By: Rosie McCann
Author Bio:
Rosie is a final year French and Art History student. She loves reading and is particularly interested in translated fiction. In this review, Rosie explores the dark adolescent world in Clemens Meyer’s debut novel, published in English fifteen years after it’s original release.
THE REVIEW:
“It was never the same as before that Sunday, in the year after the Wall came down, when we played BFC Dynamo”.
The story ends with four boys playing the roles of reporters. They interview ‘Leipzig’s first car thief’. He is proud. The boys are impressed. This isn’t a spoiler, it’s not that kind of story- it doesn’t have that kind of structure anyway. No linear beginning, middle and end. It does, however, nicely summarise the lives of Daniel, Rico, Paul and Mark, navigating adolescence in a world which stretches only as far and wide as Leipzig’s boundaries.
Even in the summer months Leipzig seems grey, bleak and cold. It seems dark most of the time too. This is probably because the majority of the action in the book happens at night, set against a background of dingy pub backrooms and brothels, dilapidating soviet apartment blocks, or out in the streets – lit up only by the artificial blue flashing lights of police cars passing by. This is Leipzig of the late 80s and early 90s and the context surrounds both the lead up to, and the aftermath of, the fall of the Berlin wall. Daniel Lenz, the protagonist/narrator, takes us with him and his friends as they struggle for their own freedoms, growing up in a society where not only the buildings are crumbling apart but the community too. Although political events are not always explicitly described, we get glimpses of their effects on the boys and on the town as a whole. The characters come of age alongside violent protests, the rise of neo-fascism and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic.
They get drunk and they steal cars. Some of them, sadly, waste away completely, but there’s something about Daniel which makes you believe he’s different- like he’s not going to end up like the rest of them and make the same mistakes. He is quite the hopeless romantic, looking for love, connection and pretty much anything he can latch onto in his world of gangs and violence. It could also be because everything is from Daniel’s perspective that he seems slightly distanced from the brutality of the action, but he’s never critical of it, and doesn’t really reflect on their behaviour at all. Sometimes he includes three versions of a story which puts the reliability of these anecdotes under question and draws us back to the aspect of dreaming in the title - although it’s more of a fever dream than anything else. Fast-paced and uncomfortable. Daniel does let us down. It reflects how Leipzig is a dead end for them all. The ‘zone days’ may be over, and the Wall’s been knocked down, but these characters are trapped in their fast-burning lifestyle, there is no way out, and even their dreams don’t break free from its limits. It begins as a thrill, but sooner or later, time catches up with them.
Just shy of 600 pages, the story is split up into shorter tales and anecdotes. Each one has a snappy or sometimes poetic title like ‘Big Dipper’ or ‘Hound Dog Heart’, and often ends with the characters’ subtle disappointment at their lack of control over their lives, marked by a sense of longing and nostalgia. The chronology jumps around. Flitting between the playground and juvenile detention centres (later to be prison); the fragmented memories gradually build up a portrait of a fast-burning yet unsatisfying adolescence.
This debut novel wasn’t the author’s first to be translated into English. It was published first in 2007 but was only made available in English in March 2023. Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, it’s the longest book I’ve read in a while, and it’s a whirlwind- a lot happens. Surprisingly never repetitive, and written in simplistic, fast-paced language, Daniel takes his time in giving us the full picture. He’s cautious. Towards the beginning he can be seen as more of a show off. It’s only more towards the end we find out the heart-breaking truths behind the character’s mannerisms, nicknames and family lives.
At some points, this book reminded me of A Clockwork Orange and of Trainspotting. I haven’t read Meyer’s other novels but Bricks and Mortar and Dark Satellites are now on my reading list. All in all, While We Were Dreaming is the kind of book you wish you could read again for the first time.
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