Ein springender Brunnen by Martin Walser

Ein springender Brunnen Reviews

• 
  Jill Meyer

  Martin Walser's newly translated-from-the-German novel/memoir, "The Gushing Fountain", is the story of a young boy's early life to late teens. The years basically correspond to the 12 year Third Reich.
  
  Most books set in this era are about warriors and victims, Nazis and those who fought against them, and soldiers and civilians. "Gushing", set in a small town on the southern German border along Lake Constance, is told in a long-running ("gushing"?) voice of the young boy - "Johann", the son of parents who make a living running a restaurant and a coal-serving business. The father, who dies early in the story, is an intellectual, who wants his three sons to succeed in school, and in life. He's a bit of a dreamer; Johann's mother is the practical one in the family. Johann, a typical 11 year old in most of the story, has the same thoughts, dreams, desires, and complications most 11 year olds have, the world over. "A Gushing Fountain", though, is as much about the town of Wasserburg and its citizens, as it is about Johann.
  
  Martin Walser is from the village of Wasserburg. He was born in 1927, and his life seems to parallel that of Johann in the novel. Like his fellow German author, the late Gunter Grass, Walser fought in the last days of the war. His Wehrmacht rank and his duties are a bit under dispute, but as a late-teenager, he supposedly joined the Nazi Party. He returned to school after the war ended and became an important author.
  
  Now, I suppose my question after reading "A Gushing Fountain" is why Martin Walser made this a novel, rather than a memoir? Certainly he uses the real name of his town, as well as the towns in the area. I'm always curious about why an author chooses to write a "memoir" vs "memoir-as-a-novel". I'm not sure it matters in this case. Walser gives a beautifully rendered look at a town and a family navigating the treacherous years of Nazi Germany.
• 
  Nancy

  It's effective to describe encroaching Nazism through the eyes and mind of a young boy, where as would be expected, things just are as they are. But by war's end, it becomes disturbing when it seems the young man, highly intelligent and literate, has thought about the process not at all. The Reich has largely washed over him and his town other than deaths that happened elsewhere; even the sole Jew is unscathed. Ultimately it's interesting but too facile, especially as a quasi-memoir. The author lets himself off the hook.
• 
  Hetty

  Dit schreef ik op 13/6/2009 op Dizzie:
  
  In feite beschrijft Walser zijn eigen jeugd in een idyllisch dorpje aan de Bodensee. Pa en ma runnen er een hotel/restaurant en Johann groeit op zoals ieder ander kind. Hij gaat naar school, wordt verliefd, besteedt zijn tijd aan dagdromen enzovoorts. Er is een verschil: hij groeit op tegen de achtergrond van het opkomende nazisme en tegen de tijd dat hij 18 is, staat Hitler-Duitsland op instorten.
  
  Maar wat merk je nou van Hitler-Duitsland in het boek? De wereld is nauwelijks groter dan het dorp en ach Nazi's zijn er eigenlijk niet. Oké, er zijn wel wat scheurtjes waarneembaar.
  Als hij bij de Hitler Jugend zit, wordt een Joods vriendje ineens geweigerd en het Joodse gezin verdwijnt bijna geruisloos uit het dorp.
  Pa is anti-Hitler maar houdt zijn kritiek toch maar binnen (en Johann begrijpt drommels goed waarom).
  En ma? Ma ziet de klandizie van het hotel afnemen. Dagelijks wordt de kleine Johann er op uitgestuurd om bij andere horeca-gelegenheden in het dorp het aantal gasten te tellen. Ma besluit lid te worden van de partij zodat men toch van inkomsten verzekerd is (de partij kan immers zijn bijeenkomsten in het hotel houden). Ma is dus fout. Of toch niet?
  
