- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Minerva; New edition edition (2 July 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099268264
- ISBN-13: 978-0099268260
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,384,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Karnau is a sound engineer, who, sent to the Russian front to pick up enemy transmissions, continues his secret obsession of recording the screams of the wounded. In the final days of the Reich he meets Goebbel's daughter Helga in the Bunker and they record their leader's final utterances.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Books from German authors on the Nazi rule during the 1930ties and 40ties are many and of different character. Mr. Beyer's book is to me one of the most haunting and alive I have ever read about the Nazi rationality-gone-irrational and its innocent victims. Mr. Beyer has two first-person characters telling their respective stories, Mr. Hermann Karnau, a sound engineer obsessed with every kind of human sound - which he want to catalogue - and Helga, the eldest daughter of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. Their stories intertwine and intensifies during the last death-cramps of the German Reich. We know what will happen to Helga, a horrifying notion as we follow this girl through her short childhood woith dreams and wishes as any other child, daugher of a Nazi or not. It's harder to sympathize with Herr Karnau though, even if we know he is not an evil man. His obesession with the human voice is fuelled by the Nazi urge to Germanize Europe and accelerates into something we would call bestiality.
A brilliant book written in an easy language - especially realistic in the chapters where Helga speaks - about a time in the history of the world that we regard as pure evil. The only thing I have to complain about is the cover picture on this paperback edition. It's very telling for the story, but what is the man sitting on? crackers? I think it's a really ugly photograph.
Format:Paperback
A disturbing book set during WW2. A sound engineer is obsessed with recording all human sounds, not just the normal voices, but a person sleeping, even a soldier's death rattle at the front. He comes into contact with a large family, that of Goebbels's. The book goes right up to the last days in the bunker, even including Hitler as a patient in hospital eating only chocolates. Hermann, the engineer, and helga, the eldest of the siblings, are the book's two narrators telling us about the events leading up to and the last days in the bunker.
I suppose, an obvious comparison would be Perfume, another book about obsession, though of scent. I had a similar feeling of discomfort, yet grim fascination with the subject. Hermannfeels he was pushing the boundaries to get to the ultimate truth of human sounds, but his subjects sometimes paid the ultimate price.
I suppose, an obvious comparison would be Perfume, another book about obsession, though of scent. I had a similar feeling of discomfort, yet grim fascination with the subject. Hermannfeels he was pushing the boundaries to get to the ultimate truth of human sounds, but his subjects sometimes paid the ultimate price.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
Great Book!
13 Jan 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
You'll love! If you are hesitant, get it! Enthralling novel with good perspectives. Young readers will like it, and older ones too. Great descriptions by the author. Didn't want to put it down!
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