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Roads to Berlin [Hardcover]

Cees Nooteboom , Laura Watkinson
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £20.00
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Book Description

27 Sep 2012

Roads to Berlin maps the changing landscape of Germany, from the period before the fall of the Wall to the present. Written and updated over the course of several decades, an eyewitness account of the pivotal events of 1989 gives way to a perceptive appreciation of its difficult passage to reunification.

Nooteboom's writings on politics, people, architecture and culture are as digressive as they are eloquent; his innate curiosity takes him through the landscapes of Heine and Goethe, steeped in Romanticism and mythology, and to Germany's baroque cities. With an outsider's objectivity he has crafted an intimate portrait of the country to its present day.


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Product details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: MacLehose Press (27 Sep 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0857050265
  • ISBN-13: 978-0857050267
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 288,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Review

'It is a wonderful voyage of self-discovery, and a psychological exploration of a nation in turmoil' Financial Times.

'a luxurious detour in the lands and history of Germany' Metro.

'Nooteboom wears his erudition lightly, and weaves personal anecdote into memorable reportage' Sunday Telegraph.

'writerly, abstract, walled off in his head ... He reminds us how fast the communist world fell apart, with unimaginable reversals of fortune' Literary Review.

'There is a melancholy in his writing and a nostalgia for the past, both of which are very German - or at least used to be' Spectator.

'His Berlin reportage, from a 1963 Khrushchev rally in East Berlin to the tearing down of the Palast der Republik, brilliantly captures the intensity of the capital and its 'associated layers of memory' The Economist.

'demanding, thorough and quite invaluable to those who want the opportunity to inform themselves before contemplating what the future holds for Central and Eastern Europe' Bookbag.

From the Inside Flap

In 1989, Cees Nooteboom was living in Berlin, where he witnessed one of the most significant turning points in twentieth-century history. Roads to Berlin maps the changing landscape of a country he has been writing about ever since, his account of the pivotal events of 1989 giving way to a perceptive appreciation of Germany's difficult passage to reunification. Nooteboom's writings on people, politics, architecture and culture are as eloquent as they are digressive; his innate curiosity takes him through the landscapes of Heine and Goethe, steeped in Romanticism and mythology, and to Germany's baroque cities. The volume is sensitively illustrated by Simone Sassen's photographs, taken over the same period. With an outsider's objectivity Nooteboom has crafted an intimate portrait of the country to its present day.


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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Thirty Years of Observing History 9 Nov 2012
By Alex in Leeds TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Cees Nooteboom, a Dutch author who lived for years in Berlin, has in Roads to Berlin brought together decades of his thoughts on life in this city - before, during and after the Wall's fall.

The resulting book is eye-opening, a mix of politics, autobiography (almost diary like at times) and travel writing that won't answer basic questions about WWII or the origins of the Wall but will tell you rather a lot about what it was like to live in its shadow.

The book opens with a short section explaining what it was like to arrive in the city in 1963 and the experience of watching the contrasting cultures of East and West Berlin as an outsider. After that the book moves on to consider in detail the year the Wall came down and what happened to the unified Berlin after. Nooteboom is an erudite and creative guide but he does assume some background knowledge on the part of the reader so this book is not an ideal starting point for someone born after 1989. For those of us who watched the Wall coming down and always wondered what those there at the time thought and felt though, this is a great insight from someone who had been watching and reporting from the city for years.
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Amazon.com: 4.5 out of 5 stars  2 reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Historical record 4 Feb 2013
By Stoffel - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The work is mainly about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dispassionate but also with feeling. The author was there and the writing was contemporaneous. Nooteboom deserves a bigger English audience.
5.0 out of 5 stars East and West 24 Dec 2012
By Christian Schlect - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A world-wearied observer from a neighboring country, the Netherlands, provides his thoughts on Germany, especially Berlin, as the Wall fell and then over the years afterwards, as the fractures between the old West and East began the process of healing.

Cees Nooteboom is a fine writer and this book, although somewhat stitched together, provides evidence of his talents. His childhood saw the German invasion of his country and most of his adult life was lived during the Cold War. The culture, politics, and people of the once divided Germany are of intense interest to Mr. Nooteboom and this interest is powerfully conveyed to the reader of this book.

The translator, Ms. Watkinson, appears to me to have done a good job. (Although why not write for an English language audience "Brandenburg Gate" instead of "Brandenburger Tor"?)

The photographer, Simonne Sassen, provides superb work to enhance the narrative.
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