This is a difficult book to describe. The author is writing about the life of a woman she knew who is destroyed by life under the communist regime in East Germany. It speaks to the reader about the dangers of totalitarianism, the freedom and beauty of the human spirit, and about relationships. The relationship between the author and the title character is in itself interesting. She is trying to keep the memory of Christa alive, and yet the author seems to say at times that she doesn't know if she even really knew Christa. As usual, this novel has alot of Wolf's brilliant examinations of the nature of memory -- memory is a recurring theme in all her novels. Wolf's gifts for language, imagery, and insight are stunning. The translation is well done. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I highly reccommend it.

Christa T. is the story of a woman growing up in post-war East-Germany - under Communist rule. She is not openly hostile to the regime, but she is a woman who does not fit in, a dreamer and a romantic. Her life is not outwardly dramatic: She reads literature at university, works as a teacher, marries a vet and lives far away from the big city, but this intensely private life was in itself an act of rebellion in a country which wanted fervent supporters of Communist doctrine, and which expected writers to celebrate tough workmen. Christa T. is also the story of a woman trying to find the words to write about another woman's life, and this is "The Quest for Christa T." - Christa Wolf ranks among the best authors now writing in German, and the quiet tragedy of Christa T. is one of her most moving books.

Christa Wolf brilliantly succeeds in creating a new literary space, one that surfaces during the interplay and transition between subjectivity and objectivity. Through the course of her novel she writes somewhere between the "I" and the "you"; in this shifting, elliptical state we begin to understand that the self is neither wholly interior nor exterior, and that the quest for self-knowledge can be as lyrical, as immediate, and as maddeningly unreachable as her prose. An incredible book

I read this book as part of a German Lit. in Translation class. Wolf was by far the best author we read. The book pulls the reader right into the story so you feel like it is happening to you. Wolf challenges readers to think about the way we are treating our world and question whether we are making the right decisions. What is particularly interesting about Wolf is that she is so blunt about the world's problems but she still has hope. The book left a strong impression on me.

This novel is Christa Wolf's fictionalized account of growing up in Nazi Germany. This is a story about war, history, memory, and learning from our mistakes. It is positively gripping. The author manages, as another reviewer noted, to show that the tyranny of the Nazi regime was difficult for non-Jews as well as Jews, without in any way minimizing the horror of the Holocaust. I literally couldn't put this book down in parts.. it is that powerful. Wolf doesn't sentimentalize the story. She makes all the people in the book seem real. The descriptions of events were so real that felt as though I was there. I have been forever changed by this book. It has given me new insight not only into WWII, but also into myself, because it's given me a way to look into my own past. As Wolf writes, "What is past is not dead; it is not even past. We cut ourselves off from it; we pretend to be strangers." Ultimately, this passage sums up the theme of the movel, and, as a result, it broadens the scope of the book so that it has a message for everyone, even beyond its obvious messages about war and Nazism.

Those interested in history, or psychology, or who like character driven novels, will likely love this book. I know that it is not easily available. Despite that, I urge you to try to find a copy, be it through your local library or through a used book store.

I used this book with students to consider German responses to the Hitler years. Wolf writes in a way that does not allow the reader to remain passive (which upset some students who wanted the author to do all the work) nor does she allow the Hitler years to become an object of the past (which would allow contemporary readers to remain uncritical of their present society). She wants the reader to consider current issues by using her particular childhood as springboard for thought. Wolf places German suffering in its proper context. She acknowledges that many Germans suffered but she never allows the reader to forget the greater suffering of the Jews and other victims of Nazi hatred. Most remarkable of all, Wolf does not paint herself as a childhood hero bur rather as a typical German young person of the time. She reminds Germans that Germany was responsibility for the war. She also makes it clear (by quoting articles from the local newspaper) that Germans knew far more about the horrible events than they later admitted. This essential book needs to be available again. I have a Ph.D. in German literature and read Wolf in German, but those without German must have this work too.

As a in the 80es upgrown German I know very much about the Nazi time in Germany from school. This book added the feelings of young people living and growing up in Germany in that time. I lerned why and how they became as they did. By the way you have to know that the author lived in that time herself and some pieces may be autobiographic... Please read the other books of Christa Wolf, too.

As a devout fan of the Medea story, I was a little doubtful as I opened the book. At first, the heightened language struck me as being counterproductive to the humanity that Wolfe seemed to strive for in the protagonist, but, as the story progressed, I found myself lured in by the characters, the basic approach, and the added details. I thought the chapter by Princess Glauce, a character often avoided or even mistreated in many versions, was particularly insightful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves this tale or interpretive approaches to traditional mythology.

