دانلود کتاب Two Views

KIRKUS REVIEW

Of the new writers in Germany (and the most discussed- with the Formentor Prize book still to come) Uwe Johnson is certainly the closest exponent of the nouveau roman of France in which the novel represents a state of suspension and objects objectify (""things""-- ""choisisme""). While the theme is the same as in Speculations About Jacob (1963) -- the divisiveness of East and West Germany--there are fewer abstractions, fewer symbols, but still the same accumulation of detail, the paraphernalia of physical existence are used to concretize the two ""views"" while two people, a photographer and a nurse, shuttle backwards and forwards in an attempt to reach each other. The state remains in the background, a ubiquitous, impregnable presence. There is very little feeling here (a quality which limits the book for the general reader); one hardly knows whether Dietbert and Beate have anything more than a tangential relationship to begin with. They are separated by the closing of the border (1961) and the documentary technique particularizes the prosaic texture of life contending against ""forbidden zones, minefields, lines of sentries, obstacle ditches, glaring lights, barbed wire, walled-up windows, shooting orders, and threats of punishment for the attempt to cross."" It is essentially a film technique, visually fascinating to watch, depersonalized. Dietbert, restive to begin with, loses his car, becomes increasingly, mutinously determined to contact Beate, cut off-- inside the hospital. Images, externals, incidentals not only set the mood but are synchronized with the perceptions of the characters. They also further the narrative as the tension, will she escape, will she not, builds with considerable force. However austere, Johnson is always in admirable command of the theme and the technique.