It is, quite clearly, a critique of a system that can so ruthlessly grind up these basically innocent young people. Braun shows the pressures that come to bear on all those affected, . In large part Karin and Frank can not survive because they can not fathom the system. Karin soon learns about the necessary compromises when she works at a newspaper, being told what's fit to print and what isn't, but not fully understanding the reasoning behind these decisions. Braun writes in a stark, direct prose, with a poet's precision.
People read in the book, but no one is satisfied with what they are reading.
Karin's father is annoyed that there are so many books when a single one would suffice on any given topic. Braun understands the difficulty of communicating issues in literary form, but he does an admirable job here. The two postscripts were written twenty years after the story itself. It is a shocking account of the fundamental and pervasive rot of this society. It is these two postscripts that make Braun's book essential reading, and assure that the unfinished story will remain one of the defining texts of this unusual place and time.