  Walser heeft veel kritiek over zich heen gekregen. Hij zou veel te veel begrip hebben voor de moeder. Maar dit is geen boek waarin rekenschap wordt afgelegd over de Duitse oorlogsdaden. Dit is een uitzonderlijk mooie ontwikkelingsroman die het waard is gelezen te worden.
• 
  Tom Hill

  This book was a tough read. It is written as the title implies, with information and ideas gushing forth in a chaotic, free flowing form. Another saying that comes to mind is that it is like drinking from a firehose. I realize that the book is more about the artist than events, but I was disappointed that the title character did not express any thoughts about what was happening to his country during this pivotal time in it's history.
• 
  Scott

  Review of a Gushing Fountain
  The other reviews I read all were gushing their praise of this book (pun intended). Mine will not follow suit. But before you continue, I am not a bibliophile. Please take my assessment with a grain of salt.
  
  I do not plan to include any significant spoilers, and that’s part of the point … I’m not sure what there is to “spoil.” A bit harsh, perhaps, but allow me to explain.
  
  The premise of the book is that of a small, rural German town that goes through the “change” to Nazism, as seen through the eyes of the young boy, Johann. I liked the premise; I wanted to read that story. And to be fair, some of that story was told, and when it was, the subtleties and social pressures brought to bear offered valuable insights into how the German people could adopt such a hate-filled philosophy.
  
  Unfortunately, this thread was lost in too many other threads. I am not sure how much to attribute to the fact that this was written by a German author and translated (so something would be lost), but given that others offered high praise for the book, I just felt like I was missing something the whole time.
  
  Tangent Upon Tangent: The author (or character) would often be in the middle of a story that would remind him of another story and sometimes yet another story … by the end of it, I wasn’t sure which story was the one he was telling and which one was a tangent from that story.
  
  Characters Galore: The book had so many characters and with German names and titles* and vernacular, it was very difficult for me to keep track of. Some of his characters would be introduced without any (apparent) context. A few characters were introduced as a story unfolded, but the story line was never resolved (I still don’t know why Magda was going to cut his lip with scissors on the train – don’t worry, no spoiler, that's how she is introduced in the story). Some (significant) characters left the story without much explanation, leaving me to scratch my head for several chapters, wondering again if I had missed something. Even in the last chapter, new characters were introduced. (* One paragraph in the Forward as Afterward chapter did shed light on surnames and titles, but since it came at the end of the book, it was not helpful. Annotated footnotes would have been helpful.)
  
  Shifting Sands of the Hourglass: One of the methods employed by the author was to jump forward in time; he wrote several sentence about the past and present being interconnected. Though sometimes difficult to follow, I don’t give him bad marks (sorry, another pun) for that. But for much of the book, I was on shaky time. I struggled with context to know how much time had passed, or if he was jumping back again … were we in the present? Had we jumped ahead or reliving a memory?
  
  Semi-autobiographical: The vehicle for telling the story was a good one, except that most children do not know how to construct a good story and they lack the wisdom to know what things should not be told. At times, I thought the author was just rambling. I had no idea what he was talking about or why he was telling it. More than just the “tangent upon tangent,” one chapter in particular was, for me, nothing more than a lengthy ramble. In addition, some of the details and side stories were not only off-topic but weird.
  
  Sexuality: Minor Spoiler Alert. Johann had sexual desire for nearly everyone he met, including his male best friends. There were a few mentions of homosexuality and I kept waiting for them to tie into the Nazi theme, but it played a minor role. It seemed more likely that he just wanted to insert homosexuality into the story. Every girl in his life was “the one,” that is until the next came along. Even the older women in his life were part of his fantasies. It was also unsettling to me how often Johann’s sinful acts coincided with the ecumenical calendar.
  
  Theology and Christianity: Part One: despite the Catholic and Lutheran churches in town and Johann taking his first communion, there was a disconnect to between what those Faith's teach and how the characters acted. Perhaps that's why the Nazi philosophy faced such little opposition. Part Two: The fascination with Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathrustra was quite telling to me. The mixing of Christianity and Nietzsche’s atheistic philosophy gave a moral ambiguity that allowed Hitler and his men to declare certain people and races “less than” with little or no resistance from the populace.
  
