The Wall Jumper : A Berlin Story (Phoenix Fiction Series)

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Summary: An engaging novel of Berlin before the fall of the Wall.
Review: This completely frank, thought-provoking, and often wryly humorous account of life in Berlin before the fall of the Wall will go straight to your heart with its fascinating stories and tales from both sides of the Divided City. With poignancy and warmth, the author creates believable characters who adhere to their own truths, not necessarily the expectations of the reader. The personable, unnamed speaker in this first person narrative is a writer trying to create the story of a man "caught in a back-and-forth motion over the Wall, like a soccer goalie in an instant replay, always taking the same dive to miss the same ball." Virtually all the Berliners we meet here--from both East and West--are in the same situation as the unfortunate goalie, as they, too, go back and forth, repeatedly mistaking the moves of people from the other "side," misinterpreting signals, and often, in their ignorance, failing to "get it."

The author provides an amazingly complete, though somewhat sanitized, picture of the Wall-jumpers--not those poor souls who were brutally machine-gunned by Wall guards, but people like the speaker who come and go across the Wall with relative impunity because they do not call attention to themselves. And Schneider is quick to point out that most of the East Berliners are fairly satisfied with their lives, which are depicted with much warmth, as families and friends spend a great deal of time with each other, undistracted by the responsibilities of "freedom." The fascinating philosophical discussions and personal revelations that occur among friends from both sides may sweep away your preconceptions about life in Berlin, as they did mine, and you may find yourself reevaluating your thinking about society and politics in general, and about Germany, in particular.

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Summary: A good way to understand German identity
Review: Though sometimes bordering on the farcical Mr. Schneider provides a perfect template for understanding the German psyche. The peoples populating the Germanys of the Cold War formed their identities through the prism of the states in which they lived and through opposition with their mirror "other" across the wall. For those that crossed the visible and invisible boundaries that sense of identity disappeared and became nearly impossible to reclaim. They hated the culture they were from while at the same time despising their adoptive one. They lived in a limbo where they had no sense of self, attacking those with clearer sense and only feeling at home with those like themselves. Sound familiar? This could easily be an allegory of modern Germany and its being stuck between a shameful history leading towards a Kantian (or perhaps Rousseauian) "Utopia/General Will" and a history of horrible wrong and amazing renewal based upon membership and allegiance to the "West." Like many of the characters in the novel (Robert is a perfect example), Germany is assaulting its friends while demanding understanding. The Germany of the post Cold War period has lost its strongest identifying feature; namely, not being the communist GDR. With that loss has come its disconnection from what I call the "Liberal West" (the US, Britain, et al) and its affiliation with the proto-communist EU. Like the escapees from the GDR in the book we have Gerhard Schroeder's government calling those with whom they disagree Nazis and Hitler, the US in this example. Like those escapees we have them engaging in paranoid delusions of grand conspiracies by the other side, of the total control their opponents can exert. These delusions greatly harmed the relationships of the characters in the novel with their friends; hopefully this will not be the case in the modern day.