What Remains and Other Stories
Christa Wolf
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0226904954
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
What Remains and Other Stories . . . is clear and farsighted. The eight heartfelt stories in the book show why she has been respected as a serious author since her 1968 novel, The Quest for Christa T. . . . Wolf uses her own experiences and observations to create universal themes about the controls upon human freedom.--Herbert Mitgang, New York Times
Christa Wolf has set herself nothing less than the task of exploring what it is to be a conscious human being alive in a moment of history.--Mary Gordon, New York Times Book Review
The simultaneous publication of these two volumes offers readers here a generous sampling of the short fiction, speeches and essays that Wolf has produced over the last three decades.--Mark Harman, Boston Globe
triumph, every body notices that. But enough of that now, they must com e to an agreement. They are debating who should help P. If you want an old troublemaker like me as well . . . says Willy. You old fool! says P. Som eone com es up with the idea o f inviting the women to the brigade’s public statement o f accounts, this being the trend o f the times. Nobody can publicly argue against this; however, it becom es clear that the suggestion has no fiery advocates. D on ’t the women have enough to
shopkeeper had meekly accepted my conditions. He was finished, without a doubt, for he was no longer needed. T he babies hadn’t been mixed up, but I was no longer m yself either. I would never forget when the stranger who had taken hold of me since and did with me as he pleased had entered me. It was on that cold January morning, when I was hurrying out of my town toward Kustrin on board a truck, greatly surprised at how gray indeed was that town in which I had always found all the light and all
to begin talking about you again, my girl, and when it started to rain he did not refuse to share my umbrella. He implored me, my girl, to explain to him, for G od’s sake, what you were after: Marriage? A child? A family on the side like the ones com ing into fashion nowadays? Since I did not deign to answer him, he felt com pelled to tell me your entire story from start to finish, here on Unter den Linden. This student misses three months of lectures— for whatever reasons— without any excuse.
Rudiger his face lit up; the com m ittee had just refused his application to join the cat egory o f New Person, he said in agitation. Why, m adam ? Rudiger asked the P woman in dismay, who was a Fraulein in every respect as far as I was concerned; however, the reactionary address “ Fraulein ” had been abolished in Hero Town. W hy? the P woman repeated pertly. Because the com m ittee formed objective judgments and could not take into account that an applicant had been led to entertain false
Silence. After a while: But in the sun I’m tall. T h e sun is hazy but it throws shadows. They are long because the sun is still low. T all up to the clouds, Tinka says. I look up. There are sm all hazy clouds high in the sky. Excited chatter in the waiting room. Three elderly women are sitting together. O ne o f them, who speaks a Silesian dialect, bought a blue cardigan for 113 marks the day before. T h e event is exam ined from all angles. All three o f them bicker about the price. A younger