With her most recent novel Juli Zeh has proven herself as an adept novelist of social satire. Über Menschen has been on the bestseller list ever since it was published last spring: it is a Zeitroman for the corona-pandemic era. Zeh herself says her intention was to capture the anxiety and contradictions of Germany today: "Ich bin ohnehin eine Schriftstellerin, die stets versucht, möglichst nah am Puls der Zeit zu schreiben." As in her earlier novel Unterleuten (see my review) Zeh captures the divisions in Germany: east vs. west, urban vs. rural, left vs. far-right, affluence vs. poverty. But she writes about this social polarization with humor and compassion.
Like Unterleuten, Über Menschen takes place in rural Brandenburg - the fictitious town of Bracken, close to Unterleuten (also fictitious). Although only an hour by auto from Berlin, Bracken may as well be on a different planet from the capital. Unterleuten was a panorama of village life, with the perspective constantly shifting among characters. In Über Menschen we see the world through the perspective of one character - Dora, a successful marketing professional in Berlin, who on impulse uses a small inheritance to buy a dilapidated house in the Bracken. Dora lives with her boyfriend Robert, a science journalist and blogger, in Berlin when the city goes into lockdown due to the pandemic. Stuck in the small apartment with Robert - who becomes increasingly controlling as the pandemic spreads - Dora decides to decamp with her dog to Bracken, where she can work remotely for her advertising agency in the city.
At first, life in Bracken is difficult. Dora is isolated, without a car, not knowing a soul in the village, without furniture or provisions. The nearest supermarket is 20 km and bus service is at best erratic. She makes an attempt at planting vegetables on her property by watching YouTube videos. Her worst fears about living in the province appear to be realized when she learns that her next-door neighbor is the Dorf-Nazi. Other folks in Bracken, including the gay couple who run a florist business, are supporters of the far-right AfD party. Gradually, though, she fits in to Bracken. Her neighbor Gote - the Dorf-Nazi - gives her furniture and drives her to the shopping mall. Dora bonds with his daughter. Other neighbors show up to paint her house or deliver seedlings. Her high anxiety begins to dissipate, except when she checks the news on her phone. Dora finds what she was missing in the hyper-modern Gesellschaft of Berlin - she finds a kind of Gemeinschaft in rural Brandenburg.
Kein Ost und West, unten und oben, links oder rechts. Weder Paradies noch Apokalypse, wie es Medien und Politik hāufig schildern. Stattdessen Menschen, die beieinanderstehen. Die sich mehr oder weniger mögen. Die aufeinandertreffen und sich wieder trennen. Dora gehört daqu, Gote gehört dazu, [...]Sie machen eine Party, um die einzige Wahrheit zu feiern, die es gibt: dass sie alle hier und jetzt gemeinsam auf diesem Planeten sind. Als Existenzgemeinschaft.
With her fictitious rural village of Bracken Juli Zeh want to show how seemingly intractable social divisions can be overcome by recognizing each other's shared humanity. Of course, it's a fairy tale - an enjoyable one, to be sure. No foreigners seem to living in Bracken. I could imagine that migrants from Syria or Afghanistan living in AfD strongholds in eastern Germany don't experience the same sense of Gemeinschaft - except, perhaps a Volksgemeinschaft, Is community - Gemeinschaft - even possible in this age of deep polarization? Schön wär's!
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