Siblings by Brigitte Reimann translated by Lucy Jones
Siblings begins with a dramatic scene of confrontation between Elizabeth, the narrator, and her brother Ulli. Afterwards it wanders into Elizabeth’s thoughts, feelings and memories. We do not know what has caused the dramatic conflict the novel begins with, and Elizabeth remembers the day before, then years before, then more recent events. Each memory story involves other people, another brother (Konrad), a co-worker, a friend who might have become more, who invites her to join him in West Berlin. These memories are clearly important to her, indelible even, and there are those timeless moments where location and atmosphere become part of your being, your soul.
And people – some loyal, talented, some spiteful, some charismatic – but what is loyalty, that’s the question that grows in pertinence and complexity in this book. To which ideas and practices, to what ideal, to which people? Passionate people, vigorous ideals. And freedom is a many-sided goal and claimed by both sides. Only, as many sides, this polygon desired by all, as there are people to articulate this desire.
As the stories unfolded I wanted to know what would happen, how the relations would twist towards a climax or conclusion. The ending is extraordinary, the language descriptive as a painting. The translator renders this haunting story with care and precision; written around 1960, and of its time historically, in terms of human relationships, to each other, to ideals, it deals with the timeless themes of love and belonging, and so is rooted in Everyday.
What is so striking for me (growing up and living in the west, and in the Zeitgeist of today) is that going west is seen by Elizabeth (and her lover, and so presumably many others too) as a betrayal – of the party, of their ideals & their belief in creating a better world, more fair and equitable – and in committing to working towards that. So, going west is not about being free, it is about surrendering to the selfishness of capitalism. Because I see former communist countries (East Germany, USSR, Albania etc) as controlled by the secret police – sigurimi, stasi etc – and their informers, where people were denounced, imprisoned, tortured, killed, I had forgotten that there were some who believed in communist societies as an attempt to build a new & better society. These ideals are well expressed and argued by Elizabeth (the west as decadent, selfish, capitalism) a character who may well express many of the author’s views at the time she wrote it. (Apparently she later became disenchanted with the state.)
Elizabeth’s brother Ulli comes across as a sympathetic character, with his moods and doubts, his anger and insecurities, his longing for self expression, his sense of (justified) discrimination. More vivid and attractive than Joachim, her boyfriend, who works tirelessly for the Party, her Rock, who she can rely on.
Siblings is a fascinating and thought-provoking read; the writing is descriptive and insightful, and the dialogue is about real issues, people’s passionate convictions on which their lives depend, and which shape and inform their decisions. And such issues – how to live, according to which principles and ideals – are timeless.
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