which one of his "stories" takes place. It is up to the reader to decide.

Life, itself, intrudes on Gregor's writing abilities until his novel and his life become one and the same, inseparable. What he visualizes as being of no consequence, the stuff of novels, has become his daily world. Or, has his daily world become the stuff of his novel?

My Year in the No-Man's Bay can, at times, be a very intellectually stimulating book but, unfortunately, it is also very dry. Handke's reliance on theme over character and plot might be a good idea, but in this book, at least, it is really not believable and certainly not engrossing. At least not all of the time.

This book is certainly not all bad. Gregor's wife, Ana, despite Handke's intentions to ignore character, is particularly engrossing, as is Heraclitus, one of the novel's spirits. Unfortunately, most of My Year in the No-man's Bay is narcissistic, spiritual pretension. Handke likens both Gregor and the character of Valentin to Christ. He feels that both St. Paul and St. John are but kindred spirits and he even goes so far as to liken Gregor's metamorphosis with Christ's resurrection.

Handke co-wrote the screenplay for Wenders's Wings of Desire, a stunning movie about angels who descend to earth. In My Year in the No-Man's Bay, he seems to have taken the tremendous success of Wings of Desire a little too much too heart (although Wings deserved all the success that was heaped upon it). In this book Handke constantly make references to wings and to angels that just don't work. Unfortunately, in his desire to kill off everything that is pretentious and artificial in the novel, Handke has killed off everything that is human as well. My Year in the No-Man's Bay is still a book well worth reading, but only if a highly thematic, plotless book is one that suits your style.

I read this book in both English and in the original German. I did find the English translation to be clumsy and overly-literal. Handke always writes a gorgeous, mesmerizing German that is both winding and spare and always elegant and, if you can read German and want to read this book, the original is the far, far better choice.

Save your money and watch Ally McBeal or read a Cathy cartoon. Whiny woman looking for a boyfriend/husband to make her complete.

I have started to read this book not very hopefully but at the second page of it, i realized i am wrong. the story tells about every woman in the world, what we say, we think, we do, how clever and stupid we are. although the story is told in mostly humour, there is real sense and serious aspects of life in every line of it. Constance who is the heroine of the story tells us everything about a woman in the areas of politics, love, sex, friendship, study, money, business and so many other. i advise every woman to read it and it is not difficult because the expressions are easy and enjoyable.