![]() ![]() An opening paragraph sets a leisurely scene, like something out of Fontane or Turgenev: “The Georgenhof estate was not far from Mitkau, a small town in East Prussia, and now, in winter, the Georgenhof, surrounded by old oaks, lay in the landscape like a black island in a white sea.” It is January, 1945. That light touch is evident from the beginning. ![]() Then I encountered Walter Kempowski’s extraordinary novel “ All for Nothing” (New York Review Books), first published in German in 2006, and now available in Anthea Bell’s vital translation. I wouldn’t have thought it could be done. Now imagine such a book written by a German who lived through those bitter months as a teen-ager, but written with a light touch, almost quizzically, the entire story suffused with an air of speculative detachment. Imagine, for a moment, a German novel about the final months of the Second World War, an epic tale of national collapse and shameful private defeat, the ruined landscape ribboned with refugees. ![]()
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