This book is one of the best if not the best Christa Wolf has ever written. It tells the story of Medea in a new uncommon way. It is not only Medea who appears in a different light then known from the myth. What makes me love this book is the way it is told. Nearly every chapter is told by a new person and gives a new point of view. Nevertheless, the story goes on, very smooth. I don't think that the language is difficult you just have to take your time to enjoy it. Of course is it possible to read this novel in one evening but then you would probably miss the atmosphere Christa Wolf created.

How can anyone call this novel flat, I cannot understand. In less than 200 pages, Wolf has brilliantly captured the utter depravity than mankind can sink to through its own bigotry, hypocrisy, lying, selfishness and sense of self-preservation. Wolf has taken Darwin's survival of the fittest theory to its immoral extreme and has exploited the Lacanian objet art to its most devastating use. A society so enveloped in its own sense of emptiness and vileness, leading them to sacrifice a woman as an expiation of its evil, can only be beautifully and tragically rendered by a mistress story teller as Wolf. Atwood's introduction tells no lies, and I highly recommend this reading to anyone who is into the classics, contemporary culture, social studies and philosophy. This is Wolf's first novel that I have read and it most definitely will not be the last.

Although the novel it self talk about life in the divided country (east and west german), the true quality from this novel in my opinion is the ability of the writer to describe the reality and feeling's of the two character in this novel who's in love, but realising that there is such thing as reality that can end their relationship.

The reality it self came when they had to make a choice between stay together, or realising that there is nothing to hold on anymore.

A very powerfull novel, and a very romantic and sad story. Christa Wolf's prose is wonderfull, and show so much the innner feeling and sadness of the character, not too mention her ability too describe the situation at the village Elbe.

A must to read for those who really like to read serious work.

For about five years I have read, reread and taught (to eleventh graders) Cassandra, and each time I have groped deeper into its human and literary liklihoods. It's still compelling to me for it myriad facets of content and form, but I can't help wondering about the real-politics of Ms Wolf's life and the masculine-feminine politics of our time. There is great learning in it and cause for great deliberation--by a woman awaiting violent death: Would what we call civilization be differently composed if even half our history, philosophy, psychology, politics, art had been penned by women? How was human prehistory ordered? Why is God-presence so matter of fact, and goddess-presence so contentious, if admitted? Who/What is Cybele, really? I can't wait to read Medea.

At the risk of sounding somewhat elitist (if a high school student may call himself that), I have the distinct feeling that many highly critical reviewers of Cassandra have either (1) failed to appreciate the intensely literary nature of the novel, (2) become so fixated on the "apparent" aspects of Wolf's message to notice the infinite subtleties, or (3) been guilty of the most heinous form of reductionism. Admittedly, Cassandra is not an easy read; 138 pages (the story itself) of streaming consciousness is not for the casual reader. Nevertheless, it is precisely this stream of consciousness--one of the most capably written of its form--that unifies the myriad thematic commentaries of the novel into a coherent and powerful message. Also missed are the subtleties behind Wolf's supposedly hyper-feminist message. Wolf is careful to point to the mutability of sexual roles (Anchises and Penthesilea offer superb examples) and the significance of a dualistic appreciation of culturally-derived gender tendencies. Numerous readers are also prone to missing the point of Wolf's revisionist mythology; in doing so they are no less guilty than Wilhem Girnus (DDR editor of Sinn und Form) of fixating upon the "crime" of creating new life in previously established literature. It may be unpleasant to see our heroic figure of Achilles portrayed in a cripplingly negative light, but Wolf's very insistence upon doing so exposes the greatest fallacies of our victory-fixated Western outlook. Cassandra may be too literary for some, too complex for a reader interested in a quick fireside jaunt into Literature Lite, but its immense artistry as a novel may not be so easily ignored.

I have to admit that I had some difficulties in reading this book in the first place. Christa Wolf uses a very stylised language which is not easy to understand although it sounds beautifully I think. It is defenitly not a book you can read to relax or to kill time on the train or anything like that. But by taking my time with this novel, I finally felt like coming close to Cassandras character, with all her good and bad personality traits. Whoever thinks this book is just about Womens Liberation just didn't really understand it. It might be an issue, but "Cassandra" is too complex to reduce it to just this one point. There is so much more in it, you just have to keep your eyes open. In my opinion it is one of the best books ever written.

Medea Stimmen is written in a style similar to Christa Wolf's "Cassandra". The famous mythology figure is retold in a new light through the perspectives of several characters who are involved in the events that take place. This makes for an interesting read of the old story. However, it tends to be told in a stream-of-conciousness style that sometimes makes the writing hard to follow.