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jazzy_dave) wrote2021-10-24 12:58 pm
jazzy_dave) wrote2021-10-24 12:58 pm
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Uwe Johnson
Another mild autumnal day with November just around the corner. Well, eight days hence that is. As for my neck of the woods, I have been slouching in bed – bad habit I know – reading the current LRB – that is The London Review of Books – to the uninitiated. It is a fortnightly publication which I sometimes purchase but not as regular as The Wire. There is a fascinating review of a book on Uwe Johnson who was resident in Sheerness and a regular drinker at one of the pubs there.
Johnson was born in Kammin in Pomerania (now Kamień Pomorski, Poland). His father was a peasant of Swedish descent from Mecklenburg and his mother was from Pomerania. In 1945 the family fled to Anklam in West Pomerania and in 1946 his father died in a Soviet internment camp (Fünfeichen). The family eventually settled in Güstrow, where he attended the John-Brinckman-Oberschule from 1948 to 1952. He went on to study German philology, first in Rostock (1952–1954), then in Leipzig (1954–1956). His Diplomarbeit (final thesis) was on Ernst Barlach. Due to his failure to show support for the Communist regime of East Germany, he was suspended from the university on 17 June 1953, but he was later reinstated.
Beginning in 1953, Johnson worked on his first novel, Ingrid Babendererde, which was rejected by various publishing houses and remained unpublished during his lifetime.
In 1956, Johnson's mother left for West Berlin. As a result, he was not allowed to take a normal job in the East. Unemployed for political reasons, he translated Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (the translation was published in 1961) and began to write the novel Mutmassungen über Jakob, published in 1959 by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main. Johnson himself moved to West Berlin at this time. He promptly became associated with Gruppe 47, which Hans Magnus Enzensberger once described as "the Central Café of literature without a capital"
In 1974, Johnson, his wife, and their daughter moved into a 26 Marine Parade, a Victorian terrace house overlooking the sea in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, Southeast England. Shortly afterward, he broke off work on Jahrestage, due partly to health problems and partly to writer's block. However, his ten years in Sheerness were not completely unproductive. He published some shorter works and continued to do some work as an editor.
In 1977, he was admitted to the Darmstädter Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt Academy for Speech and Writing). Two years later he informally withdrew.
In 1979, he gave a series of lectures on poetics at the University of Frankfurt, published posthumously as Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen.
In 1983, the fourth volume of Jahrestage was published, but Johnson broke off a reading tour for health reasons. He died from hypertensive heart disease in Sheerness on 22 February 1984
Now we have this wonderful biography of the writer and editor -
It is already on my wants list.
These are just some of the plaudits for the book -
''A masterful modernist history, and Patrick Wright's most important book, bringing Europe to England by showing it has always been here, at a moment when too many want to believe something else.'' - David Edgerton
''An astonishing chronicle of the great German author Uwe Johnson, who moved to Sheerness, Kent, in the 70s.'' - Helen MacDonald
''To repeat: this tidal book, reaching into everything and then withdrawing to show what is left behind, is a triumph.'' - Neal Ascherson, author of Black Sea
''A model portrait of person and place, a kind of cultural and literary geography that never fails to fascinate.'' --Kirkus Reviews
''A huge achievement: a comprehensive portrait of a place and a person, and the best book about Brexit that’s yet been written.'' -- Jon Day, White Review Books of the Year 2020
''A glorious rabbit hole of a book ... a longue durée portrait, from the 17th century to Thatcher, of a single location on the edges of British national life.'' -- Nicholas Dames, Public Books
''Wright plays both the anatomist and the elegist for the blighted modernity of seemingly forsaken spots such as Sheppey … a fragmentary panorama of traumatic, half-remembered history, personal and national.'' -- Boyd Tonkin, TLS
''Thorough, discerning, compassionate.'' --Max De Gaynesford, The London Magazine
Johnson was born in Kammin in Pomerania (now Kamień Pomorski, Poland). His father was a peasant of Swedish descent from Mecklenburg and his mother was from Pomerania. In 1945 the family fled to Anklam in West Pomerania and in 1946 his father died in a Soviet internment camp (Fünfeichen). The family eventually settled in Güstrow, where he attended the John-Brinckman-Oberschule from 1948 to 1952. He went on to study German philology, first in Rostock (1952–1954), then in Leipzig (1954–1956). His Diplomarbeit (final thesis) was on Ernst Barlach. Due to his failure to show support for the Communist regime of East Germany, he was suspended from the university on 17 June 1953, but he was later reinstated.
Beginning in 1953, Johnson worked on his first novel, Ingrid Babendererde, which was rejected by various publishing houses and remained unpublished during his lifetime.
In 1956, Johnson's mother left for West Berlin. As a result, he was not allowed to take a normal job in the East. Unemployed for political reasons, he translated Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (the translation was published in 1961) and began to write the novel Mutmassungen über Jakob, published in 1959 by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main. Johnson himself moved to West Berlin at this time. He promptly became associated with Gruppe 47, which Hans Magnus Enzensberger once described as "the Central Café of literature without a capital"
In 1974, Johnson, his wife, and their daughter moved into a 26 Marine Parade, a Victorian terrace house overlooking the sea in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, Southeast England. Shortly afterward, he broke off work on Jahrestage, due partly to health problems and partly to writer's block. However, his ten years in Sheerness were not completely unproductive. He published some shorter works and continued to do some work as an editor.
In 1977, he was admitted to the Darmstädter Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt Academy for Speech and Writing). Two years later he informally withdrew.
In 1979, he gave a series of lectures on poetics at the University of Frankfurt, published posthumously as Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen.
In 1983, the fourth volume of Jahrestage was published, but Johnson broke off a reading tour for health reasons. He died from hypertensive heart disease in Sheerness on 22 February 1984
Now we have this wonderful biography of the writer and editor -
It is already on my wants list.
These are just some of the plaudits for the book -
''A masterful modernist history, and Patrick Wright's most important book, bringing Europe to England by showing it has always been here, at a moment when too many want to believe something else.'' - David Edgerton
''An astonishing chronicle of the great German author Uwe Johnson, who moved to Sheerness, Kent, in the 70s.'' - Helen MacDonald
''To repeat: this tidal book, reaching into everything and then withdrawing to show what is left behind, is a triumph.'' - Neal Ascherson, author of Black Sea
''A model portrait of person and place, a kind of cultural and literary geography that never fails to fascinate.'' --Kirkus Reviews
''A huge achievement: a comprehensive portrait of a place and a person, and the best book about Brexit that’s yet been written.'' -- Jon Day, White Review Books of the Year 2020
''A glorious rabbit hole of a book ... a longue durée portrait, from the 17th century to Thatcher, of a single location on the edges of British national life.'' -- Nicholas Dames, Public Books
''Wright plays both the anatomist and the elegist for the blighted modernity of seemingly forsaken spots such as Sheppey … a fragmentary panorama of traumatic, half-remembered history, personal and national.'' -- Boyd Tonkin, TLS
''Thorough, discerning, compassionate.'' --Max De Gaynesford, The London Magazine