Review: More Than a Mere Childhood Memoir
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2013
More than a mere childhood memoir, When I Was German, Alan Wynzel's moving account of his often tumultuous formative years, is a deceptively simple tale of a little boy who must find some way to survive the inner turmoil and often bitter deprivations of the private little war that once raged between his Jewish American father and immigrant German mother.This richly detailed and deeply engrossing slice of late 20th century Americana reads more like the riveting eyewitness narrative of a lone soldier who struggles to not just live to see the end of a great conflict, but also has to somehow find a way to thrive and grow from what scarce nourishment is usually afforded to any windblown sapling that suffers the misfortune of having been seeded in battle torn earth.Told in simple, yet often devastatingly hard hitting prose, this wonderfully unassuming book manages to soar high above the fray that it so poignantly depicts. Like a phoenix freshly risen from the scalding crucible of war, it rises melodically, singing a rousing hymn of survival, in its own quiet, mournful and richly syncopated harmony; suspiciously akin to a lovingly measured and richly embroidered medieval canticle.Perhaps most impressive of all however, is that the author's inner struggle is offered up to the reader so thoughtfully, with such frankness, honesty and humility, that it allows one to not only identify with the predicament of that once mute witness - that vestige of the little boy who survived it all - but to also imbibe the conflict between the two parents from a surprisingly objective and sympathetic standpoint.In other words, when I had turned the last page of this wonderful sonnet dedicated to boyhood days gone by, I found myself surprisingly feeling as much understanding and genuine sympathy for the parental figures in the story as I did for the author and what he was forced to endure at their hands all those years ago.For surely, When I Was German is akin to a bittersweet song of love and devotion to the two tragically flawed yet somehow noble titans who so clumsily slugged it out in the hallowed halls of Mr. Wynzel's long ago, but never forgotten childhood memories.Be it sung in the storied environs of Germanic Valhalla or the once impregnable walls of the holy city of Jerusalem, the mighty, yet all too mortal combatants and the dutiful little soldier they perhaps inadvertently trained all too well, somehow, despite all the misdirected angst, still managed to leave behind a beautiful legacy in the lesson their story teaches.Because, most of all, for me, Alan Wynzel has masterfully crafted a kind of modern parable that eloquently and even effortlessly schools the thoughtful reader on the trials and travails of every child forced to endure the privations wrought by internecine familial warfare.I therefore find myself eternally grateful to the author, not because he had to endure it all, but because he had the conscience, the presence of mind, the richness of character, and thankfully, the deftness of intellect, to forever commit his story to the written page.When I Was German is, quite simply, in its owns special way, one of the finest books I have ever read. And like the best movies you ever see, as well as the best books you ever have the fortune to read, it will not soon be forgotten.