Review: Very descriptive, capturing pre-Wall Berlin very well
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
From the very beginning with shouts of Achtung, Achtung, and threatening banging on the door, Califra takes us back to a world and time that is so different from our easy and take for granted world of today.At a quite hefty 332 pages, this novel is a trip into the recent past.Richard is the main character, but its very much the surrounding characters from Kati, an engaging soul who early on challenges Richard in conversations of selling your soul and becoming mischievous, and Christoph, his sort of pal, to smaller characters such as Klaus the East German border guard who came over the wall, to very different people such as Traudi, that bring this story alive. It is a sort of potpourri of characters and events told over 300 pages that interests and entertains.While this is essentially a book that focuses on the period before and leading to the fall of the Wall in Berlin, it's detail is much more on the people living there at the time, and the narrator's (Richard) own experiences.It does provide some interesting nuggets of information about East Germany and its inhabitants; for example, they were allowed to visit only 7 countries, most of whom visited Hungary, but not a great deal more depth than this.In nature, the book is almost bohemian or rustic, going into some nice details about the life and the places Richard visited. There is quite a lot of attention to these type of scenes. For example, we find about a third into the book, Richard and Christoph at an Italian restaurant, and the author captures the scene well with posters of Angelo and medieval chandeliers hanging from the roof. And much later the author talks of asking the DJ to play Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd, and even later yet listen to lyrics from the Police.Yet despite this rustic ease, there is always uncertainty and fear in the background. The Stasi are mentioned a number of times, and moments of fear do enter from time to time.I would have preferred more of the fear factor in this book. If the book was cropped a little in length, removing some of the more gentle passages of the book, it would benefit it. Yet, many readers might like these scenes too, so it's just a comment for consideration. On the whole, a good read and a book very probably close to the author's heart.