  Conclusion: (minor spoiler alert) While the book jacket promoted the “small-town-turns-Nazi” theme, the real theme of the book was Johann’s “relationship” with words and language; a weak and underdeveloped premise and if I had known it was the main thread, I would have given up on the book. I would have expected a closer tie-in with the Nazi anti-book campaign (along the lines of The Book Thief), but other than a few instances of name-calling, this aspect was untapped. Instead all we know is that Johann collected words and wrote poetry. We don't see the impact or purpose of this activity.
  
• 
  Gijs

  Lastig om in te komen door het sterke gebruik van Zuid-Duits dialect. Bovendien is de narratieve structuur niet altijd even prettig voor het lezen. Wel dwingt het de lezer, zeker i.c.m. de voorwoorden bij ieder van de drie delen, na te denken over deze vorm, hetgeen interessante inzichten oplevert.
  
  De roman beschrijft de jeugd van Johann tussen 1932 en 1945 in een Zuid-Duits dorp. De opkomst en impact van het Nazisme spelen een belangrijke rol, al is het nooit heel expliciet. Dit heeft ook tot kritiek geleid. De Holocaust is maar heel beperkt aanwezig, ondanks een situering nabij Dachau. De kritiek is begrijpelijk. Of 'ie ook terecht is, lijkt me lastiger te zeggen.
  
  Het is in ieder geval een grootse roman, die aanzet tot denken over taal en herinneringen en tegelijkertijd als document fungeert voor een dorps bestaan, dat ons nauwelijks meer bekend lijkt.
• 
  Yvonne

  Ich muss gestehen, dass das mein erster Roman von Martin Walser ist. Wegen der vergangenen Diskussionen um ihn und seine politische Meinung war ich recht skeptisch, das Buch aber hat mich letztlich begeistert. Nicht einfach zu lesen, aber in einer tolle Sprache geschrieben, die versucht, sehr viel von der Zeit, der Region und den Menschen einzufangen. Der letzte (und titelgebende) Satz lautet: "Die Sprache ist ein springender Brunnen." Dabei handelt es sich um ein abgewandeltes Zitat aus Nietzsches "Zarathustra": "Und auch meine Seele ist ein springender Brunnen." Sehr zu empfehlen!
• 
  Cooper Renner

  Feels like a factionalized memoir. Lots of clever moments, but not much feel of momentum or drama.
• 
  Sebastian

  Probably I read it too fast. I couldn't get used to the writting style, therefore was not so "into" it.
• 
  lärm

  With this book Walser deserves his spot next to Grass, Fallada, Döblin, Lenz...
• 
  Fred

  See wiki
• 
  Deborah

  I didn't "get" this book. There didn't really seem to be a plot, and nothing really seemed to happen. It served as a semi-interesting snapshot in time of a boy growing up, but it wasn't really a story. At some points I really didn't like the central character, Johann, in his treatment of women (or shall I say girls, due to their age), whereas he seemed sometimes sympathetic to other members of society. However, it was shocking that at the end of the book, when Johann meets up with a school friend, who happened to be half Jewish; he reflected on how he hadn't even thought about the struggles of the Jewish people he knew during the war.
• 
  Wolf-Dieter

  Es geht um Johann, der in einem kleinen Dorf in Baden-Würtenberg in der Nähe vom Bodensee aufwächst. Seine Eltern haben eine Gasthof sowie einen Kohlenhandel. Er schildert die Weltwirtschaftskrise, den Aufstieg der Nazis, seine ersten Erlebnisse mit Mädchen und vieles mehr. Sehr beeindruckend aber nicht leicht zu lesen. Sollte ich vielleicht noch ein zweites Mal lesen.
• 
  David Meijer

  got it in 1999, so probably read it 2000
• 
  Barbara

  Another one that I just couldn't get into.