The New Sufferings of Young W.
Ulrich Plenzdorf
Language: English
Pages: 84
ISBN: 0881338915
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
One of the most talked-about works ever published in the German Democratic Republic! This innovative novel by an East German writer is a worthy companion to the classic it parodies and parallels: Goethe's The Sufferings of Young Werther. Goethe and J. D. Salinger were the two greatest influences on Edgar Wibeau, "Young W." Edgar is a 17-year-old with the frustrations of teenagers all over the world, living with the added pressures of an East-bloc state. A model all-GDR boy, the son of a factory director, he suddenly drops out. But not from socialism per se--just from conformity, picky regulations, and official disapproval of jeans, the blues, and girls. Hiding out, he finds and devours an old copy of The Sufferings of Young Werther. From then on he wards off reality with Goethe texts, and young Wibeau's fate is superimposed on that of Werther like a transparent overlay. It is an ironic and revealing linkage.
Titles of related interest from Waveland Press: Goethe, Gotz von Berlichingen: A Play (ISBN 9780881335415); Hauptmann, Three Plays [The Weavers, Hannele, and The Beaver Coat] (ISBN 9780881335408); and Novalis, Henry von Ofterdingen: A Novel (ISBN 9780881335743).
supposed to conform too. They were always looking for this propagandist. That's supposed to be touching or something. The brother let himself be dragged along, he even got a kick out of all the traveling, and he even got to like this splendid co-ed, and she him, and one time I thought, just one word and he'll bring her around, if he wants to. Anyway, from that moment on I started to like her. He cooperated with everything, but he didn't conform for a long time. He wanted to be a clown in the
Soft played or the SOK or Petrowski or Old Lenz, depending on who was there. We always went on Mondays. Or does one of you think maybe I didn't know where to go in Berlin for real music? After one week I knew that. I don't think there was much in Berlin I missed. I was like in one constant stream of music. Maybe you can understand me. I'd been like starving. I'd estimate that there wasn't one decent group that had any idea of what music is in a two hundred kilometer radius of Mittenberg. Old Lenz
G D R reader for criticism of the society in which he lives had been abnormally intensified through years of strict government censorship, and that this was the first work containing such criticism to appear after the lifting—as it turned out, short-lived—of these controls. The criticism that Plenzdorf allows himself is, of course, a subtle one. But it is there. It can be seen, for example, in Edgar's talk with the film writer who visits his school. Edgar complains about the movies that are
know what he meant by that. He probably thought he'd knocked me out, and now he wanted to sugarcoat the pill. You poor ass! I felt sorry for the man. I let him go. And then, of all stupid things, this silhouette that I'd made of Charlie caught his eye. Charlie said immediately: That's supposed to be for you. He just hasn't given it to me yet. Supposedly because he hasn't finished it yet. But he hasn't done anything to it since then. And Dieter: Now I have you in the flesh. God! That was probably
hole in your knee. Then we gave each other five, and Dieter went: Well? That was his uncle-type well. All that was missing was if he'd added: Young man. Have we mended our ways since our last meeting, or do we still have those foolish ideas in our heads? Usually that drove me right up a tree, and this time too. I was up there in a matter of seconds. But I pulled myself together and came down again and played the humble, reasonable, mature young man, that I after all had just become, people. I